Scene It? Box Office Smash! Review (360)

Turn your living room into a confrontational cinema experience!

If there’s one thing Christmas does best, it manages to bring the whole family together and prove how utterly dysfunctional they all are. How everyone can writhe with utter disgust about their loved ones and then laugh about it once all have, all muttering that their lives as a whole would make a truly amazing sitcom. Conversations are awkward, the mix of odours that meld together from each generation is perplexing and in terms of pleasing everyone in the field of entertainment, there’s only so much a collection of plastic animal keychains awarded for mercilessly breaking the spines of crackers can do. With such a picky ensemble amongst you, the Xbox 360 seems to be an unlikely salvage to turn to. Dad thinks it’s a waste of time, your Uncle believes each pixelgram displayed by the heathen box is that of Satan’s and Grandad attempts to spew racist comments every time he tears through Locust flesh, except thankfully a heavy deposit of flem puts a stop to that. Either way, it’s a messy situation.

It’s fair to say that in terms of family entertainment, the 360 has always been somewhat overshadowed by the Wii, and usually on the receiving end of a rabid journos views on the decline of the planet. Attempting to rid this upcoming view that video games are creating a force of parent-massacring freaks that could be likened to a force of deformed reality-bent warriors is Scene It? Box Office Smash!, a happy go-lucky shot of joy for film buffs, cinematic newcomers and idiots alike. Those individuals who hermit themselves into small rooms lined with posters and carpeted with takeaway pizzas can choose to play alone, but the four ‘Big Button Buzzers’ hint significantly that you should really go grab yourself some pals…and a hoover.

Despite being relatively pick up and play in nature, the process of salvaging 8 AA batteries from nearby TV remotes and sofa cushions followed by roundhouse kicking all your so-called ‘friends’ in order to get your choice of colour of in game buzzers is exhausting. Once the game actually gets rolling, however, it proves to be a joyous little scamp of a package. Everything seems to modestly scream ‘basic’, yet at no point does the format ever fall apart. The controllers work perfectly with answering questions, meaning that if anyone declares that their finger slipped the the umpteenth time that players will know they’ve got a bad loser amongst the crowd. Each round comes with basic instructions to follow and all are quick to grasp the concepts of. All this combined with minimal loading times means that the whole game flows remarkably well, allowing for both rapid fire answering and continuous banter amongst the crowd.

Roundhouse kicking all your so-called ‘friends’ in order to get your choice of colour of in game buzzers is exhausting.

Although Scene It? Box Office Smash! comes with a huge repertoire of questions and many an activity, the random generation of questions means that you could very easily get some of the same questions in one round that you did of the previous, causing slight dismay until the next activity turns up. It’s a shame that the addictive nature can sometimes turn against it, yet such trip-ups are fairly rare.

A constant running theme in the field of annoyance however are two unnamed commentators. Whilst bashing buzzers through proceedings would be hard to get through without some sort of humorous banter, I’ve got my senile pals declaring that I’m going to get pwnd at chick flicks to provide me with all the laughs. Having these two trying so unbelievably hard to crank out the funnies like two kids at the back of the classroom screaming ‘BOGIES!’ proves to be a constant fist into the funnybone. In all honesty, the dire duo actually prove to be more haunting than pesky. Even when the commentator voices were turned off in the menu, they still made their presence known, and I was actually deterred from winning the game when constant revelations of fetishes of leaders from the two came to light. I can’t help but feel a game has somewhat failed it’s purpose if the players fear first place as bodiless voices declare that they wish to see winners in maid outfits.

A common negative point (which mainly derived by the players that SUCKED) is the fact that you really need to know particular films’ in depth in order to win some of the movie specific rounds. The score system can counter such remarks, however. Sometimes quickfire stabs in the dark can actually reap high rewards, and each stage ends with modest point awards based on certain criteria. Those who find themselves lagging behinds are given a quick boost up, not enough to be deemed cheat-worthy, but just enough to keep them hanging on.

Scene It? Box Office Smash is a perfect replica of the game many love, without the board, cavalcade of cards and competitive dunderhead who takes charge of the rule book and chooses to misunderstand it. With a huge repertoire of questions, varied and fun rounds to participate in, and the four buzzer bundle complimenting the simple and addictive gameplay, Scene It! Box Office Smash! is sure to become a multi-player trivia classic. Just don’t get too into it and start conferring the next time you go to the cinema, everyone hates those who talk through the film.