What do you get when you combine a sarcastic host, saucy hostess, unique buzzers, 5000+ questions, and stir in 4 players to boot? Buzz! The Mega Quiz, of course. Arguably one of the coolest concepts to come to the PlayStation 2 in quite a while, Buzz! offers a very unique and entertaining experience for a relatively low price, and even includes its own hardware.

For the low retail price of USD 39.99, players get Buzz! The Mega Quiz and a universal serial bus hub, which will connect the 4 included buzzers to your console. At some point, presumably, extra buzzers should be available, as the game does state that it supports play for up to 8 players.

Buzz! The Mega Quiz plays like a slew of different game shows throughout the last 2 decades or so. Each player will take control of a highly unique character avatar for the game, and will use their buzzers to elect to answer and choose their answers from the list. The avatars run a wild gamut from cowboys and mimes to fat opera ladies and superheroes. Each avatar also has a few different costumes, giving players lots of options for how to portray their quizzical genius to their fellow players. Gamers also get to choose their buzz in noise, ranging from belches and yodels to bullhorns and quacks.

Depending on whether you are playing alone or with friends determines exactly how Buzz! is experienced. In fact, when you plump for the single player after having played many rounds of the multiplayer mode, you may be surprised at what you find  - it’s that different. Lets start with the basics, which stay the same regardless of game type. Some rounds will require you to press the red “buzz in “ button before answering, while other will only require that you press the colored button that corresponds to your answer.

Upon choosing a game type, you are given the option of choosing a contestant or quick starting and skipping ahead. After making this choice, players get to choose the difficulty of the game (easy, standard, hard) and the length of the game as well (short, standard, long). With these choices made, the game progresses according to whether you chose single or multiplayer.

Multiplayer, which is the stronger game type, thrusts 2-8 players into a competition to gain as many points as they can before the last round of the game. Play generally starts with the Point Picker round, during which each player gets to choose a category to answer multiple questions about. Each category spawns about 3 questions. Categories include general knowledge, animals, bizarre, TV and movies, music, and sports, among others.

The next round is Fastest Finger. In this round, players earn more points for answer before the other contestants. The fastest correct answer earns the most points, with each subsequent answer still offering points, although at only a fraction of what the fastest player received. While speed is a must in this round, accuracy is also a focus, as a wrong answer awards no points.

Next on the docket is Pie Fight, which allows players the opportunity to pie their opponents (or themselves!) for each right answer they get. Speed is still a factor here, as only the fastest correct answer gets to throw a pie. Once the pie thrower is chosen, a target begins a rotation on each contestant’s portrait. The pie is launched when the thrower activates his buzzer. Because of the nature of this method, it is possible to pie yourself, and becomes more likely as contestants are removed from the round, as there are less targets and the targeting reticule moves faster. The each contestant gets a number of lives depending on the number of players, and the surviving player gets a large point payout at the end of the round.

One event in particular that really requires a good amount of explanation is Point Stealer. In this particular round, the fastest correct answer allows the answer contestant to steal points from another player. No points are awarded in this round; instead, points that were awarded in other rounds are merely distributed depending on how people answer. This can ... (continued on next page)