BUZZ! Master Quiz
Score: 68% ESRB: Everyone 10+ Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment America Developer: Relentless Software Media: UMD/1 Players: 1 - 6 Genre: Trivia/ Family/ Edutainment
Graphics & Sound: Saying "quiz game" to a person doesn't automatically elicit a strong visual response. Maybe a host's face, or a lovely lady that turns over letters on the far side of the stage? The modern game shows are often like elaborate set pieces, as in the case of American Gladiator, but the quiz show is a bit more elusive. Buzz! Master Quiz has a host, but he isn't the most telegenic you've encountered. Picture something between Bert of Sesame Street and Bob Saget, and you're on the right track. You'll likely have an immediate love/hate relationship with the host. If you come down on the Hater side, take consolation in knowing that he isn't featured in much of the game. The meat of the game is in the quiz section, where you'll answer questions on a variety of topics and in several different formats. The questions are sometimes just a series of options, where you'll choose the best response. The questions that really leverage the technology are those that show a video clip or involve some image, which are not as common as one would like. Several question types in Buzz! Master Quiz involve guessing answers based on a degraded or obscured image. The concept must have sounded cool on paper, but it's tedious in practice. Especially the game that involves answering a question about an out-of-focus image... how does it make sense that you're penalized for not recognizing an image within a certain timeframe, when the image in question is just a series of big, blocky pixels? No fun.
Gameplay: The limitations of a simple question-and-answer format become clear as you play through Buzz! Master Quiz a few times. There's no denying the game is loaded with question content, but that didn't prevent the same question from popping up at least once every time we played. There should have been something included to put more limits on the amount of time it would take for the same questions to appear for a specific player. The credits are rolling on Buzz! Master Quiz before you know it, to the point that we were in disbelief that the game was actually over. We're talking just a couple hours, folks... The replay value should be solid because of the large overall database of questions, but there are a limited number of question types. There is a finite number of repetitions for answering questions about celebrities, movies, and music. The multiplayer features let you share Buzz! Master Quiz with friends in a real simulation of the quiz show environment, as long as they have a PSP handy. This runs from a single UMD, which is a nice feature. Game Share is the best option, compared to Pass Around Mode, where you answer a question and hand the PSP off to another player. The upside of Pass Around is the ability to have more than four people playing, but it is a weak mode overall. Unlike a group of people watching the quiz on a large screen, Pass Around doesn't allow gamers in the group to see what is happening. Reading questions aloud doesn't really work, since the whole thing is on a strict timer. The only way this multiplayer could really be fun is if you have your PSP running through a long cord to the television, but even that is a stretch. The Quiz Host mode is the equivalent of reading quiz questions to a room full of people, as long as the room doesn't contain more than six people... It resolves the issue with Pass Around and weak audience participation options, but a deck of Trivial Pursuit cards would accomplish the same thing.
Difficulty: The true replay value of Buzz! Master Quiz is extended quite a bit if you are on a quest for gold. Earning gold medals in each quiz event can be quite challenging. There are some questions included that are real zingers! Even people that think they know a lot about the topic (movies, nature, music, celebrities, etc.) will likely be stumped on a few of these. Earning special trophies, such as playing a perfect round, will be the icing on the cake compared to hitting gold on every quiz. The Virus quiz is particularly frustrating, with your score being eaten away the longer you take answering the question. The pace of this mode makes it almost impossible to do better than a silver medal unless you have a Mensa-level intellect, or maybe I'm just really stupid... On the plus side, Buzz! Master Quiz is a great pick-up/put-down game with easy controls and simple features that are relatively foolproof.
Game Mechanics: The different quiz styles demand slightly different control schemes. All of the quizzes include just four options, keyed to one of the PSP's four buttons. There is an explanation of how to play modes that require a different interpretation of the question. In the Top Rank quizzes, you'll be asked to sort items in a specific order, but the order changes constantly. One question might be oldest-to-newest while the next is lightest-to-heaviest. These are fun questions. All quizzes are timed, but some are more driven by time than others, as was mentioned earlier about the Virus Challenge. There are even quizzes that challenge you to answer as many questions as possible within a specific timeframe. When a video or image pops up, you interpret it and answer accordingly. The questions are read aloud, making Buzz! Master Quiz feel more like "the real thing." It would have been nice to see a variation mode within the game that focused on questions for kids, or questions for specific age groups, to put everything in context. The old Trivial Pursuit general category game is what Buzz! Master Quiz feels most like, a bit of everything and the kitchen sink... The biggest gripe you'll have with Buzz! Master Quiz after you burn through it solo, is how poorly this quiz-game format was translated to PSP. Something more like the classic Quiz and Dragons would have been a better choice, if the option existed to mash up the Buzz! brand with something in a different genre. Instead we've got a very limited slice of entertainment for one person, and a rather diluted multiplayer experience. The exception we'd make is for families or friends that already have multiple PSPs and can benefit from the Game Share feature. If you and yours fall into this category, Buzz! Master Quiz may be worth a rental, if not a purchase.
-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock
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