Fingers On Buzzers (DVD game)

Imagine this nightmarish scenario: a complex series of disastrous events has seen you forced into a virtual world where a disembodied voice cackles relentlessly while you’re tossed through an endless cascade of grating mental challenges. It doesn’t matter what the answers are - it’s pot luck as to whether you’ll succeed, and the whole thing is played out in some sort of sub-standard pantomime recreation of The Simpsons projected directly from the mind of a small child.

This, friends, can all be yours. It’s called Fingers On Buzzers, and it’s altogether about as fun as force-feeding yourself outsized shards of sooty bark. It all starts with the setup process, which presents itself as the simplest thing since breathing and yet soon descends into something resembling matrix mechanics within eight seconds. Firstly, that exotic looking controller set is actually connected to 2001 A Space Odyssey’s Hal, actively ensuring that everything you do has somehow been mapped to a different button on a different handset. Secondly, the supposedly “tongue in cheek” and “hilarious” voiceover sounds like Craig Charles’ last recorded memoir before finally submerging into utter madness, and quickly becomes more irritating than perpetual sea-sickness.

It’s almost impossible to find something positive to say about this “game”. There’s an excruciating amount of unnecessary pausing between every section of new material (as if your playing experience is being transmitted to some far off mental health research centre), the controllers get morbidly confused if more than no buttons are pressed (tossing random points about like a demented clown), the visual effects look like You’ve Been Framed seen through a smashed magnifying glass, and the constantly looping jingle may have been directly channelled from Bruce Forsyth’s subconscious. It simply defies belief that this all got past quality control.

Released on 26th November 2007 by 4DVD.

Written by Andy Douglas.