The  “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” TV game show is back on mobile with a new 2009 edition that continues the addictive trivia experience testing players’ general knowledge.   With a series of 15 progressively difficult questions, Players start with a $100 question and can quickly climb to $1 million they correctly answer all 15.  Miss one however, and the game is over, though you can keep tiered winnings.

To assist in reaching the final question, players can use up to four lifelines – “Ask the Audience,” ”50:50,” “Phone a Friend” and “Switch a Question.”  Ask the Audience polls a virtual audience for the correct answer.  50:50 removes two of the four multiple-choice answers from the board.  Phone a Friend simulates calling a friend who provides a likely correct answer.  The final lifeline, granted only after reaching the $25,000 plateau, is Switch a Question where players can switch out the current question with a new one, usually of the same difficulty level.  Sometimes this is a crapshoot, not knowing exactly what may appear, but if you surely don’t know the answer to the first one, there’s really nothing else to lose.

To fully engulf the player with the “Hot-seat” the experience, the ambiance and suspense of the show has been captured with precise sound effects throughout the game.  This works great but unfortunately there is no Meredith Viera to push you along or even a countdown timer to add a little bit of pressure.  You can totally cheat if you’re in front of a computer.  Also missing from the game, and I guess I’m being a little picky about this, is a nice interval screen to represent your ascension through the questions and money amounts.

Millionaire 2009 is for one player only and features a library of 1,000 questions created by the show.  This is a step back from the 07 version that had 1,500 and also the ability to download new questions.  I guess that shouldn’t really matter though because while it continues to deliver the appropriate game show experience, you’re still dealing with only play money as prizes.  Still, as a fan of the show, it’s nice to find out how well you would actually do.