Avatars Frolick in New Scene It...Eventually

Microsoft brought a build of this year's Scene It around San Francisco yesterday (full title: Scene It? Box Office Smash), and I dragged my fully jetlagged self over to take a look. Scene It debuted last year and not much has changed--same controllers with big fat quiz-show buzzer-style buttons, same movie-based trivia competition--so this sequel is pretty much a known quantity. If you know a lot of trivia about movies and you want to show that fact off, you'll probably dig this.

The interesting part of this year's Scene It is support for New Xbox Experience avatars. (I love saying that. It's such a shameless marketing phrase. Let's try it together: New Xbox Experience!!! See, fun.) Unfortunately, the version Microsoft was showing didn't have dynamic, user-created avatars available, and since we'll still be rocking the good old dashboard, the same will hold true when the game ships to stores next month. In the interim before the NXE hits on 11/19, the game will offer eight premade avatars that fit archetypes like Goth Chick and Girl With Sunglasses. After the NXE rolls out, Scene It will automatically roll in your custom dude or dudette.

Just as avatars are awfully similar to the Wii's miis, so is Scene It's use of avatars reminiscent of the mii integration you see in games like Wii Sports. Your avatar's face appears in a little UI portrait next to your score, and you also see all four avatars bouncing around on a couch from time to time. Not too interesting when you're using the preset characters, but it could be slightly niftier when you're able to slap weird clothes and armor and avatar

I hope you have the option to do that, anyway. At the event there was some rousing debate between press members about what kind of custom avatar accoutrement Microsoft will make available, and more importantly what you'll have to do to get it. Can I unlock a crazy suit of armor by getting all the achievements in Final Fantasy XIII? Excellent. What? You want me to pay 400 Microsoft points to get it? Not so good. Sadly, the latter scenario is probably more likely. However the pricing and availability go, the prestige factor of potential accessories is the only thing that will get me to really care about avatars. Fancy, rare items would tie into the same sort of braggadocio that keeps you grinding for achievements and trophies in the first place, right?

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