Family Feud: 2012 Edition Reviews

Family Feud: 2012 Edition offers the same "What the..." feeling that you feel at home watching the game. It adds the feel and realism of the show, but also adds an element of frustration. The answers aren't necessarily based on fact, they're based on 100 people surveyed. There are no guides, and Google and Wikipedia don't offer much help. One question that comes to mind is..."What sea creature do most people try to avoid." #1 answer, Sharks. #2 answer, Pirahnas. I'm no Ichthyologist, but I'm pretty sure pirahnas live in fresh water, not the sea. It doesn't matter to Family Feud, if people think that pirahnas are sea creatures, then that's a good answer. Thinking like the average person makes this game slightly less painful.

Graphics - 7/10
Not even worth mentioning, but here goes. It's a cute avatar game based on a game show. This game's graphics are not stunning. If you've played Full House Poker or 1 vs. 100, then you get the feel of Family Feud. One thing that could have been improved would be that the host's mouth seems to quit moving long after he's finished speaking. It's like a bad Kung Fu movie. Mildly distracting, but not a deal breaker.

Sound - 2/10
One word...repetitive. The host says the same eight things, only changing slightly depending on the situation. The only music in the game is the Family Feud theme song, which sounds like Hee Haw mixed with a little Deliverence. If you feel the need to play this with surround sound in Dolby, you may have issues. I turned the sound down to save a little sanity.

Gameplay - 7/10
The game is basically broken down into a series of challenges, 16 in total, ranging from easy to medium and hard. The hard challenges really aren't much different than the easy ones. As you progress through the challenges, the AI does get a bit harder, but not exponentially harder. Fast Money rounds are the same no matter which challenge that you chose. The goal is to beat the other family to progress to the Fast Money round. The goal here is to get 200 points to win the $20,000. If you've watched Family Feud on TV, one family member answers the first set of questions, and the other family member answers the same questions without repeating the same answer. If playing in solo mode, you answer both sets, trying to guess the top two answers. This can be incredibly easy or incredibly difficult depending on the questions asked. It's all luck based at this point. If one of the questions is "What is the best band of the 1990's", it's not based on fact. I went to Billboard.com to find out that it was Nirvana...survey says 11 points. My other answer was Pearl Jam...survey says 0 points. You just wasted twenty minutes of gaming because you got asked a question that has 20,000 potential answers and is solely based on opinion. There are over 2,000 questions, so if you play long enough, you'll see some repeats. It's random.

Replay Value - 10/10
The game itself is one huge replay. It's based on a game show. If you're serious about finishing this game, you'll replay yourself into a padded room. But we're looking at a minimum of 50 playthroughs.

Achievements - 7/10
I picked up this game for the easy achievements based on the cute avatars on the cover. The achievements are very easy but take a lot of time due to the random nature of the game.Despite what the box says, there is no online play, so if you think you can sucker the other guy that owns this game into playing online with you, you may be out of luck. Party mode is local only. If I were to do it over again, I may rent this from Gamefly (where you don't have to return it for X amount of days), or wait until it hits the bargain bin, which it will.

Overall - 6/10
Good game. It lacks real hosts like Richard Dawson, Louie Anderson (he could probably use a few bucks, Ubisoft) and Steve Harvey. The avatar host is Okay, but seems to be a bit homosexual and unimaginative. Questions that seem to have no good answer will make you want to break something. "Things that people break". An actual question on the game...I don't know, people break lots of things. #1 answer....glasses. Yeah, of course. I think I almost broke a controller playing this, but it is somehow strangely addictive. Unlockables are video clips of contestants and Steve Harvey on Family Feud, which is great, but I would have liked to see a Steve Harvey avatar hosting.

One of the best gameshows out there has finally made its way to your XBOX360 but the question is does the game stack up to the greatness of the show.

First off there are two game mode, one is party and the other is challenge. The only difference is in challenge mode there are multiple backgrounds to use and is co-op iff you choose to play multiplayer. There are also three AI difficulty levels to play through. When playing easy you will always when, the AI is dumb, medium they have some intellegence and they are smart on hard. Playing party mode is basically playing versus. When playing party mode there is no AI. I ahve played other versions of Family Feud over the years and in those versions the AI got the answer right everytime. Luckily for people that play this is not the case. Actually the AI is wrong more than they are right.

When you play solo you are the only person on your team, there is not going to be 4 other avatars playing on your team, that goes for party mode as well.

One thing I find is missing from this game that I have seen featured in the other versions I have played is the bullls eye round. For those of you that dont know what that is, its basically 4 or 5 rounds where both teams face off to get the best answer. The perk to this is that you earn extra money everytime you get the answer correct.

The host is also just an avatar, it would had been nice if they had at least one of the different hosts available but theres not. You do get to play as your xbox live avatar, which is nice.

The graffics are subpar, if you played 1 vs 100 or any of the xbox live avatar driven kinect games (Kinect Adventures) thats what you should expect in reference to graffics.

There are some unlockables, you get an unlockable (which is a small clip from the TV show starring Steve Harvey) for every challenge you beat, one for each challence background and difficulty. For example for the beach level you can unlock three videos. The videos I have unlocked were fairly entertaining but like I said before I would rather unlock a different host.

The host you are stuck with has maybe a dozen lines (I didnt count), nothing remotely entertaining. Everything it says is in reference to the amount strikes or how many answers you need to find.

When inputting the answers you have about 30 seconds (again I didnt time it) to type in your answers. The good news is that as your typing it gives you four possible words, but I am not sure what the gage is for the potential answers. I have found this helpful when trying to get answers that I may not have thought of.

The achievement list is boring and could have used more imagination. The achievement list is to beat every level on each difficulty, win fast money 10 times with or without people and to earn X amount of money. I would think there should be an achievement for stealing a round or for getting every answer right in a block. It will be a small grind to get the full 1000, the bare minimum you would need to play is 50 games, and thats assuming you get fast money right every time.

At the end of the day I find this to be the most boring version of Family Feud I have ever played, this is the fourth version. I am glad that it is a gamefly rental and not a purchase, the game currently retails for $40 which is way to much. I recommend waiting til it reaches the bargain bin under $10. The only reason why I am giving this game 2 stars is because I like what they did with the inputting answers and that we can use our xbox live avatars.

This game held my attention for around 3 rounds, and after that it was riddled with bugs and annoyances.


Bugs:
-several times I either scored 200 or just above in the fast money round and lost.
-the CPU will always pass.
-the host says the same lines over and over.
-one game the question asked something like "name something you open", and the cpu guessed Fridge Door, and it rung up front door on the board.
- Fast money doesn't count your score as your answers come in.
- When you steal the money the winning answer isn't added to your total.
-money is absolutely useless, there's nothing to spend it on, nothing that shows you how much you have won.

All in all, this is a rental game, and expect around 2-3 hours of fun before you are ready to toss it.

As for the achievements, while easy, they are painfully boring. Each requires you to win 3 rounds on each theme. your looking at 58 rounds to get all achievements.

I give this game 1/5