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Buzz! will not introduce XMB trophy system
We've been playing a very complete preview build of the upcoming PSP Buzz! title for quite some time now. Many readers were curious about the potential for XMB Trophies, a la the PS3, due to a curious statement by one of the game's developers at E3. Well, we've unlocked a few "Trophies" and we can confirm they won't upload to the PSN.It's true that the in-game trophies work in the same way as many other PS3 Trophies or Xbox Achievements. You'll have to accomplish certain tasks, such as answering a question correctly in a certain amount of time, in order to receive this unlockable. However, they're not classified as Bronze, Silver and Gold -- and there's no in-game pop-up that indicates when you've unlocked them. Instead, the host, Buzz, verbally congratulates you on your accomplishment.A Sony PR representative also confirmed that the Trophy, er, buzz, was due to a miscommunication. The gold medals you receive in the game are solely for record-keeping purposes, and won't improve your PlayStation Level. Stay tuned for more details about Buzz! in our hands-on preview, and click past the break to see Buzz's "Trophies."
Trophies: BUZZ! Quiz TV
1 Platinum7 Gold11 Silver6 Bronze Difficulty: Very Easy Online Trophies? Yes Time to Completion: 50 hoursDLC Trophies? No View Trophy List Read More About the Game %Gallery-19132%
Conceptualizing the Home space for Buzz!
What would the Home space for Buzz! look like? Well, that's the task Cumron Ashtiani was given to figure out. The designer took more than just the visual look of the popular PlayStation trivia game -- no, he added a great level of interactivity which adds to the game experience. Within the Buzz! Home space, players will be able to take part of trivia games en masse. A question appears on a virtual screen and four choices appear. Players must move their avatars over the correct answer space or experience certain death!Adding different kinds of gameplay to Home certainly looks intriguing. If only it would release to the public at large ... then we'd be able to try out these innoative ideas for ourselves.[Thanks, KUV1977!]
Hands-on: Buzz! Master Quiz
It's a rather difficult challenge to write hands-on impressions for a game like Buzz! Master Quiz. Sitting all lonesome on a table at Sony's E3 booth, it went by unnoticed by many that simply passed it by. Perhaps the lack of enthusiasm comes from this simple fact: Buzz! Master Quiz can be summed up rather succinctly -- a portable version of the popular quiz franchise, Buzz!Progression through the game is rather simple. Simply partake in a variety of themed challenges. Perform well on one, and you'll earn a medal which can help unlock other challenges. Considering the quiz select screen fits on one menu, we're a bit concerned that the amount of content on the disc will be on the light side. With thousands of questions programmed in, we're certain these concerns are unwarranted.Buzz! Master Quiz doesn't need to push the PSP hardware in any way, and that's exactly what we're getting with this simple, easy to look at game. At the very least, the presentation appears to have all the trimmings of its PS2 brethren.%Gallery-15139%
European PC Store update for July 15th
Yeah! It's E3! Time for a special E3 PC Store update! Check out all of these awesome trailers from the Sony Press Conference. Oh wait ... Yeah, it looks like SCEE wasn't informed about E3, but a new episode of Movement is available. That's kind of cool, right? We'd rather have a Resistance Retribution trailer. Here's the full release list:Videos Buzz! Master Quiz Promo Trailer Buzz! TV Ad (Master Quiz) Movement "Munich: Engine Trouble" Movement "Munich: Sausages?" Movement "Munich: Hot in the Park" Movement "In Vain: Wake Me Up" Movement "In Vain: Not Enough" Movement "In Vain: Interview" Movement "Black Diamond: Ride My Pony" Movement "Black Diamond: Can't Take..." Movement "Black Diamond Interview" Movement "Black Diamond: I want You..."
Buzz! fans disappointed in PS3 outing
Ignore the already disheartening news that Buzz! Quiz TV will need a patch in order to activate trophies within the game, despite press releases announcing firmware 2.40 failing to mention it. Buzz! fans are now also up in arms about the evolution (or rather devolution) of one of their favorite franchises. Despite the official trailer showing off "Sofa-vs-Sofa" gameplay, allowing two people on one PS3 to play against another two people online, this feature is not actually available within the game. Playing online is restricted to one-person per console.Not only that, but online play is considered very short and many game modes and customization features are now missing, having been removed since earlier Buzz! titles on the PS3. Also, despite MyBuzzQuiz.com being a potentially awesome method of creating and playing free user-generated DLC, questions from the service are not playable in the main-game and must be used separately. The forums are abuzz (pardon the pun) with criticisms and people are very much looking forward to a response from Relentless.[Thanks Zed]
Deal: Buzz! Quiz TV for 32.98
Buzz! Quiz TV is almost out in Europe and, thanks to the 2.40 firmware update, you now have even more incentive to pick it up. The game supports trophies out of the box, according to the various 2.40 press releases, though we've checked our review copy and there don't seem to be any attached right now. No doubt this will be solved with a patch by the time the game is available this Friday. We've contacted Sony to try and confirm this.If you're after Buzz! Quiz TV and don't quite feel like spending the price of a full game for it, Amazon UK have a pre-order price of £32.98. With the wireless buzzers themselves selling for 30 quid, you'll be picking up the game for less than 3 pounds. Not bad at all. Also, if you're an Amazon Prime member (or if you sign up for their one-month free trial) you can get it delivered to your door on Friday morning for no extra dosh. Bargain!
MyBuzzQuiz.com lets you create DLC for a game that isn't even out yet
We know you're all super excited for Buzz! Quiz TV, right? Right. So no doubt you'll be even more excited about being able to create and view DLC for the game right now. MyBuzzQuiz.com is now open and lets you do just that. These quizzes can then be rated and played on-site, in preparation for Buzz! Quiz TV's European release next week (Americans can expect to get the game sometime this September) when you'll be able to download all this user-created content within the game properly. We love to see new ways for user-created DLC to be incorporated into games and this is one of coolest implementations so far. There are already plenty of quizzes to check out on the site, so go have a look and maybe even have a go at making your own.
Use a Red Bull can as a radio interference shield
I love the iPhone, save for one thing. It sits on my desk every night, right near my computer, and the speakers I've got hooked up to it. And every 15 minutes, when the iPhone checks email for me, I get that buzzing -- the sound of radio interference flying across my speaker wires. And almost every night, I have to jump out of bed angrily just to shut off the speakers and stop the buzzing. Little did I know, all I've ever needed was an empty can of Red Bull.Yes, someone has fashioned a "shield" out of an emptied and carved up Red Bull can, and supposedly it works like a charm -- just fashion it around the dock that came with the iPhone, use a little doublestick tape to make sure it stays on there (and I would maybe put some around the edges, too, so you don't slice your fingers open every time you pull the iPhone off the dock), and no more buzzing sound.The maker does wonder if it would affect the actual signal of the iPhone at all, but it hasn't so far. If you've got a Red Bull can around to cut up and are driven as nuts as I am by that buzzing noise, here's your makeshift solution. The other option is to buy speakers that don't buzz, of course, but this seems a lot cheaper.
Buzz! Quiz TV dated for Europe
Looking forward to some Summer-time quiz gaming on your PS3? You don't have too long to wait as Eurogamer has discovered, via SCEE, that Buzz! Quiz TV will be out in Europe on July 4th. Check out our hands on impressions from Play.com live as well as our huge amount of screenies to whet your appetite. We've enjoyed Buzz! on PS2 in the past, so seeing it come to PS3 along with a load of online bells and whistles so soon has us very excited. As for the US, there's still no word on when it will be released there.
Play a mini-game with these new Buzz! Master Quiz screens
Not too long ago, our Buzz! Master Quiz gallery got a nice update all thanks to Europe's PlayStation Day. This week, we've got eight brand new shots based off the North American version of the game. Can you spot all the spelling differences between the British and American English? We guess you can make this into a mini-game of sorts, "spot the meticulous details," while you wait for this game to come out sometime this Fall. A Summer release for Europe means that gamers over there won't have to keep themselves busy analyzing screenshots for much longer. In the meantime North Americans, keep looking for those extra U's, and S's in place of Z's (Zed). It's going to be awhile.%Gallery-15139%
More Buzz! Quiz TV screens than you can shake a wireless buzzer at
Click for higher resolution How do you fancy a scary number of new Buzz! Quiz TV screenshots? Sure, it's not the most graphically impressive game ever made, but Buzz's jump to HD is certainly nothing to be sniffed at. Take a gander at the shots below for examples of questions, game modes and menu screens. Not to mention the boxart, shown above, as well as a shot of the buzzer pack. We tried this game out at Play.com Live last month and we have to admit, we liked what we saw. Buzz! Quiz TV is due out sometime in Summer in Europe, with an American date not yet mentioned. %Gallery-19132%
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New Buzz! Master Quiz screens straight from PlayStation Day 08
Click for more images Buzz! on PSP hasn't managed to entirely convince us yet. We love playing with the big red button too much! For those of you who are anticipating this release, however, we have some new screenshots as well as the boxart for the game. These screens include more questions for you to swot up on before the game is released, giving you an edge against your mates. A small, rather sad, edge -- but an edge, nonetheless.%Gallery-15139%
Buzz! comes to the PSN with Buzz! Junior Jungle Party this Summer
Buzz! Quiz TV isn't the only game of the franchise heading to the PS3 this year. This Summer a new downloadable title will be made available on the PSN "at pocket money prices." Buzz! Junior Jungle Party will utilise the Buzz! controllers, but with "wacky mini-games of skill and speed" instead of quiz-style gameplay. Obviously this is aimed at the wee nippers and will feature five mini-games from the original PS2 version. Jungle Party is the first of many, with Buzz! Junior: RoboJam and Buzz! Junior: Monster Rumble following at a later date.Check out our gallery below to see what sort of thing you can expect from the game when it arrives this Summer.%Gallery-22316%
Behold, Buzz! Quiz TV
We know that sometimes reading words is hard work. Sometimes you need someone to talk at you. To show you. In walks the above Buzz video. If you've had trouble making it through one of our Buzz! Quiz TV posts (including our recent hands on impressions) in the past then let the game's host, Buzz himself, show you exactly what's what. All the special features that promise to make the PS3 version of the Buzz! franchise so great. Speaking of which, some of those downloadable quizes look great fun -- particularly the video games and sci-fi movie based ones. Is it wrong that we're already putting money aside for this game before it's even released? Oh, and before you ask: Summer. Apparently.
Joystiq hands-on: Buzz! Quiz TV
Similarly to Singstar, the Buzz! series hasn't really hit its mark in the US. In Europe, however, the series is a big hit. With PS3 versions of both franchises heading to America this year, Sony plans on using the internet to expand the feature set into something much more appealing to American tastes.At first glance, Buzz! Quiz TV looks just like any other Buzz game on the PS2, but watching the game on a 40 inch TV really shows off how much of a facelift the game has undergone. Due to the relatively simple nature of the scenes shown on screen, the game's transition to Hi-Def looks great. All the characters have been remodeled for their HD debut and as a result the game is much more pleasing to the eye. Not that it's what Buzz! is really about.Gameplay-wise everything's the same (just like Singstar) with the biggest change being the buzzers; Buzz! Quiz TV will ship with wireless controllers. Other than being wireless, they're no different from the PS2 versions with the big red buzzer on top and four colored buttons below. Classic gameplay modes are still around, such as "Pass The Bomb", and are mixed in with new variations exclusive to the PS3 version. Gallery: Buzz! Quiz TV
Franklin Speaking Spelling Bee takes a page from Mylo, also the whole design
Given how few people have actually ever seen or used a Sony Mylo, we suppose it's possible that Franklin's designers happened upon the look of the Speaking Spelling Bee completely by chance, but somehow we doubt it. Franklin was demoing the lil' guy at Toy Fair this past weekend, and it's actually an interesting little gadget: it hooks up to a TV so up to 6 kids can take each other on in spelling contests, it contains the Merriam-Webster Intermediate Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Rhyming Dictionary, it plays Sudoku and Hangman, and it's expandable via SD. That's actually slightly more useful than the original Mylo, if you think about it -- but if Franklin busts out the Spider-man font for version two, we'll definitely know something's up.[Via Make]
GDC08: Sony donates $5,000 to charity in Buzz! showdown
Sony hosted a pretty awesome Buzz! charity event at the PlayStation lounge last night. Sixteen players from various media outlets (Joystiq included) partook in the competition. The winner would be able to send $5,000 to a charity of their choice, courtesy of Sony.Total PlayStation's Sam Bishop took first place with his serious movie trivia skills and will forward Sony's money over to the SPCA: the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Fun was had by all, even if some of us (sob) lost pretty early on ...
Buzz! announced for North American release
Well, that didn't take long. SCEA has just announced that Buzz! is also coming to America. Previously announced for Europe only, this trivia game promises to do more than bring the successful PS2 trivia game to the handheld. With a new focus on multiplayer, and gaming sharing, the PSP edition of Buzz! should have people ... well, buzzing.Look for it this summer.%Gallery-15139%
Win a Bravia HDTV in Sony's Buzz! contest
So we're pretty sure quite a few of you are anxiously anticipating Buzz! to make its way to the PSP later this year. [Editor's note: Buzz! has NOT been announced for release in the US.] To help you brush up on your quiz show skills, SCEA's PlayStation Blog is holding a contest kicking off at noon PST today through midnight, complete with some great prizes.In all, 10 questions will be presented, and the first person to correctly answer all of them will win a 37" BRAVIA M series HDTV. Prizes will also be given to the second- and third-place winners, receiving a PS2 SingStar bundle and games and PS2 versions of Buzz! Hollywood and SingStar 90's, respectively.The full details of the contest will be posted later today, but all of you budding quiz show contestants better get ready because this may be your one and only chance to win real prizes while playing Buzz!
