Buzz! The Ultimate Music Quiz - Preview

Buzz! has become somewhat of a phenomenon over the past few years, in the UK at least, and the fever is quickly spreading to more distant shores. Americans for example, are no longer mocking us ‘eggheads’ for finding pleasure in our love for general knowledge, and are instead seeing what all the fuss is about.

This now marks the fifth anniversary of the series, after first being introduced to Buzz! The Music Quiz back in 2005, which also shared an October release, and clearly stands as a milestone for what has gone before it.

With games past in mind, it seems Relentless Software are also using this game as a platform to push the series into a wider market. That is none more evident than the changes to Buzz, voiced by Jason Donovan, who serves as the games quiz host and mascot. His sleeker figure and more generic all-round look make him less grating, if that’s possible.

                                     

The game supports up to eight players playing simultaneously via the wireless Buzz! buzzers, but with Sony pushing Move hard at the moment the game also accepts their new motion-sensing controller, although this has most definitely been tacked on as an after-thought. Beside from tackling questions with the controller, which feels like a clumsy alternative to a far more suited buzzer; its only real feature is presenting you with different ways to answer certain questions, such as popping a balloon with a dart to select your answer, which is more tedious than it is fun.

That aside the game seems to offer a pretty nice spread of musical styles, that cover an entire spectrum of eras and genres, and it’s now easier to select something more suited to your taste than that of previous efforts. Quizzers are presented with a board with nine categories on it, ranging from guessing the decade a particular track was released, to more specialized questions on one particular artist or band. It’s also pretty unlikely you’ll come across the same question twice, unless playing for an inordinate amount of time, as there are thousands upon thousands included on disc.

All downloadable quiz pack content that you’ve purchased from the PlayStation Store is also compatible here, and can be played separately or added to the main game to add a little bit of variety for the musically challenged among you.

                                     

There are two new musical rounds that have been added, one being a pop-video observation round and one that slows or speeds up classic hits for you to guess at. Both seem to work really well and are diverse enough to keep things interesting. There is also a new Quickfire round that throws questions at you faster than Usain Bolt on rocket skates, and contestants can answer up to 100 in a row.

Handicapping has also been thrown in, allowing you to give certain players an advantage if they’re not on par, or if you’re playing the game with younger children. This theoretically levels the playing field and makes for more exciting final rounds, where many are left in the running, as oppose to one who storms off into the lead and cruises to victory time after time.

Pre-recorded voices were new to the series in Buzz! Quiz World and really added that little bit extra, and they’ve now taken this one step further to allow for custom buzzer noises. While it’s currently unconfirmed what the time cap allocated to these will be there is surely a lot of fun to be had here. Just imagine the hilarity that could ensue from imitating friends and family, quoting your favourite movies and even editing sound bites from your favourite TV shows and the like.

                                     

Not stopping there, you will now also have the option of sticking your face into the game via an EyeToy camera, and then playing as yourself. There are a few options here to edit hair and attire, but nothing that you would exactly call ground-breaking. It does provide a nice change to the standard set of characters on offer though, with new additions including a ballerina and a quirky robot.

These small thing’s might not seem like much on their own, but when added to features that are already in place, such as creating custom quizzes that can be taken online to be both played and rated, then this is undoubtedly the most customisable game in the series to date and one tight package to boot.

Buzz! The Ultimate Music Quiz is due for release on October 22 for PlayStation 3, and November 12 for PlayStation Portable. An additional release with four wireless buzzers included is also on its way but has yet to be dated, and there are also rumours of a package including Move controllers, but nothing concrete as of yet.

Craig Bryan, NoobFeed