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Buzz! Brain Of Oz
With
Buzz! controllers now achieving that status of 'must have' accessory for
the Playstation 2, and half a dozen different Buzz! titles. It's only a
natural progression to release a localised version for each of the major
selling countries. The Australian contingent is Buzz! Brain Of Oz, with
over 4000 new questions aimed to test your patriotic knowledge.
The
game is itself, a quiz show, in which each player uses their specialised
Buzz! controllers to pick and answer questions through various variety
rounds, culminating in one player being crowd the grand master and
smartest person in the lounge room. Like the other Buzz! titles the game
is structured the same. Firstly choosing your playing mode, then
choosing from the range of Preset Avatars, each with their own taunts
and styles, then selecting your own personal buzzer before progressing
through question based rounds. Again, it's in the same style as always
with Point Builder, Pass The Bomb, Fastest Finger, Point Stealer, and
the Final Countdown all making their returns. The stage is this time
however is decked out in Australiana with flags a plenty and the voice
over for the ever smiling quizmaster Buzz (Jason Donavon), now has a
touch more of Aussie colocialism.
The
questions themself have a nice range of diversity, first presumptions
would lead you to believe that they're all centred around Ramsay St, Khe
Sahn, Victoria Bitter, and David Boon, but it's not true, though there
are a good lot of Ramsay St questions in there. Each topic provides a
mixture of Australian and International questions to keep you on your
toes. The TV, Movie, Music, and Sports categories all have a strong
Australian setting and range from classics of the fifties to very modern
day, in one instance displaying a clip for the Floridian band 'The Black
Kids' which only struck Australia about 6 months ago.
As
with all Buzz! games, there is a good serving of humble pie with every
game. I would consider myself somewhat of a 'Expert' in the Motorsport
category, and the temptation of thinking that I have it all over the
Australian Motorsport knowledge is all but too tempting, only to find
that each question is written well enough for my petrol hating
girlfriend to wipe the floor with me at most every question. That is the
enjoyable thing about the Buzz! series, you don't need to be a expert at
everything to win. Each round is setup so that every player, regardless
of knowledge amount, has the same chance as everyone else to lose all
points and climb their way back up to victory.
Graphically & Sound wise there are no complaints, there isn't much that
Relentless Software can do to push the boundaries on a game that is
based on overly cartooned characters with little audio other than
voiceovers, so if you have witnessed Buzz! before, you will know what to
expect.
The
version I played did have a few 'hiccups' in places such as questions
being read that had nothing to do with the question that was written,
which again, had nothing to do with the picture for the question. But
these are so few and far between it doesn't make a difference. This game
is still the one which lights fierce rivalries between housemates and
with everyone believing they are a 'expert' on their homeland, it will
be a soul crushing experience for some. If you don't believe me, get the
game and test your knowledge yourself, you will be surprised. |
