FIRST IMPRESSIONS: 1 vs 100 (On XBox Live)

Let me get this out of the way: I am a huge, huge, HUGE trivia nut. And I’ve been ridiculously enthused about this game to the point that I’d wager Derk is plenty sick of hearing about it. But, I run a geek-media website, and this is a new video game, so he’ll just have to endure a little bit more.

So, in short, 1 vs 100 is the trivia game from a few years back popularized by the “illest man to ever wear a cardigan”, Bob Saget. The premise of the game is simple enough: you have a player (The One) who is pitted against 100 other individuals (The Mob). The goal is for The One to answer questions correctly, with any Mob member who answers incorrectly being eliminated and The One receiving cash for every Mob member eliminated. But if The One gets a question wrong, then the remaining members of The Mob split all the winnings.

The series itself hasn’t been on the air for quite some time, but XBox Live has chosen it as the first of its new line of “PrimeTime” games. The basic premise is a series of XBox Live community games, where the Live users are the contestants, airing in “seasons” during the evening several days a week. Currently, the only title available is “1 vs 100”, which is in a free Beta to all XBox Live GOLD subscribers.

The game is pretty fun as it is, especially if you’re a trivia junkie. You take one of three roles in the game, either as The One (Which you can be once per season), a member of The Mob (which you can be once per episode), or playing from the crowd. Rather than cash, the final version will offer up to 120000 Microsoft Points (A $125 value), though the Beta is only for bragging rights and chances to win a lottery at the end for some Zunes, a Laptop or a full Theater set-up. When you’re playing from the crowd, you’re only getting to play for fun and for chances in to the lottery (You get one entry for every correct answer), you do get to play against 4 other players in your party.

There’s plenty of other live aspects to the show. The full Live edition on Friday and Saturday features host Chris Cashman during interludes, where he’s speaking with guests or interviewing the players, and the players in your party can change at a drop of a hat. As for the questions themselves, they start out ridiculously easy, but there’s been quite a few that will boggle your mind.

In short, I’m really enjoying the game. The Extended Play shows are daily, with the Live show during the weekends, but every question answered during any show is a free chance at the prize lottery at the end of the season. Its a blast to play, even if you’re just trying to beat the three other guys next to you (and that’s a lot harder than you’d think sometimes!). Even if you’re not as big a trivia nut as I am, this is a fun game just to see how truly stupid some of the people playing are. “1 vs 100” is currently in a free Beta for XBox Live GOLD subscribers only, but the current word is that it will become available for free to everyone in the final version, though SILVER members won’t be able to compete for prizes. Its still a lot of fun, and the price is right, so if you’ve got a GOLD subscription sitting around, fire the game up and give it a shot. I highly recommend this one.