As you can probably imaging, during The Apprentice game you play as one of eight contestants just like on the television show the apprentice which is on NBC. You get to select your name and team name and character likeness, thought you can only select from a male and female picture. I generally played as Chris on team GiN as the guy in the suit. And I am sad to say that during my first testing of the game I lost the first tasks and was immediately sent to the board room where after a short verbal battle I was fired.
After that debacle I went back out to the main menu and realized that in my rush to try out the game I missed something very important. Unlike in the real apprentice game, you are able to go in and practice any of the five sections of the game as a free standing mini game.
After you chose your persona in the game you will begin by encountering one of three tasks. They are Snack Vendor, Sushi Bar, and Swap Meet. Assuming you are never sent to the board room you would encounter all three tasks once at an easy level and then you would encounter the same three tasks again at a harder level. At the start of each level you are advised by either George or Carolyn as to the likely amount needed to win.
I never managed to win all of the tasks in a single game and naturally if you loose you are sent to the board room to face Donald Trump and two other team members. Assuming that you are not fired before the end of the sixth task then you go on to the final challenge which is to manage a rock concert.
Challenge number one is to work at an event as a Snack Vendor. As the vendor you are responsible for two sections of seats at an unnamed event. Each section consists of five rows each containing four seats. You are selling peanuts and sodas and you start the game with fifteen of each. You start in the back left corner and I found it best to get in between the two sections and pass stuff or throw stuff down the row to the people. People tell you what they want with thought bubbles. When you are running low on goods (you can see the amounts left at the bottom left corner of your screen) you can run back and restock.
How much money you have made is located at the bottom right hand of the screen just about the bar representing how much time you have left. If you wait too long to get to someone they will get mad and no longer want the food. Money is passed back to the aisle and if you are not there they leave it on the ground for you to get later. Must not be a Detroit stadium.
Challenge number two is to run a Sushi Bar. The setup is simple. Along the back wall are three trays of sushi, each a different kind, with a picture of that kind on the wall. Also in the back along the right is a sink. In front of you is a counter with four seats. When customers come in you have to give them the sushi they want, which is represented by a thought bubble, and then when they are done pickup the empty plate, collecting the money, and taking the plates to the sink so that they can be washed.
The longer people sit waiting the more their thought bubble fills with red to show annoyance, and if you keep them waiting to long they will get up and leave. Again on the bottom right is your current sales total just above the bar representing time remaining. For some reason, I was never able to master this particular segment of the game. At my best I was only able to get by the easy level. I was always sent to the board room on the hard level.
Challenge number three is to work at a Swap Meet selling purses. You have a "Hot" table and a "Sale" bin each with three spaces for customers. The bin on the right is for inexpensive purses (up to $100) and you begin each round with 15 in stock. The table on the left is for expensive purses (up to $400) and you begin each round with 10 in stock. When a customer comes up you move over and negotiate with them. Negotiating is represented by a bar at the bottom of the screen with section of green and black and a pointer moving back and forth. If you can click on the pointer while it is pointing at green you will make a sale and if it is pointing at black you don’t make the sale. The final price is determined by where on the screen you click, the farther to the right the higher the price. Again, items in stock are on the bottom left. On the bottom right is your current sales total just above the bar representing time remaining. And if you wait to long too get to someone, they will walk away.
In the Board Room you sit in the middle between two other members of your team and sitting across from you is Donald Trump. The objective is to allow good comments (represented by little green boxes with a plus (+) sign in them) to get through to you while blocking negative comments (represented by little red boxes with a negative (-) sign in them). You do this by moving the joystick left, right, or up at just the right time. If you do not like using the joystick you can use the 4, 6, and 8 keys to do this as well.
The final challenge with is to manage a Rock Concert and you have to arrange all the different personalities of your staff in such a way that they work well together and you put on a good show. Each person is represented by a card with four colored zones. The objective is to match the colors on the cards to show that you are able to place people so that they work well together. For this task you are given eight minutes and again Carolyn or George shows up to tell you how good a percentage you will need to win. In this case at the bottom right of the screen above the time remaining bar you are show a percentage from zero to one hundred. The cards are either all one color, three zones of one color and one of another, one color on the top and another on the bottom, one color on the right and another color on the left, or one color on the top left and another color on the top right. Or the same colors are reversed on the bottom and the coveted, well at least by me, to a wild card. I never did manage a full 100 percent, but I got into the high 90s once and got to hear the coveted "Your Hired." Of course that was after being told a few times the horrid "Your Fired."
The main game and all of the mini games have a high score list, so you can see how you are doing and if you are improving and you can pass your phone off to a friend or loved one and see if they can beat your best game.
Overall I had a great time trying out The Apprentice developed by Game House and published by RealArcade which is currently available on the Cingular network. The likenesses of Carolyn, George, and Donald Trump were cool and getting to see some of my old favorites from the show get fired was great. I generally play cell phone games during my commute, and I have gotten in the habit of taking games I am trying out, onto the DC metro with me to see if they are interesting enough to keep my attention or make me miss my stop.
And I have to say I found The Apprentice to be dangerous. I felt like I was always on the clock and so I would totally focus on the game, and at first I could not figure out how to pause on the Nokia 6620 phone I was testing with the game, but then I did figure out that you could hit the menu bottom and leaving the game would cause a pause. Though that was generally bad, as I would totally mess up the I had going before I stopped, at least I was able to get off the train at the right part of the city and not get fired in real life. The only reason I did not give the game a maximum rating was that I see myself getting tired of the game rather quickly as most of the mini-games are similar. Also, you have to really like fast fingered mini-games to really enjoy this title.