Buzz! The Ultimate Music Quiz for PlayStation 3 reviewed by Joe Bennett. Game supplied for review by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

After having spent a number of hours with Buzz! The Ultimate Music Quiz I’m left with the feeling that whoever came up with the title needs to look up the meaning of the word ultimate.

An “Ultimate Music Quiz” to me means thousands of licensed tracks, licensed music videos, innovative and fun quiz rounds and, most important of all, all the presentation and razzmatazz that you would expect from an ultimate quiz based on the music industry. What I wouldn’t expect are unlicensed tracks played on a Casio keyboard, samey quiz rounds that have been used before time and again, lacklustre presentation and it being less fun than a real pub quiz. Mediocre Music Quiz doesn’t really have the same ring to it though I suppose.

Devil in the details (Placebo)
We obviously can’t just leave it there as, as they say, the devil is in the detail. The music, possibly the second most important thing to any music quiz (second only to the strength and variety of the questions) is akin to the midi ring-tones you used to get back in the nineties. I’ve participated in music quizzes before, I’ve even hosted music quizzes before, and I know what it’s like to hear a tune but not be able to remember the name of the song or the artist. I also vividly remember shouting (or having it shouted at me) “Of course it is, it was on the tip of my tongue” when the answer was given.

So why in Buzz then, after hearing thirty seconds of a song and having looked at the four available answers in complete bewilderment only for the correct answer to be one of my favourite songs ever (Smells Like Teen Spirit), did I respond with “it bloody well isn’t”? I’ve had that question once more since and immediately put on the CD afterwards, and it only has a passing resemblance to the actual track.

Aside from the quality of music there are other issues. The two previous PS3 Buzz! games in the series were very enjoyable in multiplayer. However Buzz! The Ultimate Music Quiz doesn’t even come close to those, despite changing very little. I tried with a total of seven different players (2x two player games and 1x four player) and no one enjoyed it. Not even the long-term Buzz! fans. Mainly it came down to the awful music (there are some licensed tracks but so few are they in numbers that we managed to go through a whole quiz without hearing one), but there were other issues.

For Example (KRS-One)
For example not being able to hear some of the tracks is a major hindrance to all involved. I regularly had to turn the TV up just to be able to hear a track, only for Buzz (again voiced by Jason Donovan) to deafen us as soon as it was his turn to speak again. Another was the final round yet again making the previous rounds almost pointless. This has been an issue for some with previous Buzz! games, and for those it annoys they will be saddened to hear that it hasn’t changed.

In one game an opponent had opened up a 2400 point lead over his nearest rival, yet got the first two questions wrong in the final round and was suddenly overtaken. It may make the game less predictable in terms of who might win, but it does make you wonder why you’ve struggled through twenty minutes of questions only to be undone because you got a couple of the early questions wrong in the final round.

Going online was even more problematic. I managed to have a couple of semi-decent games against reasonable opponents, but then I encountered a cheater. No it wasn’t somebody tapping away on Google trying to find out the answers, but instead this sad waste of human life had realised that you can win the game by turning on your microphone and having your child shout into it as you play. I could even occasionally hear him telling his kid to shout louder down the mic. Once he inevitably won the game he even had the gall to tell me how much he’d enjoyed beating me by shouting expletives down the mic at me at the end of the game.

Okay, so you can encounter idiots when playing any game online, you’ve only got to stick FIFA on to test that theory, but when the developers don’t provide you with any way of turning off the voice comms in the game, or even asking you whether you want to communicate with other players, it’s a massive and game breaking oversight.

I like to Move it (Reel 2 Real)
Where Buzz! The Ultimate Music Quiz could have gained some ground on its predecessors is with the additional Move mini-games. Unfortunately these are badly implemented and have that added on at the last moment feel to them. Having to pass the controllers around and wait for others to have their turn doesn’t feel in tune with what Buzz! is about, and the four mini-games are so uninspiring that it’s unlikely that people will even want the controller back to have another go.

I can’t see why anyone thought that hitting the correct answer with a hammer was going to add anything to the game that pressing the correct coloured button wouldn’t. Or pulling a bar with the correct answer attached. Or indeed shooting the correct answer. All of this innovative question answering had me posing my own question; Why?

To shake things up further, the final mini-game involves you popping the balloons with the incorrect answers on them, leaving the balloon with the correct answer. However the intro video shows how fiddly this can be, and when we tried it wasn’t uncommon for Buzz! The Ultimate Music Quiz to misinterpret our actions and pop the wrong balloon.

Ultimate (Lindsay Lohen)
So then, now that we’ve come to the conclusion that this is far from the “Ultimate Music Quiz” it claims to be (I would actually argue that the original PS2 Buzz! Music Quiz was more enjoyable), is there any redeeming features left unmentioned that should make you consider purchasing it? Not really, no. One saving grace is that any of the quiz packs available on the PSN store can be purchased and added to the game. The single player game has been improved slightly with the two modes available but is again hampered by the music. The online modes when played with friends can be fun but again are hampered by the music.

I understand that not all of the music could be licensed, but we’ve heard far better unlicensed renditions in previous music-based games before and the quality here is frankly unacceptable. Pick up Buzz! Quiz TV instead, grab a couple of the downloadable quiz packs to keep it fresh and enjoy Buzz! at its very best.

Buzz! The Ultimate Music Quiz is available for PlayStation 3 from Amazon.