The Big Button

Everyone wants a piece of the casual game pie and Microsoft has decided to bring in the big guns to help take their piece. They have gone out and licensed the highly popular DVD party board game, Scene it? The title made its big reveal at E3 this past year during the Microsoft press conference and it turned quite a few heads. Was Microsoft really going to bring us a game that has been out for the last five or so years in a perfectly acceptable board game format? Would the game bring anything new to the table? And, really, what was up with the Buzz controllers?

The answers to the above questions are yes, yes and damned if I know. Yes, Microsoft has brought you a game you probably have stored under your bed or in an overhead storage compartment collecting dust. Fortunately, there have been enough changes that make the XBOX 360 version of Scene it? a perfectly acceptable double dip. The first big change is the introduction of the Big Button Pad. While the Big Button Pad may have one of the worst controller names ever in gaming history, it does its job exceptionally well. In what most likely was a cost cutting move, the Big Button Pad uses infrared technology instead of the Microsoft wireless tech. No worries, though, since the IR dongle connects through the USB port and is a good 10 feet or so in length, the control pad then has, give or take, 15 feet of maneuvering room. As long as there is a line of sight to the dongle there should be no problems answering the questions.

Could You Phrase That in the Form of A...

Answering questions is pretty much all that happens in Scene it? and the XBOX 360 version boasts with over 1800 questions to be played over two primary modes of play, short play and long play. The short play consists of two rounds of three puzzle types, while the long play consists of two rounds of five puzzle types. The puzzle types are quite varied, ranging from Anagrams to Visual Puzzlers with all sorts of puzzles in between. Certain puzzle types will require all players to select an answer while others will require you to buzz in, by pressing the Big Button. The addition of the buzzer adds a game show feeling to everything and it is a different feeling from playing it as a board game. All puzzle types are scored based on the amount of time it takes you to answer the question, and it is all a giant build-up to the last round of play, known as the Final Cut.

The Final Cut round consists of four consecutive questions, each valued at 2000 points. However, getting the answer correct earns you a progressively larger point multipliers meaning that someone could have been quite far back in the scoring card, but if they ace the Final Cut while other players flub it then they could pull away with a victory. During my play-through I experienced the bitter agony of defeat twice at the hands of the final cut round of play. The multiplier is a great way to keep everyone interested in the game all the way up to the final question.