Out of curiosity, a touch-pad--as replaces the mouse on, in my case, a MacBook Pro--wouldn't be a bad substitute, would it? I mean, in that it can tell how fast you're moving in a direction?

The other sticky wicket--anybody make it (or Tempest) for Mac?

Since MAT is basically Digital Eclipse-produced emulations of the games in question, you may rest assured that Marble Madness is running more-or-less on the same code used in the arcade.

I thought it was playable-but-not-arcade-perfect with a mouse. And they do make mass-market trackballs for PC's, ya know.

Actually, it really would. Touchpads don't translate to trackball controllers well. But, again, the good folks at Kensington can fix that.

A retail version? I cannot say. But you can sure as hell run MAME on one.

I haven't seen any promos myself, but I'm curious if anyone else has, and what the game looks like (almost like the British one, and does it feature the current logo?)

While looking at the instructions to the British game version, I found out that what looked like a handheld game version, is actually included with the stand-up console, and is used by a designated "host" of the game. This way, only the host sees the answers, and when somebody gives an answer that is among the ones on the "board," the host pushes the corresponding button to that answer, and then it is displayed on the large console board.



I also found out some interesting notes about next year's ESPN Jeopardy! game from Pressman:

"ESPN Jeopardy! lets sports enthusiasts put their knowledge to the test. Available in two versions—a board game and a deluxe attaché travel edition—it includes answers and questions created by Jeopardy! writers, as well as official ESPN categories. The board game includes an electronic buzzer."

This is according to a report at playthings.com

Review of the Match Game DVD game:

For $15.95 or so at Farm and Fleet (which is certainly better than the $22.95 minimum price online), I picked one up today, and played with it. It's pretty good. Rounds 1 and 3 play like Match Game 90's main game, with $50/match in round 1, and $100/match in round 3. Round 2 is a Super Match (with '7x values) for all people who are in the lead. Round 4 is the Celebrity Match, for the winner only, for double the money he won in the game. If needed, a tiebreaker will be played between rounds 3 and 4 to determine a single winner. Comes with DVD, instruction sheet, 6 markers, and 6 hugely oversized answer cards. They could've saved a ton on packaging by making the cards 1/2 or even 1/4 the size.

PROS:
+ Works pretty smoothly for a DVD game
+ Videos of Gene reading the questions
+ No randomness in picking out a game's questions... you pick from a set of 25.

CONS:
- Todd Newton again (Can't they get somebody else, like Roger Lodge?)
- Uses MG '7x questions... which means there are some dated ones.
- Animated stills of the celebrity answers (but, there is audio, too)

Rating... 4/5. Good if you can pick it up for a discount like I did, otherwise... it might be worth the wait.

Here's things I've found (or found out about) over this past weekend:

The Target store in my area now has a spot labeled for the new Family Feud tabletop game, with a price of $29.99! No item as of yet, though!

Bookstores now have the first THREE volumes of Merv Griffin's Crosswords books.

If anyone was curious, I finally remembered to take a couple pics of the Identity board game. (300Kb+ JPGs)

http://www.qwizx.com/pics/id1.jpg
http://www.qwizx.com/pics/id2.jpg

The cost is $19.99. <Don Pardo>Price authority, Toys R Us, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. Bill?</Don Pardo>

Some websites (including Amazon, Target, boardgames.com to name a few), are now showing that the "Ultimate Game Show Collection," box set IS now available for $100 (rounded off to the nearest $)!

Though they all erroneously illustrate the tin box for a three-DVD game package, consisting of Family Feud 2nd Edition, plus LMAD and PYL, this apparently is the big box set, that includes the DVD games previously released by Imagination Entertainment, plus What's My Line?, To Tell the Truth, Beat the Clock, Family Feud Movie Edition and In Order to Win.

Looks like this one was delayed until late November? I'm seeing some November 28 release dates now.

In this case, is it really a delay (e.g., problems at the factory) or did someone decide it should be held until closer to the holidays? I would think at this point the game was done-it's all a question of timing? (Where have we heard that before...)

Global Star has never had a problem churning out crap before, I see no reason why their factories would suddenly stop now.

Well, just like with the Identity game from Pressman, Toys R Us of CANADA, is now showing an illustration of the Family Feud electronic tabletop game, from iToys (which is based in Canada!):

http://www.toysrus.ca/product/index.jsp?pr.../TRUSCA/2510384

I'll talk to you about the Feud tabletop game once I figure out all the rules and little nooks and crannies. They left the instruction book out of my press copy so I'm learning. It's a tiny bit different than the show.

iToys has a handheld edition of the game too which is a lot different but a quick little fun game. A question scrolls across the display, followed by three answers. You choose which answer, A B or C, you think is the number one answer. You get the point value no matter what, but if you don't pick the number one answer you get a strike. Three strikes and it's game over. Just try to accumulate the highest score you can. It apparently goes to double and triple points eventually but I didn't get that far. It's pretty fun for a quick 5 minute play when the magazines are crappy at the doctor's office.

Here is some new info, as well as an enlarged illlustration of Techno Source's AYSTA5G handheld game:

http://www.technosourcehk.com/pr-5grader.php

Looks pretty neat, IMO!

Quite a few items turned up in the last couple of days:

Toys R Us--Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader handheld electronic game

Target--Family Feud electronic tabletop game (the one I saw features the new logo, introduced recently)

Best Buy--The Singing Bee DVD game

NBC.com--now showing 1 VS 100 tabletop AND handheld electronic games http://www.nbcuniversalstore.com/detail.php?p=44097

New in stores this week:

Press Your Luck/Family Feud (2nd edition)/Let's Make a Deal in tin box (found at Barnes & Noble)

The Singing Bee (board game--Cardinal) (found at Linens N Things)

Here's a link to a different website picturing the box art for SB:

http://www.shopgadgetsandgizmos.com/produc...CFQlxOAodYhBj_A

The 1 vs. 100 Jakks Plug-and-Play game is finally in stores. I found a sole copy at Target tonight. Target has all Jakks P&P games on sale through tomorrow night for $10.

The 2nd edition Jakks Wheel of Fortune game is available at Linens N Things. Based on the packaging, nothing looks updated besides new puzzles.

All of 'em? Does that include the arcade compilations? This might be my chance to get the Namco one with Ms. Pac-Man on it...I've been wanting that one for a while.

Yessir. The Ms. Pac Man P&P is worth every penny.

/Mappy FTW.

For those looking for the "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader" board game (slim chance, I know...), check your local Wal-Mart's holiday section. The one in my town has upwards of 40-50 copies for $10 (price previously mentioned)

Made a Target run today, and picked up the lone copy of the 1 vs. 100 handheld (along with the $1 classic game shows DVD.) Overall, worth the 10 bucks. Sega Genesis-quality graphics, a few sound drops from Saget, decent music, and all the rules (Including the Sneak Peek) intact. The game lets you store four "profiles" that keep track of your statistics (and, I imagine, which questions you've used.) It also gives you the option of playing as a mob member, complete with timed questions, which I think makes for a nice twist on the gameplay.

One possible issue, though: I've played the game twice, and both times at the $10,000 question, I got it right, and the whole mob blew it FTW. I can't help but wonder if this is a cop-out the game implements to be frugal on the questions.

Oh, and Target also has the "5th Grader" board game on clearance, for $10.04.

/the Ms. Pac-Man one does rock it hardcore
//get the wireless one with 7 games at Value City for $19.99
///hot damn, Rally-X

Though it won't be available for a while, Hasbro announced that it plans to crank out Merv Griffin's Crosswords on both a DVD game and a board game by next fall.

Still no sign of a Temptation game anywhere in the works...Darn!

There's some confidence for a Year Two.

They're still working out the kinks on how to fit all that love into the box.

/Cut a hole in the box?

Maybe the board game will come with a good lock-out device. I'd say it would have to, but then game play hasn't been a real priority for the show.

VERY well-played!

Spotted at TRU up here in Canadia a 1 vs 100 handheld game. I'm not sure if this is the same thing others have been talking about, or if some of you are calling a PnP/Jaks Pacific unit a hand held. It was similar to the DoND Palm Pilot-shaped handheld. For $15, I gave it a pass.

Zellers (Canadian KMart) has/d AYSTa5G for $15 on sale.

WalMart had rolled back the 1v100 table top game to $20 (from $30) but I wasn't impressed with the unit I bought in the summer. I had to take it back, it was so buggy. They also had the 1v100 DVD game for $10 and I nearly cried. I paid a lot more than $10).

Also saw the FF tabletop at TRU. It looked neat but the price was not right ($30 or $35 I think).

One final thing, has anyone seen a PS2 "game show." It's called "BUZZ: The Mega Quiz Show." It's $40 at WallyWorld and comes with 4 ring-in buzzers.

I stumbled upon this tidbit this afternoon. 10 Letters, $100, Coming soon to a toy store near you.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6503816.html

This has been out in the UK for quite a while, and was just recently ported over to North America. It's supposed to be pretty good.

The one you are talking about is now available at nbcuniversalstore.com for $20! I haven't seen it in any stores as of yet.

Boy, that's some news about board and DVD game versions of MGC! It wouldn't surprise me, though, if the rules are altered for home game play.

A short video at tdmonthly.com from last month's Fall Toy preview show, featured Kevin McNulty from Endless Games, primarily talking about their forthcoming "The Godfather," trivia game. In the background you briefly can see prototype box art for a new Family Feud board game (with the new logo), and TWO prototype box art works for their TPIR second editon DVD game. One of those has Drew Carey pictured on it!

http://www.toydirectory.com/monthly/video/...20Godfather.swf

Apparently, the set of 4 buzzers plugs into the USB port on the PS2 (you can buy a second set of buzzers and play 8 at a time.) This has got me curious: would one be able to take these controllers, plug them into a PC, and use them with a program like Joy2Key? Regardless, I might pick this one up - the reviews have been quite glowing.

The chances are *really* slim. The device would have to identify itself to Windows as a standard gamepad / joystick, so that Windows knows what driver to load for it. It's not impossible (the mic from Karaoke Revolution handshakes quite nicely with a PC, but it helps that Logitech made it and so it's basically just one of their USB headsets), but since it's a custom device, it's pretty unlikely.

(That said, the Xbox 360 Guitar Hero guitars also work just jim-dandy on a PC, but then, due to the nature of the 360, all of the controllers so far have been cross-compatible. The Big Button Pads that come with Scene It! for the 360 should be no exception, though I haven't tested them personally. But now that you mention this, I really should...)

According to the Buzz! - Wikipedia entry:

"The buzzer set is a USB device, and connects to the USB ports on the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3. It can also be plugged into a standard PC, where it is detected using standard human interface device (HID) device drivers as a 20 button joystick (five buttons per handset)."

Heh. I should have thought to look that up. That's *really* interesting. That's I-might-need-to-pick-one-up interesting. (At least, after I test the Big Button Pads, since wireless almost always = better, and my experience has been that, even though they are infrared devices, they work *really* well on the Xbox.)

While out and about this morning, I spotted the Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? game for the Nintendo DS at GameStop for $30. I doubt I'd buy that game at half that price.

/I don't need a damn game to tell me I'm smarter than a 5th grader
//One better be in order to teach high schoolers
///Did snag Impossible Mission for the DS for $10 at GameStop
////Long live vintage 80s video games

Stay awhile. Stay forever.

For those who missed out on the super special at Best Buy on the Jeopardy! DVD game system, Walmart is now offering a package deal consisting of the J! DVD system, plus MGA's $100,000 DVD game for around $45. Still pretty high, considering the Best Buy closeout price! Walmart also had the Singing Bee board game for around $15!

KB Toys' website is now offering the Identity card game, in a small tin box, for $9.99 plus shipping!

Has anyone bought, played, or seen demos of the big 10-pack of game show based DVD games from Imagination? If so, I'm curious to find out how What's My Line?, To Tell the Truth, and Beat the Clock play.

If you want just the Jeopardy game by itself, it's $60.

Just found this link at Barnes and Noble's website for the 10-pack DVD set:

http://gifts.barnesandnoble.com/search/pro...n=9781400665143

It appears as though What's My Line? IS NOT one of the games in the set! Instead the game is the Howie Mandel hosted Would You Rather...?, aka Zobmondo!

You'll also notice that the logos for BTC and TTTT are different, and the two Family Feud games use last season's logo!

$15 back on the Pyramid game still isn't enough to make me run and get it

Has anyone seen the TTTT game? I never knew that existed?

You are correct sir.

Its damn good, especially for the game and the buzzers itself. The host looks like he belongs on "South Park", and has a touch of Simon Cowell (except cheesier), but the material is vast and the play along factor is abundant. An average game that I've played is normally 30-40 minutes or so; You'll definitely have a ball with it.

Huge deal: Family Feud 3rd Edition, Millionaire, and Deal or No Deal DVD games are available at Sam's Club for $14.88.

What makes this deal even better is that none of those come in the giant box.

(Look near the TV and movie DVDs.)

Fixed. If you've played them, they're still overpriced.

iToys started a special deal with my site today. Should have been yesterday but I was out of town.

In a special deal until December 22nd, you can get the 1 VS 100 tabletop game for a discounted price of $19.99. You can get the mega pack of the tabletop game plus the handheld game for $24.99. Both are without shipping or handling. I've sung praises about the tabletop game even before this deal started. It's really an extremely nice product that follows the rules of the show to near perfection, including the show's tricky writing. I figured that people here who don't visit my site just might like to know since it's a special cheap deal for game show products.

You can get them by clicking here.

On the product's Web site (actually, there's a link at the bottom of the page Alex linked) they have a Flash-based version of the thing for you to try out. I found it pretty insipid as an electronic game. It was:

1) Answer question.
2) Score randomly.
3) Answer another question.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Someone has already seen fit to discard Irwin Toy’s Family Feud. I picked it up at a Goodwill Store on Saturday. I like the way it looks. The gameboard is a ten-inch tall replica of the television gameboard. The rules, in a nutshell, are that two teams write down seven answers to a survey question. When the teams are ready, the game reveals the answers in descending order of popularity to the fifth answer. There are eight rounds of play alternating between the competition game and Fast Money. The unit uses sound effects from the game. I haven’t played it because few people in my crowd like guessing games.

Caught the Singing Bee board game at Walgreen's yesterday. About 15 bucks. Cardinal. Which doesn't even have the game listed in their website. Under "what's new?" --Lost and Desperate Housewives games, already markdowns in many stores. Ahhh, what confidence it inspires :-)

(come to think of it...they don't even have their 5th Grader or 1 v 100 card tins listed....)

Funny, I don't remember seeing anything on the box advertising this game as "Absolutely nothing like the popular TV Game Show!" So it's basically the DVD game, only without the DVD or any of the production values. Faboo. The British Family Fortunes game looks infinitely better than this - and appears to actually be based on the TV show.

Went to TRU, saw the 5th grader handheld for $21.99 (it's cute though-the stylus for the touch screen is pencil shaped). Didn't pick that up, but I did get "DOND: Secret Vault Games" for the PC (it's a tenuous tie-in-it's basically 20 different mini-games, some luck-based, some strategy, but it's OK I think for $20)

What after Christmas deals have you guys found?

I found the Family Feud tabletop game on clearance for $10 at Target

A couple of weeks ago I found the 1 vs. 100 DVD game at a Target in San Diego on clearance for $7.50. It's true to the format (as it was last season) and one of the best game show DVD games I've played. The tabletop game was also on clearance for under $20.00 for anyone who may have missed out on BuzzerBlog's sale.