When I first read about "Buzz! The Mega Quiz" for PlayStation2, I was excited. A multiplayer trivia game with buzzers that my computer can address through a USB port? Score. Right as I'm scouring Amazon to get a price, I get an e-mail from the company. They just so happened to stumble over my website. They offered up a free copy of both new Buzz! releases in exchange for a review. After a couple e-mails back and forth, I was ignored and gameless. Despite that, I still bought the game and wanted to give anyone else thinking about purchasing it a heads up.
The four buzzers are all hooked to one hub and connect to your PS2 in one USB port. As I said above, and as was covered in
another thread, they're easily recognized by your computer as well. There's plenty of slack on them - the hub went from my PS2 to the middle of the living room, and the individual buzzer cords reached the various pieces of furniture so everybody could sit comfortably and still play. If you've read anything about the game, you probably know you can connect two hubs and make this an up-to-8-player experience. I've played with groups of 3 and 4, and found that the more people you have, the better it is. The game is simply more competitive and even.
The game itself is a mishmash of all sorts of trivia concepts, with so-so scoring. The final round makes up for these discrepancies somewhat and brings it back to a straight up contest. I'll try to explain each round as succinctly as I can. Keep in mind, you can customize the game to feature these rounds in combinations that better suit your fancy, but this is what you get if you play the standard game on standard length.
The first round is called Point Picker. Each player gets to pick one category from a wheel of eight (Music, Sports, "Bizarre," Animals, etc.). Two multiple choice questions are asked in a category for 250 points a pop. Speed is not an issue.
The second round is Winner Stays On. The (slightly irritating) host presents you two pictures, and you pick the one that fits his statement - i.e. "which football player made their pro debut first?" or "which is taller?" Right answers mean you get to stay on through the rest of the question and score more points. Picking the correct choice on the first pair scores 50 points, 75 on the second, then to 100 and finally 125 points. There are two or three of these type sequences in the round.
The third round is Fastest Finger, which is multiple choice again, but first in with the right answer gets 400 points, the second 300, and so on. The first half of the round uses pictures to aid the questions, and the second half uses music.
Pie Fight is next, where the first to click in the correct choice stops a moving target to "pie" one of their opponents. Get pied twice and you're out. The last player standing earns 1000 points, 2nd place 500 and third 250.
The Mystery Challenge is the "halftime" game. It changes each time you play, but I've seen games that involve a four-card monte, picking a horse to win a virtual horse race, or simply True or False questions.
Globe Trotter follows this, where a question is asked about a specific country. The scoring from Fastest Finger applies, but the first in also gets the next choice of country.
Best Rank is what Millionaire calls Fastest Finger. Each correct sequence of answers nets you 300 points. (Seem a little low to you too?)
Point Stealer is pretty fun. Picture questions are asked. The photo starts off pixelated, scrambled, or comes on in pieces. The choices also spell themselves out letter by letter. Whoever can buzz-in and pick the right choice gets to steal 500 points from the opponent of their choosing. The format discourages early buzzing, which is a plus, and the material isn't knowledge based, so it gives laggards a chance to catch up. Plus, a wrong choice by a buzzer isn't shown, so there's no winning by default (unless your friend blabs what button they pressed).
Finally, after 8 rounds, you reach The Final Countdown, complete with Europe-style muzak. Your points are transformed into bars on a clock that ticks down as you answer. First to be right is a bonus of extra time; wrong answers get bars taken away. Whoever's left standing with time wins the game.
In short, it's fun enough to justify a $40 purchase, and the rounds have enough variety to keep people interested. A game as I described above takes about 45 minutes. I suggest picking the Quick Game option to skip the customization of your avatar, unless you just HAVE to see your first name on the screen, or hear a bicycle horn each time you ring in. The process is cumbersome, especially if you try to get non-video-gamers in on the fun. I also didn't have a memory card handy to prevent repeats. As such, we had about 3 questions a game from the previous one.
And as a quick aside to this War and Peace-level post, I've used the buzzers to play Todd's Feud game, Jeopardy! MC, Press Your Luck and the Jeopardy! CD-Rom, and all have been fantastic. After seeing my Quizzard beat to shreds over the years, it's nice to have something a little more professional.
-Jason
