Is that your identity?

$500,000 at stake. 12 strangers and 12 identities. You match them correctly, and you're $500,000 richer.

The game is called Identity. Hosted by Penn Jillette, an Emmy-Award winning comedian-magician, this new game show is something different from the others. You have 12 strangers, from all walks of life, standing on a platform in front of you. You are then given 12 identities, and for each turn, you need to match the correct stranger with the correct identity. With each correct guesses, your price money increases as you solve each stranger's identity.

The ranges of identities are quite wide, it varies from a sumo wrestler, WWE Diva, preacher's son, preschool teacher, nuclear physicist, kidney donor, blackjack dealer, belly dancer, sciencetologist, cage fighter, bull rider and so on. There are also celebrities strangers, so it helps if you know them. Some of them are Stan Lee, Frank Stallone, Tony Hawk, Joe Maloof, Jordan Knight and also sportsmen Bruce Jenner, Ray Crockett and James Douglas. Of course, some of the identities are a no brainer, such as the sumo wrestler, where you can straightaway identify the correct stranger. They will normally give you 2 or 3 easy ones, while the rest can be quite challenging and confusing.

You are also given 3 helps during the game. You have mistaken identity, where you can make one mistake during the show, and you can still keep your winning money and continue playing. However, once you've made another wrong guess, you'll lose all your money and the game ends. There is also the tri-dentity, where you choose an identity and the number of strangers to choose from is narrowed down to three. And the last help is ask the expert, where a panel of three experts consisting of a body language expert, a psychologist and an FBI behavioural expert, will give their opinion on a chosen identity. Of all these three, I found that only the mistaken identity is helpful, the rest doesn't help much. But that doesn't mean that it's impossible to win the game.

So far, more than one contestant have solved all 12 identities and win $500,000. Of course, most of them would prefer to keep their winnings, instead of risking all the money for nothing. Therefore you get a lot of them stopping halfway, after exhausting all their helps, and not wanting to take the risk.

All and all, the game show is fun to watch, as you tend to make your own guesses from home. Like any other game show, it's fun to watch the contestants sweating it out and making the wrong guesses. It would be interesting if they adapt the show over here in Malaysia, then maybe I'll volunteer as one of the strangers. My identity - The Loser. A no brainer? Probably not!

(Identity airs every Monday and Tuesday at 7pm on NTV7, your feel good channel)