Buzz! The Sports Quiz review

As attention falls firmly onto the next-generation of machines with the Xbox 360 clocking up a year of service, the Wii’s arriving on the scene last week and the PS3 expected in Europe within the next four months – it’s easy to forget what a wonderful contest between the last generation of machines has actually been.

Of course, although the PS2 was the clear winner, as expected, the Xbox, after a slow fight put up an admirable fight in a contest it was always playing catch up.

Indeed, something that helped the PS2 enormously was Sony’s pursuit of the middle ground, to get the casual gamers and the family around the console – to conquer the mass market. While Xbox flaunted it’s significant assets to the hardcore gamer.

Round One

The Party Game concept in particular was key to Sony’s master plan, and joining ideas such as Eyetoy, Singstar and Guitar Hero was Buzz.

And now, the calls of just about every sport-loving Buzz fan have been answered with the sport edition of the popular quiz game.

For any of you new to the Buzz concept, it’s essentially a quiz game where you get to pick a character and compete against others in a variety of rounds. You can play it in single mode – but it’s the multi-player option that makes it such a sound proposition.

Buzz Sport still features the best rounds from the previous games, like Pass the Bomb and Point Stealer (the two rounds that quickly turn someone, usually your dad, into public enemy number one).

Guestimate

Yet this latest edition, released in time to make a big impact at Christmas sees the basic idea of the game expanded on with all-new rounds.

The Estimation round sees players trying to get as close as possible to the correct figure by hitting their button to stop their slider on a gauge at the bottom of the screen, but watch out, if you’ve got a reputation of being good, you’ll soon find that some of your less brighter rivals may just copy your answer.

Then there’s the Spin round, which requires each player to pick a category from a spinning wheel for everyone to answer. Another round is Finish Line which finds all the players and their characters on a treadmill, the object of which, is to reach the end by answering questions the quickest, with a wrong answer moving you back.

All Around the World

There’s also the Round the World round that sees players travelling from country to country as they answer questions correctly, the quickest around the world wins.

With the presence of these new ideas Buzz Sport does feel more involved than the previous versions and it further strengthens the competitive nature.

As you would expect Buzz features questions on all of the main sports such as football, rugby, cricket, motorsport, golf , and tennis, while also featuring a plethora of other less mainstream sports like basketball, baseball and horse racing among many others.

Blagger's Guide

The questions are pitched well as for example, you may be presented with a picture of a Sumo wrestler, say, and rather than necessitate the player to be an expert on the sport, Buzz will give multiple-choice answers to a question like how much does Yakki Suka (made up name) weigh?

This adds variety and means you don’t have to necessarily be a sports know-it-all, so the theory is that all the family can still gather round to enjoy the Buzz experience.

That’s not to say non-sports fans will be able to blag their way to victory – they won’t (unless they have the luck of the devil) as it really helps to have if not a well-rounded sports knowledge, then certainly an expertise in a particular sport.

Expose the Numpty

Buzz Sport makes some great use of video in many of the questions with the FMV being much better quality than previous Buzz incarnations, whilst keeping players on their toes by not asking the seemingly obvious question.

Indeed, if you’ve got one of those uncles who always seems to say slightly the wrong thing regarding football or sport in general despite claiming to be a proper fan of said sport, or if you’ve got an annoying Chelsea-supporting friend who’s been interested in football for all of 3 years - then here’s the perfect way to confirm your suspicions that their knowledge is not as good as they would have you believe. The Sport edition of Buzz really will sort the man from the boys.

Not so entertaining whilst playing on you own, Buzz is specifically designed for multi-player action, and is definitely a fun example of Sony’s grand vision of family, mainstream gaming.