• ABC-licensed board game version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire

• The box contains 1,000 game cards, 5 question-and-answer card consoles, lifeline tokens, instructions, and plenty of fake money

• For 2-5 players

Since then we have regularly added our own little playful additions, such as a red plastic phone for those all important call-a-friend moments, we play teams and count on our own for asking the "audience", and some of us get a kick out of humming, (one friend uses a kazoo), to supply the music!

This is a great game for non-serious adult fun. The CD-Rom version is terrific too--but we like the old-fashioned interaction that friends can have with a board game.

49 of 51 found the following review helpful:


Definitely Worth It... and buy the UK CD Too!  Jul 17, 2000
I always find it interesting looking through the past reviews. I think my favorite was the person who said that they didn't like it because the ways of doing the Ask the Audience and Phone A Friend lifelines was too difficult to figure out, and that the game lacked drama because the money wasn't real.

Jeez.

The two aforementioned Lifelines are done in a very creative way; everyone or just one person (depending on the Lifeline of choice) secretly votes on what answer they think is correct. The host then checks the real answer and throws in the corresponding vote card, so at least one response is correct. It's an excellent way to simulate an audience of a couple hundred that is *almost* always right, and the nagging fear that the person on the other end of the phone line isn't too sure about their answer. Of course, you're also competing against the people who are supposed to be helping you, so consider how devious the group is before deciding if that's going to be your final answer. As for the game lacking drama due to the lack of real money... you must be kidding. It sounds like this person was expecting enough real cash stuffed in the game box to actually play at home, yet still have the game cost about 30 dollars.

OK back to your regularly scheduled review... This is one of the most impressively done games I have seen in a long time, almost rivaling the quality of imported German games. There are plenty of questions in the box; you won't start repeating anything but the sub-1,000 questions for a long time. The new method of play, with up to 4 people facing off while the host does the questioning, is ingenious. It's a lot of fun to reach a tricky 32,000 dollar question, see everyone agree on their Final Answer except you, then watch everyone else go away from that round with only 1,000 dollars as you alone go for 64,000. Of course, you can also play like they do on TV with one contestant subject to the quizzing at a time, but keep in mind you'll burn through the question cards faster that way. There is also plenty of play money in every denomination, especially useful for creating tense moments such as when only one person is left and having a fit watching the host wave a 125,000 dollar bill under his nose.

I would have given the durability a higher score, but since there are 15 different levels of questions, it can be quite easy for a young child to go rummaging through the box, leaving you to play a game of 500-Card Pickup. Otherwise the game stands up quite well, with separate areas in the box liner for all of the questions, money denominations, card consoles, and Lifeline tokens- I have no idea why other game companies are incapable of this, opting to just chuck everything into the box and hope that entropy will turn the chaos into order by the time the shrinkwrap is torn off..

As for educational value, trivia games in general have a certain "Oh, I never knew that" value to them. You do learn stuff, but it's not exactly vitally important information. Also, you'll probably forget which color (of red, yellow, green, or blue) isn't on the Lithuanian flag by the next time you play anyway.

One more thing- this game is impressively enhanced by shelling out more dollars for the British import CD of WWTBAM which includes EVERY piece of music from the show. Just pop the disc in your player, set it to Track 11 (of 76!), and you're off on a truly wild evening of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire excitement for everyone in the house.

83 of 90 found the following review helpful:


Looking for a good party game? Get the CD-ROM 2d Ed.  Aug 06, 2000 By tropic_of_criticism
This version of Millionaire-At-Home works both better and worse than its CD-ROM counterpart. It's definitely better than even the CD Second Edition in terms of the number, variety, and level-appropriateness of questions. The questions much more closely approximate those on the television series than either of the two CD-ROMs. And the Phone-a-Friend lifeline is much closer to the show in that you actually CAN phone a friend, unlike on the CD-ROM.

Where the board game fails is in the implementation of the other lifelines and in its dumbfounding lack of music.

The 50/50 doesn't particularly work. On the show, it's effective because Regis himself has no control over anything, and because the player's ramblings appear to determine which responses are pulled. Here, the person playing host potentially has too much leeway in deciding which choices will be nixed. To be fair, the CD-ROM isn't much better at capturing the actual feel of this lifeline, either--its throwaways are predetermined by code--but its approximation is at least fairer.

Similarly, the Poll-the-Audience option fails miserably. Instead of being a more-or-less sure bet, this lifeline depends entirely on the benevolence of the people you're playing against. There's no "audience" in this game, because everyone's a player. It's in their interest to mislead the person currently in the hot seat. Consequently, you'll likely get the wrong answer if you choose this lifeline-which goes against everything we learn from watching the show.

But the biggest drawback of this edition is the lack of music. The show is entirely built around the music. Without music, Millionaire is nothing special. The music is the origin of 90% of the drama. A CD with the theme music should absolutely have been included.

On balance, the Second Edition of the CD-ROM game wins out over this one because you're just not going to have so many Millionaire-themed parties that it will matter that this version has slightly more questions. You might as well get the version that comes closest to approximating the overall experience of the real deal. Hook your computer up to your TV, run the audio through your stereo and enjoy a version that actually has Regis as your host.

59 of 64 found the following review helpful:


An excellent adaptation!  Jul 06, 2000
This is one of the best, and most faithful, renditions of a TV game show that's been put out in the last 20 years. Pressman has done an excellent job of bringing the overall game play home. They've also done an excellent job of adapting the game for multiple players.

There are more than enough questions (320 questions on each level through $32,000) to make the game playable without repeating for quite a long time.

I felt the question difficulty was anywhere from easy to absurdly easy through $32,000, but found that the question in the final third of the game ($64K and up) are comparable to the TV show's level.

This is clearly a party game, and one that will work with everyone playing together, or one-on-one with the rest of the group cheering the Hot Seat player on.

This game is WELL WORTH the cost, and makes up for the first version of the computer game.

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