Buzz! Quiz TV

September 29,2008 - Though there have been a few Buzz games released lately for the PS2, it’s easy to see that the series hasn’t quite caught on like it has in Europe because the PS2 is past its prime here. With the series’ first PS3 installment, called Buzz! Quiz TV, Sony’s looking to jumpstart the series over here by putting its best foot forward to make sure that it has a better chance this time. With a new next-gen coat of paint and a nice set of features, it looks like Buzz! Quiz TV may be the best quiz game of the generation so far.

For many people, Buzz! Quiz TV will be the first game in the series that they’ve purchased. The host of the Buzz game show is none other than the Muppet-style Buzz himself, who doesn’t hesitate to tell you that you stink if you even miss only one question in a round. The game comes with four wireless buzzers and no batteries, so you’ll need to collect eight batteries and plug the wireless receiver into the PS3 to ready to play the game. Each buzzer is simply made up of a large red button and four smaller buttons that you will use to select answers, though they’re easily used to navigate the menus, which are simple enough that it’s not a hassle to use them.

Buzz! Quiz TV offers a single-player, multiplayer, and online mode, called Sofa vs. Sofa here, that each feels different and fun enough in their own way. Single-player features three rounds of Stop the Clock, which challenges you to get the right answer in as quickly as possible for the highest possible score. Multiplayer features six rounds of six different events that is quite fun when you have up to four people to play with at your place. The online mode is more similar to the single-player mode, with three rounds of Stop the Clock, a multiple choice round called All That Apply, and then the High Stakes betting round. While it’s fun and all, it would have been nice to play able to play the same lineup of games as the multiplayer mode. The other slight downside is that your opponents can see your choices during the Multiple Choice round, which can give slower people a chance to steal answers when everybody else has the same answers chosen.

To help extend Buzz’s fun a bit longer than the original 5000 questions can offer, you have the option of buying the question packs from the PS Store or checking out the user-created quizzes that many people have made on the official Buzz! Quiz TV website. MyBuzz quizzes are eight question quizzes that users can create online for everyone that has the game to play, which of course opens you up to internet slang-filled or misspelled quizzes, but being able to rate them helps the best quizzes rise to the top. That doesn’t mean that the game lacks enough questions to keep you from seeing repeats a few games in because even after dozens and dozens of rounds so far, there has yet to be repeat questions so far, so it seems like there’s enough questions to last for a while before you exhaust all that the game offers. It would be nice to be able to set-up playlists of quizzes on the PS3 and set quizzes as favorites, as those features are exclusive to the website, so you’ll have to visit the computer first if you want to be able to customize your PS3 experience a bit more.

Being that Buzz is a quiz show game, the graphics aren’t really the most important part of the game. That doesn’t mean that the new spiffy graphics aren’t nice and smooth with plenty of characters to play with, four new characters included with the launch update to the original cast of eight. The game utilizes the large storage space of the Blu-ray disc for pictures and video to use for questions, which is especially useful for the movie and TV show questions in particular, but they’re also used for the other categories, as well. Buzz uses all sorts of sound effects for the standard game show sound effects, with a bunch of effects you can use as your personal buzzer sound. Voice chat fans will be disappointed by the lack of it for online play, though the new PS Eye support could possibly be an avenue for the future to use its built-in microphone for voice chat.

While there’s not that much competition out there for Buzz! Quiz TV so far this generation, there is certainly a reason that the series is on its seventh console iteration with Quiz TV. Offering a ton of questions on the disc, a ton more from the users themselves, and a ton of official question packs available on the PlayStation Store, it’s going to be quite a long time before you find yourself getting bored when you see the same question about Futurama for the fifteenth time. It would be nice to have a bit more customization to what events you want in your game, but what’s here is fun enough to stave off that concern until an update or sequel. Trophy fans will enjoy seeing this as the first PS3 retail game to launch with trophies, though you need to update your game when you first put in the disc. If you’ve been waiting to flaunt your unrelenting knowledge of cartoons or fashion labels, this is your time to shine.

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