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Review – Family Feud | PSNStores

Review – Family Feud

Posted by on September 1st, 2010 | 0 Comments | Tags: ,

Developer: Virtuos
Publisher: Ludia
Release Date: July 6th 2010
Availability:
Price: $9.99
Players: 1-2 Local and Online Multiplayer
Rating: Everyone

What I liked:

  • Feels like the Feud
  • Impressive auto-guessing answering system
  • Name something you wouldn’t build your house on: Sarlacc Pit

What I disliked:

  • Androgynous avatars
  • There are about 4 avatar animations
  • Some slight misspellings/announcer glitches

Let’s play the Feud! Family Feud is the second gameshow video game from Ludia to come to the PSN. The first, The Price is Right, was largely a disappointment. I’m happy to say that Family Feud is a fun game to play. If you haven’t seen or heard of Family Feud before (who are you?), the game is played pretty simply: Two families compete to earn points by guessing how 100 Americans answered survey questions. First, a representative of each team answers a quick-fire face-off question. The person whose answer is higher on the board chooses if his/her family will play or pass. The family who plays is tasked with guessing all of the answers on the board. They’re allowed to answer incorrectly 3 times before the other team has the chance to steal the points on the board. The first family to accrue 300 points moves on to the Fast Money round. In the real game, two family members take turns answering ten survey questions. In the video game, you answer the same survey questions twice. If you reach 200 points in the Fast Money round, you win twenty thouuuuusand dollars!! That’s enough of an explanation of Family Feud. To the game itself!

First of all, the game uses authentic themes and sounds from the show. Also, there’s an announcer, something that Jeopardy lacked when it released a while back. There are 2 ways to play the Feud: Single player or party mode. The single player is set up like a story mode. There are 12 families to beat, each with a humorous paragraph back story. Stuff like “Tim is a rancher who moved from Japan with his 7 children and wife of 13 years in order to chase his dream of becoming a children’s hospital clown” makes up most of these stories. They may be ridiculous, but I can assure you that I read every one of ’em, so touché Ludia, touché. Anyways, the single player gets progressively harder with each family you face. I beat the final family, The Bakers, a few days ago. It’s pretty difficult, but if you can manage to push the game into Sudden Death, you’ll likely win. How do you play, you say? Read on, reader. Read on.

Family Feud is easy to play, which is a very good thing. It lacks keyboard support, but that’s not such a huge deal after you learn how to use the system in place. Basically, when you begin typing your guess on the on-screen keyboard, four boxes (one mapped to each shoulder button) pop up and offer guesses as to what you’re… guessing. For example, if the survey is “Name a type of music that’s difficult to dance to” and you start typing cl, “classical” is likely to pop up in one of the boxes. It’s a quick, easy way to deal with trivia, and it works well most of the time. The downside to this mechanic is that if you begin typing your answer and don’t see as one of the pop-up options, it’s likely wrong, adding a sort of meta guessing game to the mix.

The multiplayer mode is where the game really shines. Chris K and I played several games online and had a very fun time. The online community isn’t too robust, but I never had to wait more than a few minutes to find a game at any time. The one potential pitfall to the online multiplayer is that you can talk (or yell or rickroll, etc.) while the other player is in the Fast Money round. It hasn’t happened to me yet but if I lose I often think about busting out a vuvuzela and blaring it into the mic instead of quietly waiting for the other player to get through the surveys.

Overall, Family Feud is a fun and surprisingly faithful video game version of the popular game show. The graphics are sub-par, and the characters look like hyperactive Xbox avatars clapping or fist pumping in sync. None of the slight glitches significantly hurt the gameplay, and it doesn’t have any of the awkward downtime that plagued The Price is Right. While it may not be revolutionary (it’s a Wii port), it is a fun game, and if you’re a fan of the Feud you’ll likely like it a lot. I usually played the single player with a few friends in the room, which makes even the solo experience feel like a party. Honestly, I’ve probably played Family Feud with friends as much as, if not more than, Buzz or Trivial Pursuit. Survey says…

Click Here to purchase Family Feud from Amazon.com

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