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Buzz! Quiz TV Review
Gwynne Dixon
03/07/2008
After a history of success on Sony's PS2, Buzz! makes a return on the PS3 with all the right improvements...
The eponymous Buzz could certainly rank up there amongst the best videogame characters of all time. Okay, perhaps he's not a Solid Snake, Tommy Vercetti, Samus, Master Chief, or Mario, but he's got a good shot at making a top 20. "Why?" We hear you cry, "Has TVG gone nuts?" Well, yes, but for very different reasons than our fondness for game characters.
If the questions and round types are the bricks of Buzz! games, then the quiz's host is the mortar. His cheesy appearance is a pastiche of every quiz show host you can think of, while his cutting put-downs are a satire on what actual game show hosts are probably thinking when they disingenuously remark, "Ooohh, you were so close! Never mind, you still go home with the deluxe tea set."
Buzzing With Pleasure
Buzz's return in Quiz TV is a welcome one, and his responses to different types of avatar put the icing on the cake. There's the opportunity to choose between a Mancunian rocker; somebody that bears resemblance to Ming the Merciless; a Mime; a ditsy cheerleader; a superhero that looks like The Tick - the list goes on... But these aren't just lifeless icons similar to those you'll find on LIVE Gamertags - far from it. They all have animations and lines of dialogue (not so in the case of the Mime) that Buzz reacts to differently. For example, when you win the game as the Ming the Merciless type, Buzz will pledge his allegiance to the overlord as he's flung around the room by his force powers. Likewise, if someone sporting the nerd avatar wins then Buzz will dish out a wide range of disparaging remarks about his lack of social skills.
It's these sorts of touches in Buzz! games that set them apart from other quiz games - some of which are little more than an interactive DVD - and it's what makes a game of Buzz! mean something. The round types are crucial in this, with some of them being fiendishly crafted so that you might actually lose friends while playing one. Point Stealer, for example, allows you to choose who you can take points away from and award to yourself if you get a question right. Let's just say that our editor "disagreed" with my decision to take a few of his points (ed. 1000) during one of our games, some words were said, and now I'm on screenshot uploading duty for the rest of the month.
Other round types worthy of note include Pass the Bomb, which is basically pass the parcel with a bomb instead of a present and questions instead of music, and Pie Fight, where a correct answer allows you to fling a pie at your opponent - two pies in and you're out. The endgame of Quiz TV is also a riotous good laugh: Final Countdown is similar in format to Every Second Counts (a Paul Daniels classic), where each player is on a pedestal that gets closer to the ground with each second that ticks by before you answer a question. Wrong answers send you closer to the floor, while the fastest correct answer gives you a boost upwards. On reaching the floor, contestants fall through a trapdoor, their game is over and the winner is the last person standing.
Complimenting these rounds is the broadest range of questions in a buzz game yet. While there has been a general knowledge Buzz! game before - as well as many specific 'Pop' or 'Sports' standalone games on PS2 - Quiz TV is the first to bring all of these offerings together into one box. The 5,000 questions in the game are split up into TV channels on Quiz TV's menu screen. You can chose between Knowledge, Movies & TV, Music, Sports, Lifestyle, or a mixture of the above with the 'Channel Hopper' option. To add even more variety, these different channels also have separate sub-categories within them, with examples including Extreme Sports (Sports) , 80's Hits (Music), or Food and Drink (Lifestyle).
Telly Addicts
As if all of these channels weren't enough, Relentless Software has even added a nifty MyBuzz! Questions option. This allows you to browse the library of quiz questions uploaded by other users and you can even upload your own from www.mybuzzquiz.com. Using the service it's possible to create eight quiz questions on whatever you want (although rude content will get reported). Other PSN gamers can then play these quizzes either by themselves, or with up to 4 players locally in a Fastest Finger round. Quizzes can then be rated once you've finished.
We had a crack at it ourselves and had a lot of fun doing it. As The Simpsons Quiz was the most popular user-uploaded quiz at the time, we opted for another Matt Groening masterpiece as our subject. After promptly being informed that our title of "Futurama Quiz" was already taken, we cheekily opted for "The Better Futurama Quiz" instead. We then watched proudly as the amount of plays on our quiz grew and the ratings came in. The process was very straightforward although it's a little disappointing that more options weren't available (e.g. different round types), but these are minor quibbles as we can't think of any other quiz games on a console that cater for this kind of user content.
PSN has also been put to good use in the online multiplayer. As with the local multiplayer, 4 players can battle it out in online duels (or Sofa vs. Sofa as it's known in Quiz TV), although the round structure is slightly different. All That Apply is a round that we've only come across in Sofa vs. Sofa (it throws multiple correct answers into the mix), while the other two rounds are taken from the main game. With three rounds in total, Sofa vs. Sofa has three less than local multiplayer games and there's no Final Countdown endgame either. This is understandable as Relentless Software were probably trying to balance the online multiplayer to take shorter attention spans and disconnects into account. Interestingly enough, if another player does disconnect in a game then their avatar is swallowed up by a trap door and Buzz labels them a deserter, which certainly helps to calm your frustration at fickle gamers.
User generated content.
Slimmed down online rounds.
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