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Game review: Buzz! Quiz TV for PS3

"Buzz! Quiz TV" packs over 3000 questions on topics including music, celebrities, TV, sport, science, nature, movies and more.

The Associated Press

October 6, 2008

"Buzz! Quiz TV" for the PS3 offers brain-teasing questions but can get repetitive.

Plot: Quiz show
Platform: PlayStation 3
Cost: $59.99
Bottom line: Lacks the ability to decide game length, rounds or difficulty level, making for a sometimes repetitive experience

Rating: E for Everyone

Judging by the decades worth of reactions from the folks prompted to "Come on down!" on "The Price Is Right," joining a game show is super fun. Sony and Relentless Software's Buzz! successfully captured such an experience for the PlayStation 2.

Now, the interactive quiz show franchise has come to the PS3 and PlayStation Portable for the first time.

Buzz! Quiz TV offers more bells and whistles than its PS2 predecessor, including user-generated content, downloadable question packs, online play and wireless buzzers. However, the actual game play hasn't received much of an upgrade and feels less spontaneous than the original. That doesn't mean Buzz! isn't a blast. It is.

The basic setup remains the same as before. Multiple players pick wacky avatars, outfits and buzzer sounds, then join an interactive multiple-choice quiz show hosted by an over-the-top master of ceremonies named Buzz (voiced by Australian soap star Jason Donovan). As the game progresses, goofy Buzz intuitively praises the winners and mocks the losers.

While Quiz TV can be played alone, the solitary experience doesn't quite do the interactive experience justice. With the right combination of motivated players (not included), audiovisual equipment (also not included) and maybe even booze, Quiz TV can turn your living room into something resembling "The Price Is Right" set in CBS Television City.

Players can tackle a cornucopia of questions or customize their queries from five different channels - music, sports, lifestyle, brainiac or movies and TV - as well as the user-generated quizzes from the MyBuzz! site. Unfortunately, Quiz TV lacks the ability to decide game length, rounds or difficulty level, making for a sometimes repetitive experience.