When I was in high school, I had an uncanny knack for word association with lyrics. Just about any word would trigger a song in my mind, and I'd start quietly singing to myself. Some of my friends picked up on this and would start throwing words at me to challenge me to come up with a song with that word in the lyrics.

Little did I know that this skill would someday come in handy, because that is one of the many skills useful in Hasbro's new i-List Music Party Game.

Here's how it works: Place the game, which is roughly the size of a portable CD player, on a table or other flat surface. Open the underside doors to reveal four 1/8" stereo mini-plugs (That's the standard size for nearly all portable music devices.). Each player plugs in a portable media player (iPod, Zune, iRiver, etc.) into one of the jacks. After a quick setup and dealing out some cards, a player draws a card from the middle pile and reads it to the rest of the players. The description on the card might be, "A song with the word tears," A song that was a band's first hit," "A jazz song," or "A song by a group that's no longer together." Players then search through their playlists for a song that matches the criteria and press "play" on their devices when they find it. The first player to find a matching song will hear his or her song playing through the game's speakers, all others being blocked. The rest of the players must decide whether this song meets the criteria, and if so, the player keeps the card, or loses one if the song doesn't match. Once the draw pile is depleted, the game is over, and the player with the most cards wins.

The obvious drawback to this game is the requirement that every player own a portable media device with a screen (iPod Shuffles need not apply). If you use a cell phone to play your music, you'll need a headphone adapter, or you could always hook it up to the headphone jack of a laptop and use iTunes or other music management software, although in my opinion, if your software has a search feature, you're cheating. Certain devices have advantages over others when it comes to finding a song as well--I wouldn't want to use my old iRiver IFP-790 against an iPod--the click wheel would beat me hands-down.

That said, iPods and similarly fast devices are common enough that most people age twelve and up (as recommended) likely own one, so this is not a major obstacle. The person with a large music library will also have a distinct advantage over a more casual music listener.

Another problem I ran into--and this is no fault of the game--is that I can't fit all of my music onto my iPod because of all the video and podcasts I have loaded onto it. Consequently, I'd often have the perfect song in mind, but when I'd go to the artist or album, I'd find that the song I sought didn't happen to be on my iPod at the moment. I found myself really wanting a 160GB iPod Classic.

All in all, this reverse version of "Name That Tune" is the perfect game for 2-4 music-loving kids and adults who like to test their musical knowledge against each other. The portability of the console (Even the rules are printed on two cards that pack right in with the game.) make it great for taking to slumber parties, car trips, or campouts (No, we're not camping purists.). Kids younger than 12 might be able to play it, but our 9-year-old wouldn't likely know enough about the details of her music collection to be able to compete with older kids and adults. My other recommendation might be to have a computer handy to double-check an answer, like the date of a song, a lyric, etc. to handle disputes.

For the record, the first time Teresa and I played together, we tied, although if I was wrong about the date of that Abba song, Teresa may have won, so I guess I may not be able to cash in on my skills yet.