Scene It? Box Office Smash

With slightly cruder double entendres, an avatar-friendly format, a couple of new puzzles, online gaming options, many new horror clips and a whole lot of The Dark Knight, Scene It is back with a virtual replica of the original game experience, along with some improved visuals and the much-needed Xbox Live experience. One of the main things that distinguishes this game from its predecessor, and will make it appealing to a broader Xbox audience, is that it is the first game to integrate the newly created avatars from the new "Xbox Live Experience” template into game-play. They disco dance, hop around and react despondently to incorrect answers. While many of the original puzzles are back, such as the anagrams, quotes, missing images and so forth, there are also new additions in the form of crosswords, credit rolls and 8-bit re-creations of movie scenes. The makers seem to have taken notes on the strengths and weaknesses of the original and improved upon them with puzzle design. On the downside, the movie clips repeat quite frequently, albeit with new questions, which is a minor disappointment, especially considering that the Paper Moon and Jerk clips managed to come up two and three times each in just five games. That said, the inclusion of slightly less mainstream movie titles, such as Margot at the Wedding, Slaughterhouse-Five and Hot Rod, gives an air of possibility beyond the expected parade of questions about Jaws, E.T., The Matrix and Jurassic Park. Those with a broader knowledge base of film should appreciate this, despite the lack of any films outside of the American movie system. Scene it is a great party game and anyone who enjoyed the original will appreciate this release, if only for the purpose of looking at the Xbox Live leader boards and seeing that there are actually people out there who have played this game over 500 times in the last two weeks, which is both sad and reassuring.