If you're one of the lucky few selected out of a crowd of giddy housewives and Spring Break college students to appear on a game show, you've got to be ready.

You've got to have your hand ready to strike every buzzer the moment the host stops reading the question.

You've got to know the suggested retail price of everything on the market from a 2010 Chevy Volt to a box of Low Sodium Rice-a-Roni.

You've got to know where those annoying Whammies or dragons are hiding. Hell, you've got to do better than just know. You've got to be able to smell them like a great white shark sniffing out a drop of blood from 500 yards away.

Fortunately, technology has allowed mankind to prepare for these unholy battles of knowledges, reflexes and luck with the game show video game. Of course, the market is flooded with remakes of your favorites, so we've picked out the best of the best for the shows that are still around if you're headed down Contestant's Row.

What's the most that you've ever lost on a bet? For your humble 'TV Squad' writer, that amount would be 20 bucks. But rapper Bow Wow managed to throw away $99,980 more than that -- from a bet on a single video game. That's the topic of discussion on the current 'Lopez Tonight' (weeknights, 11PM ET on TBS).

It seems that Bow Wow was playing 'Madden NFL' ... for some very high stakes. And when he lost to fellow rapper Game, he had to pay up one hundred thousand dollars.

Have you always wanted to be dropped in the middle of some vast wilderness or barren desert, just to see if you could fend for yourself? Well, before you become an appetizer for some predator creature's three-course dinner, maybe you should give yourself a little test.

One way could be to try out the new 'Man vs. Wild' video game that's currently in development. A release date hasn't been set for the Bear Grylls-inspired video game, but it's scheduled to be released on all three of the home video game consoles.

Check out a video preview of the game, after the jump ...

The video game industry wants to try its hand at playing something else: reality TV programming.

Sony Computer Entertainment America has partnered with producer 51 Minds to launch a reality TV series, Variety reports. The program, titled 'The Tester,' will be available only to PlayStation 3 owners, running exclusively on the PlayStation Network.

This is the industry's first foray into original programming modeled on the broadcast network format. PS3 has previously offered an original anime series, coverage of upcoming games and a behind-the-scenes look at the video game industry.

Since 2001, there has not been a video game based on the characters in Sesame Street. This is about to change as the Children's Television Workshop has licensed Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to create games based on the franchise.

This is how my sick mind works. I'm envisioning "Call of Duty: Sesame Street" in which our beloved muppet characters have been stricken with a zombie plague and must be destroyed by a military platoon. The Count, being already undead, remains unaffected.

If there aren't already enough Star Wars video games for your liking, you can make your own with Cartoon Network's Star Wars: The Clone Wars Game Creator.

With the animated action show continuing to draw big numbers on Friday nights, its home network is serving up a chance for fans to build their own Clone Wars game and share it with other gamers.

According to the network, these game creators aren't a stunt to generate TV show buzz. The Ben 10: Alien Force Game Creator posted more than 630 million game plays since it went live a year ago, with more than 4.6 million games created by online visitors.

Once fans open their game creator, they choose their character (Anakin Skywalker, Captain Rex or Cad Bane) and their vehicle (AT-TE, AT-RT or Speeder), allowing nine different combinations of character abilities and vehicle powers.

There will come a time, no doubt, when every show on TV will be turned into a video game to delight and distract us from all the other important stuff we're supposed to be doing in our lives.

CBS is stepping up to help contribute to our delinquency with a new slate of TV-based video games. They've already got two 'CSI' games on shelves, and six more are in the works for a number of systems, including the Wii, Nintendo DS, iPhone and iPod Touch.

We thought we'd help out by supplying a few possible scenarios for these upcoming games.

If you're a fan of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and you want to know what happened between Season One and the now-running Season Two, you're going to need a video game system.

The story in the new game, Star Wars: The Clone Wars - "Republic Heroes" bridges the gap between the show's first two runs, as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker and their loyal Clone Trooper comrades take on a new Separatist enemy packing a freshly polished doomsday weapon.

Available for PS3, Nintendo Wii or Xbox 360, "Republic Heroes" lets you play as a Jedi Knight or as a Clone Trooper -- depending on where you are in the game and what choices you make as a player.

Battling the elements in the Discovery Channel's 'Man vs. Wild' and braving the tumultuous seas of 'Deadliest Catch' are no longer limited to the imagination, as both popular shows are heading to stores as video games.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Discovery Communications is working with video game publisher Crave to adapt both series. The 'Deadliest Catch' video game is expected to hit shelves for Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS by spring 2010. The 'Man v. Wild' video game will be available on those systems, as well as X-Box 360, but isn't expected until toward the end of 2011.

Here's your chance to make it work. Variety has posted that Project Runway is becoming a video game for the Nintendo Wii made by Atari. I guess it was to no one's surprise, many TV shows become video games (CSI, Grey's Anatomy, Iron Chef America) all with varying degrees of success. Even America's Next Top Model has a video game for the Nintendo DS, but it's only available in Europe.

There is no word of when the game is releasing or any meaty details. We do know that the game will follow the show's format: design a dress, make-up and hair, runway, and judging.

Tim Gunn: Videogame action hero. That's the scenario you'll see next year when Atari introduces a 'Project Runway' game for the Nintendo Wii. Variety reports that Gunn and Heidi Klum are expected to lend their stylista stamps of approval to a game based on the popular catwalk competition, whose sixth season currently airs on Lifetime.

Following the pattern of the show, players will start as designers, creating outfits, hairstyles, makeup and accessories for their models. Players can then become photographers and document the collections, or they can be models and strut down the catwalk, using the Wii balance board.

One of the most anticipated iPhone apps since the "iFart" has finally found its way to the App Store.

The official Dexter video game from Marc Ecko Entertainment and Icarus Studios finally made it to Apple's App Store yesterday after more than a year in anxious development. The game is also set to be released on the PC, as well, but a release date hasn't been officially set yet.

I know, I know, maybe I should have said "Mr. Spock wants to save arcades," but readers probably wouldn't know if I was talking about Leonard Nimoy or Zachary Quinto, so Sylar it is.

Quinto is trying to help Stride Gum with a special promotion to help raise money to save four old arcades. They've set up a web site where you can help too.

I didn't even realize that old school arcades were on the decline. Sure, I knew that home video game consoles are more popular than ever (I have a Playstation II and a Blu-ray player that plays games myself), but I thought they would still fill a niche for kids. Guess kids would rather stay at home or at their friend's home than go to an arcade. I remember when I was in my teens/early 20s I went to the arcade quite a bit. My game was Millipede.

Do people still bowl?

Is television taking up too much of your time? Do you find yourself spending night after night on the couch, spending hours of quality time clutching your remote in the hopes it will lead you down the primrose path of perfect entertainment? Have you wasted entire days of your life decreasing the firmness of the coils in your couch with your ever increasing ass planted firmly in front of the idiot box?

If so, maybe a more physical activity would perk up your droll and dull life. Why not put down that remote, throw that TV Guide in the trash compactor and pick up that video game controller for a few hours of TV-related interactive entertainment? Because exercise is for people with no creative thought for self-entertainment.

Here is just a sample of some TV show game spinoffs headed to an XBox, Playstation or coffee table near you.

There is nothing inherently wrong with turning a TV series into a video game spinoff. It can fill in the gaps between seasons to quell the viewers' hunger, let audiences explore characters from new perspectives and even give the more hardcore couch potatoes some much needed exercise even if they only burned 1/100ths of a calorie solely through their thumbs.

The problem is video game developers pick TV shows that should never even become a travel sized board game. Developers have given the greenlight to games based on shows like American Idol, Desperate Housewives and even ... Grey's Anatomy?!? I hope that last one was a first-person shooter.

There are far better shows that offer far more entertaining elements for a kick-ass video game. These are the shows that should be next in line for a pixelated re-treatment.