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| From: Sony Computer Entertainment
Category: Video Games
List Price: $59.99
Buy New: $54.44
You Save: $5.55 (9%)
New (24) Used (2) from $48.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  60 reviews
Sales Rank: 679
Platform: Playstation 3
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: PlayStation 3
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 0 x 0.1 x 0.1
MPN: 98145
Model: 711719814528
UPC: 711719814528
EAN: 0711719958253
ASIN: B0018BELN2
Release Date: September 23, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Family fun for the holidays November 20, 2008
Like the title of the review, this product would be a definite plus to have around for some holiday fun. In this day and age, families don't interact as much as they used to. Buzz! Quiz TV gives people the opportunity to do just that.
I should note that upon opening the package, you might not be able to toss the game into the PS3 and begin playing right away. 5-10 minutes (may vary) were spent patching the game before its first use. This was a pretty negligible amount of time, though, and hardly unexpected or annoying.
Before going into the game-play aspect, I should note that the remotes for this game are quite comfortable to hold. My experience with other similar games has not always been positive. These are ergonomic and I felt that I could easily reach all of the buttons quickly and without discomfort.
Once the number of players are selected, the first task is picking avatars. Buzz! presented a wide selection of male and female avatars to chose from; something to fit everyone's personality. Along with picking a "look", you may also select a sound effect to go with your avatar. This is used when the avatar chimes in to answer a question. The last part of this process is selecting the clothing - again, numerous options are made available.
Once the avatar is picked, it's onto the game, itself. This involves 5 different formats, all allowing the choice between different categories. These can range from films, to world events; animals to nature (just some examples). With the exception of the first round, typically the person who is behind in points will be the person picking the topic.
The final round is approached in such a way that no matter what the standings were coming into it, everyone still has a chance to win - even people who are far behind the pack. Going into the final round, each player is placed on a pedestal that is set in height according to where the current point standings are. As questions are asked, the person who answers both accurately and the fastest will be raised on their pedestal. Those who were correct but not the fastest will stay in place. Those who answered incorrectly will have their pedestal lowered. Once (if) your pedestal is lowered to the ground, you are out. The last person standing wins. This approach allows for anyone, even the person in last place going into the final round, to win.
While the game is playable for 2-4 people, I think that having 3-4 is more fun - especially when being allowed to take money from someone because they were too slow to answer.
 What all the Buzz is about... November 19, 2008
I have played this game quite a bit in the past few weeks and it is a great friend making and losing game.
When putting the disc in, it does not take too long to load, and you are ready to go in a couple minutes after pressing the red button to surpass the intro and music etc.
You then choose to play alone, with up to three other friends, or online with three strangers. Playing alone is just boring and pointless. It's a perfect party game, and you could pair up in teams to utilize the four buzzers (included, 2 AA batteries needed for each buzzer). But playing online is the only reason to buy this at all.
When playing alone, you enter with an option to choose a category or "all types". What was fun ONCE, was the process of getting to the actual game. You have to deal with a show introduction, fanfare, music, and an unwitting animated host that says the same thing over and over again. This is a problem as there is no way to surpass it online, but you can when alone.
You are given an option to choose from a variety of characters to act as you, which could be anyone from a nerd, cheerleader, superhero etc. You then choose what to wear... then the sound you want your buzzer to make.. and finally we can start the game... after the host babbles the same repetitive patter and rules.
When alone, you are playing "Stop The Clock". You choose one of four categories picked randomly. Then you are presented eight questions in three rounds. You will soon be bored out of your mind.
Playing against a friend helps quite a bit. It distracts from the monotony of repetitive speech and the same intros and music. Once you are playing the game, it's all good. You both pick a character, wardrobe and buzzer sound and you are off.
Playing online is the best way to experience the game. If you only have one friend over, you can still play the maximum of four. You both enter the online section, and wait for the two other slots to fill in. You could a couple others, or none. You have 30 seconds of wait time, but you can refresh by quickly jumping out and back in for another 30 seconds. You have to do this to fill it up most of the time.
My last attempt at playing online was a bit dead. You could wait 1-8 minutes for one person to show up. Three players are typical online. But always best with four.
When playing with friends or online, you are in a gameshow with three segments...
"Stop The Clock"
where the faster you buzz, the more points you will make. The player icons show up and down levels with the amount of points. The loser of each round picks the next category.
"All That Apply"
is next where the answer could be 1-4 answers. If you pick the wrong ones, the total is subtracted from your score.
"High Stakes"
is the final round where you are given a hint of what each question is about, and you vote $50-$500 on the question, and lose that amount if you get it wrong.
When playing online, I noticed that you get the same questions quite frequently. "90's Music" in particular is an option a lot, and it's always the same Foo Fighters and Sheryl Crow questions etc. If another player is breezing through them all with flying colors, then they simply memorized the list. It's only 8 questions each, so it's not too hard. But it's getting to the point where new questions are less frequent. Keep in mind there are supposedly 5000 questions.
One thing I do not appreciate is charging 5.99 to download 500 more questions from different categories. I'm sorry, but if you buy the game, it should not expire. Especially since more questions are obviously needed online. If it were 99 cents a pack, I would not complain. But, still, having to deal with Playstation Store and downloading, entering credit card info etc.. for what? Text that should just be there. It should automatically refresh itself when online with new content.
This game has potential to be a huge community if corrected and presented with less feeling of future financial obligation. The fact that there are only a handful of people playing online, at any given time, is a sign that they should just improve the software and forget about new charges.
The inability to remove or shut the host up is annoying. But you learn to void it out of your head. The game truly is fun, educational and great for the whole family. It may sound like a lot of negatives, but the pros outweigh the cons. Buzz is definitely a must-buy, but if they are going to start charging for add-ons, they need to lower the base price of the bundle (disc, usb stick, 4 buzzers) by at least 50%.
A game to be played with family and friends! November 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
IN THE BOX
For the price listed above you get four wireless buzzers, a usb bluetooth stick and the game (important to note, 8 AA batteries required for the controllers are not included, you may want to be sure to have those so you can play)
SETUP
Even though the PS3 manual indicates all extra controllers have to be setup prior to their use, the Wireless buzzers included do not need to be setup. I simply connected the usb and powered them on and that was it... ready to play.
Once in the game all your controls and menu choices are performed with the buzzers, after you learn the order in which the colors are in the control, playing should be pretty simple.
THE GAME
I had been looking for a while for a game I could play with my family/friends on my PS3, I am more of an adventure-game-player so the games I own are not the type of games you can have multiple players join you.
Well, the game I wanted is finally here!
I understand this is like the seventh game of the series, to me this is the first one I play. Graphics in PS3 using HDMI look very good. The character designs are funny and the animation is ok for a game of this kind.
The game play is pretty straightforward and I highly recommend this to be played on multiplayer mode (single player can be a little bit repetitive) with friends. I found many of the questions to be of average difficulty (not too easy yet not too hard) and in the many times I've played it since I got it I have seen few questions to be repeated. The box states over 5000 questions are included and there are also downloadable packs (users can create their own quizzes too)
The trivias cover several topics (music, movies & tv, brainiac, sports and lifestyle), you can select the one of your choice or play all topics at the same time. Being this a competitive game, it is perfect to play against friends and form teams, however, I would not suggest to play against the wife :D
I've seen some complaints about the animation and dialogue being repetitive but believe me, when you are playing in group and having fun that is the least of your worries. It can also be played online.
The only downside I can think of is that there are no difficulty levels to choose so you have to stick with what is available. Again, the MyBuzz website incluides more trivias and they can be sorted by difficulty so that kind of compensates the lack of difficulty levels in the game.
This is a perfect game to play in groups, it is not complicated at all and a lot of fun to play... great trivia game.
Finally, a fast-paced trivia game for the whole family!!! November 19, 2008
My family has long been a fan of trivia games. We own several incarnations of Trivial Pursuit, not to mention several lesser-known trivia card games and one of the versions of Scene-It. Due to the sometimes mind numbing slowness of some of these games, we long ago abandoned the rules of the original games and made up our own. Buzz! gives us the speed play we wanted and relieves us of the burden of game boards, "pie" pieces, and trivia cards.
Be warned, batteries are not included so you will need to make sure you have enough to install in all the controllers you want to use. After putting the batteries in and slipping the disk into the PS3, I handed over control to my in-laws (60-something retirees) to get the game running. Since my husband and I are both long time video gamers, we wanted to see how well someone without much experience could navigate the system.
Once we told them they had to turn the power on to the buzzers (switch on the side), they took off navigating the various menus. The did get lost a couple of times and had to be shown how to get back to the main menu, but for the most part they were able to navigate with ease.
When we finally started to play the game, we found the different avatars and buzzer sounds hilarious. Some of the host's commentary is tied to the avatars so you can get more variety by choosing different avatars. With our avatars and buzzers sounds chosen, we jumped into game play.
I had no idea how they would do the various rounds and was pleased to find the different ways they had thought of to keep our attention fresh, from getting to throw a pie at another player to playing "hot potato" with a bomb! The controls were very easy to use and the "host" gave good instructions for each round. The questions covered such a wide range of topics that no one felt left out of the loop. The quick pace meant that we were able to play a few games instead of just one, so we had multiple winners.
Since that first night, I have played several times both with groups and by myself. I have only had a couple of question repeats and if we start having too many we can always go online and download more. To me, the downloadable content is one of the great perks of this game. I am sometimes slow to buy games that I am not absolutely sure will give me my money's worth and sixty dollars is a lot to spend on a game. However, when I know that my purchase will be supported by future add-ons, which will mean I do not have shell out ANOTHER sixty dollars for another game so soon, it increases the chances that I will buy that game.
One final note - right now many of us are trying to cut back on expenses and this can actually help. How, might you ask, is spending $60 going to help me save money? Because instead of going out, you can invite friends over for a potluck evening and play a cool trivia game. Everyone has fun, everyone saves money, and everyone is a winner!
The Evolutionary, But Not Revolutionary, Party Game November 18, 2008
One of my largest criticisms of the Playstation 3 is how it lacks being a party machine or a family-friendly one. I recently purchased Pure and was extremely disappointed to see NO offline multiplayer. Sony has seriously capitalized on the growing online market, thinking since World of Warcraft has over ten million members, they should be able to pull off the same. Wrong!
However, as William Shatner once said (again, and again), "There... is... always... hope!" Enter Buzz!: Quiz TV ("Buzz QT").
In an effort to appeal to the party group that the Nintendo Wii has preyed on and dominated in for over two years, the guys over at Renlentless Software divised Buzz QT to market exclusively for the PS3 to reign in sales over the Wii. To this extent, they were successful with me as I also own a Nintendo Wii. I wanted something that would bring the friends together in a setting other than the local bar or bowling alley (that's what Wii Sports is for!).
To a fair extent, Buzz QT brought the friends (and the beer) over to my place to face-off each other in a climactic battle of whits over, what appeared to me, very simple questions. It was pretty much a battle to see who could hit the button the fastest and often differentiated by several hundreds of a second. This goes to show how accurate the devices are. You can't even block the signal by standing in front of your opponents or placing your hands on their controllers (believe me, I tried).
With over 5000 questions, the chance of a repeat question is rare, but has occured over the course of playing over a week. My only request is that the questions be harder so we actually have to sit there and think. Questions like, "Who plays Rachel in Friends," are hardly a challenge... especially since Jennifer Anniston is so hot that anyone can remember that. I guess my other request is that they be so kind as to provide batteries but that's just a prayer on its own.
However, despite the fun my friends and I had playing Buzz QT we got bored of the game after an hour or two and immediately proceeded to kill hoardes of zombies in Left For Dead. This is an apples to oranges argument, but the buzz (so-to-speak) wore off after a few hours and we desired to play a more complex group game.
Then there's the single-player game. I like to compare Buzz QT to Mario Party 8, a great game for groups but fairly dull if individually played. If I want to quiz myself, I'll read on tachyons and quantum physics on that bloody online encyclopedia that's always right. Trivia games are best suited in groups since it adds the element of competition between someone you can sneer at and make Ace Ventura "loser" taunts at. You can't do that to a computer, which is nothing more than a think-fast-beat-your-time thingy. Such a feature does not hold water for very long.
Now, I will admit I have yet to play Scene-It but I have seen it (oy vey, no pun intended) played and while Buzz QT is superior on first impression, it is only an evolutionary step in the right direction and not a revolutionary one. It's superior, but not by an impressive amount.
All in all, Buzz QT is a great party game! The online content thingy would be cool to review if I used the internet feature, which I don't. It's not-so-nice with single player but very worthy if you're having guests over and wish to squash them underneath your boots of superior popular culture wisdom! *evil laughter*
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