While wondering through Best Buy the other day doing that whole Christmas shopping nonsense, a little gem caught my eye that I basically forgot about. Scene It has been a game I’ve been looking forward to since I had first heard about it, but I couldn’t seem to remember the game unless I was staring directly at it. Now, that doesn’t make it a makeshift game or anything, not by any means, it just means that there has been very little “hype” or anyone even talking about this game, which is a shame in my opinion. However, I have quite the love for movies, just as much as my love for video games (and on some days, it may even surpass my love for video games), and I love board games too, so I support any board game to video game “port” (even bad ones like Catan) with a purchase. There was a whole lot of loving in that last sentence, which is basically going to be the whole feel of this review. I will be oogley, lovey dovey, and just plain ol’ smitten with this game.

For $59.99 Scene It gets you the game, four buzzers, batteries for all the buzzers, and the receiver for the buzzers, there isn’t much more you could ask for really, unless you were expecting pieces of a dead hooker to act as packing peanuts.

Screenlife did a great job of not screwing up if you ask me, they didn’t try and add a bunch of bells and whistles and all that garbage that most developers do when they are working with a not so original IP. There isn’t a story mode, there isn’t a fight to the death mode, there is, however: Long Play, Short Play, and Party Mode. Screenlife took an already successful board game and decided to “port” it over to the 360 and they did a fantastic job. Long and short play are basically one in the same, it’s just a longer or shorter game. Now that I’ve pointed out the obvious let me tell you how party play works. Rather than having a beginning, an end, or rounds, the game just picks up and keeps on going until you decide to stop playing. Endless mode probably would have been a better name for Party play, because Long/Short play is more party inducing if you ask me.

The one thing that worried me about Scene It when I first heard about it was: “I’m worried really worried about questions repeating because it’s a scary thing and could really ruin a really good game that could be totally awesome and keep me happy and make me bread.” Yeah, I worry in run-on sentences. Screenlife was ahead of the game though and they took that worry by the horns and shat directly onto it. After every round you play, the game saves the questions you have already answered to your hard drive to minimize the chance of repeating questions. I guess that could be a problem if you’re taking Scene It to a friends house, but if that’s the case and you really think you’ve seen most of the 1,800 questions, bring your hard drive too, dummy.

I’ve played a bunch of Scene It, and I haven’t repeated any of the questions that I’ve come across on my 360 yet and I also don’t think I’ve answered nearly 1,800 questions so there is still tons more Scene it to be played. While on the topic of questions, you may worry about running out of questions eventually which is a valid concern, until I tell you this! Screenlife will be releasing question packs in the future, and when I say “will be”, I mean I hope they do and I am purely speculating.

You have 1,800 questions, you can’t just be answering dull and boring movie trivia, now can you! Nope, you’re not. Scene It has 21 different game types for your playing pleasure. I’m pretty sure even after all the times I’ve played, I still haven’t seen all the game types, but I maybe mistaken. It just seems like every time I start up a game, I get to see a new game type or two. A couple of the game types you’re bound to see are:
The Movie Clip – Where the game plays a short clip from a movie than asks you really random questions about the clip, and sometimes questions that have nothing to do with the clip. This mode can be a little disheartening but you’ll get through it. Oh, right. This mode also serves as the Final Cut, which is the last round in the short/long play mode, the only difference is – you don’t lose points for wrong answers.

Child’s Play is another fun game type. You’re supposed to guess the name of the movie based on a “child’s” sketch that is slowly being filled in as the timer runs down.

There is Quotables , Audio Clips, Anagrams, and many, many more different game types that will definitely keep you interested.

Scene It is 1-4 players, and I’ve played it with 2 people and I’ve played it with 4. I don’t think the game would be very good playing by yourself, unless you are trying to be a scum bag and memorize all the questions before your friends get to play with you. If that’s the case, I hope you die a painful death for stealing my idea.

The game play is pretty straight forward, you answer the questions correctly and you get points, miss the question you lose points. Your points are based off the sliding timer that is at the bottom of the screen. The faster you buzz in, the more points you gain or lose depending on how smart you are. There is a couple ways to answer questions depending on the game type. If you’re playing with a bunch of people, some game types just have you ring in your answer without buzzing in and everyone playing gets to answer. Others require you to buzz in like back in the old game show days, and I believe only one game mode has everyone putting things in order with no buzzing in needed.

At the end of every round bonus points are awarded, these are kinda silly but in a fun way. You get bonus points for basically just playing and being really good, or just being really bad. Some of the things you can get bonus points for are: Slowest Answer, Fastest Answer, Most Questions Answered Right, Most Questions Answered Wrong, yeah ok you get the point.

Overall, I think Scene It is a fantastic game and I can’t find too much wrong with it to complain about. Except for a very small buzzer issue. When playing in a pretty compact area, it is easy for people to be in the way of each other and for buzzers not to be directly pointed at the receiver. This is a problem since the buzzers use Infrared, which requires a direct line of sight for the sender to hit the receiver and if this doesn’t happen at all times, cancerous waves of infrared single are shot into the air and infect your brain. So don’t let your friends stand in your way when you’re playing Scene it because you won’t be able to buzz in and you will get cancer.

Other than that, the game is amazing and if you have 2 or more friends, I would definitely pick this game up for when you want to take a break from Rock Band, which I know doesn’t happen a lot right now, but if you had Scene It, I bet it would happen more.

Scene It: Lights, Camera, Action!

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