I snuck my way into the Canadian beta day 1.  Program is pretty cool.  You could tell they still needed to work some bugs out.  Sometimes the live announcer guy got cut off, sometimes there were long delays, and I got disconnected once.  The show also seems pretty long at 2 hours, but it's easy to quit and join any time you want.

Soon enough all of you will know more about it, but I'll give a brief overview.  There are 3 positions in playing the game, based on how well you do.  The crowd, which consists of many thousands of people, where you'll most likely end up.  The mob, a group of 100 players, and the one, a single player.

Every question is multiple choice 3 answers (mapped to X, A, and B).  You have about 4 seconds to answer each question.  You also get a bonus for answering quickly, and it seems you may keep that bonus even if you guess wrong, however that point total is pretty small.  You also get points for getting the question right, and also a bonus based on how many of the mob got it wrong and are kicked out, if you got it right.

Every so often the one can choose if he wants to take the money and run, or let the game continue.  It seems the one gets more money if he can kick out more of the mob, and the mob only splits the money between surviving players if the one gets a question wrong.

The one has 3 'help' points which he can use to automatically choose the most popular answer from the mob, the crowd, or the player that round that had the most correct answers.

Prizes don't seem especially generous.  The chances of being the one or in the mob seem extremely low, I didn't get in once and this was with about 10k players, imagine if there were millions...  They didn't award prizes this game, but if they had it seems the one bailed with about 2000/3000 MS points a few times, and the mob got a few hundred points a few times.  No matter what if you survive in the mob it seems you win a free XBLA game.  Also, just by getting questions right you get more chances at winning raffles.  The game collects all kinds of stats.

The voice quality of the host was VERY nice, he would comment on the one and talk about the questions, it was absolutely cool.  There were video and image ads too.

Questions were mostly entertainment focused.  I'd say ~40% general modern Hollywood/music/sports questions, ~30% recent Hollywood/music/sports happenings...  ~20% general knowledge/current events and ~5% science and ~5% videogames.

A few of the Hollywood type questions were too specific IMO, they asked about some particular internet singer, had a few band questions I knew nothing about, and quite a few movie actor questions.  Overall it wasn't too demanding, but certainly more focus on entertainment than I'd like.  When the show goes live for everyone the questions may change, obviously.

2 of the questions actually appeared on Jeopardy in the last ~2 weeks or so.  Most of the questions weren't too hard or too easy, and it was very fun to play.

It seems you'll be able to invite 4 friends, there's usually 4 other avatar players seated right beside you in the crowd, and sometimes they may inadvertently help you guess the right answer because you can hear when they buzz in.  If they buzz in before the 2nd answer even appears, you have some idea what you might want to guess.

Anyways, it seems like truly an innovative game, free for Gold users and real prizes.

If you have any more questions about it, I'd be glad to answer.  I recorded a few videos on my camera, but none of the videos are really great, they don't give you a great idea of the game.  I may upload them later or not.

How did you get into the beta?

"How did you get into the beta?"

Sounds cool. Thanks for sharing your impressions.

Sounds fun. what does the crowd actually do?

Sounds pretty good but as you say the chances of being the one is almost impossible and being in the 100.

"CL60 said:

"How did you get into the beta?"

Created a Canadian gamertag, got a free month of Live automatically.  Surprised it let me in actually, I was worried it might not work."

They actually give away real prizes? Is that a limited time thing?

"So wait, people in the crowd get to answer the questions too?What's the point of their answers?  What effect does it have on the game?"

"So wait, people in the crowd get to answer the questions too?What's the point of their answers?  What effect does it have on the game?"

They actually give away real prizes? Is that a limited time thing?

"Diamond said:

"CL60 said:

"How did you get into the beta?"

Created a Canadian gamertag, got a free month of Live automatically.  Surprised it let me in actually, I was worried it might not work."

Wait? So how do you get it? I have a canadian GT, is it in the marketplace or something?"

"Well, I just made a canadian xbox account in order to play.What time does the show come on tonight central time?"

So in the quick look I assume Jeff was in the crowd? Not the Mob. Can you explain the difference?

"So in the quick look I assume Jeff was in the crowd? Not the Mob. Can you explain the difference?

And so there really is only ONE game going on at a time. Damn that really sucks.