So finally got around to participating in one of the live betas for the US tonight.

Overall, I'd say this was a surprisingly enjoyable experience. The "live" atmosphere was fairly well structured, with commercial breaks being cut-in by "Chris" who would talk to the crowd and call out particular players. One of the more ingenious touches was the host asked users to e-mail him their pictures. Out of context (and to be honest, in context) it sounded really creepy and I feel sorry for the producer who had to sort out the (I can only  assume endless stream) of dick pix to find the ones of players with their children and significant other. It was a neat interaction with the game that really heightened that live feel.

The other thing I was really impressed with was how recent the questions felt. There was one about the Bruno "incident" at the MTV Movie Awards. There was a high call for pop culture recall, though most of it was stuff that I was kind of ashamed that I knew. Did learn that Ashlee Simpson named her kid Mowgli, and that apparently Australian Red Bull has cocaine in it. None of the questions seemed terribly difficult, especially given the three-option multiple choice format; the above Mowgli question I got right simply by the process of elimination. Granted, I might be having too high expectations; I was horrified when some people didn't know the date Cinco de Mayo occurred on, but everyone knew MySpace existed before Facebook.

The only criticism I have (besides the difficulty of the questions) was when I participated in the second, "Extended Play" version, the theme was E3 related questions. I was excited about the chance to flex my gaming knowledge, but once I got started it became evident very quickly that the whole thing was a giant chance to advertise Microsoft's E3 offerings.  Here's an example of one of the questions:

"Which Oscar-winning director appeared at the Microsoft E3 Press Conference?"

X) Vin Diesel    A) Uwe Boll    B) Steven Spielberg."

While that is kind of amusing, it also really just serves the purpose of highlighting "WE HAD SPIELBERG AT OUR PRESS CONFERENCE," and really robs the game any fun of being a challenge. I understand that Primetime is more or less a giant opportunity to advertise, and I fully accept that as I had fun with the experience. But to be so blatant as to put the company crowing front and center in the actual gameplay, you lose the sense of momentum and fun. I just become very aware and uncomfortable with the fact that I'm pitched to. Still, that wasn't in the real live event, which I highly recommend everyone try out next Friday. Hell, let me know if you do; maybe a Bomber will get to be the One.

So finally got around to participating in one of the live betas for the US tonight.

Overall, I'd say this was a surprisingly enjoyable experience. The "live" atmosphere was fairly well structured, with commercial breaks being cut-in by "Chris" who would talk to the crowd and call out particular players. One of the more ingenious touches was the host asked users to e-mail him their pictures. Out of context (and to be honest, in context) it sounded really creepy and I feel sorry for the producer who had to sort out the (I can only  assume endless stream) of dick pix to find the ones of players with their children and significant other. It was a neat interaction with the game that really heightened that live feel.

The other thing I was really impressed with was how recent the questions felt. There was one about the Bruno "incident" at the MTV Movie Awards. There was a high call for pop culture recall, though most of it was stuff that I was kind of ashamed that I knew. Did learn that Ashlee Simpson named her kid Mowgli, and that apparently Australian Red Bull has cocaine in it. None of the questions seemed terribly difficult, especially given the three-option multiple choice format; the above Mowgli question I got right simply by the process of elimination. Granted, I might be having too high expectations; I was horrified when some people didn't know the date Cinco de Mayo occurred on, but everyone knew MySpace existed before Facebook.

The only criticism I have (besides the difficulty of the questions) was when I participated in the second, "Extended Play" version, the theme was E3 related questions. I was excited about the chance to flex my gaming knowledge, but once I got started it became evident very quickly that the whole thing was a giant chance to advertise Microsoft's E3 offerings.  Here's an example of one of the questions:

"Which Oscar-winning director appeared at the Microsoft E3 Press Conference?"

X) Vin Diesel    A) Uwe Boll    B) Steven Spielberg."

While that is kind of amusing, it also really just serves the purpose of highlighting "WE HAD SPIELBERG AT OUR PRESS CONFERENCE," and really robs the game any fun of being a challenge. I understand that Primetime is more or less a giant opportunity to advertise, and I fully accept that as I had fun with the experience. But to be so blatant as to put the company crowing front and center in the actual gameplay, you lose the sense of momentum and fun. I just become very aware and uncomfortable with the fact that I'm pitched to. Still, that wasn't in the real live event, which I highly recommend everyone try out next Friday. Hell, let me know if you do; maybe a Bomber will get to be the One.

I actually won the first game I played by a significant margin and lost the second game by only a few thousand. But I lost to Blueprint12 who is a member here at Giant Bomb. So I think were representin. lol.

I'd agree I was playing tonight and throughout all of the extended play and it was fun, but the flavor questions that were extremely obvious (and frankly 40k people getting the Konami code question wrong just made me facepalm) were just annoying,

But yeah, really enjoyable I won 400 MS points for being in the mob during the 2nd or so round and went out and bought the Mythic Map Pack which I was 200 points shy of.


All in all, I loved it and I hope it works out and opens the door for more of this kind of thing.

Wow, so they're actually giving out prizes? I thought they were waiting for the actual launch. Interesting to know.

I guess I should mention I was in the crowd for the two games I played.

Prizes start coming out once it's out of beta. Tonight was E3 focused in general, the show description even said so. My favorite question tonight(not verbatim):

What can modern fax machine not send by fax?
A) Fax Paper  B) Pictures  C) Words

It was the first question and 55 of the 100 got it wrong.

I only played 3/4 of the 'main' trivia section tonight, way too many Hollywood questions tonight, but I still got 75k for that play period.

Most of the extended play E3 questions were really easy, but there were some really tricky ones too.

very addicting. I can't wait to see how it goes when they start giving away real prizes, and the pressure is on.

How do we join this beta? Is it too late?

it was a really fun....cant wait to play again....

I just played the friday 6/12 session and it was hella fun!  I got quite a few questions right, some were easy and some were just luck or common sense.  None of the "Ones" really got that high before missing an answer or taking the money(at that time Chris didn't hesitate to remind everyone that "this is still a beta so don't worry bout loosing any money") so who's to say the questions won't get harder at higher levels.

I kinda like that "amp-it-up" feature where you hammer on the Y button to dance, not exactly sure what that does but it makes game a lot livlier.  Although the only people i saw actively dancing were in my group and in the mob.  Maybe whoever picks the One or the Mob looks for the dancing avatars but i dunno(i was dancin like crazy and i never got in the Mob).

I also played it tonight for the first time and I had great time. I'll definitely play it again. I thought most of the questions were pretty good. Also, I thought the dancing motions could be quite amusing.

I played this again last night, and while I was frustrated to never get picked for the Mob, I still really enjoyed myself. Chris Cashman is really a pretty good MC, though I think there may have been a technical issue where I wasn't hearing all of his in-between round commenting; at the end of the show, there was a long montage of stuff that had happened that night, I remember hearing about one-third of it. Anyway, the live aspect of the show is really what makes it, and I can only imagine how much more intense it will be once real prizes are on the line (though I have to say, if the amount of points they're showing now is indicative of what they'll eventually be giving away, the One can make a relative killing if they stay in long enough.)

Also, if you're interested, you should follow Chris Cashman's Twitter. (Gotta love that name, very game-show host.)

I played this too, but I did not find it enjoyable. I guess I'm just not much of a trivia guy.