Play It By Ear: The First CD Game is the original CD-audio trivia quiz game. It collects familiar and odd sound bites, song clips and random sounds into a hilarious quiz game. From an ex-President's feelings about a common green vegetable to the roar of an elephant seal, from Rock to Bach, Play It By Ear has a sound for everyone.

It has been described as the "Best New Trivia Game of The Year", as described by Games magazine.

Play It By Ear
by Stephen A. Ide

Question 1: A group of which of these three animals is called a "flock"? (sound clip is played)

Question 2: The co-star of this TV series called the hero by an affectionate name. Give that name. (sound clip is played)

Question 3: According to this American song, who died? (sound clip is played)

With the correct responses to these questions (answers at end), my wife proceeded to put me in my place, pummeling me with a commanding lead from which I never recovered in Play It By Ear. Rykodisc makes no guarantee its game will enhance marital bliss, but it has shown how to successfully marry a board game to CD technology. This game makes Trivial Pursuit obsolete.

More than 350 sound clips are on one disc. Questions (1800 of them) are on cards divided into 24 separate games with categories including: Folk Songs, Anthems and Marches; Pop Music; News and History; Sports; Classical Music; Movies; Musical Instruments; TV Themes; and, Animals. There are also Really Short Stories, in which you hear the story and must remember some aspect of it, Short-term Memory tests (pot smokers fess-up) and Tongue Twisters abound (I never knew there were so many).

There are only two requirements to play this game: You must enjoy trivia (some questions and challenges are tough), and you have to be willing to use your CD player or its remote like Rambo caresses an M-16. If you liked pushing buttons before, wait until you try manuvering through 99 tracks! Each track is indexed to carry three sounds. If you never mastered your CD player's functions (the tough ones like "pause", "play", "skip forward" or "skip backward"), you'll be a pro by the end of one game. It actually sounds more difficult than it is. Fortunately each game is designed to use 25 tracks near one another, so there's no big-time skipping around.

The game board is a small peg board through a photo of a compact disc. To win, you must circle the board with your peg and land in the winner's circle or answer correctly three questions in a row while in the "home stretch". Up to four people of teams can play, and you can wager that your opponent will guess the right or wrong answer to a question using "challenge cards".

The questions and challenges can be unnerving. Have fun trying to determine which of three drumbeats is moving at 90 beats per minute, or what was the nickname the female lead of a 1970 movie had for her husband, or which of three bird sounds is that of a falcon. Other questions can be pathetically easy, but the difficulty level varies so widely that even a smart-ass is bound to be tripped up. The sound bytes and musical clips sound great on CD, and sometimes you want to hear a little bit more because it sounds so good. You may hear anyone from Judy Garland to the Beastie Boys to Dan Quayle.

This game cries out for a sequel. I'm sure that's no revelation to Rykodisc, since it has been selling feverishly since well before Christmas. And while I don't mean for this review to sound like an ad, this game is a lot of fun, and I generally don't like board games.

The only negative critique I can think of is that the box is oversized - undoubtedly a marketing technique to make you think there's more in there than there really is. Even though the packaging may be wasteful (environmentalists forgive me), the contents will blow your mind. Buy it.