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Kid’s Corner Review: Hasbro’s Family Game Night 4: The Game Show

By
Don Parsons
– December 19, 2011Posted in: Kids Corner, Reviews

What do Yahtzee, basketball, bowling, Connect Four, and Mr. Potato Head have in common? The latest iteration of the Family Game Night video game series, Family Game Night 4: The Show, that’s what! A game based off a TV show, which is based off the game, that takes Hasbro games and makes them more physical. It sounds complicated, but once you start playing it all makes sense. 

Dons. Get it? Yeah you do. This picture was taken for THIS review.

 Adult Review

FGN4 comes packed with 5 games; Sorry Sliders (slide Sorry pieces towards a bullseye, with the option of knocking your opponents pieces off their points), Connect 4 Basketball (take turns shooting basketballs into a Connect 4 setup), Bop It Boptagon (a crazy contraption with various button presses to “bop it”, “kick it”, etc.), Yahtzee Bowling (roll a ball, knock over pins, select what you want to keep and do it again), and Scrabble Flash (a quick version of Scrabble, taking turns rearranging letters to spell words). You can play them individually, which also allows a variant of the game to be played, or you can play through a “game show” mode.

Playing through a show, you play all five games against a computer or local opponent. Sorry, there is no multiplayer option here. Winning an event will earn you a Monopoly Crazy Cash card with a random amount of money on it. This leads me to problem number one. You can win three events, and your opponent win two events, and they can still win. I realize this is mimicking the game show, but even in that situation, I would be furious if I lost because they just happened to of received the better cards (randomly, mind you). So being called the “winner” at the end of a series of events means very little.

The controls are better played on the Move. The Dualshock is a lot of analog back-and-forth motions. In the spirit of what the game is going for, mimicking the game show, the Move just felt more natural and I had more fun doing the motions for the games. My wife felt that using the Dualshock, most of the analog motions could have been assigned to the “X” button and had a better effect. For example, while it shows pictures of what to do, you always had to press back on the analog stick first, which it doesn’t show. So just flicking the analog stick up to shoot a ball didn’t work.

My wife was very excited to play this game with me, but after one series of events, she couldn’t play anymore. I continued playing, but her reasons were valid. The controls on the Dualshock bothered her. The fact that winning an event meant little, because even if you won the majority of the events, you could still lose, was a large negative. She really didn’t enjoy the games themselves either. I played quite a bit more, and while the controls didn’t both me (on either the Move or Dualshock), I will admit again that the Move felt much better. The trophies offer a little replay value if you do pick this one up for the family. As far as mini-game collections go, you can find better out there, and hopefully the next FGN returns with original games and rewards the winners with something better than “a mystery amount of money”.

Kid Review

My son (7) played this with me the first night I got it. We played through a whole show. Out of the 5 games, he really only understood 2 of them; Sorry Sliders and Connect 4 Basketball. He had a lot of fun with those two, and the other three I had to explain and he still didn’t really get it. Scrabble Flash is still a year or two ahead of him, but he gave it an honest effort and got a word or two himself. Yahtzee Bowling was way over his head, and he was losing interest by this point. He could play some of Bop-It Boptagon, but once the help cues disappeared after a few rounds, he quickly went under.

After that first experience, I honestly couldn’t even bribe him to play with me again. Again, he had a lot of fun with Sorry Sliders and Connect 4 Basketball. So I don’t know if the other three games just brought him down or what. I asked him often if he wanted to play it, and he always refused. In a year or two, when he is closer to 10 years old, he might grasp every game more and enjoy it more.

Sorry I knocked you into the bullseye. :(

Summary

Bringing board games to the consoles for families to play was a genius idea. No more clean up or sorting pieces. Mr. Potato Head as your host for the evening. An assortment of games on one disc. It all adds up to a great night with the family. Sadly, trying to mimic the game show and put variations of family favorites into the mix doesn’t really translate well.

Pros:

  • Connect 4 Basketball is actually a lot of fun
  • Mr. Potato Head!!!!
  • budget priced at $40

Cons:

  • unfair earnings can make the “loser” the “winner”
  • game variations don’t hold their own
  • only a few of the games are really kid friendly

 

Score: 2 out of 5

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Kids Corner Review: Carnival Island

By
Don Parsons
– December 2, 2011Posted in: Kids Corner, PS3, Reviews

As we move into the winter months, carnivals are hard to find. Luckily, Sony brings the carnival home for the holidays with Carnival Island! Boasting an assortment of games, colorful cartoon cutscenes, pass-the-controller multiplayer (no extra hardware necessary!), and easy-to-follow instructions, this game includes an impressive package for anyone wanting (or needing) a mini-game fix for the whole family.

Games for the Playstation Move seem to fall into two camps the majority of the time; either a serious Sony title adding optional Move support or Move-only family games. The latter is where Carnival Island falls.

Adult Review
Most “hardcore” gamers won’t enjoy this game. I open with “most” because I am a serious game, and I had a lot of fun with Carnival Games. It was easy to get into, you can play a few games and move on to something else, and it provided a good game to break away from all the serious action/shooter/RPG games out this season.

The carnival is basically asleep, and your job is to wake it up. After calibrating the controls (each Move game has its own initial setup each time you start it up, and like most, this one is quite simple and short) and choosing “Story” from the menu, you are greeted with a bright cartoon introducing you to the island.

Carnival Island is split up into four sections, each having it’s own pair of mini-games. But each basic mini-game unlocks a series of other games using the same basic concept. So Mini Bowl (think Ski Ball) unlocks Snake in the Grass. So instead of just getting into the scoring holes, you ramp the ball up towards a flip-board that contains snakes. You score more points for hitting boxes with a piece of snake rather than grass, and score even more points for completing a snake.

All of the games are a lot of fun, and most work well even in the most un-Move friendly environments. While Perfect Pitch (the game where you throw a ball at a bunch of bottles glued in a pyramid. Only, the carnies at this island didn’t glue them together) works well in your standard living room set-up, it was a lot harder in my bedroom where I usually game and space is limited. But, every other game, I had no problems with in my confined space.

Each game has a set of challenges, so completing one challenge unlocks an animal, and completing two challenges unlocks the next game in the series. Animals are like cheerleaders, have their own name, and even a cute little two-line story about them from the narrator. Outside of that, the animals you unlock have no further value (except a few trophies). It is fun, though, to just sit back and try to get as many challenges in a game as you can. I played all the Ringers games a dozen times each, and still had a few I couldn’t do.

The games felt great, and achieved the goal of making you feel like you are at a carnival booth vying for tickets. The motions were all very realistic feeling, which is important. Shooting Gallery, in particular, was a favorite as you had targets that popped up and had to shoot them but ignore the civilians.

What would a carnival be without tickets and prizes? Not a carnival at all, silly! Your score at the end of each game will net you a certain amount of tickets, in which can be exchanged for prizes. Like the animals, there is not much value to the prizes though, and other than the trophy for collecting all the prizes (which is time consuming, mind you), I personally did not see a point to it.

I played quite a bit of the game, but my wife played probably twice as much. A “hardcore” gamer like me, she really had fun playing the games, unlocking more games, earning trophies, etc. She liked the variety of games, and the fact that while they were challenging, they were still playable (except Frog Bog, which she hated). While I didn’t particularly care for the story, she enjoyed the story and the fact that it was more than just games like a lot of collections we had played in the past.

The appeal to a single, “hardcore” gamer is light. But as a parent (heck, even as a couple who likes to game together), the game is still something you could play and have fun with, even if it’s just enough to explain the game to your kids.

Kids Review
This was my sons first motion game in quite some time. That said, while he would get mad (you’ll see a trend that he is very much an angry gamer) that he would “lose” when playing by himself, he could still play the games and progress in the game if he put the effort into it. By “lose”, I mean missing a shot, or not doing so well.

The graphics are bright and colorful, which is a totally winning combination for most kids, mine included. Even my 2-year old would stop and watch when the cartoon cut scene started and would watch the whole thing. During gameplay, everything pops with shiny textures. The narrator does an excellent job of not only explaining how each game works, but also entertaining the player with his excited voice.

I never had to explain the basic concepts of the games, because while the game loads, a screen shows the motions to use for the mini-game. The narrator also explains what exactly the point of the game is, as well, so I could turn my son loose and go do other things while he played.

If you have multiple kids, but don’t have multiple Move wands, the “pass-the-controller” Party mode is a feature you should highly consider. It will also make a great slumber party event, and since you just have to have the basic Move setup (wand and camera), no additional hardware is required. There’s a mode that picks events for you, or you can pick and play whichever event you want.

Summary
Both adults and kids can find enjoyment in this well-put together collection of carnival games, but families (especially those that game together, or have family game nights) will really get a good value with this $40 titles.

Score: 4*/5

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Kids Corner Review: Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure

By
Don Parsons
– November 14, 2011Posted in: Kids Corner, Nintendo Wii, PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

With Christmas around the corner, creating a product that mixes both toys and video games the way Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure does seems ingenious. I can tell you that I have never honestly liked any previous Spyro games, but this game really stands out, and not just because of the cool fact that you bring toys to life. The starter kit comes with a portal, three toys, the game and a sweet poster.

Adult Short Review

Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure has a lot to offer for adults. Even with just the starter kit (what I used), you can get more enjoyment out of this game than most would think. You are an apprentice “Portal Master”, and are responsible for stopping the villain Kaos. The 20+ stages you play through seem short, until you look up at a clock a few levels later and notice two hours of your time is now gone.

I played solely with Spyro until the much later stages, and had no problems until the last few levels. As you play, you gain experience and gold; experience makes your Skylander stronger (with a level 10 cap) and money allows you to buy new skills to add to your repertoire. Using only one Skylander had the advantage of leveling it up quicker, but once you hit the final string of stages, the spike in difficulty will make you wish you had swapped out more.

Each Skylander has an assortment of moves, and though some are similar to other Skylanders’ moves, they still feel fresh. They all have a very powerful move which you find throughout the game in the form of Soul Gems. Given that each character is split up into one of eight categories, the levels feature different gates which can only be unlocked by a certain element. This is the grand marketing scheme to get you to buy other figures, because certain collectibles (story scrolls, hats, soul gems) can only be found behind these games. I’m not going to lie, it sure has me craving to buy a few other Skylanders just to go back and play again.

The story is delivered in cut-scenes, and if you die, you have to watch it again - you can’t skip it. This made later boss battles annoying, but on the plus side, they are very entertaining. Even from my perspective, I laughed quite a few times during my time with Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. Kaos, the main villain is particularly comedic during the boss battles every few stages.

The portal itself is powered by batteries, which worried me. However, during my run through the game, and even my sons playtime, it didn’t die, so it doesn’t drain the batteries very fast at all. It was very easy to sync up, as there is a USB key that you plug into the system, and then just turn the portal on via the button on the side. The figures and portal are made of plastic, and have great detail. As an adult, I would do nothing more than play the game with the figures, but they look cool enough that if I had somewhere to display them, I definitely would. I was also very concerned about how swapping characters would be, but it is very quick and seamless. You pick up the one you are playing off the portal, it pauses the game no matter where you are, then place the next character on, and it zaps you right back into action. Also, each character acts as a life, so when one dies on a stage, you can’t use that one again, you have to restart or change to a different character. That’s another perk to buying more as the final boss is a pain with just three.

Outside of the spike in difficulty at the end, I really enjoyed everything about the newest entry in the Spyro series, and I look forward to them continuing this concept. Hopefully, the old toys will carry over, especially since the characters themselves are multiplatform. So if you wanted to play at a friends house, you could use your own Skylander collection. This is a neat concept, and something adult gamers should look at for not just their kids, but themselves.

Score: 4*/5

Kid Impressions

Initially, my son loved this game while watching me play. Usually when I get a game, I sample it for awhile, and then let him play afterwards. I swear, he spent a good hour just examining the box (I’m sure you all remember doing that as a kid, right?) and toys. He had already picked out several figures he wanted to go buy, and each time I earned a new Soul Gem (which has the option of showing a video of that Skylander), he had the same “OMG I WANT THAT!” reaction.

When it finally came time for him to play, it didn’t take too long for him to get frustrated. He said he enjoyed the puzzles and playing around, but the combat got him irritated. I observed one of the specific instances, and a mage-type character was on a platform out of reach, and he was Hell-bent on detroying that enemy, but couldn’t for the life of him. I told him to move on, and he did, but I could tell he was upset. To be fair, my son gets easily upset at games and has a short temper with them.

He said he loved the characters and the toys. He had fun swapping them out, and since it is so easy, I never had to really coach him on it as he had seen me do it multiple times. He told me if he owned more of them, he wouldn’t play with them though (as in – outside of the video game setting), he wouldn’t want to ruin them and not be able to play the game anymore. THAT was a shock to hear, especially as I saw him admire the three starter figures we had for quite a while and knowing how much he loves playing with action figures.

While he didn’t get to the end of the game, he did figure out how to navigate the main hub, and even did one of the character challenges (he didn’t beat it, but he got to it). I asked him his final thoughts, and he said “it got kind of hard with the fighting, but I really like it, and want to keep playing.” Per the Disney Universe review, he knew the grading scale, and said it was a good game, so he gave it a 3.

Pros:

  • funny story
  • great level design that makes sure gameplay stays fresh
  • assortment of characters gives players plenty of choices and replayability
  • very innovative mixture of toys and games, and done well might I add

Cons:

  • difficulty spike at the end is a little excessive
  • limited character growth to 10 levels
  • can be pricey
  • no co-op

Score: 3*/5

 

Conclusion:

I realize I wrote more on the adult side, but upon playing through the game, I really think this game has more to offer the 10-30 crowd (me, not my son sadly). While some kids at his age (7) might be better at games, and might enjoy this more, I also only let my son play so much a week. As an adult that likes varying genre’s of games, I highly recommend this, especially if you have kids that could someday enjoy it.

[Note: I made the mistake of trying co-op without the second controller turned on by placing a second Skylander on the portal. Obviously, it didn't work, and I didn't look into it. Upon posting this review, Michael from ZTGD corrected me, so I pulled the review, and demo'ed it with my son before he went to bed. Thanks you again, sir.

Co-op is a great feature, and my son loved it a lot. You are "tied" together, so when you start to get too far apart, a line appears and won't let either of you continue until one person starts moving to the other to close the gap. This promotes coordination, and by the end of the night, me and Tristen were being more vocal about our teamwork. While we didn't get to play much of it, it really does add to the game play, and we will be playing more this weekend. I highly recommend it even more, as both parent and kid can enjoy the game together.]

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Kids Corner NDS Review: Pillow Pets

By
Chris Scott
– November 12, 2011Posted in: Kids Corner, Nintendo DS, Reviews

Children love stuffed animals and the idea to transform stuffed animals into a transforming pillow was a capitalistic stroke of genius. Since their humble beginnings Pillow Pets have grown to be a very big deal in the toy market, with them selling in a lot of major retail outlets. Still despite their ever increasing success, I never thought I would see a game based on the stuffed toy pillows but that is exactly where we now stand.

Adult Review

Pillow Pets takes place in the magical world of dreamland where everything is cute and cuddly. Despite the happy aesthetic, things are in a state of panic. It seems that many of the pet pillows have gone missing leaving Miss Lady Bug the task of finding them and bringing them back to the playroom. She will do this by embarking on a platforming adventure throughout the realms of Dreamland.

Anyone who has played a side scrolling platforming game before will be familiar with the basic concepts at play in Pillow Pets. Unfortunately, for players that have played a lot of these types of games, those basic concepts are executed in the most simplistic of ways and there is no sense of potentially failing a level.  In addition to the lack of difficulty, the game just is not very long. I finished all the levels and got about 75% of the collectibles in a little over an hour of playtime.

Padding out the game a bit is the ability to dress up the pets in a variety of different accessories. These accessories are gained by finding a variety of collectibles in each of the platforming levels. While there is a definitive cuteness factor to dressing up your pet frog in sunglasses, there is no in game benefit and the customization is all purely aesthetic.

As a longtime fan of platforming titles, I found Pillow Pets to be rather unsatisfying.  However, it was obviously not designed for me.

2* out of 5

Kid Review

Like many kids, my eight year old daughter loves her stuffed animals and has a Pillow Pet of her own (the purple Unicorn) and she eagerly jumped at the opportunity to play the Pillow Pets game for this review. Having played New Super Mario Bros. on both the DS and Wii, she easily acclimated herself to the game and by her own admission, she really liked it.

While discussing the game with her she mentioned three things she really enjoyed about the game. The first was the difficulty, what I found overly simplistic she found to be fun.  She explicitly mentioned that while it reminded her of Mario, it was not as hard and she enjoyed being able to progress through the game because of that. In addition to her feeling the difficulty was just right for her, she really enjoyed customizing her pets and exploring the levels to hunt down the collectibles to unlock other dress up accessories.

However, while she thought that game was just right in terms of difficulty she did point out that some of the levels could be a bit hard. When pushed on the issue she mentioned that some of the pets she had been tasked to find were hidden in “secret” locations on the level and she had trouble finding them. This issue though did little to setback her overall enjoyment of the title. After explaining the five point scoring system to her she immediately professed it as a “5, its awesome”.

5* out of 5

While some games are broad enough in scope that gamers of all ages can appreciate them, Pillow Pets sadly is not one of them. Outside of the overall cuteness factor, there is very little to engage an adult gamer. However, on the flip side, the game will more than likely put a smile on a child’s face as they attempt to rescue their favorite Pillow Pets. As a budget title for the Nintendo DS, one could do worse than picking this game up for their child.

3* out of 5

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Kids Corner Review: Disney Universe

By
Don Parsons
– November 4, 2011Posted in: Kids Corner, PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

[Note: Kids Corner is a new feature review where some of us parents will review games, and include our kids' opinions and our impressions as both reviewers and parents. Keep a look out for many more in the future! -DP]

Imagine, if you will, a game with an assortment of Disney characters romping around levels designed in Disney-themed levels where you can not only solve puzzles but smash bad guys at the same time. Now open your eyes and behold, Disney Universe. This family friendly game has dozens of costumes to dress up as and a handful of worlds to explore, and is our first featured “Kids Corner” review. I was accompanied by both my wife and 7-year old son for this adventure, and our 2-year old son watched quite a bit.

Adult Basic Review

The basic story is you are at a Disney resort, and the robots were all hacked and have turned against the tourists (you). So you suit up in a Disney character outfit, and fight back. You start with one world, and a nice assortment of suits to dress-up in, but pretty much the majority of the game is locked content that you buy via gold collected by playing.

Each world has three stages, which has three areas; two puzzle areas and then a boss stage. There’s plenty of things to collect and find, too. Each area has a few collectibles (they vary per world; for instance, in The Lion King, you collect grub worms), a challenge that opens up at some point (avoiding raining fireballs, or collecting so much gold, etc.), a star that levels up your suit (each suit has 4 levels, and each level is represented by a new weapon or “tool” as Disney calls it), and of course gold.

The unique environments are really the perk of this game. Especially the Monsters, Inc. world, where you used doors to teleport between rooms. It kept things fresh, but the main objective of smashing things and the repetitive flow kept me from really getting into it when playing by myself.

The biggest draw here for adults is the array of Disney costumes. You unlock a new costume at the end of each boss stage, and then another one for playing the level a second time (the second playthrough didn’t vary like I thought it would, either, or at least from what I could tell), but the costumes themselves don’t grant any special powers or abilities. That said, it was fun to run around as the various characters from Disney movies and upgrade their suits.

Lastly, there is no online play, which is a shame. My wife and her best friend would have played this game to no end like they did LittleBigPlanet together.

Kid Solo Impression

My son loves Disney, loves action, and loves choices. This game appeased every aspect of that for him, and even when he wasn’t playing, he was talking about the game. Disney Universe is incredibly intuitive and has help arrows that guide you in the direction you need to be going if you need them. Unlike the LEGO games, which my son also loves, this little help feature helped him out a great deal, and rarely did I have to sit down and figure out where he was going or what he had to do (a frequent problem in the LEGO series).

Even with the limited number of costumes unlocked in the beginning was not a complaint, as my son reacted with some form of amusement as he scrolled through each one. And unlocking new ones got the same sort of reaction, “OH COOL, NEMO!”. And my two year old enjoyed watching the cute little characters run around smashing things, so it was good fun for everyone.

When I asked “if you had to rate the game 1 to 5 (insert explanation here), what would you rate it? And is it one of your favorite games?” I was answered with:

“Hm. 5. I wouldn’t change anything, it’s pretty great. And it’s my favorite game, I really like playing with you , we make a good team.”

I kid you not, that is verbatim.

Quick Co-op Impressions

We only played together a few times, and getting two people with short attention spans to work together is kind of a pain. And the camera zooms out so you can do your own thing, but that doesn’t work well when everything gets small and it’s hard to see who you are. That said, it was a lot of fun getting involved with my son, and both of us having fun. He would ask if I would come hold a switch down so he could nap some gold, and giggled when he would “accidently” steal something from me. Of course, I retaliated and froze him with the Medusa mask. By “accident”.

For gamer parents wanting to get involved in a game with their kids, Disney Universe does the trick, and does it for all ages. Even as a game for adults without kids, this game has a lot to offer, especially for fans of the various Disney franchises.

Pros: lots of unlockables, cute graphical style, fun co-op, easy for kids to pick up

Cons: no online, fixed camera

Overall Score: 4/5