Hasbro Family Game Night 2
Score: 70% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: EA Play Developer: EA Bright Light Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 - 4 Genre: Family/ Board Games/ Party
Graphics & Sound: Hasbro Family Game Night 2 looks pretty good for a game based on board games. You can choose from a few different penthouse apartment backgrounds like the Tokyo or Las Vegas-themed apartments. From there, the camera pans from wall to wall, depending on what menu or game you're viewing at the time. Mr. Potato Head is your friend of few words, expressing his feelings about your gameplay through the occasional "ooh," "ahh," or "aha!" His language of only humming and other sounds reminds one of a person in the The Sims. The games themselves are pretty well put together, relating to their real-life counterparts with a few added special effects or fireworks here and there for a job well done. There's only so much you can do to jazz up Connect 4 or Jenga, but the look of the game is colorful and clean overall. I was even a little impressed with the shiny blue jacket that Mr. Potato Head wears for his game show host outfit. The graphics definitely got some attention in the development of this game. The music for Hasbro Family Game Night 2 is actually better than you may expect. There are several sets of themed tracks that range from techno to pop, even to old pirate-style tavern type music. With the game's playlist option, you pick the tracks you want to hear and eliminate the ones that drive you up the wall. If you really want the cheesy game show music to play all the time, you can set it up that way. It might have been nice to support a personal MP3 playlist from an SD card, but this is still a pretty good step toward eliminating annoying game music. Of course, in the Family Game Night and High Score modes, you will only get the preset "game show" type of music, but it's still not too bad.
Gameplay: Hasbro Family Game Night 2 includes videogame versions of Connect 4, Jenga, Pictureka, Bop It, and Operation. The basic rules of these games will be familiar to anyone who has played the real-life version. There are a few different modes to choose from for each game, which sets it apart from the real-life counterparts. For example, you can play Classic Connect 4, or you can play Connect 4X4 Remix, which adds a second rack of chips and several special powerups like a shower chips or exploding chips. Operation Remix adds some bonus mini-games like a germ-zapping game and an oxygen-administering game (shake the Wii-mote to administer more oxygen). As for the Jenga Remix, it will be very familiar to anyone who has played Boom Blox. In fact, if you've already played that game, consider yourself spoiled, as you probably won't find this Jenga game compares in terms of fun. Pictureka and Bop It are the other two games in this compilation. Bop It was one of the least enjoyable games in this package for me. It's a simple "Simon Says" type of game where you have to repeat a sequence of actions with the Wii-mote. It's kind of difficult to remember all the motions and button presses for all the actions, and then repeat them in memorized sequence on top of that. Pictureka was a bit more enjoyable, but still very simple in concept. You'll be given shapes or pictures to find, or you may have to find something more abstract like "objects with power cords" or something that makes a certain noise. Playing all the different games will earn you trophies and accessories for Mr. Potato Head. You actually win a fair amount of these trophies and accessories by performing "losing" actions. For example, one reward is obtained by losing your multiplier in the Game Show mode. You can either play these games individually or you can enter into the Family Game Show mode which will put together a non-stop series of challenges from all the games. You'll need at least one extra player to enter into this mode, but if you're playing solo, you can play a similar mode called High Score Mania. Honestly, although you can play a CPU opponent in any of the individual games, these are games that are simply more fun with a human player. Although you can play individually for trophies and high scores, these games get old pretty quick, even with all their new bells and whistles.
Difficulty: Hasbro Family Game Night 2 isn't really a game that's designed to be challenging. Like many board games, sometimes a win relies more on luck than skill. Of course, with games designed for family play, the atmosphere is supposed to be more relaxed than competitive. That doesn't mean that some games aren't harder than others. The Jenga game is hard to get the hang of if you're shaky with the Wii-mote. The Pictureka game can be difficult if you forget that there are extra screens to look at, or if you forget how to look at those screens. True, if you spend a few minutes practicing in single player mode, most of these problems will work themselves out. However, if you start out in the Family Game Show mode, you'll be especially lost as the games are faster-paced and the instructions don't always fully explain what you need to know. Besides, most people will probably pick up this game with the hope that every family member will be able to pick it up and start playing, and that just isn't the case.
Game Mechanics: Hasbro Family Game Night 2 doesn't ask for much in the way of complicated moves, but there is still a learning curve. Operation, Pictureka, and Connect 4X4 are the most straightforward of the games, requiring only simple twisting motions or button presses. There are, however, some problems that make the game difficult to fully master. For example, the sound category for Pictureka involves listening to a sound and then finding a picture of what would make that sound. The sound being played can be easy to miss, since there are so many "silly" sounds being played all the time, that you can easily miss the one you need to hear. The Bop It game is particularly frustrating, as you need to fully memorize every movement before you can play the game. For example, the "Twist It" movement asks for you to hold (B) and twist the Wii-mote at the same time. But the "Bop It" movement asks for you to simply press (A). It can be very difficult to remember these moves even after you've gone through the tutorial, and nearly impossible to guess them if you haven't. If you're playing the Family Game Show mode, you can count on wanting to skip this game every time it comes up. That's not such a great thing for a party game with only 5 games. That brings me to the big problem with this game: I couldn't get anyone to want to play it with me for any extended length of time. Everything from the lack of instruction to the sounds that Mr. Potato Head made got a thumbs down from other members of my family. It may not happen the same way for everyone, and some people may just adore everything in this game including the dreaded Bop It. This is for sure: if you can't get your family to take their eyes off the TV long enough for a regular board game, this videogame version will do no better in winning their attention.
-Fights with Fire, GameVortex Communications AKA Christin Deville
Related Links: Hasbro Family Game Night 2 EA Official Website
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