GC '07: Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz Hands-On Preview

LEIPZIG, Germany--We're amazed that it's taken Sony so long to release a movie-themed version of its Buzz! quiz series. After packs that concentrated on music, sports, and general knowledge, there's not many subjects left that can offer an abundance of picture- and video-based trivia that will appeal to the general market. The game was on show for the first time at the Games Convention in Leipzig, so we took some time to test our film knowledge against an unsuspecting German demonstrator.

Thrown slightly by the shrieking that was coming out of the nearby SingStar demonstration, we nevertheless enjoyed playing Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz. The movies that were the source of the questions varied between both classic and modern, mainstream and art-house, although there seemed to be an unhealthy obsession for the work of John Travolta.

The game itself features exactly the same format as previous PlayStation 2 Buzz! games, right down to the contestants, presenter, and set design. There are a few film-influenced additions to the contestant lineup, including characters based on Dr. Evil, Aquaman, Elvira (Mistress of the Dark), Marilyn Monroe, and Clint Eastwood. The set of the show is familiar, but it's clearly inspired by the glitz and glamour of the Academy Awards--right down to the host, who's now wearing a tuxedo.

The round styles have been carried over from previous games in the series. Up to eight people can play on one console as long as you have two sets of controllers, but there's also a single-player game for those who lack that many friends or just want to get some practice in. We played through many of our favourite rounds, including Points Builder, where you answer a number of questions based on a picture that appears onscreen. For example, "Which actor is looking at himself in the mirror here?" (Answer: Emilio Estevez.) There were also a couple of new rounds, including the fabulous Rollover: choose a specialist subject such as the films of Ridley Scott, and astound your friends with your knowledge of the British director's work.

Even on the hardest difficulty level, the questions in the preview version of Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz seemed to be pitched at the occasional movie-magazine reader as opposed to that of a film student. As long as you have a good memory of actors, studios, and directors, then you should be able to answer the majority of questions without too much thinking. Having said that, we hope that the questions will be expanded for the final release, because as well as being slightly disturbed by the game's Travolta obsession, we saw the same question about Ridley Scott's first feature film a number of times. Hopefully the developer is busy adding in lots of questions about obscure Russian cinema as we speak.

Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz will undoubtedly go down well with fans of the series, many of whom think that this edition is long overdue. With the recently announced PlayStation 3 release adding new questions in the form of downloads, it will be interesting to see what happens to the PS2 version. We're sure that the developer has a few more ideas up its sleeve, and we'll be sure to bring you updates on this and any other entries in the series as soon as we get them.