Friday night was the first night for the Canadian 1vs100 beta, which was open to all Gold members. I decided I would give this beta a shot, knowing full well that it is a beta, after all, and that there were bound to be connection and other issues.

It took me a few tries to get into the game. The first attempt to connect had me frozen in the game lobby. I left & rebooted, and my next four attempts got me into the crowd, but disconnected me before I could even answer a question.

Finally I got into the game. I was seated in the crowd. The great thing was that a few of my other friends connected to the game and were not in a party either. The beta sat me beside them, which was great to see them next to me.

There is some limited interaction you can do with your avatar. You can animate your avatar by pushing the Y button (this is called Amping) and using the digital pad to cycle through various cheers and jeers. You are encouraged to use these actions.

Gameplay is broken into three sections: The One, The Mob and The Crowd.

The Crowd: Everyone who enters the beta gets to answer the trivia questions. If you are in the Crowd, you can compete for game points. The more points you acquire, the better your chances of being selected to join the Mob. Stringing together multiple correct answers in a row will get you Streak bonuses, and having a lightning fast finger will get you Speed bonuses. Even as a Crowd member, your score will increase for however many members of the Mob incorrectly answer the question.

The Mob: As a member of the Mob, your job is to correctly answer all the questions thrown at you and hope that the One incorrectly answers. If the One fails to answer correctly, whatever prize “money” (aka-MS points/Arcade games/etc) are divided by the amount of remaining Mob members.

The One: Take on the Mob and answer questions to knock out as many of the 100 players in order to win prizes, such as MS Points, Arcade games, and other great prizes from Microsoft and any of the game’s sponsors. After you answer every third question, you will have the option to exit the game and take whatever money you have acquired or you can continue to face the Mob.

Prizes: While there are no actual prizes being handed out in the first night of the beta, eventually there will be Microsoft points, XBLA games, and several other prizes that can be won by participating in the Live games. From what we determined last night, it appears that 10,000 MS Points is the maximum amount of points that can be won in a single game. They also have prizes for the Top 3 points leaders for each game (one game being as long as The One lasts before a new One is selected).

Overall, the first night of the beta was a lot of fun. You could really tell that it was a Canadian beta as there were quite a few questions that were 100% Canadian, and those questions really showed which members had created fake Canadian accounts in order to try the beta out. To those Live members I suggest reading How to Be a Canadian by the Ferguson brothers.

There was one major issue where Chris Cashman, host of 1vs100 Live, was not always On Air. During the segments where he was supposed to be hosting, sometimes you would hear him, other times you wouldn’t, but other members might. And there were quite a few times when the One would get disconnected from the game. But, it is a beta, afterall, and these things are to be expected.

The next Live beta night is coming up on May 12th at 7pm Pacific. I’m looking forward to increasing my lifetime score and seeing if I can get into the Mob again this time around (and last longer since The One got disconnected the one time I made it in last night).

The Canadian beta runs until May 24th. You can visit the FAQs page here.

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