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| Source // PlayStation |
Who doesn't love a good quiz? Me. It's got to be a good quiz, mind you. None of this Mensa application rubbish, or intellectual nonsense that only strokes the quiz-masters ego, no. I like my quizzes to be sensible for the most part, and humourous for the rest.
Your first question then: What is Buzz!: Quiz TV?
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| Source // PlayStation |
Frustrations
Quiz TV is the seventh game in the Buzz! series, the first six of which were released on the PlayStation 2, all of which I paid zero attention to. This time out, it's for the PlayStation 3, and the buzz controllers are wireless. Wait, what buzz controllers?
Silly peripherals were all the rage back in the day, and Buzz! wasn't happy with players using a normal PlayStation controller to select answers, oh no. Why make players use that ridiculous shaped thing when they could instead be holding a giant red buzzer?
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| Source // PlayStation |
I've had a half-hearted look for picking up a copy of Quiz TV with at least a couple of Buzz! controllers, but as a cheapskate, the justification for the prices I've been able to find hasn't been worth it, for what is essentially a quiz on a PS3.
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| Source // PlayStation |
That's all I'm missing out on. Outdated questions presented to me via a goofy looking host which I answer using a goofy looking controller for that authentic quiz show feel. It probably helps if I had some competition from friends and family to complete the picture, but 2020 and a lack of a Buzz! have seen to that.
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| Source // PlayStation |
When I'm not able to play a game first hand, I hunt down another way to play it. When I can't play something at all, I'll try to watch it in action somewhere. Videos of Quiz TV exist, of course they do. Do they hold my attention long enough to watch until they're finished? Not a chance. This game is duller than my bathroom sink is.
Or was. I actually cleaned it today. Practically sparkles now. Not only did I spend more time cleaning my sink than I spent watching Quiz TV, I had more fun, too.
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| Source // PlayStation |
That's not to say Buzz!: Quiz TV is terrible, it's not. In the right environment, with the right players, this is your evening's entertainment sorted. With this release and an accompanying website, you can make your own content and quiz your family with questions they may actually have a chance of knowing. That's nice, should you want to put the effort in, I guess.
But in 2020, we've got better ways of doing quizzes. Well, perhaps not better, but more practical, given the state of the world. I don't need a PS3 game and silly controllers to take part in a quiz. I just browse the Internet for one, be it a live pub quiz, a video, a podcast... Times have changed.
Final Word
I'm sure Buzz!: Quiz TV is an adequate game. It was probably the only quiz solution you had available on the PS3, and running a family quiz through a TV was probably pretty cool for a few people. But we've moved on.
Other quiz games use peoples phones instead of silly controllers, via services with updated lists of questions, capable of more player interaction and a higher player count. I've enjoyed some of these quizzes on the PS4, but they're not really comparable to Buzz!
It's hard to judge whether it's a game worth playing, especially when you haven't played it. There probably is a silly sense of satisfaction at bashing a buzzer faster than whoever else has managed to squeeze onto the sofa, but it's a hard sell, surely. Do Buzz! players need to play the game religiously to get their moneys-worth?
I feel I'm being too harsh on it without reason. Quizzes are cool, even the difficult ones sometimes, and Buzz! was probably cool too, so long as someone else bought it and you only played on special occasions. Nope, bit harsh again...
I don't know what to say to this one. I doubt I'll play it, or any version of it, for a long time, if ever, but I have played other quiz games, and have enjoyed other quiz games, and probably will enjoy some future quiz games. It's not necessarily that they do it better than Buzz!, it's that they're quizzes, and we all like quizzes.
Don't we?
Fun Facts
Multiple modes of quizzing will see players hurl pies at each other, or play pass the parcel with a bomb. Something you can't really do in a pub quiz, sure, I'll give it that...
Buzz!: Quiz TV, developed by Relentless Software, first released in 2008.
Version watched: PlayStation 3, 2008 (Caleb Carlson)