Scene It? Movie Night is a bit like a rare straight-to-DVD sequel that doesn't have as many bells and whistles as its predecessors yet still manages to deliver on the things that fans liked the first time around. It strictly follows the formula of the series and doesn't take any risks, but the movie trivia game is still fun, especially when friends and family are involved.

That's Ben Stiller! Did I win?

This Scene It? is decidedly smaller in scope than its retail brethren, but that's not entirely a bad thing. There is only one mode, which is more or less the same whether you play it alone or with up to three other players. In each game, you are given a series of questions spread out across seven "puzzles" or question types. Your goal is to answer each question as quickly as you can because your possible score per question will be counting down with every passing moment. Playing by yourself is merely a quest for a high score, where you see the possible answers to each question from the beginning and are only out to prove to yourself how much movie trivia you know.

The game is much more fun with other players. You can play it exactly the same way, with the only difference being the sense of competition, or you can turn on buzzers. With the buzzers on, the answer choices in each question are hidden until a player presses the buzzer. When one does, players have four seconds to lock in their answers and hopefully get an edge on their competition. The catch is that if a player buzzes in and gets the question wrong, he or she loses points instead of gaining them. It's enough of a risk-versus-reward system to add excitement and a little tension to multiplayer matches.

'Look closer' and you might get the answer to this one.

Both the first and penultimate rounds of questions are always "Movie Clips," where a film clip is played and you have to answer questions about what you just saw. Sometimes the questions are more about the film in general (or a specific facet of it, such as its director), but sometimes, they test how closely you were watching by asking, "How many times did the characters say 'friends'?" or "What color vest was Marty wearing?" These are the most traditional of Scene It? questions, and they feature a good mix of classic films like Back to the Future with some newer hits like The Social Network. You also see a lot of Tom Hanks, but maybe that speaks more to the fact that he is such a prolific actor. There are a limited number of these clips available in the game (enough for roughly 10 games before you see repeated clips), but there are a few different sets of questions for each, extending their value.

Other puzzles have their own hooks, which makes them more interesting than a simple question-and-answer quiz. If you've played previous Scene It? games, they'll likely be familiar. Invisibles removes a character from a still image and makes you guess the actor or movie shown in the image. Credit Roll forces you to deduce a film's title based on its credits (particularly the lesser-known roles). Child's Play shows a childish drawing of a film scene and makes you guess the title, while a similar puzzle, Pixel Flix, has you looking at a movie scene remade with old-school-style game graphics. Some other puzzles have you matching films with actors or related items or ordering films and their events chronologically. The final round is always Quick Pitch, which is a series of rapid-fire clues that you have to match to their appropriate answer. The variety of question types helps keep the game fresh in the handful of hours before you start seeing questions repeated. Groups of questions are randomized rather than individual questions; this allows for questions in a category to follow each other logically, which is nice.

Don't let the bland scenery distract you from Bonnie Hunt's voice-acting credit.

The presentation is bare bones from top to bottom, featuring only simple backgrounds and sound effects as you play. Players don't get any personality features, such as avatar support for the Xbox 360 version or even usernames. Everybody is simply listed as Player 1, Player 2, and so on, and they all have the same icon. The game's announcer is usually OK, but he has so few phrases that you may grow tired of him quickly and want to punch him the 15th time he mentions that a certain song "was huge before you were born." There is also no online play. Granted, this is a game that is absolutely more fun when your competition is sharing your couch, but it's a shame the option isn't there for people who can't get a local group together. If you have the buzzer controllers from old Xbox 360 version of Scene It? you can use them here, but there's nothing wrong with using standard controllers.

As is probably obvious, Scene It? Movie Night is for groups of people that have a love for movies and trivia. You don't have to be a film student or hardcore movie buff, but you do need at least a basic knowledge of movie history, including tidbits about actors, directors, and even a few screenwriters. If you don't know that the time-turner is from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (or at least that it's not from Spider-Man, Star Trek II or The Terminator), then you might be in trouble. Scene It? Movie Night doesn't do anything new or exciting, but if you get the right group together, it can be just as fun as a night at the movies.

From the hypnotic neon landscape and constant barrage of spraying bullets to the way the playing field bends around at the edges of the screen to replicate the look of an old arcade cabinet monitor, everything about the latest entry in the ever-creative PixelJunk series from Q-Games seems designed to push your nostalgia button. That's not a bad thing, but looking past the allure of the dazzling visual design reveals a short, minimalistic arcade shooter with a few faults that almost outweigh the fun. PixelJunk SideScroller's twitchy gameplay evokes fond memories of playing games like Life Force and Gradius, but it feels weak when compared to the PixelJunk Shooter games that preceded it in the series.

The luminous chaos ramps up as you progress.

Because it's based on an unlockable secret stage found in the previous PixelJunk game, it's not surprising that SideScroller cannibalizes the exact same spacecraft, some of the same foes, and a few other hazards from PixelJunk Shooter 2. Familiar environmental elements like flammable gas, water, ice, and lava also make a return. Taking damage once overheats your craft, and you can restore your two-hit health meter by flying through water to cool down as in the past two PixelJunk entries. But whereas the two Shooter games are geared more toward exploration and puzzle work, SideScroller is all about the straight-up action. Like the old-school classics that the game pays homage to, you pilot your small ship through forced scrolling stages while battling waves of enemy fighters, bullet-spewing sentry cannons, and more elaborate boss encounters. The chaotic dodge-and-shoot gameplay is enjoyable yet straightforward; it's kill or be killed. Unfortunately, some design elements make it hard to do your job.

Your ship's three main weapons options--machine guns, lasers, and bombs--offer a limited means of cutting through the swarms of baddies that come your way. Each can be upgraded independently up to five times to boost its power and reach. Sadly, none of the weapons are totally effective against every foe you face, and switching between them in the heat of combat is unwieldy at best. Instead of triggering each attack with a different button press, you're stuck with cycling through them one at a time using a single button. To make matters worse, every switch is accompanied by an irritating female robot voice whose grating nature further encourages you to pick a favorite and stick with it through much of the game. There's also a chargeable ramming attack, but it's more effective at accidentally getting you killed than taking down foes. The game's checkpoint system sometimes works against you as well. Running out of lives toward the tail end of a stage lets you restart from the last checkpoint infinitely, but it robs you of all your power-ups and makes it tough to progress without starting over. While these limitations do get in the way, it's not that difficult to look past them and still have fun.

Co-op is more frustrating than rewarding.

SideScroller's biggest redeeming quality is its creative, colorful presentation. Each captivating little area is simply beautiful. The initial simplicity of the glowing geometric stage designs soon melts away into complex networks that spread throughout the foreground and background. There's a lot to soak in, even if you have precious little time for sightseeing with all of the flying bullets and other dangers to plow through. Levels feature a good blend of natural and mechanical obstacles, like crushing pistons, jets of flame, falling rocks, and combustible gas. The boss battles waiting at the end of each run of stages ramp up the clever level designs in intense, multifaceted encounters that are truly impressive. What's disappointing is it takes so little time to cut a path to the final credits. SideScroller's three main stages feature four short levels apiece, and there's an unlockable final boss battle stage too. Tougher difficulty settings featuring crazy visual filters that change the look of the gameworld and frustrating multiplayer co-op that has you sharing limited lives don't offer much in the way of replay incentive.

As visually stimulating as it may be, PixelJunk SideScroller's supershort length and bare-bones arcade shooter gameplay drag down its retro charm a few notches. While fleshing out the bonus stage from PixelJunk Shooter 2 into a stand-alone game wasn't a bad idea, this brief download flounders under clunky implementation. It doesn't hold up well next to its more robust brethren.

Deadmund, nee Edmund before he was turned into a skeleton, is a precocious boy with a thirst for milk and violence, though not necessarily in that order. When confronted by a bone-white gang of the living dead, he dispatches them with dynamite or skewers them pointy weapons, growing stronger from every being he vanquishes. Hundreds of his cursed brethren fall to your deadly wrath on your way to the head bad guy who has caused you so much trouble, though by the time this face-off occurs, you'll have long grown tired of the repetitive action dragging you down. The novelty of transforming your PlayStation Move into a variety of deadly weapons fades shortly into Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest, leaving a bitter taste in your mouth as you slog through this haphazard adventure.

Deadmund doesn't particularly like being a skeleton. Growing tired of seeing a lifeless skull staring back at him when he looks in the mirror, Deadmund gathers his trusty weapons in search of a powerful amulet that promises to cure what ails him. Deadmund's Quest has a charming appeal that makes your travels immediately engaging. A variety of locales plucked from the Middle Ages serve as the backdrop, and each place you visit, from creepy crypts to unsanitary kitchens, provides its own visual rewards. Though far from a technical marvel, the endearing artistic design could have been torn from the pages of a lovable children's book. However, the same cannot be said for the story. Though there are silly jokes to enjoy, the storyboard cutscenes lack the rich artistry that could have brought these characters to life.

Deadmund's Quest is an on-rails adventure that requires the PlayStation Move. Your point of view is affixed behind Deadmund, though his skeletal frame is transparent so you don't have to worry about him getting in the way. He walks where he wants, when he wants, and camera shifts line up enemies in your sights. The walking portions let you enjoy the view, and there are hidden collectibles you can snag while traveling from one location to the next. However, the majority of the game takes place once you stand still. When you do, enemies rush at you from a variety of angles, and you use one of your four attacks to dispose of them. You have access to a sword, ninja stars, a bow and arrow, and dynamite most of the time (dynamite is the only weapon that has a finite supply), and you switch between them by moving the controller in certain ways.

Milk helps keep bones healthy and strong.

It's a smooth system that works most of the time. Your sword is your most used weapon and is therefore the easiest to use. Simply moving your arm results in a swing, and the game does a good job of mirroring your attacks. If you prefer an overhead smash, feel free to knock those nasty skeletons on the head every time they come too close. You're rarely forced to move with precision, so as long as you flail your arm with vigor, you should knock your enemies out with no problem. When you reach your arm behind your back, you can pluck an arrow from your quiver. It's fun mowing down attackers from afar, though the aiming execution is lacking. For instance, there are some skeletons that hide behind shields, periodically peeking out to sling projectiles at you. If you point directly at their bodies when they're exposed, your arrow sticks in their shield, so you have to point off to the side of their bodies to actually make contact. Also, the game often takes a second or two to bring up the aim reticle after you've notched your bow. These are small annoyances, but they frustrate nonetheless.

By flinging your arm forward, you toss ninja stars. Like with the arrows, you have an infinite supply of these, which is a good thing because accuracy is tough to achieve. Trying to hit a small target far off in the distance is nigh impossible, though they come in handy when you don't have time to ready an arrow. Your last weapon is dynamite, and though this is used the least, its implementation is the cleverest. To light the fuse you have to cover the glowing ball at the top of the controller, simulating how you would shield the flame from wind in real life. Aside from using weapons, there are a couple of other motions you need to perform. Tilting the controller toward your mouth lets you drink revitalizing milk, though this takes a couple of seconds to register, which could lead to your untimely demise. Finally, by holding the controller to your belt, you activate your amulet, which makes every weapon stronger. Bafflingly, though the motion for this is quite easy to perform, it doesn't always trigger like it should, which can be infuriating when monsters are swarming around you.

The early moments of this game make fine use of the cartoony visuals and immersive controls to suck you into Deadmund's journey. Using your shield to protect yourself from your adversaries' blows and then retaliating with a sword strike of your own embodies the goofy fun the Move controller exudes at its best, and there are enough secrets tucked away in the environment to make shooting your bow recklessly into the background rewarding. However, things begin to fall apart after you tear through a few levels. There's an unrelenting feeling of predictability that suffocates the carefree charm. Despite the change in settings and enemy types, you perform the same basic actions over and over again until the joy has been washed cleanly away. There are only so many times you can bash a skeleton with a sword before your actions lose all meaning, and the uninteresting puzzles and other such interludes fail to ameliorate the repetition.

The ethereal forest is almost peaceful without those undead monsters running around.

It's when the difficulty ramps up in the later levels that the wheels completely fall off this wagon. Deadmund's Quest does a lousy job of balancing combat scenarios. Your only line of defense is your trusty shield, though because hunkering down behind it makes you a passive participant in events, you are at the whims of problematic enemy placement. Three arrow-shooting enemies may line up before you, and because their timing is such that your shield is being hit every second, there's no opportunity to mount your own attack. Your only option is to get hit while you ready your own shot, and being forced to take damage results in untold aggravation. Other times, you may have to fight melee and ranged attackers at the same time, monsters that obscure your vision, or pilots who unleash missiles at you, and all of these situations suffer from the same glaring issue. Because you cannot dodge or deflect attacks, you have to take damage if you're going to dish out some of your own.

Two-player competitive and cooperative modes are available if you can stomach more of this adventure once the ending credits roll, but the shallow combat ensures you won't want to spend any more time with this game than you have to. Performing the same actions ad nauseam could make for an entertaining experience if diverse combat scenarios broke up the monotony, but such is not the case here. You swing your sword and loose your arrows too many times to count, and unbalanced fighting only leads to frustration. Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest loses steam early, resulting in a tepid adventure that annoys more often than it delights.