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Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz
Score: 92%
ESRB: Teen
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment America
Developer: Relentless Software
Media: DVD/1
Players: 1 - 8
Genre: Party/ Trivia

Graphics & Sound:
You might have read my review of Buzz! The Mega Quiz back in late October. If you missed out on it, well now there's a new Buzz! game for you to try. This time, they decided to go with a theme for the game, so Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz was born. The Hollywood Quiz is very much like The Mega Quiz game, with some improvements.

The graphics have improved from the previous incarnation. Buzz himself still looks like a reject muppet, but the rest of the characters are more life-like, especially in the new and improved intro movie. I guess Buzz's previous assistant, the still disproportioned Rose, is helping him out. There are still 14 total characters to choose from. Some of them you will recognize from the previous game, but there are also some new additions, like a vampirella and a pirate. They each still have three different costumes for you to choose from. Of course, they also have their amusing "moves" to entertain you.

Just as before, you also get to select your buzzer sound so that you have your own unique way of buzzing in. The same 24 choices are available as before.


Gameplay:
Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz plays the exact same way as Buzz! The Mega Quiz. You can choose from 1 Player, 2 - 4 Players, and 5 - 8 players. 1 Player Buzz consists of 2 rounds. The first is called Time Builder. The quicker you answer correctly, the more time you will get to play the next round. The second round is like The Weakest Link. You answer as many questions as you can, and bank the money to save it. If you miss a question, you lose any money that wasn't banked.

2 - 4 Player is almost exactly as it was before. Now though, instead of Long, Regular, or Short, you have Full, Points, and Quick. Essentially they are same as before, just with new names. There are also some new rounds this time. My previous favorite, Globetrotter, along with some others are gone now. But there are some just as enjoyable replacements. I really liked the Fact or Fiction round. In it, Buzz makes a statement and you have to tell him whether it is true or not. I promise that this is not as easy a task as it sounds. He's very good at lying! 5 - 8 Player is still just like 2 - 4 Player, except you play in 2 sets of 4 players.

The rest of the game options are just exactly like my previous review, so I'm not going to bore you with repeating them. The one really noticeable in the game is the save time. I said before that in a short game, you felt like you were spending half of the time saving. They definitely fixed that problem. Now, it will save in the amount of time that it takes to pan down to the characters. The only way you even notice it save is the little icon that pops up briefly on the screen.


Difficulty:
Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz is a very easy game to play. Rose explains how to play everything before you have to play it. If you want to skip her explanations, simply press the red button. She will hang her head and look very dejected, but the game will move quicker. There are two difficulty levels available, Standard and Film Fanatic. Overall, I found the questions to be slightly difficult in both categories, but maybe I just don't know movie trivia that well. I was very impressed with the range of movies and topics they covered. There were questions ranging from the really old to the just released.

The one thing I really would have liked added is a pause button. I know that it's not always fair if you can pause a trivia game to look up answers, but since this isn't an online game, everyone is in the same room with you and would know if that's why you were pausing it.


Game Mechanics:
Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz is still played by using the buzzers. Honestly, I can't think of any way to make playing the game any easier. The buzzers are very responsive and basically idiot proof. I mean how much easier can you get than pressing the color button that matches the color of the response you want to make? The only thing I found that I didn't like about them was the cable is a little short. But the buzzers work fine when you use a USB extender to give you more room to move. I didn't notice any lag in response when I added the extender.

The buzzers are also quite durable. I'm still using the ones that I got with the first game back in October. They've been thrown around and even shut in a recliner. There's quite a bit of scratches and a little plastic missing from one, but they still work perfectly. Quite impressive if you ask me.

When I reviewed the first Buzz game, I said it was a great party game. That definitely hasn't changed. If you've got a group of people, especially trivia or movie fans, chances are they're really going to enjoy this game. The 1 Player mode was improved some too. It's still not the world's greatest game to play alone, but it's even better than it was before. Seriously, you can win a death laser if you win the game. Combine that with Buzz's hilarious movie references and if nothing else, you'll have fun just laughing. This is a game that's as much fun to watch a group as it is to play, so definitely go check it out!


-Cyn, GameVortex Communications
AKA Sara Earl

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