Buzz! The Mega Quiz [Bundle] [PS2]

This mix of straight-up word questions and photos is interwoven through most of the questions. You'll need to look at two photos of athletes and decide who was the youngest in his or her debut, identify tunes as they play on your TV and answer word problems.

Even when you get a written question, it's rare to see the game just toss up questions without some sort of gimmick. In fact, eight separate rounds keep things interesting by changing the rules and objectives. Point Picker has contestants picking the next category of questions off a large wheel, Pie Fight! lets the person with the correct answer hurl a pie in an attempt to knock his or her opponent out of the round, and a person who answers a question correct in Globetrotter gets to pick the next country questions will originate from. Don't like one of the mini-quizzes? You can choose to start a custom game and eliminate the bothersome round from the start.

There's even an instrumental cover of Europe's classic "Final Countdown" when Buzz introduces the Final Countdown round.

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And that's just scratching the surface of what's on this disc. Beyond the multiplayer game show -- and the various difficulties -- you and some friends can go at it in Team Play (a mode that has you passing the buzzers amongst teammates), Quickfire Quiz (choose the number of questions you want from a list of 10 to 100 and see who has the fastest fingers) and Quizmaster (one person vocally asks their own questions, the players buzz in, and the Quizmaster uses a PS2 controller to tell people if they're right or wrong). Got no friends? The single-player mode tracks your high scores so that you can monitor your progress while weeping in your friend-less depression.

Yay! Buzz is fun, entertaining and challenging at points -- but I bet you want to know where the wheels fall off, right? In reality, they don't. Buzz is a solid title and is only held back by the aging PS2.

Buzz is going for a simple, colorful style, and that comes across well, but even that is a bit taxing on the hardware. Things that are supposed to look stylized instead look bland -- such as when the players standing at their buzzers -- and lots of jaggies crop up.

Next up is the lack of any online support. With Buzz!: Quiz TV getting ready to release on the PS3 across the pond, the idea of facing off in an online quiz show showdown and downloading questions isn't so far fetched for the States. No matter how much you dig Buzz! The Mega Quiz, eventually you're going to start running into the same questions, have your friends move on to another title or get sick of the single-player option.

The load times between rounds aren't severe but noticeable, the animations for players right and wrong answers get tired quickly, and the controllers will become a crazed Medusa-like pain in the ass after you store them for the first time and they get tangled up.

Closing Comments
All that said, I wholeheartedly recommend Buzz! The Mega Quiz. It's easy to get into, there are enough topics so that everyone can have a chance, you can customize what rounds come up, and you get your own buzzer. That's awesome, and the whole package is just $40. If you have a bunch of trivia junkies in your crew, this one's a winner.

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