Thankfully Chris Lemon answered my prayers and wanted a full review. I did pick it up today for $12.99 at K-Mart and yes you should pick it up. For those who would like a contents picture, contact me at a link below and I can send ya the scan.
So what does it come with? Well, instructions (littered with TPIR trivia), of course, as well as a price booklet. This includes a large list of grocery items, small items, "medium prizes" ($500-$3,000), "large prizes" (3k-10k), cars (with description) and showcases. It is structured similarly to Endless' "Card Sharks" book with check boxes for marking off used items. All of the prizes and prices were quelled from the early part of season 32, per a disclaimer on the booklet.
You also get a deck of Eagle brand playing cards, with jokers for "Joker." As with his original design, four decks of eggcrate numbers, in four different colors. You also get special cards such as X's, a "VOID" for "Check Game", etc. A few special decks are used for specific games, such as "Plinko" and "Pass the Buck." 5 dice are included. A playing field for "Cliff Hangers" was on top of my set, and is the size of the box. A pawn and two stickers with Hans depicted on them are there to use with the board. Lastly from this group, there are 8 $1 bills for "Lucky Seven" - one is extra, of course.
People have been clamoring for it and now they get - Endless has dry erase components up the wazoo here, but you get FOUR count em FOUR dry erase markers to use with them. There's a check for "Check Game," "bid boards" which are basically general use pieces of dry erase material (more later) and scoreboards for totalling what each player has won on the show.
You do get the showcase showdown spinner (although slightly less sleek than the concept design) and instead of the cards as in Travis' original design - a separate wheel to determine which game is played. After a player comes out contestants row, they spin it and whatever they land on, they play.
Now, reading the full contents up there, you see that not a lot of games have their own props. This is not as bad a thing as you might think. Each game is described in detail in the book, with full color, and pictures of what it should look like on the table. For example, "Grand Game" is achieved by writing the names of grocery items on one side of the bid boards, and their prices on the other. You set a target (and the game book describes to a newbie how this is determined) and use eggcrates to show how much money the player has.
I won't type the FULL list of 45 games, but among the ones people might get excited over - "It's in the Bag," "Let Em Roll," "Golden Road" and more. Granted, using this set's materials and prizes, you could pretty much play any game from TPIR's history.
All told, and despite my little qualms, it's well worth the purchase, and it's also obvious to see how Endless could charge so little. Definitely a step above any release of theirs I've picked up.
-Jason
