PlayStation 2

Buzz!: The BIG Quiz

BUZZ! ist zwar eine ganze Ecke vom Humor eines You Don´t Know Jack entfernt und hätte etwa im Bezug auf die Spielvarianten durchaus umfangreicher sein können, bietet aber (natürlich vor allem in geselliger Runde) dennoch eine nette Portion Quizspiel-Spaß, jetzt endlich mit gemischten Themen. Es liegt in der Natur der Sache, dass einem früher oder später auch mal doppelte Fragen begegnen, aber bis dahin wird man trotz kleiner Verbesserungsmöglichkeiten gut unterhalten.

Buzz is back, Jason Donovan takes his place as the titular game show master and this time it’s not just for the musically inclined. The game comes with four specially designed controllers (although a cheaper controller-less version is available for those of us that had them for the original). Four players can get in on the action for the main game and it becomes a standard most points wins affair.

On a découvert Buzz avec un quiz musical, pointu et parfois décourageant, on le retrouve désormais bien plus accueillant grâce à ses questions plus variées et plus amusantes. Les nouveaux modes de jeu sont amusants (à défaut d'être vraiment originaux) et il y a même une option EyeToy pour flatter son ego et se voir dans le tube cathodique. Quand on vous dit qu'il s'agit d'un vrai quiz télé !

Helaas kom je al wel snel bekende vragen tegen wat de levensduur niet ten goede komt. De prijs/speelduur verhouding is hierdoor bij het spel helaas erg laag. De vragen zijn ook redelijk recent waardoor het spel nu erg leuk is om te spelen, maar de vragen enige tijd later wel erg moeilijk zullen zijn om nog te kunnen beantwoorden. Het spel is duidelijk gemaakt om ongeveer een half jaartje mee te gaan, waarna het volgende Buzz!-spel alweer zijn opwachting maakt. Afgezien hiervan is Buzz! een goed uitgewerkt spel dat prima speelbaar is, ook voor mensen die nog nooit een controller vastgehouden hebben, en dat is misschien wel de beste eigenschap van dit spel: je kunt het met iedereen spelen! Alleen hierom zou iedereen eigenlijk al een Buzz!-spel in huis moeten hebben en The BIG Quiz is door de algemene vragen die het spel bevat voor de meeste mensen de beste keus!

Buzz: The BIG Quiz doesn’t offer any real improvements over the original. Rather, it simply mixes up the optional ingredients by inserting a host of new questions and some other fine touches to make it a slightly more adaptable game. If you enjoyed the original and have some mates to play with, then Relentless’ latest offering is worthy of a purchase. Just don’t expect a never-ending number of questions to play with.

Make no mistake despite the issues Buzz! The Big Quiz is still a great multi-player game and is a fantastic companion to SingStar - when you need to give your vocal chords a break this is a great option. Sadly Relentless still aren't pushing the series to where it should be. What could easily be a 90%+ game is still let down by some average questions, lack of variety and lack of single player longevity. Worth adding to your collection if you're a trivia buff, have plenty of parties and/or loved the first title.

There's whole raft of new contestants this time around, along with the most popular faces from Buzz!:The Music Quiz. Sports stars, historical figures, celebrities... there are plenty to choose from. Controls are via the bespoke handheld buzzers, with their four coloured buttons and distinctive red "buzzer". Initially, players use their buzzers to select game options - single-player, standard multiplayer or custom multiplayer (which allows you to choose the number and type of rounds). The next step is to pick a contestant - complete with costume change if desired, followed by buzzer sound. Then with typical game show fanfare the quiz commences.

Buzz is another Sony game to use a special peripheral, and another game clearly aimed at the mass market. The game is presented in the style of a television quiz show, complete with a cheesy host and a glamorous assistant. But the big attraction of Buzz is the way you interact with it, via the flashing red buzzer. This novel, incredibly simplistic controller will be familiar to anyone who's ever watched a gameshow, and it will attract gamers and nongamers alike. Unfortunately, the quizzes themselves aren't nearly as appealing as they could be, thanks to an overly simplistic difficulty and a few gameplay irritations.

Buzz! is a great party game, but I feel that a difficulty level would have served the game well. Another annoying feature is that you can’t quit a game once it has begun, which means you have to shut down the entire PS2 should you not wish to continue with that particular game or if you wish to add a player at the last moment. With that being said, Buzz! was designed to be a party game, and that is exactly what it is – it is highly unlikely to bend your mind in any real way. I would recommend it for an afternoon of fun, but would suggest renting it rather than owning it.

The first Buzz was a great game. No, shuddup. It's the only game my parents played last year. It's the game which people - even more so than Singstar - turned up at my house, stinking of booze, and demanded an opportunity to play. Hell, I spent the last six months in an increasingly estranged relationship with my girlfriend, but no matter how bad it got and how the hatred simmered, we could always play Buzz silently until it lightened our mood. When I finally got around to returning the game to the person I borrowed it from, we split two weeks later.

It’s still a tricky one but The Big Quiz’s plethora of technical shortcomings, along with it being clearly inferior to its predecessor, makes marking it down a bit easier to justify and leaves me less open to a wide variety of insults for getting it wrong. In fact it’s fair to say its only improvement over The Music Quiz is being a little easier to review - and that’s not worth £35 of anyone’s money.