EA GameShow - If You're In The Game, You're In The Game!

As it nears its fifth month of what they call a "stealth beta phase," word of EA GameShow has started to go around. A PC game that was originally designed as an XBOX Live Arcade Game, EA GameShow is an experience as unique as you'll find on any platform.

Imagine this...You're at your local sports bar on trivia night. You luck into a category you're familiar with and answer all the questions correctly and faster than anyone else. The host of the trivia contest tabulates all the results and at the end of the night, your name is called as being the all-knowing, all-powerful sports trivia God. Sounds fun, huh?

Now imagine that same experience with (eventually) thousands of players all over North America hearing said hosts call out your name and congratulate you on a fantastic round of trivia. Also imagine that by doing well in said round of trivia, you are awarded virtual "tokens" that you can use to enter raffles and win real prizes. These prizes range from a new EA Sports video game, t-shirts, hats, and iPod's. Sound far fetched? It isn't.

EA GameShow is just that; an online interactive sports trivia game with live studio hosts who ask the questions and congratulate you afterwards if you're among the best. It's fun, addicting, and very challenging. The difficulty of questions started off a tad on the easy side when the beta was first released but have since gotten tougher. This is good news if you're among the older players in the game and bad news if you hover in the 16-21 year old range.

Version 1.2 of the beta was released a few weeks ago, adding the ability to text chat with other folks within the same game room as you are. Speaking of game rooms, 1.2 also made it a lot easier to find other folks online to play with. The addition of regional rooms means you'll no longer be spinning your wheels alone inside an empty "North Carolina" or "Michigan" room. Now when you play, you can compare yourself to the others inside the room, making for an even more intense experience. Nothing is quite as unnerving as having the current overall lead and going down to the final question, knowing one slip up could cause you to fall out of the first spot. And now that you can see how a majority of your competition is doing throughout the round, it makes it that much more difficult not to choke down the stretch.

The point I keep going back to about this game though, is the fact that you get instant recognition for doing well in a round. What keeps me coming back is hearing the hosts congratulate me for a round well done. You may not understand it until you become the overall winner in a round, but once you hear them mention your name once, you'll want to keep on trying to earn that right to hear them do it again.

There's been no word yet on when GameShow will exit the beta phase and become a full fledged release. Things are being added to the experience all the time and even more will happen when version 1.3 is released sometime in the next couple of weeks. If you're a sports trivia junkie and you enjoy showing off what you know, EA GameShow will become your new PC gaming addiction.