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Buzz! makes beeline for North American PS2
Alright, so the connection between Buzz! and bees is no more than a tenuous one meant to serve the purposes of a trite headline, but in our defense, it's entirely possible that Sony's quiz game may ask you a question about bees at some point. This seems especially likely in the one called "Junior Jungle Party" -- what is a garden if not a junior jungle? After selling 18 gazillion copies in Europe (smart people live there!), Sony Computer Entertainment America has finally seen fit to bring the Buzz! franchise to North American PlayStation 2 owners, h@rdc0rez and casual alike, for the holidays. The series emulates a trivia-based game show, complete with creepy host and obnoxious huge-red-button-controller. If we're to believe David Amor, boss of developer Relentless Software, Buzz! is the perfect game to enjoy with those friend things we've heard so much about. "The Americans are ready for Buzz," he declares. "I think it's that time. Buzz! is real immediate social gameplay. It's perfect for inviting a group of friends around, whether they're into games or not." Look for Buzz! The Mega Quiz and Buzz! Junior Jungle Party on store shelves tomorrow. Read -- AnnouncementRead -- America's Ready to Buzz! (Next-Generation)
Buzz! PS3 will have plenty of questions, downloadables
Board games come and go, but there's something about interactive trivia games that are timeless, ageless, and always entertaining with a group of friends. IGN interviewed Buzz! creator David Amor on the new PS3 iteration of the franchise and we're going to outline the entertaining bits below. Relentless Software isn't exactly a technology company, so programming for the PS3 hasn't been as big an obstacle as other devs. They're focused more on the game itself, which they want to make as social as possible. Keep the PS3 in the big family den, you know? The game will be a Blu-ray release, not downloadable. However, like with Singstar, there will be a ton of downloadable content for quiz-enthusiasts. The plan is to have a hefty amount of stuff available from day one of the game's launch. There are currently about 5,000 questions on the disc itself in a multitude of categories. Interestingly, these aren't created solely by Relentless Software. A very large portion of the questions are outsourced to a company called Sleepy Dog, then fact-checked for accuracy. Sony has even approached National Geographic for making their own category of questions. In fact, there could be a lot of companies in the future giving categories for download. Heck, we will probably be able to up our own categories of questions for people to check out, give ratings as to their value, etc. This service will be in the game and will be free, whereas company question packs would get upped on the PS Store for an acceptable price. Online matches sound fun -- person vs. person, team vs. team, et cetera. Nothing ground breaking, but feeling like you're on a quiz show is good enough. There's a lot more discussed, especially the details about creating your own question packs, playable characters, and keeping track of the stuff people could potentially upload (copyrighted images and such are out of the question, for now). The controller for the PS3 Buzz! is the same as the PS2 version, so you quiz experts won't have to adjust to a new steering wheel, so to speak. The game is due out in Spring of 2008.
