When reviewing Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz for the Playstation 2, it was damned near impossible not to continuously compare it to the other major quiz show type game of the year, Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action on the Xbox 360. Surprisingly, however, Buzz! seems to do many of the things that Scene It? could not.

Taking this into consideration, is Buzz! worth a play or a pass? Hit the jump for the rest of my review!

Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz is Relentless Software’s fifth installment in the series of Buzz! games, this time focusing exclusively on movies. The package comes with four buzzers, needed to play the game, which are attached to one central HUB that can be easily inserted into one of the PS2’s USB ports. The design of these controllers is basic; each features a big buzzer button complete with four smaller rectangular shaped buttons used to answer each question. However, each of the four buttons is not as defined as I had liked; it was difficult to answer each question without having to look down at the controller and search for the corresponding color. The ingenuitive design of the HUB makes up for this, as it removes the need for a multitap while allowing up to 8 players to compete if an extra HUB is purchased.

One of the major things that I really liked about Buzz! was the gameplay variety. During a normal game of Buzz!, you’ll encounter several different types of questions including “Fastest Finger” (in which the faster the player answers, the more points he gets), “Fact or Fiction” (in which the player must guess as to whether the information is true fact or fiction) and my favorite, the aptly named “Point Stealer” (in which all the players end up giving all their points to me). While the number of different styles of questions may be lacking in respect to Scene It?, each type of question has a certain air of simplicity and witty charm to it — something that Scene It? was definitely lacking. The final round, entitled “The Final Countdown” is particularly clever. Players begin with an amount of time, relating to the amount of points that they amassed during the regular game, and then, a la American Gladiators, must answer questions in order to stay in the game as the time steadily decreases. This type of system, unlike Scene It?’s full dependence on points as the ultimate score, allows for players to have a full sense of accomplishment when they conquer other players. It is unique and challenges the very principles that games were first built upon.

The actual questions in Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz all revolve around movies, actors and Hollywood in general. They range from easy (eg. “Which famed rocker played The Goblin King in the cult-hit, Labyrinth?”) to very difficult (eg. “Put these obscure 1950s Oscar-winning movies in order of how many awards they won”). Regardless of the difficulty of the questions, nearly all of them are neat tidbits of film trivia that are designed to make the player think. Many of the questions involve actual movie clips and are quite enjoyable to watch and analyze.

While the graphics of the game may not be up to par with other consoles of this current generation, they fulfill their purpose as being quirky and humorous introductions to film clips and questions. One hilarious observation that I made was that Rose, Buzz’s animated Vanna White who describes the rules of each round to the players, gets very pissed off when a player skips through the rules and goes straight into the game. She sometimes even utters expletives under her breath! Well, no, not really. She does stand there, arms crossed, looking very annoyed as Buzz mocks her.

All in all, Buzz! The Hollywood Quiz for the Playstation 2 is a very good party or family game. The different categories are diverse, the questions are challenging and interesting and the quirky sense of humor is enough to make any member of the family burst out laughing.