Family Party: 30 Great Games
 |
 |
|---|
By Randy Yasenchak
My wife loves me more than I thought. First she played through Trivial Pursuit with me. Now she played through Family Party: 30 Great Games with me. It’s going to be hard for me to write this review because I bitterly disliked FP:30GG, but I’m going to try to give the same time and consideration I would give any other game I chose to review for our readers. Here it goes:
This game is crap. It is absolute garbage and a waste of money at any price. I cannot think of anyone—including children—who would want to play this game. FP:30GG is high on my list for greatest videogame misnomer of all time.
Am I up to 600 words yet? I’m not?
Damn…it...
….. Fiiiiiiine…… let me try again:
FP:30GG is publisher D3P’s late attempt to cash in on the success of the waggle-riffic world of Wii. The game delivers on one promise in its title. It has 30 games. The rest of the title is a lie. None of the games are great by any man’s scale. I can also guarantee that no family parties will be celebrated while playing FP:30GG nor will any spontaneously break out.
FP:30GG has a few different modes to chose from. You can play alone or you can challenge up to 3 friends locally on your Wii. From there, you can select a prefabricated in-game “family” member as your avatar. Unfortunately, you cannot import your Mii; a trend I’m noticing more and more which makes me wonder why my wife and I put the time into creating our Miis in the first place. From there, you and your fellow competitors battle head to head in 30 of the most inconsistent mini games ever bundled on one disc.
Before every competition, you are given the rules of engagement. Mini games should be as self-explanatory as possible especially when using such a revolutionary device like the Wii. These games are not. Most games within FP:30GG require at least 4 pages of explanation before you can even begin playing. The controls are so counter-intuitive that after reading the four page instructions for each mini game, you’ll still be wondering what you’re supposed to do.
My wife and I didn’t understand most of the directions or controls (she’s working on her doctorate and I’m … well… I play lots of video games) so we just dove into some of competitions thinking we’d get the hang of it through trial and error. We were dead wrong. The controls are simply too difficult to be considered a “family” game.
Some of the mini games are blatant rip-offs of the semi-popular cable television show Ninja Warrior like the “rope hang” competition. In the “rope hang” competition, you run and jump off of a trampoline and then hang on an inverted net, suspended over space. You then have to climb down the net without falling to win. It sounds exhilarating! It’s not. Waggle waggle, A button, A button, waggle waggle.
Other mini games are downright boring…. like the "The Inner Clock" game! In the "The Inner Clock" game, you press an imaginary button when you think 10 seconds have passed. Once you master the 10 second challenge, you then get to hit the imaginary button after you think 20 seconds have passed. After you master THAT challenge… you guessed it!!!... you get to push the same imaginary button after you think 30 seconds have passed! It’s all fun of counting combined with the fun of pushing imaginary buttons.
Graphically the game is 2 generations behind the times. There are better looking games available on the original Sony Playstation. Character models and environments are far too simple even when compared to the highly-stylized Miis.
The sound design can only be described as abrasive. The screeching of the winning contestants is annoying from the first time you hear them. In one mini game, “The Double Flag,” the aforementioned abrasive voices get faster and faster to the point where they seem psychedelic.
Oh! Would you look at that! Over 600 words! I can stop now!
But seriously, if you love yourself or your children, don’t buy or rent this game. It is truly a waste of time and money.