Family Guy

"When, oh when, will developers learn to quit making horrible licensed games?"

Story:

This game is based on various different story lines straight from the popular Family Guy cartoon series. It basically takes bits and pieces of certain storylines and expands upon them in various "what-if?" scenarios. It's really a barely coherent plot, but then again, does Family Guy even have a coherent plot most of the time?

Graphics: 7/10

This is actually one of the few strong points of the game. The cel-shaded graphics really make the various characters look almost exactly like their television counterparts. They're all brightly colored and well-animated. Nothing really stands out in the environments, however. They're all pretty low in the polygon department. The fans do get a nice treat by letting them run around some familiar Quahog environments, such as the Griffin's home and the Channel 5 news desk, but they're mostly generic and uninspired.

Sound: 8/10

Any casual fan of Family Guy knows that the off-beat humor is what the show is known for, and it translates well here. The same crazy antics are in full force. The original cast all reprise their roles, and the characters will throw out some funny one-liners and other jokes during gameplay. Unfortunately, many of the jokes are recycled from the show. They were probably trying to capture some its funniest moments by re-using some of the jokes, but sometimes it just comes off as stale. There are still many funny anecdotes for the fans, though, and that alone may inspire some people to drudge their way through the game despite the lame gameplay.

Gameplay: 4/10

Ugh, what happened here? Why would the developers go to so much trouble to capture the look and humor of the series, only to drag it down with horribly trite and uninspired gameplay? It goes like this: You play as Peter, Brian, and Stewie, all of whom have different types gameplay depending on who's levels you are playing. They're outlined in more detail below:

Peter's levels are generic beat-em-up type stages, in which you do the traditional right-to-left progression as you smack around children, old-ladies, cops, etc. These levels are easily among the most boring and frustrating aspects of the game. You're given your basic punches, kicks, and a couple of super attacks to fight off the various enemies. Here's the main problem: for some reason, the developers decided to make it so that certain types of enemies are impervious to punches, while others are impervious to kicks, etc. They may have been trying to add some type of strategy by doing this, but all it adds is frustration. What tends to happen is that the enemies immune to different attacks will be mixed together in one group, so while you're beating up one type, the other will be unaffected, left to mercilessly beat you to a pulp, while you are totally helpless to do anything about it. It's these types of irritations that really take away from Peter's sections, especially since the fighting itself couldn't be more monotonous.

Brian's levels fair a little better, but still are rife with irritation. His levels entail sneaking-type stages, and while there's a couple of fairly clever ones, they're mostly annoying. Inconsistent A.I. makes the enemies able to see Brian from a mile away one minute, then be totally oblivious the next. The trial-and-error progression through the levels makes it based less on any kind of skill, and more on simple memorization. This, as you can imagine, can take multiple retries, and you'll most likely grow tired of the level far before you finish it.

Stewie's levels are mostly made up of shooter and platformer-type gameplay. You collect various bolts and wrenches scattered throughout the levels to power up your gun, giving it more powerful bullets, radial attacks, and grenade launching capabilities. These are probably the least broken segments, but that doesn't mean there really that fun, either. There's also a lot of running around pressing buttons and throwing switches; all of the moldy old standbys other better games have used for years. The lack of closely-gathered checkpoints makes for replaying a lot of the same areas over and over again as well. All-in-all, most of Stewie's elements have a "been there, done that" feel to them that other games have done much better than what's offered here.

Besides those uninspired elements, there's actually one thing that stands out. During each level, a character will suddenly have one of the series' well-known "flashback" sequences, in which a character will recall a classic funny moment from the show, and you are asked to play a simple mini-game during the sequence. If you win, you get extra health, upgrade wrenches for Stewie's gun, etc. In an otherwise yawn-worthy game, these sequences manage to stand out, and even be fun, mainly because of the humor (even if many of the jokes are recycled).

Replay value:1/10

After you've played through it once and seen all the jokes, there's really no reason to go through it again.

Overall:5/10

The streak of licensed tragedy continues. If you're a fan of the show, and you've got nothing else to play, give it a quick weekend rental, if only to catch some of the patented humor. Otherwise, it's not really worth your time. There are much better games out there. Don't buy this game, and maybe someday, developers will get the hint that they actually need to make a quality game in order for it to sell well, even if they slap a popular license on the box.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 05/21/07