Sony’s plan to draw the casual gamer to their console is about to take another twist soon with the release of Buzz! Quiz TV. Asking users to create content for their games is a clever idea and one that not only sets Buzz apart from other quiz games out there, but also considerably lengthens the experience enjoyed by the user.

Straight from the beginning of Quiz TV you are met with fantastic HD presentation, which from the off, gives you a very good impression of what you are about to play. The menus line up on the left hand side of the screen, giving you the option of playing alone, with friends at home or online. There is also some rather snazzy quiz music which accompanies the menu, just to get you in a quizzical mood.

Before starting the game, you are given the option of choosing you character, clothing and then naming them. Finally you are then asked to choose a buzzer noise, which range from animal noises to all sorts of things such as trains, bells and clowns. The best thing about this part of the game in my opinion is that each character has their own personality and will act differently depending on whether they answer right or wrong, it isn’t a big deal really but at least it shows you that thought has went into not making the characters all clones of each other.

The single player campaign it has to be said, is a bit of a disappointment, playing through the game by yourself offers no reward whatsoever, once you complete the quiz the only sense of satisfaction you are left with is that you got the questions right, however apart from that, nothing. Things improve 100% once you have friends next to you, this is where this game really comes into it’s own, unlike in the single player game, when more than one person is playing you are suddenly met with a good variety of round types such as fastest finger, pass the bomb, high stakes and pie fight, with the climax being the final countdown, were points are swapped for time and the loser ends up in the basement. The multiplayer is certainly good fun as answering the questions and getting them right suddenly means something, after all you have the incentive of winning the quiz against friends, which is at least rewarding.

While the local multiplayer is probably the most fun, there is still something to be said about playing against strangers or friends online. Unfortunately not all of the rounds from the offline mode make it on here though, but there is a decent enough variety to still make it worthwhile. The biggest drawback here is that you don’t seem to be able to have a friend join in with you at home, so should you venture online you will need to do so by yourself, which is a bit of a shame really.

The best and main addition to Quiz TV on the PS3 is the ability to create your own questions and then use them in the game. Even though the game already has an impressive database of 5000 questions, allowing users to create their own lengthens the games appeal a lot. Creating a quiz is a simple process, all you need to do is visit mybuzzquiz.com, log in to your PSN account and then get creating. Within the game there is news channel which allows you to see the most popular quizzes, the most recently added and also how many times your own quizzes has been played and what rating they have. Already user generated quizzes seem to span all sorts of subjects from formula one and music to questions relating to the history of gaming and more specifically the Playstation.

Choosing users generated questions is simple, before you start a game you are given the choice of what subjects you would like to cover and from here you simply select user generated questions, within this option you can even choose specific question sets or just press start and be given four random ones. Once you complete a set of questions you are then able to rate them for quality.

As far as presentation goes you will certainly not be disappointed, everything has been given a nice high definition upgrade and a lot of work has went into making this game look like any quiz you would watch on TV. Buzz is his usual cheeky self and is expertly voiced by Jason Donovan. You couldn’t really ask for more in the presentation department, it’s pretty much as good as you hoped it would be.

Buzz! Quiz TV is certainly a game which will appeal to the same audience as Singstar and in the future Little Big Planet. If user generated content is the way games are going then this is certainly a step in the right direction. If you are not a big fan of casual games then you will probably want to steer clear of this, but for people who enjoy a social gathering at home now and again, this is probably as good as it gets.

Overall Rating: 8.1/10