Because apparently, unlike the losers who work hard to make my games, I don't go to parties where people sit around and play games. Sorry. I don't. (Usually my idea of a party is the one where at some point a drunken guest decides he has what it takes to join the circus and will demonstrate this set of skills to everyone in attendance. Typically, utilizing a chandelier and booze courage (Actually what really happens is the drunkest guy there finds out I am into games and decides to talk about how much "Madden fucking RULES bro!" at me until he just sort of starts drooling and I walk away, but that's really neither here nor there).). (eds note - you have to be fucking kidding me, double parenthesis... a new low).

But if one were in the situation in which video games were required to move an awkward social situation out of the suburbs of Dullsville and into the actual metropolitan area, look no further than Buzz: Hollywood.

The Buzz series is a line of trivia games straight out of the fun factories of Sony Europe, and the Hollywood edition plays out exactly like a game of Scene It, only this time featuring a genuinely funny, but insanely repetitive game show host Buzz. While the host's jokes are legitimately funny, at first, they become stale by the third game, and you will want to murder him.


"Hi, I'm Buzz, I'll host the shit out of your face. The is until the third game when you will have heard all of my jokes and will wish that I were a real person, featuring real teeth. Because if I were you could smash them in with a tube sock full of quarters."
When it gets down to the important part of any trivia game, the questions, Buzz Hollywood shines. The standard level questions are just the right difficulty so that anyone with a passing knowledge of movies can hold their own, while still remaining hard enough that movie nerds will feel a sense of justification for their knowledge. Those same film buffs will also be glad to know there is a hard mode that is legitimately ass-kicking hard. I would say that I gained a pretty decent knowledge of movie trivia while working at a video store and still managed to receive an old school ass pummeling. Needless to say the harder mode will kick your dick in, no matter how much you think you know about movies. Also there are about a bazillion questions, meaning you won't be seeing repeats.

The buzzer controllers, ("oh hi") make everything far less intimidating to those non-gamers who are sure to be along for the trip, which couples nicely with the easy to understand game show format.

For a "party" game, the real key isn't necessarily being a great game, rather about presenting opportunities for players to have a good time together. This is what Buzz Hollywood is incredibly good at. It took forever, but I eventually rounded up a few friends to sit around and play the game, and we had a blast.

The heated battle for first place that resulted in the sole form of communication between my roommate Andy and I being exchanged middle fingers was perhaps only rivaled by the fact that by the end of the game his girlfriend was almost in tears. Mostly in part due to a combination of my extreme scorn, her inability to make her fingers push the correct colored button with any consistency or speed and her absolute lack of movie knowledge.

God that ruled.

Reviewing Buzz Hollywood is like reviewing a Ford Pinto.


"Sweet Jesus end my life!"

Do you punish the car for being a cheap piece of shit, because that is what is it? Or do you reward the Pinto for being exactly what it set out to be, a champion in the field of cheap piece of shit cars?

Similarly, Buzz Hollywood is a tough call, it's not a particularly good game. The host is fucking annoying, the game is absolutely zero fun if you are not playing with a room full of people and in reality the game itself isn't what is providing the fun, it is the friends you play it with. But then again, Buzz Hollywood is very good at creating opportunities for you to have fun with those people...

I'd say as far as "party" games are concerned, Buzz Hollywood is a winner, because at least it isn't like Mario Party 8 where the game repeatedly asks you and your friends to see who is the fastest at shaking a can of soda, in a motion that conversely reveals to everyone at the party just who is the best at jacking off a dick.

And that shit's awkward as fuck.