If you've ever seen a T.V., it's unlikely you could have missed seeing
Millionaire at some point, and Regis is all but a household name these days.
Millionaire 2nd Edition follows the format of the show, and even pulls out some surprisingly good adaptations for basically being a one-person game.
First, the format of questions and the ladder up to The Million is identical, and all the lifelines are present in the GBC version. 50/50 works as you'd expect, and 'Ask The Audience' gives you just percentages instead of a bar graph and percentages. Just like on T.V., the audience is rarely wrong. 'Phone A Friend' is pretty cool. When you choose this option, all the comments are printed at the bottom of the screen instead of spoken, but the idea is that one of several characters comes on the line to help out. Within the time limit, they give an answer, and you have to judge whether or not to trust them by how confident they seem. It's a pretty cool way to include this, but after you do the 'Phone A Friend' lifeline more than a few times, you've pretty much seen all possible responses.
Once you've used up all your lifelines, pressing the 'Select' button lets you walk away, taking whatever money you've earned up to that point. Millionaire 2nd Edition makes you realize how tough it must be for real contestants not to guess on answers, and I found myself staring at a $1,000 check more than a few times because I just had to guess! The option to play with some friends is fairly inventive, also. Instead of the traditional 'Fastest Finger' competition, Millionaire 2nd Edition lets you and up to 3 friends take turns looking at four answers to a question, requiring you to punch-in when you see the answers in the correct order. Whoever gets it right in the fastest time wins, and is off to The Hot Seat. Again, a smart adjustment to the GBC.
