Review: Sorry! (Hasbro Family Game Night)

There’s a new addition to Hasbro’s Family Game Night, and it’s not a baby (thankfully!). No, it’s the classic board game Sorry!, and it can now be downloaded via the Xbox Live Marketplace as an add-on to your game pod on your console. Previously here at Spawn Kill we reviewed the entire package that was available upon launch of the Family Game Night hub. Now, I’ve tackled Sorry!’s virtual format. How does it fare? Read on, and I suppose you’ll find out!

Sorry! is the classic game of sending your opponent back to start. At least, that’s how I see it. Both players are given four pieces with which to explore the game board. The pieces are to be kept at the home base. Each time you remove a piece from base, the object of the game is to travel around the board and back home before your opponent can do the same. In order to slow your opponent down, you’re encouraged to land on them whenever you can in order to send them back to their starting point. That’s where the title “Sorry!” comes in, though I doubt anyone actually feels any remorse from making a move that can put them out in the lead. Rather than relying on dice as many of the other Family Game Night games do, Sorry! is played via cards.

Cards dictate how many spaces you’re allowed to move, and the direction that they’re set to move in. The deck is filled with various “special” cards that grant you several different abilities. Some will let you switch places with another player’s piece, and some are the coveted “Sorry!” cards that let you choose which player to send back to home base rather than relying on the luck of the draw.

This type of game tends to lend itself well to a virtual representation, though it feels a bit disjointed. For those who have never played the game, this iteration does not bother to offer a real tutorial mode, instead throwing you straight into the action. You can check out some hints and a “help sheet” through the start menu, but the fact that you never truly are given complete instructions doesn’t bode well for this collection. Being given a game that you have to research to understand (without having previously played) is a bit of a bad move. Simply assuming that gamers have enjoyed these board game “classics” before is a bit presumptuous and no reason that there should not be full instructions included. I’m a Sorry! veteran myself, and I still had trouble figuring out the real flow of the game.

This is a very frenetically-paced game that can get confusing at times, especially for younger players you might have on your team. It also involves a fair amount of luck which may be a turnoff to some buyers. As far as the transition to the virtual world, Sorry! works fairly well. There isn’t much you can really do via the Family Game Night hub, since you are essentially sitting at a virtual table looking over a virtual game board. Interestingly, unlike the rest of the previous releases, Sorry! has received a bit of a cel-shaded makeover. This at least makes staring at the screen bearable, though the game seems to move at an erratic pace. Some games will find you moving incredibly slow and taking up to an hour to fully complete, and some are over in a flash due to the fact that you are drawing cards rather than rolling dice. A problem I had throughout many games were drawing Sorry! cards multiple times in a row, way more than I should have been. It seems problems like these are prevalent through the rest of the Family Game Night series as well.

Overall, this isn’t my favorite virtual representation out of the games available, but it’s still quite fun, especially to play with some close friends you can’t just visit on a whim. It’s priced at 800 Microsoft points, like the rest of the Family Game Night titles, so you’ll have to pony up. Mr. Potato Head is waiting, as usual. Don’t disappoint him.

Doin It RIGHT:- Sorry! was a great choice to add to the mix.

- Cel-shaded graphics rather than flat, boring 3D.

- Like the other games, fun to play with friends online.

- Faithful to the movie.

Doin It RONG:- No real instructions for newbies.

- The price point is rather high.

- Excessive drawing of special cards, AI seems broken.