[Gamers' Day 2007] In the Jungle, the Mini-Game Jungle...
Sony's second Buzz title is aimed at a younger crowd, but that doesn't mean we didn't enjoy our hands-on time with it.
Published: May 17, 2007
If Buzz: The Mega Quiz is meant for the slightly older crowd, and Buzz Junior: Jungle Party is aimed at kids, it wasn't terribly obvious by the kind of fun the folks at the Gamers' Day pre-event cocktail party were having. Essentially foregoing brain power for reflexes, both of the Buzz games seem almost custom-made for frat party drinking games, but in all honesty they seem to work for nearly all ages -- even if the tone and feel of Jungle Party is obviously skewed younger crowd.
We jumped in and gave the game a run through it's paces, and by the time we had, nearly everyone at the event was nice and limber thanks to a combination of karaoke singing over at the SingStar PS3 kiosk and a healthy dose of liquid courage. Though we had the hand off the controller rather quickly, we did get a chance to give the red light-up buzzer at the top of the same USB-powered four-player controllers that ship with the quiz version of Buzz in a couple of rapid press events.
The core of the game revolves around decking out your little monkey avatar with shades, clothes and hats, and then diving into either 10 single-player games with AI opponents or 25 multiplayer offerings. Obviously the game is meant to be a social experience, so it wasn't entirely surprising to see it has more goodies for when you have other humans chilling on the couch with you.
After climbing ropes, skydiving, shoving our heads into lion's mouths, having a quick draw contest, striking with some soccer goal kicks and playing a basic variant of whack-a-mole, we were surprisingly into things, though in the spirit of drunken brotherhood, we let others jump in and check things out. It was downright surprising to see just how accessible and simple the games are, but then that's the core of any party game and, dare we say, one of those slow burn additions that you end up rounding up your friends for. Hopefully we'll have a proper preview build of the game in soon.
We jumped in and gave the game a run through it's paces, and by the time we had, nearly everyone at the event was nice and limber thanks to a combination of karaoke singing over at the SingStar PS3 kiosk and a healthy dose of liquid courage. Though we had the hand off the controller rather quickly, we did get a chance to give the red light-up buzzer at the top of the same USB-powered four-player controllers that ship with the quiz version of Buzz in a couple of rapid press events.
The core of the game revolves around decking out your little monkey avatar with shades, clothes and hats, and then diving into either 10 single-player games with AI opponents or 25 multiplayer offerings. Obviously the game is meant to be a social experience, so it wasn't entirely surprising to see it has more goodies for when you have other humans chilling on the couch with you.
After climbing ropes, skydiving, shoving our heads into lion's mouths, having a quick draw contest, striking with some soccer goal kicks and playing a basic variant of whack-a-mole, we were surprisingly into things, though in the spirit of drunken brotherhood, we let others jump in and check things out. It was downright surprising to see just how accessible and simple the games are, but then that's the core of any party game and, dare we say, one of those slow burn additions that you end up rounding up your friends for. Hopefully we'll have a proper preview build of the game in soon.
