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IGN Review of Hasbro Family Game Night
Hasbro Family Game Night makes sense on consoles: the family gathers around the TV to play a few rounds of Connect 4 or Operation, games they would normally play at the table. But it's difficult for families to gather around the Nintendo DS. Besides, unlike the console versions of Family Game Night, this DS version only supports two players, so it's more like a Hasbro Car Trip Game that can be played between siblings in the back seat. You'll get portable versions of four popular games (Operation, Battleship, Bop It, and Connect 4) with no pieces to keep track of or set up, so it does have value. But these aren't the most exciting games out there and the DS has better multiplayer diversions available.
Battleship is the simple military strike game where you randomly fire missiles at your opponent's grid, hoping to land a hit on one of their sea vessels. In Original mode players take turns firing one shot at a time, but in Salvo mode you get a shot for every ship of yours still above water. Still have all five ships? Then you can fire five shots this turn. The game flows more quickly this way. There are also super weapons that can be turned on for both modes. These powerful bombs take out more than one square at a time. Battleship is one of the winners in this package.
Operation is quite a bit different from its board game counterpart. You still have to extract a bunch of foreign objects from your patient's body, but now you have to drag them through a winding series of tunnels, being careful not to touch the sides. The variation on this one is merely a speed test that adds a time limit to Original mode. This version of Operation lacks the immediate thrills of the board game.
And then there is Bop It, which, like the version found on the Wii's Hasbro Family Game Night 2, is straight busted. The real Bop It is a toy with handles, pull strings, cranks, twisty bits, toggles, and a big round "bop it" button. A speaker on the device shouts out commands like "twist it!" and "pull it!" and the user must follow the instructions. Why Hasbro and EA thought this would make a good videogame, we may never know. A visual approximation of the toy is shown on the DS touch screen and you simply tap the various parts as instructed – not exactly thrilling. When the game says "shout it!" you're supposed to shout into the DS microphone, but this doesn't even work most of the time.
If two players have copies of the cartridge you can play the full versions of all these games in multiplayer. Download play is also available if you just have one copy, but not all options and game variations will be accessible. Finally, there is also the option to pass one system back and forth between two players.
©2009-11-04, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Battleship is the simple military strike game where you randomly fire missiles at your opponent's grid, hoping to land a hit on one of their sea vessels. In Original mode players take turns firing one shot at a time, but in Salvo mode you get a shot for every ship of yours still above water. Still have all five ships? Then you can fire five shots this turn. The game flows more quickly this way. There are also super weapons that can be turned on for both modes. These powerful bombs take out more than one square at a time. Battleship is one of the winners in this package.
Operation is quite a bit different from its board game counterpart. You still have to extract a bunch of foreign objects from your patient's body, but now you have to drag them through a winding series of tunnels, being careful not to touch the sides. The variation on this one is merely a speed test that adds a time limit to Original mode. This version of Operation lacks the immediate thrills of the board game.
And then there is Bop It, which, like the version found on the Wii's Hasbro Family Game Night 2, is straight busted. The real Bop It is a toy with handles, pull strings, cranks, twisty bits, toggles, and a big round "bop it" button. A speaker on the device shouts out commands like "twist it!" and "pull it!" and the user must follow the instructions. Why Hasbro and EA thought this would make a good videogame, we may never know. A visual approximation of the toy is shown on the DS touch screen and you simply tap the various parts as instructed – not exactly thrilling. When the game says "shout it!" you're supposed to shout into the DS microphone, but this doesn't even work most of the time.
If two players have copies of the cartridge you can play the full versions of all these games in multiplayer. Download play is also available if you just have one copy, but not all options and game variations will be accessible. Finally, there is also the option to pass one system back and forth between two players.
©2009-11-04, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved