Microsoft, in a blatant bid to draw some casual gamers to its hardcore-skewing creamy white (or elitist black) console, has worked with Screenlife LLC, the makers of many Scene It? games, to create a glitzier version of the popular DVD-based movie trivia pastime for the Xbox 360. Skepticism seems appropriate, and this review would be full of it, if only Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action weren’t so freakin’ fun.

Scene It! Lights, Camera, Action is composed of nearly two dozen short trivia games that are simple to grasp yet require a sharp eye and a strong knowledge of pop culture to do well in.

Veterans of any one of the innumerable DVD-based Scene It! games (which also play on your Xbox, PlayStation, PC, whathaveyou) will recognize many of the challenges, like a movie clip game that sees players watching a scene from a blockbuster film and then answering questions based on what they saw, and a game called Distorted Reality, in which players identify an actor based on a fragmented image that is slowly pieced together.

But there are plenty of fresh games, too, like one in which players are challenged to name a movie from a picture of a prop used in it, and another that tasks us to identify a movie based on a child-like crayon rendition of it (the Brokeback Mountain picture that came up in one of our rounds was laugh-out-loud funny).

And it flows. That can’t be stressed strongly enough. From the moment the game starts it feels like a ride, seamlessly moving us from one game to the next with no intervention required, allowing players to yuk it up amongst themselves between games without worrying about what to do next or how to do it.

Indeed, we have to admit that Microsoft has achieved its goal of creating a game that just about anyone with an opposable thumb and the power of sight can play (though it's not really a game for kids as much of the content, like the movies it's derived from, can steer towards the risqué). The seven-page instruction booklet is wholly unnecessary. You don’t even need any experience with the DVD game. Just plug the disc in, select how long you want the game to last, and follow the simple, single-sentence instructions that precede each activity. All you need to do is buzz in first and press the colored button that corresponds to the answer you want to select.

On the subject of controls, Lights, Camera, Action ships with four wireless Big Button Pad controllers designed with the express purpose of being less-intimidating than the thumbstick-, trigger-, and bumper-laden controllers used for most console games. With just four vertically oriented buttons and a huge buzzer on top, a Big Button Pad is easier to work than a television remote.

Simply put, if you’re looking for a game to throw in when your non-gaming friends are over, this is it. Now if Microsoft can just stew up a couple of dozen more titles like it they might actually start to break into the casual living room gaming market that Nintendo and the Wii currently and rightfully monopolize.