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30 Great Games? Not quite...

I am guessing that most people will have the same gut reaction to Family Party: 30 Great Games as when I first picked it up; serious doubt about the word "great" being in the title. After playing the game many times, I feel confident in saying that the title is promoting false advertisement. A more accurate title would be 30 Mini Games.

There are six "great games" in each of five areas; Athletics, Castle, Muscle, Shooting and Variety. Initially, there are three areas unlocked; each with five games. The remainder are unlocked by getting first place overall in the unlocked areas. At least I think that is how they are unlocked. This worked for me for two of the three areas. However, there were two times when I placed first in the Athletics area that I was awarded with the word Failed. I have never heard of getting first place and failing. After brooding about my first place failures, I realized something; failure is the mark of this game. In almost every way this game fails. From the manual that has no useful information to the terrible AI; this game has failure written everywhere.

There are two options for playing the games; Challenge and Battle. In Challenge the player plays all of the games in one of the five game areas against three computer controlled opponents. In Battle mode, up to four live players square off in a group of up to six user selected games from any of the areas. This is the only aspect of the game that is mildly entertaining. Since the games are user selected and you are playing against opponents who are, most likely, not masters, like the computer always is, it makes it somewhat bearable. The games are terrible to begin with; but being beaten repeatedly by computer controlled opponents when I can't even make my character take his first step makes me want to snap the game disc in half.

The games are mini games; most of which I would expect to see on a Japanese game show. Expect to see lots of obstacle courses with some log cutting and trapeze swinging. The games are played by shaking, tilting, pushing and pulling on the controller, mashing buttons, pointing at the screen or a combination of any or all of these. There is so much shaking, pushing and pulling that I have woken up the next day with my arm hurting.

Since the games are so varied I will give you a couple of examples. The most basic game, and one of the few that is enjoyable, is The Cushion. The players try to balance on a stack of cushions in the middle of an earthquake. The game is played by tilting the controller to keep the character on the pile of cushions as long as possible.

One of the most difficult and irritating games is the sky swing. The player is supposed to grab a trapeze, swing and jump into the arms of a person swinging on another trapeze bar, swing and jump from this person to another person on a trapeze and then swing and jump to a platform. I was able to accomplish this feat once out of the more than ten times I played. No one else who played the game with me ever made it.

In lieu of a proper user manual pages of instructions are displayed just before the game is started. These instructions are supposed to explain how to play the game but, since the controls are almost always convoluted, the meaning is usually lost. More often than not, this left me stuck attempting different things to see what worked. Believe it or not, I still don't know how to play some of the games; even after trying them many times.

To summarize, don't buy Family Party: 30 Great Games unless you hate video games and want to torture yourself and the friends who come over and play multiplayer with you.