Screenlife and Microsoft Game Studios are back for a second round of the Xbox 360 version of the Scene It? franchise. With even more new questions, NXE (New Xbox Experience) compatibility and online play, Scene It? Box Office Smash has even more to offer players than Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action . But how will the successor rank against its predecessor?

It's no secret that I had a great time playing Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action , and still do on occasion, but I felt it had some minor flaws. The lack of online play or access to more questions via downloadable content was quite prevalent. The latter still applies to Box Office Smash , but now I'm starting to think it might be better that way. There's only so much information you can stuff on a disc, or a hard drive, until you reach capacity. The other benefit of releasing new additions to the franchise, aside from being able to add in new features, is that players who already had Lights, Camera, Action can pick up Box Office Smash in a game only version, rather than picking up the full bundle, with the Big Button Pads, for full price. If you didn't already have Lights, Camera, Action though, you can still pick up Box Office Smash in a full bundle, with the Big Button Pads.

Gameplay

As with Lights, Camera, Action, Box Office Smash is played with the Big Button Pads. Players answer questions from a series of randomly selected puzzle types, which are either available for all players to answer at any time or are buzz in. The faster you answer, the more points you get (up to 2,000 points during the regular rounds). There are 21 puzzle types in all, like Songs & Slogans, Genre X and my personal favourite, Pixel Flix, in which scene from the movies are depicted as 8 bit computer games. Box Office Smash also contains a number of puzzle types from Lights, Camera, Action, including the ever important Movie Clip, as well as Anagrams, which still has absolutely nothing to do with the actor or movie you're looking for, Sequentials, which now lets you keep trying to answer correctly until time runs out, and Now Playing, the slowly assembling movie poster puzzle.

Visual Puzzlers collects four pictures together from the same film.

The basic modes available in Box Office Smash are the Short Game, Long Game, and Custom Game. Party Play is no longer available. Each Game has three rounds and a Final Cut as the last round. A Short Game generally takes between 15 and 20 minutes, while a Long Game tends to be somewhere between 25 and 30 minutes. While that is not a very significant difference, it does pack in quite a few more puzzle types per round. A Custom Game lets you choose more options than just the Short or Long Game length. You'll be able to decide whether incorrect answers should get point deductions or not, turn buzz in off or on for puzzles that are usually always buzz in, and more. At the end of each game, in Final Cut, you are asked four questions. Each question they answer correctly will increase your multiplier – 1x, 2x, 5x, 10x – but if you answer incorrectly, your multiplier will drop back to 1x.

Screenlife Games and Krome Studios added two major improvements for this game, outside of the online elements. The first of these two was faster gameplay. Gone are the days of long loading times and annoying lengthy, and repetitive, puzzle introductions. True, the loading times weren't that long in Lights, Camera, Action, but this is faster. That, and the fact that the puzzle introductions aren't usually more than one or two seconds of your avatars flying in on the home theatre couch, make Box Office Smash feel like a considerably faster game .

The second improvement is that the game is compatible with the Xbox 360's NXE (New Xbox Experience), which was introduced this past Wednesday. The New Xbox Experience completely revamped the look of the Xbox 360's Dashboard interface and

Look, it's me!

lets players install their games onto the Xbox 360's Hard Drive so they can run faster, among other enhancements. NXE also introduced the use of Mii-like avatars to the Xbox 360, so players can now put themselves, or at least a miniature mock up of themselves, into the game.

I've only got a couple of minor gripes with Box Office Smash. The first is that specific movie clips replay too often. Sure, it's great that the development team was able to find so many different questions to ask about the same movie, but since Movie Clip is played during every single round, they should have gone through the trouble of collecting more clips for Movie Clip. The second is the lack of notification that the game is tracking which questions it has already shown you. This may be because they removed that function completely for Box Office Smash. If that is the case, I'm assuming that it may have been a necessity for online play, so the game didn't have to match players by questions asked.

Multiplayer and Online

Once again, since Scene It? i s a game best played in multiplayer, there aren't many, if any differences between playing solo and playing multiplayer, aside from the available achievements. The addition of online play over Xbox Live to the Scene It? franchise is a big deal though. Now you, or a team of you and your friends can play against up to three other players or teams any time. Or if you don't feel like playing solo, but you're still in the mood for movie trivia, it's no problem! Just go onto Xbox Live and find new friends to play with, or play with your own friends who are playing from home.

Playing over Xbox Live is quite simple. Head into the Xbox Live mode in the game and then choose the game type you'd like to play. You'll either be placed as the game's creator or as one of the other players. The game just goes from there. The game is also headset compatible, so you can turn on your controller and hook up your headset, or connect with your Xbox 360 Wireless Headset, and chat while playing.

With drawings like this, it's got to be Child's Play.

A lot goes into the design of speed intensive games like Scene It?. Due to the time sensitive nature of some of the puzzles, you might be worried that online play would just make way for a lot of argument about who really buzzed in first. Brilliantly, the development team completely bypassed that issue by removing the buzz in function from the buzz in puzzles, turning them into standard timed puzzles. Instead of worrying about who buzzed in first or complaining that the server didn't get your signal in time, everything is left up to how quickly you can answer questions and answer them correctly. No worries, no fuss, no arguments. Just gameplay.

Environment and Graphics

Scene It? Box Office Smash puts a new spin on the themed stylings first introduced in Lights, Camera, Action. Instead of everything being based around a movie studio lot, your home base is much more of a home theatre, except it's one of those seriously decked out home theatres with real movie theatre seating, a massive projection screen and super surround sound. That is until your couch, with you and your three friends comes in through the ceiling and crashes the party. From there, the couch will take you to all kinds of exotic locations for the different puzzle types, while occasionally bringing you back for a Movie Clip or Credit Role puzzle.

All the graphics in Box Office Smash, aside from the movie clips, appear to be centred around NXE's avatars. That said, the graphics still look better than the Theme Hospital stylings of Lights, Camera, Action . They are solid, but somewhat cartoony in specific areas. Most of the locations you travel to on your flying couch are rather nicely rendered. There isn't anything here that is going to make you go “Wow!”, but you aren't going to feel like there wasn't any work put into the graphic design of the game. It's not Gears of War 2 , but it doesn't really need to be. Most importantly, the interface is designed very well, so it's easy to navigate and get into the gameplay.

Sound

What can be said about the sound design in a game like this if everything is working properly and nothing is out of place? Nothing would be close to accurate, if I didn't get to discuss the lack of glitches and the interesting voice acting.

Yes, this game appears to be completely glitch free as far as sound goes. From the movie clips themselves to the in-game music, from the sound effects to the audio quality in the Soundclips puzzles, everything is accounted for and tuned very specifically.

Get it, Guys and Dolls!

The voice acting for the game is a little on the different side. Replacing the announcer voice from the last game is someone trying to copy the voices of the likes of Don La Fontaine, John Leader and Nick Tate, more commonly known as some of the most popular movie trailer voices in the English speaking world. I say trying because there are very few people out there who actually can copy those voices. Whoever they got for the game was not one of those people. Aside from the poor imitation, the voice actor's emotional acting was fine.

Conclusion

Just when you thought movie trivia games couldn't get any better Scene It? Box Office Smash comes along. The games development team put a lot of work into taking a good thing and making it even better. I say it's mission accomplished. It's another must have for movie lovers and social game enthusiasts.

Gameplay: 9

Verdict: Buy It