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 Buzz!
Quiz TV (Playstation 3)
Sony's popular casual TV quiz game has arrived on the Playstation 3 in
fine form with the arrival of Buzz: Quiz TV. Featuring improved visuals,
cool new wireless buzzer controllers and access to a huge array of
questions thanks to its new online community features, this is probably
the best title in the series to date in terms of content and breadth. The
game's quiz modes offer some variety, but the basic premise and actions
are fairly easy to understand, which makes it accessible for a broad
audience. Buzz: Quiz TV isn't the most complicated game ever, but it's a
solidly entertaining title that should appeal to the casual and party
gaming crowd. |
Taking the basic formula from the previous
installments of the Buzz series and taking it online, Buzz Quiz TV is a
solidly entertaining title that builds on the successful games. It's a
fairly simple concept to explain, and the game basically takes the form of
an interactive game show. Each contestant in the game uses an special
buzzer controller, which are very much like the ones in the PS2 editions,
except for the fact that they're wireless. This makes it much easier
during the gameplay to avoid crossed wires, and makes set up easier. The
drawback to these is that they need batteries which can be annoying.
However, they're easy to use and quite responsive, and make the game easy
to learn. When a question comes up, four color-coded answers appear on
thee screen. Players merely press the button of the same color on their
controller to select that answer, which makes for a remarkably simple
interface. When it comes to actual gameplay, Buzz uses a fairly
straightforward structure that mimics the style of an actual game show.
From the over-the-top host Buzz himself, to the wild flashy set, it
definitely has that studio vibe. There are loads of wacky animations that
bring the contestants to life and their reactions can be quite humorous.
This helps to play up the party game aspects of Buzz, making for an
instantly accessible and entertaining title. Its overall pacing and design
is easy to understand, and the frequent funny comments from the host help
to keep things moving throughout.
 Before
each game begins players can select a wacky character from a menu and can
also select clothing and a unique buzzer sound for them. They can use
their own names, or create a funny moniker as well. Once this is done,
players can select a general quiz topic such as movies, sports or brainiac
categories - each of which is called a channel. You can also choose to
skip around between these channels during individual quizzes if you want
some variety. From here, the basic Q&A mode rewards players for
jumping in and answering correctly first, earning more points. The game
has several basic modes of play, the simplest of which is Stop the Clock,
where the how quickly you answer determines how many points you get. A
timer begins the second the question is revealed and you have to answer as
quickly as you can. This is a fun style of play and the most
straightforward in Buzz. To make things interesting, there's a Bomb mode,
where a bomb is passed between players and the one who's holding it when
it explodes is knocked out of the round. Players can also have fun with a
Buzz Pie Fight mode, where players earn cream pies that they can throw at
others - the one who gets two in the face is knocked out. There's also a
final countdown mode, where you are given a set amount of time for the
round and lose time when you get a question wrong - the winner here is the
player who is left after all the others run out of time. The one area
where Buzz seems to fall a bit flat is in its single player mode, which
gets dull and monotonous in a hurry. However, the game really shines when
you play it with others. Its varied multiplayer modes give Buzz Quiz TV
plenty of variety and help to keep things interesting through multiple
rounds of play. There are five unique quiz channels in the game, each with
more than 1,000 questions, which means you probably won't find many
repeats for quite some time. However, the game doesn't end there, and
there are two unique ways to add more content to the game.
Purchasing Buzz expansion
packs on the Playstation Network Store adds entire categories of questions
to the game, quickly and cheaply. However, the more interesting aspect of
the game is its MyBuzz! Online community feature. This is quite extensive
and helps to differentiate this edition from the previous ones in a big
way. When you log in to this service, you can play against others online,
check leaderboards and challenge your friends to an online duel. This is
all fairly impressive, but players can take things one step further by
creating and uploading their own questions and answers to create their own
quizzes. After they've been uploaded, other online players can then play
these quizzes, and challenge each other as well. In order to maintain
quality control, after each player-created quiz is completed, they can be
ranked and rated by the users, which is then displayed. These rankings
help to separate the more challenging or interesting quizzes from the
inaccurate ones, and help to make an even more diverse range of questions
available on a much wider variety of topics ranging from Star Wars to 24
and many other unique categories. This gives online players an almost
limitless range and scale of questions to choose from. Navigating the
menus and locating the user-created content is quite simple, and since
these share the same professional and polished animation sequences as the
pre-made rounds, it helps to make the experience of MyBuzz very much like
the main game. This extensive selection of user-created content is
definitely one of its most impressive features and helps to keep things
fresh throughout. Combined with the question packs available for download,
and you have a very deep well of questions to choose from. This community
approach is fairly cool and is implemented effectively, making it easy to
add content to the game without too much effort.
 Despite
the fact that Buzz - TV Quiz doesn't really the basic formula of the
franchise too much, aside from presenting the game in HD, it remains loads
of fun to play, this is especially true in multiplayer matches, where you
can battle it out with friends in numerous challenging quizzes. It's
production values are decent, with easy to navigate menus and simple
gameplay mechanics that make it very easy to understand and play. It
doesn't really add much in the way of structure to the game, but its
online community features, where you can play competitively, create your
own questions, play others' quizzes and join in online battles really
makes the game shine. Buzz isn't aimed at the high-end,
hardcore/bleeding-edge gamer, but it's still an entertaining party game
that works well in social interactions and should appeal to casual gamers
looking for some trivial fun.
- Michael Palisano
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