Some people
excel at sports. Others are excellent with their hands, allowing them to build
anything from a bird house to
an AT-AT bed (Seriously, who does that?). My talents have always been a bit
less useful than others, as schools don’t necessarily advance you for being good
at Crazy Taxi or spouting obscure movie quotes in lieu of actual
conversation. Discovering Scene It? was a bit of a revelation, as it
allowed me to flex my sponge-like intellect while besting the brains of my
closest friends and leaving their pride in a gelatinous clump on the living room
rug. After two Xbox 360-exclusive entries, Scene It? has finally blasted
its way onto the PS3 with Bright Lights! Big Screen!, bringing with it a
horde of new questions and clips from the latest Hollywood blockbusters. Like
many of these slam-bang action flicks however, this package isn’t without its
share of problems.
Scene It?
is a four-player, round-based movie quiz that uses clips, images, quotes, and
sounds from hundreds of popular (and decidedly unpopular) motion pictures to
craft more than 2,800 questions. There are 23 different round types to encounter
– including anagrams of movie titles, pixilated pictures of celebrities,
animated sketches that reenact popular movie moments, partially erased posters
that fill in over time, and dozens of short, self-contained movie clips – with
most asking you to name the movie, identify the actors, or recall specific plot
events in exchange for points. The answers are always multiple choice, with most
questions hiding the possible solutions until someone buzzes in.
The trivia
action of Scene It? has always been fast and exciting, easily outpacing
the fun found in the original board game. Questions range from the obvious
(“Which actor is currently married to Angelina Jolie?”) to the somewhat obscure
(a 15-question set about the career of Sidney Poitier), though the broad range
of subjects should guarantee that someone in the room has seen or heard of the
flick in question. Keeping this accessibility in mind, the controls remain as
simplistic as ever, with each face button on the Dual Shock controller
representing a possible on-screen answer. The big button controllers included
with the PS3 Buzz! games are thankfully compatible here, and their
game-show feel definitely adds a lot to the vibe of playing Scene It?
with a group.
Unfortunately, this vibe is immediately decimated by the newly-retouched visual
presentation of Bright Lights! Big Screen! The developers have curiously
decided to tone down the game’s personality, replacing the energetic movie
studio back lot sets of previous entries with a blank, single-color screen that
never changes. While the foreground question boxes look fine, the backgrounds
are as appealing as the bottom of my shoe, making the entire experience look
cheap and generic. Also unbearably staid are the avatars that each player is
forced to select, a cast that includes such rousing personalities as “Disco
Girl” and “Swashbuckler.” These characters do nothing but take up screen space
and squeal when you get a question wrong, serving no real purpose in the long
run. Even worse is the newly-implemented Scene It? host, a humorless
on-screen sap that explains each question type without an ounce of wit or
charisma. He can thankfully be disabled from the options menu, though the memory
of his vapidness will never be forgotten.
While the
lackadaisical presentation is disappointing, the complete removal of last year’s
online mode is a far more damaging blow. As fun as Scene It? is, it’s not
always possible to get a group of movie buffs together for multiplayer, and
quizzing yourself feels more like a test than it does a party. There really is
no acceptable explanation for excising the online functionality, especially
since Sony’s internet-enabled Buzz! series has proven to be quite
popular. The game also fails to keep track of which questions it has asked you
before, which leads me to see the same Pink Panther scene in three
back-to- back games. No one should ever have to suffer through a Steve Martin
clip more than once. Another fact that might irk some cinemaphiles is that the
game doesn’t always tell you the correct answer, even if everyone has chosen
incorrectly. All of this reeks of lazy programming, and really brings down the
fun, party atmosphere that the game tries to produce.
It’s hard to
not be disappointed by Scene It? Bright Lights! Big Screen!, even though
the included movie trivia questions work just fine. With no new additions to the
Scene It? formula, the staggering omission of online play and question
tracking, and the fact that your money could go towards the far superior
Buzz! series instead, it’s hard to recommend this package to anyone that
hasn’t already built an AT-AT bed. That dude obviously has some money to burn.
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Gameplay: 7.0
Fans of movie
trivia will love the large variety of question types and broad-spanning topics.
Support for the Buzz! buzzers is welcome, as they are the best way to
play. Unfortunately, the questions repeat way too often, giving more frequent
players an unfair advantage.
Graphics: 4.0
Generic
backgrounds and ugly characters cheapen the overall look of the game. There’s
little to no visual distinction between question types and modes. The movie
clips are DVD quality despite being on a Blu-ray disk
Sound: 5.0
Bland thinking
music, random squealing from the avatars, and an annoying, humorless host round
out a mediocre audio package.
Difficulty: Medium
Movie buffs will
appreciate the challenge of the more specific questions, but casual fans might
occasionally find themselves lost.
Concept: 6.0
The Scene It?
video games have always been a blast to play, especially with others, but this
year’s iteration is a step down in every imaginable way.
Multiplayer: 5.0
Four-player local
multiplayer is fun and nicely customizable, but the lack of online play is
completely unacceptable.
Overall: 5.7
Scene It?
features plenty of movie trivia factoids to keep cinemaphiles happy, but a
dearth of features (no online play?!?) and the availability of other, better
trivia games for PlayStation 3 makes me doubt that this was ever intended for
the big screen to begin with.
