Family Guy

"It was fun, I guess...for the 8 hours that it lasted..."

Family Guy. The show has many fans and it's no wonder why. It's a great hilarious show. When I heard about a video game, I was excited to say the least. I was even more excited when I found out that the game only costs $30 in the US. Why was it only $30, though? Well, hopefully these are all the reasons you'll need.

Story: 7
The game has three different storylines: Peter's, Brian's, and Stewie's. In Peter's storyline, Peter's out to destroy Mr. Belvedere. In Brian's storyline, Brian is accused of getting Skybreeze, another dog, pregnant, and he needs to prove that he didn't. And finally, in Stewie's storyline, Stewie must defeat his nemesis, Bertram, once again.

Gameplay: 4
Not the greatest. The story in the game was scripted well, but what about the gameplay? Nope, this is where the game lacks. When playing as Peter, in all of his levels you just beat up everyone in your path so you can finally get to Mr. Belvedere. When playing as Brian, it's basically a sleuthing, espionage sort of thing. You just collect the evidence you need without being seen by anyone. When playing as Stewie, you have to just get through the levels by completing various objectives. There's also mini-games in the game, otherwise known as non-sequiters, where you do a variety of things to either earn parts to upgrade Stewie's ray gun, food for Peter's Snack Meter, or to make Brian invisible for a short amount of time.

Graphics: 5
For the cel-shaded graphic style, the people who made this game didn't do too bad. Unfortunately, these aren't really the type of graphics I like. I know it's probably hard to make good graphics for a Family Guy game, but come on people, couldn't you have done just a little bit better?

Sound: 6
Sound wasn't bad in my opinion. Music and voice actors were fine. I just got a bit frustrated when playing sometimes, Peter/Brian/Stewie would repeatedly say things. For example, when playing as Peter, sometimes he'd say "You bastard!" more than he should have. It was funny the first couple of times, but it soon became annoying.

Replay Value: 5
I don't know when I'll ever find myself playing this game again. You can play it all you want, but I have other games to play before I ever go back to this. It only takes 6-8 hours to beat, though, so it's not like it's tedious to beat it, just might not be worth your time. Hell, you might be able to beat this game twice in one day if you played it enough.

Final Recommendation
Well, you could easily beat this in one rental period if you don't feel like buying the game but you still want to play it. I bought it, but it might not have been worth the $30 I payed for it. It's really up to you. You'll probably only like this game if you are a true Family Guy fan.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 11/21/06