Buzz! Quiz TV (PlayStation 3)

BUZZ! QUIZ TV, which comes bundled with four wireless Buzzer controllers, brings Sony's popular game show-style trivia series to the PlayStation 3 for the first time. Much of the next-generation experience will feel familiar to the franchise's fans; the series' muppet-faced, smart mouthed host still has MC duties as he leads us through a variety of recognizable trivia challenges. However, there are also plenty of new features, including some surprisingly robust online functionality and support for the PlayStation Eye camera (it's used to take pictures of you and your friends as you play). And with 5,000 new questions scattered over five broad categories, there's enough new content to keep even die-hard trivia buffs playing for months.

The most exciting new feature in Quiz TV is the ability to make and share your own quizzes with the rest of the world. Players compose questions on their PCs using a form found at www.mybuzzquiz.com, then anyone playing the game on their PlayStation 3 can access it from the game menu. There is some chaff -- poorly written quizzes with occasional factual errors -- but the overall quality of user generated content is quite impressive and spans a wide range of topics, from European football to the Star Wars films to famous advertising slogans. Of course, user content always comes with the potential for abuse, but we have yet to find purposefully offensive material. Plus, players have the ability to report anything they deem inappropriate.

The other big innovation is online play. The Buzz! games are always most entertaining when played against other people, but sometimes there's just no one else in the house with whom a person can play. That's where Quiz TV's simple "sofa vs. sofa" mode comes in. It leads four networked players through several fast paced rounds of questions, and can be a real hoot. Everything else is pretty similar to what players have seen before in Buzz! games for the PlayStation 2, just with the spiffier presentation and cleaner graphics you'd expect of a PlayStation 3 title. But that's still enough to make Buzz! Quiz TV one of the best, most well-rounded quiz games around.

Available on: PlayStation 3
Available online
Genre: Party
Developer: Sony Computer Entertainment
Released on: September 23, 2008
Price: 59.99
ESRB Rating: T for Alcohol Reference, Mild Blood, Mild Suggestive Themes, Mild Violence