The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

So we finally got to give a go to Scene It! Box Office Smash. Just like the other game, it was a lot of fun. There’s nothing special about the movie trivia game, but hell, a good trivia game is always a good time, even if there’s absolutely no way Essner won’t win, because he’s the movie guy. I still always have fun.

The game has made a ton of improvements. The animations are significantly toned down and probably only hide loads now, which is a godsend. The announcer is slightly less annoying, but can be turned off in the options, which is also a godsend. The worst categories in the original have been reworked so they’re more playable. For example, Distortions in the original game were basically un-getable because they were cutting the picture into these little squares, and you just couldn’t guess early enough to get any points, even if you knew it. In this game, they’ve replaced it with a water ripple kind of effect, which still makes it difficult but also makes you able to guess it much earlier if you know the answer. The very worst category from the first game, however, was Sequentials, where you had to put movies in the order they were released. These questions are hard for even movie trivia fanatics. Thankfully, they’ve changed it to the point where it’s actually fun, by letting you take multiple guesses (You could only guess once in the original) and by slowly revealing some of the dates to help in guessing. It perhaps lowers the stakes a little bit, but it makes the category much more hectic (as, even if you don’t know it, you’re frantically trying to get in more guesses) and in general more fun. So yeah, all those improvements are welcome.

The game also uses the Xbox Avatars, a feature that… well, it’s a feature aimed at my mother, really, and since my mother is someone who will play this game and will be totally thrilled by seeing them in it, it’s a great move. They don’t really harm the game in any way. Your icon is just your Miivatar and when you’re getting your points in between rounds they make little happy faces or sad faces or whatever. It’s a positive addition, overall.

The one change we all agree was kind of negative about this game is the removal of point penalties. In the previous game, after round one, wrong answers lost you points. Since the amount of points the questions are worth tick down over time, it made guessing later on a very risky proposition. You had judge how confident you were in an answer before you buzzed in, because you could lose as many points as you could gain. That’s totally lost on this version, and I think that’s a shame. It’s a solid mechanic that keeps people from just jamming on buttons and gets them to try a little harder.

Still, there are so many improvements that I would have trouble recommending the original over this one. This is the one to get, if you want such trivia action, unless you, I dunno, desperately want more questions. Then go pick up the old one too. Or get both, whatever. It’s all fun.