When you have an actual movie theater in your basement, you tend to consider yourself a fan of movies. So when I heard popular board game Scene It was making it’s way to the Xbox 360 I knew it was time to fire up the popper. Scene It: Lights, Camera Action is also the first Scene It to feature Hi-Def movie clips and unique games. Best of all, the game comes with four easy to use gameshow style controllers adding to the experience.
Those of you that have played the Scene It board game (or one of the 30 variations of it) should feel right at home, but the core of the game is changed a bit though. For one, the Scene It Xbox game doesn’t actually have a game board, instead to win you compete through 4 rounds of play and score points by answering questions as fast as possible. Players don’t take turns answering questions, instead both teams can answer most of the questions at the same time, with the fastest response getting the most points. There are also other challenges where players are required to buzz in and answer, with a wrong answer allowing the other team to answer in too.
After the first round, incorrect answers will cost you a penalty in points. What’s interesting here is there’s a constant strategy going on. There’s a risk/reward scenario with answering fast. If you are 100% confident in an answer, and answer quickly you’ll get max points, of course if you are wrong you’ll lose max points. On the other hand perhaps you are on the fence between two answers, just let the timer ride out a bit and answer. Sure you won’t gain as many points if you are right, but if you are wrong you won’t lose as many either.
As for the games themselves there seems to be a decent variety. In the screening mini game you’ll watch a 2 or 3 minute clip of a famous movie and then are asked a series of questions regarding the movie and the clip specifically. Other mini games have you unscrambling words to make movie titles or filling in the blanks to finish off famous quotes. Some of my favorite games start with a blank sheet and then being to fill in details that describe some movie. There’s a few different varieties here. In one game it starts with a blank sheet and begins to draw a cartoon sketch that somehow represents a movie. In another, it starts with the base of a movie poster and begins to fill in objects to create the official one. There are numerous other games as well with everything from naming an actor/actress from their high school picture to games that give you word clues about a movie.
Scene It utilizes a save system so that it will limit the same questions/clips that come up in play sessions which should help the longevity of the title. The game itself is a great party game and can easily be enjoyed by anyone, in fact, my non-gamer wife handily beat me in the few matches we played together. The game has an MSRP of $60 which is about $20 more than the retail version of the board game. While it might seem high, the fact that it comes with 4 controllers and contains hi-def material makes it an overall pretty good deal. There’s no word on whether there will be download packs to expand the game, but with the popularity of Marketplace, and the video marketplace it seems like a no brainer. For those of you looking for the next great party game, look no further than Scene It.
Score: 4 out of 5
