Review: Family Game Night

Sitting down to a board game with your family or friends has always been a staple of recreation throughout the years. As the years pass, however, busy schedules, distance, and many other factors contribute to the growing inability for friends, acquaintances, or family to get together around their favorite board game and have a good time. EA, along with Hasbro, has sought to bring some of the most beloved board games and assorted family games to the masses using the technology of Xbox LIVE to bring people together. Lovingly titled Family Game Night, the Xbox LIVE Arcade has received a hub for players to gather, as well as a starter pack of four games to choose from. We were given the opportunity to give these games a test drive. What we discovered was a cute, innovative hub in which friends will love to gather and choose a game from, but after the novelty wears off, you’re left with simple versions of board games you know and love.

Each of the games are accessed via a homey little area which is yours to deck out and tailor to the look and feel of your dreams. The ringleader who’s running this show is your old pal Mr. Potato Head. He serves as your guide through your walk in the park back to your little girl and boyhood. As much as I wish you could swap out his eyes for a nose, his nose for a mouth, and put a toy soldier in his back pocket, he’s fun and sweet but he’s just there for the main attractions… Oh right, the attractions! The four games up at bat are Battleship, Scrabble, Yahtzee, and Connect Four. You know ‘em. You’ve played ‘em. Now we’re bringing it back. And you can swap games faster than you can spell fazul.

Battleship

If you weren’t born yesterday, you’ve probably known and enjoyed Battleship at some time throughout your childhood. Well if you’ve been itching to get a whiff of the old times without the hassle of teetering on your ladder to get it down from the closet or attic, EA decided to set up a little date with the dealer so you junkies can inject a little youth into your veins. Shoot up kids, ’cause Mr. Potato Head is takin’ your ass on a little boat ride with this one.

Now, this game is going to require a lot more maturity out of you than expected, particularly if you’re playing in serious mode one on one at home. This is the first game I have ever played where I have been put back on the honor system again after all these years. The game actually tells you to “Look away from the screen while the other player places their ships!” You even have the ability to close the lid if you sense the honor system is failing. Once you’re all set up, if you know the rules, it feels incredibly streamlined, which is the best part. The game just flows so well without having to wait for players to poke the white and red pegs into the board. It’s either hit, or miss, and the board will keep score for you, and alert you with tear-jerking sound effects when you have lost one of your own. There are a few other modes that allow you to mix it up with new gameplay elements such as deploying decoy ships, but in the end, it’s the same old Battleship, minus the same old cleanup of those damned pegs. Those pegs were as loose as Monopoly money ALL over again…

Just to let you all know, Molotov Tigresa obliterated Miss Cupcake’s battleship. Ravaged. Annihilated. Sacked. Wasted. And to be quite frank: I SANK HER BATTLESHIP(TM).

Scrabble

EA and Hasbro have somehow managed to take a ruthless, bloodbath of a game, a game that tears families apart for weeks — and turned it into a friendly word game… Which I think, were the true intentions of Scrabble once upon a time. This one is for all my inordinately verbose brethren and my astoundingly versatile vixens.

Here’s the deal, it’s up to four players per game, you’re slotted seven tiles each, it’s the bottom of the ninth and you’re stuck with those damned, Q, J and X tiles. What to do!? What, do I have to spell it out for you, damnit!?

Probably the most coveted and best value of all the Family Game Night offerees is this one. There is a draw to the game that may or may not be of the utmost importance to you: there is no “true” single-player experience where you can combat a CPU’s intelligence. If you try to start up a single-player match you will be pitted against the most dangerous opponent of all: yourself; which definitely gets exhaustively long and uneventful after a solid thirty minutes of game time.

Being able to jump online and challenge the world that is Xbox LIVE (don’t jump too fast, you’re not going to be pitted up against some Halo junkies) or your masses of friends is pretty worthwhile in such a fun and competitive game such as this. There are two additional modes: Bridges and Tournament. Tournament is more or less the main game but you each get your own ticker set for 25 minutes and all your turns detract time from there. Bridges is where I had a lot of fun, this mode is creative and a rush to play. You and an opponent are in a flux to see who can hustle across the board and touch the left side to the right side and form a bridge before the other — but it’s more than just that! The letters connected to create the bridge decide your score as well in the end. Just a tip, stay away from Cat and Dog because it’s almost impossible to build off of three letter words, especially in this mode. Try to slap something more threatening in their face like IMJACKBAUER. I bet they’ll back off. They always do.

Yahtzee

Remember when you used to sit at your PC many lonely days and click through each stack of cards in Solitaire? Because you thought it was fun, right? One day, perhaps you or your parents (or no one, if you’re this guy) came along with a familiar red box proclaiming “HEY! GUYS! I’VE FOUND A NEW GAME!” And a new game it was. Six shiny, clean dice, a ridged red cup, a thick score pad, and a renewed thirst for revenge between you and your competitors. Yahtzee took familiar card game conventions such as straights and full houses and translated it to dice numbered one through six. Three-of-a-kind, four-of-a-kind, X amount of a certain numbered dice, and various other scoring conventions were somewhat easy to obtain, but then you had the coveted Yahtzee - all six dice of the same number. Perhaps you didn’t score enough by collecting enough fives or sixes. Maybe you had to mark off your Full House. If you could net Yahtzee after Yahtzee, you had it made in the shade for a cool 50 point bonus. A simple, but fun premise translates well to the Hasbro Family Game Night Experience.

It really all does come down to luck. You get three rolls. You can choose to shake the cup yourself or have the computer do it. When you’ve completed a roll, you may choose which dice to keep and which to re-roll in order to shoot for a certain score. There’s really no skill involved save for figuring out the dice you need to axe in favor of receiving a better score, and which score to settle for when you aren’t doing particularly well. In my experience, however, it seemed as if I did abnormally well. The AI didn’t do that great of a job randomizing my dice no matter which way I chose to roll, and for that I received some very easy wins. If I wanted to receive the same dice over and over, I would just buy the game and flip the dice over when my friends weren’t looking. Not that I’ve ever done that, of course.

While there are some new variations on the original game to try out, Yahtzee is easily the most watered-down of the entire game selection. The add-on costs 800 Microsoft points, which roughly equates to ten dollars. At many stores and retail outlets, you can pick up a physical copy of the game for four to five dollars less, like many of the other games. However, if your friends or family live quite the distance away, it’s worth trying this out in order to cream some far-off acquaintance and laugh maniacally, hoping your neighbors don’t look in on you to see what you’re up to.

Connect Four

You may have fond memories of Connect Four from your childhood. A more diabolical game of Tic Tac Toe, it’s played via a plastic, yellow grid with numerous slots. One player chooses red checkers, and another blue. The key goal here is to, well, connect four in a row diagonally, vertically, or horizontally. To accomplish this you must play off your opponent’s moves, as they will provide a foundation for your checkers. Of course, they’ll also be looking for an opening every time so they can block you from winning, like a true Buzz Killington. This is an extremely simple game both in terms of graphics and gameplay, and it takes very little time to practice or understand . While Hasbro and EA have included a cover-all mode as well as differing styles of play, there isn’t a lot you can do with Connect Four. Personally, I’d rather have the tactile sensation of the real game here at my fingertips rather that on my 360. It was always a treat for me to pick up a checker and then slide it down into the grid. It was always so satisfying. This version seems a bit neutered, as if it has lost the heart and soul of the game in lieu of a clean, shiny appearance for families who can’t be bothered to pick up a copy of the real game.

The AI is often painfully skilled, as well. After almost ten rounds with the computer, I had been blocked from winning 90% of the time, all the while losing to a strategy that I didn’t see coming. This became a bit frustrating, and a problem that usually doesn’t arise in real life, unless you happen to be matched up with some of the most skilled Connect Four players ever. This game, also, proved to me that the real version is far superior, though if you must play Connect Four with someone you aren’t privileged enough to see every day, this is an adequate representation.

Doin It RIGHT: - Well-designed intuitive interface for all the titles. - Digital memories (are for sale) can now be re-experienced on Xbox LIVE. - That pick-up-and-play anytime feeling is there.	Doin It RONG: - Some titles (Connect 4?) don’t bring enough to the table to warrant 800 MS Points. - Difficulty modes could have been implemented for the single-player experience to make it a casual set of games for all skill types.
FINAL SCORE: 8.5 / 10