Scene It? Bright Lights! Big Screen! Review: Actually, I Haven’t Seen That One

The “Scene It?” series of games has become a bit of an interesting gaming anomaly. While it is a perfect fit for console gaming, it’s appearance on a console originated with Microsoft attempting to go after the casual market. While it was a fairly transparent attempt, that was okay because the first two games, while not claiming to be anything more than an advanced attempt at a movie trivia game, are enjoyable gaming experiences. Now in it’s third iteration, “Scene It?” is finally going multiplatform with “Scene It? Bright Lights! Big Screen!,” courtesy of Warner Bros. Interactive, and if you like movie trivia, there’s no better console game for you this holiday season… unless you already have the first two games.

The “Scene It?” series has been around for years, but it has only been available on consoles for the last few. Prior to that, the games were offered as interactive DVD party games could be played with a DVD remote, and they were very successful. In fact, they were so successful that once they were brought over to the Xbox 360, Microsoft went out of their way to support them, so much so that they came packages with their own “Big Button” controllers. All of the “Scene It?” games are a fairly straightforward premise, in that they are all movie trivia games that incorporate videos and other interactive puzzles into the question and answer process. In other words, this isn’t “Trivial Pursuit.” The “Scene It?” DVD series has branched off into a wide variety of different, much more specific releases (think “80s Scene It?,” “Friends Scene It?” and “Harry Potter Scene It?” just to name a few), whereas the console versions have remained strictly movie based, but including questions going all the way back to The Golden Age of Hollywood.

“Bright Lights! Big Screen” follows suit with the previous two console releases, and offers thousands more questions for all the gamer/movie buffs out there. Unfortunately, if you’re looking for anything more than that, you might want to make sure you have a 360, and a copy of last year’s “Box Office Smash.” “Bright Lights! Big Screen!” does exactly what it promises, but little else. It offers a host of movie trivia questions, presented across a variety of different categories, packaged perfectly for party play. However, it seems like there’s a whole bunch of bells and whistles that were dropped in the development process, most likely due to the fact that the game has gone multiplatform.

For example, in the Xbox 360 version of the game, avatar support was dropped, which was actually one of “Box Office Smash”’s big selling points. In its place is a series of stock avatars that represent many traditional movie stereotype characters, such as The Leading Man, Superhero Girl, The Desperato, and so forth. It’s a move that seems like a step back, in terms of game design, since the last game included a much more relevant, and engaging option, and these avatars seem like something that would have been included in the DVD games.

Going beyond just the characters, the overall presentation seems to have taken a bit of a hit with the developer change as well. The sleek backlot set setting for the last two games has been replaced, with, as far as I can tell, a much less developed Planet Scene It? (which comes complete with its own giant robot). While this change actually streamlines the trivia experience by not forcing you to spend the downtime between rounds flying from soundstage to soundstage on a magic couch, it also causes each of the games to not have their own “settings.” You’re no longer playing games in the writer’s room, or in the props storage, and instead you’re just looking at a screen full of questions.

Also missing is online play, which last year’s “Box Office Smash” added. Online seems like an obvious option for a trivia game that’s best played with other people, and it’s a big loss for the game, since you don’t always have someone else to play against, and online usually solves that problem.

Alas, not everything was taken out. There is one addition to this game, that seems like it was added in to compensate for the missing avatars, and setting: a host. While wholly unnecessary, you will get to see the nameless director/host pop in and pop out before every set of questions, as if to explain to you how to play each game. Basically, you’ll be spamming past him repeatedly after just a few play-throughs of the game.

Fortunately, the news isn’t all bad. There are a couple of interesting updates to the gameplay itself that makes “Bright Lights! Big Screen!” worth checking out if you’re a fan of the series. There are now a total of four different modes of play – Classic (straight questions and answers – Long and Short versions), Fast Five (score as many points as you can in five minutes), and Party Play (drop-in, drop-out multiplayer). The Fast Five mode actually makes playing the game alone worthwhile and challenging as you try to beat your high score, and the Party Play mode makes creating an ongoing multiplayer game extremely easy. Both are great addition to the Classic mode, and make for a solid collection of game options.

At its most basic level, a trivia game, “Bright Lights! Big Screen!” works, mostly because that doesn’t take much; there’s questions, and you answer them. If that’s all that you need in a trivia game (and you don’t really need much more) this game will have you covered. Granted, there are a lot of things missing from this game that its predecessor included, but it’s just a trivia game, it doesn’t really need anything more than questions and answers, everything else should just be gravy. And, after all, for all that it is missing, it’s still one of the best games to play with a non-gamer, or a family member that would otherwise never pickup a controller, because everyone loves proving that they’re good at movie trivia.

Rating:
 

“Scene It? Bright Lights! Big Screen!” was developed by A2M and published by Warner Bros. Interactive for the the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Nintendo Wii on November 17, 2009. This review is based on the Xbox 360 version of the game.

Related Posts:

• March 2, 2010 -- Dante’s Inferno Review: To Hell And Back
• February 17, 2010 -- BioShock 2 Review: I Want To Be Under The Sea
• February 9, 2010 -- Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter Review: Heeeee’s Baaaaack
• January 26, 2010 -- Blood Bowl Review: The Football Video Game Based On A Board Game
• January 14, 2010 -- Bayonetta Review: Which Witch Is Which?