One of my biggest gripes when reviewing the sublime Buzz! Quiz TV for the PS3 was it's utter refusal to cater to the single player crowd.  Sure you could always hop online and make a friend, but if really wanted to fly solo you were stuck with a quick round of questions without any of the bells and whistles the series has become known for.  Clearly, Quiz TV was intended to be a party game experience.

But what about Master Quiz?  Surely taking the Buzz experience on the road would force the series to take a step in the single player direction, wouldn't it?

I'm pleased as punch to say that Relentless Studios decided to embrace the intimate nature of handheld gaming and focus quite heavily on the single player experience this time around.  While a worthwhile pocket version of the series multiplayer exists on the UMD, the real appeal Master Quiz for lonely trivia nerds such as myself is the shift to solo gameplay.  So how did they accomplish this feat that was so lacking in Quiz TV?

The single player game exists in a series of "challenges" that the player completes one after another.  Each challenge is essentially a mini-game or theme not unlike those found in the multiplayer of its predecessors, but tweaked for the single player experience.  Some of these challenges may simply be themed quizzes, such as "Answer 15 Music Questions."  Others such as Snapshot have you uncovering pieces of a photo every time you answer a question correctly with bonus points attached to a question about the photo.  Top Rank has you putting things in a particular order -- put these Tom Cruise films in alphabetical order, that sort of thing.  There are 15 challenges in all, though it should be noted that some of them have a repeating gimmick (you'll play three different Snapshot challenges, for example).

Once you've completed a challenge, you'll recieve an olympic style bronze, silver, or gold rank.  Going back to increase your rank is one motivation for a replay.  The seemingly endless supply of questions is another.  But the biggest for completion-monkies?  Master Quiz is the first PSP game that I'm aware of to offer trophies.  That's right, trophies.

For the time being Sony is towing the line that no word has been given about the PSP recieving a trophy system like the one that recently debuted on the PS3, so the following sentences are purely speculation on my part: I'd be fucking floored if Sony didn't unveil a trophy system that will work in conjunction with the existing PS3 one.  It's something everybody loves.  It would help push more PSP's out the door.  The same PSN ID is used for both systems.  It's just good sense.  Their inclusion in Buzz only seems like a clear indicator of the direction this is going.  End speculation.

Regardless of what the future might hold for the PSP and trophies, unlocking them in single player play in Master Quiz is every bit as addictive as trophy-whoring in other games.  Answer 10 questions in a row?  Trophy.  Answer a question correctly in less than half a second?  Trophy.  Get 5000 points on a quiz?  Trophy.  Like crack cocaine, the trophy game is a hard one to give up.  Buzz nails it with challenges that anyone can conquer if they try hard enough.  It's exactly the type of trophy layout that will keep you playing to 100%

While they nailed the single player, that doesn't mean that Master Quiz is lacking in the party game department.  They've come up with some pretty fun options for single cart play on a single PSP.  For the most part you'll be looking at the same types of games you've been playing in the single player, but often with a cool twist.  "Picture This", which in the single player has you look at a part of a picture and try to answer a question, let's you select the part of the picture the next player will see.  Some new games appear as well, like the one pictured above that banks the points from the losing questions and cashes them out on the winning ones.  Passing your PSP around the room on a slow work day is going to be a hell of a lot of fun for everybody involved.  Pass around play for up to six people only sweetens the deal.

A few other modes exist for more than one player, though most of them are a bit of a bust.  Quiz host allows you to play with others while you hold the PSP, reading the questions and doling out points manually.  It's a neat idea, but also kind of needless.  Game sharing is also available for up to four players, but it's a stripped down version of the game offering only "fastest finger" for up to four players.  It's strange that neither WiFi nor local multiplayer exists for this title.  In their effort to develop a solid single player version of Buzz, it seems as though they tossed a terrific feature to the side for some reason.  Had the Pass Around multiplayer not been so well developed, I could understand why they wouldn't bother.  But with a solid multiplayer right on the cart?  Hooking us up to the network just makes sense. It would have also been a nice addition to make the questions on MyBuzz or the recently released Quiz TV quiz packs available to help expand the experience, but again, with no WiFi I guess it just wasn't an option.

Still, despite a few small gripes about online capabilities, Buzz! Master Quiz offers a solid trivia experience that can you pop in your pocket.  I'd even go so far as to say it's the best portable trivia game on the market to date.  At the budget entry price of $19.99 any trivia lover would be daft to leave this sitting on store shelves.

Comments (0)

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Add Comment