Video Game Review: 'Buzz! Quiz TV'

Dec. 1, 2008— -- "Buzz! Quiz TV" is a great example of a game that takes aim at what it wants to be and hits the bull's-eye.

"Buzz!" was not going for intense, realistic battle like many first-person shooters, or intense, realistic racing like the many driving games out there. It was meant to be an entertaining, challenging, interactive and fun trivia game, and that it is.

The Relentless Software-developed game may come up short on a few smaller points, but overall, it is a game for the whole family, or a group of competitive friends, to enjoy thoroughly.

"Buzz!" comes with four wireless buzzers (batteries not included) that control the action on the screen.

While this may seem more like a gimmick than anything, holding the buzzer and trying desperately to ring in helps the players really feel like they are part of the game.

The buzzers rarely, if ever, lagged behind the action on the screen -- so the fault for any late buzzing should be placed squarely on the buzzee, not the buzzer.

Through the course of the game, players can choose from various pop culture categories and then jump into the first of several trivia-game variations. Whoever eventually totals the most points is the winner. But thanks to the variety of the levels, the scoring system is not nearly as boring as it sounds.

In one of the later levels, for instance, whoever answers a question correctly can steal points from another player to add to his or her own -- a tool that can vastly change the scoring landscape with one quick click of the buzzer. Another level allows the winning player to toss a pie at any competitor he chooses, adding insult to point-injury.

Its ability to create rifts between once-friends aside, "Buzz!" creates an environment of lighthearted competition with the animated show host egging everyone on.

The lively host is an example of what is simultaneously one of the game's greatest strengths and one of its most glaring weaknesses: characters and extremely limited customization.