Buzz!: Quiz TV review

This effectively kills off the need to buy another Buzz! game ever again. Over 5,000 questions makes it the biggest quiz to date, and you’ll never run out of new trivia thanks to downloadable 500-question quiz packs and user-created quizzes. Writing your own quizzes for family, friends and total strangers to play is a massive draw, though be warned that only a stingy eight questions per quiz are allowed. The in-game MyBuzz! option links to the home site where all the quizzes are available to download. Mature quizzes can be filtered out if you want.

Questions out-of-the-box are now split into five broad categories (music, movies and TV, sports, general knowledge and lifestyle), which is another good reason not to waste money on those individual PS2 Buzz! games. You can also set up a quiz with questions drawn either from just one category or randomly from all five, and any downloaded quiz packs are auto-sorted into the right category.

The online Sofa vs. Sofa mode lets you form a team of four to take on other teams, which Sony reckons may expand into proper leagues and tournaments if it takes off. Given how everyone reckons they’re a certified pub-quiz genius, the competition should be pretty fierce. So it’s a shame the character customisation is virtually non-existent, new rounds are few and far between, and Buzz (the bloke) is an embarrassment. At least the optional new wireless controllers mean your floor isn’t a mess anymore. Still, you have to admire Sony for putting the future of the Buzz! brand in the hands of gamers.

Jul 8, 2008