LET’S PLAY THE FEUD!!

Posted 1 year ago By - Rory Young

Ubisoft is perhaps best known for publishing massive hits such as Assassin’s Creed, the Ghost Recon franchise, Far Cry, and the Splinter Cell series.. Suffice it to say, the hardcore gamers are covered with these releases. Additionally, Ubisoft has taken another direction altogether, with the releases of family-friendly titles such as Rayman, Rabbids, so on and so forth. The latest release is Family Feud 2012, based upon the popular television game show, which popped into my hands just a few days ago. So sit back, settle into your favorite chair, grab a drink, and let’s PLAY THE FEUD!!

In the game show, two families battle against each other by trying to come up with the top answers to survey questions. Points are awarded based on how many people, out of 100 surveyed, gave that particular answer. Points are doubled and tripled in later rounds, and the family on top at the end of four rounds, goes on to play Fast Money. In Fast Money, two members are chosen from the family to answer survey questions in a quasi-lightning round. Both members get the same questions, but are asked separately and out of earshot of the other. If both scores combined equal 200 or more, the family wins $20000. It is a simple concept, but how does it translate to the console?

Quite well, it turns out. The modes of play are very basic: you can play alone, or co-operatively with up to five players against AI families. There is also a party mode where up to ten players can play in offline versus play. There is no online connectivity included with this version of the game, which is a bit of a bummer. There are different themes that can be unlocked, along with outtake videos and best-of moments from the actual television game show with host Steve Harvey. Answering questions with the Xbox 360 controller is relatively easy. As you type in your answer, four suggestions populate the screen, assigned to the LB, RB, LT, and RT buttons. You can continue to type, or push one of the buttons with the answer you want to use. This control scheme does detract from the integrity of the game a bit, though, as I found that if the answer that I was typing didn’t populate, it was not going to be on the board, inadvertently helping to round down the answers.

Family Feud 2012 uses your Xbox 360 Avatar as your player character in the game, as many of the family-centric games seem to be doing these days. This certainly gives a personal feel to the round of play. The host avatar is a fictional character, who can be quirky and, at times, funny, but most of his jokes are of the lame variety and get old rather quickly. Most of his comments are repeated throughout the same round. Unfortunately, he can’t be turned off or skipped over to get straight to the questions. The audio in Family Feud 2012 is very faithful to its television counterpart, right down to the theme music and the sounds of the buzzers.

Final Focus

With a few bumps and bruises, Family Feud makes it to the other side by being a fun party game, and begs to be enjoyed by a group of people. Alone, it can be entertaining, but one feels guilty using some of the 2000 questions during a single-player game, when they SHOULD be saved for a time when more people are around to play. At a price tag of $40, let me caution that, unless you plan on using this game a lot with friends, it shouldn’t be on your list of must-haves...that is, unless you’re obsessed with surveys or a die-hard fan of the game show.