Hasbro (not to be confused with Haribo who make Starmix) are the world’s leading board-game manufacturer. The company has brought us hugely popular board-games such as Monopoly, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Risk, and Cluedo. Family Game Night does not include any of those titles and this can either be seen as testament to Hasbro having a large volume of quality games or that this is a “best of the rest” collection. In this review I hope to arm you with enough information so that you can come to your own conclusion.

Mr. Potato Head takes on the role of host and hovers around while you decide which game to play next. There are four playable games – Connect 4, Bop It!, Battleship, and Operation. In an attempt to add some variety each game comes with a number of modes and additional options.

Connect 4

Two game modes: Original and Power Chips. Three difficulty settings: Normal, Expert, and Genius. Three game lengths: Short, medium, and long.

Bop It!

Two game modes: Classic and Combo. Two ‘Shout it’ settings: Gesture and Vocal. Five ‘Bop’ settings: Beat, Colour, Vox, Random, Vox, and Mix Up.

Battleship

Two game modes: Original and Salvo. Three difficult settings: Normal, Expert, and Genius. Superweapons: On or Off. Round options: 1, Best of 3, and Best of 5.

Operation

Two game modes: Original and Speed Operation. Two extraction settings: All and Single. Three difficulty settings: Training, Normal, and Expert.

Of the four games available Connect 4 is the only one I owned as a child. Family and friends had Operation and Battleship so I had a chance to play those but Bop It! is a completely new experience for me. Everyone will have a slightly different experience but I found Connect 4 to be far too simple on Normal difficulty. Expert setting appears to have an accurate balance of common sense and “human” error. The Original mode can be fun but I really enjoyed Power Chips as the additional special chips, such as ones which explode, calls for a more tactical approach.

Bop It! is a physical game, similar in that respect to something like Twister, which doesn’t translate well to the DS. This game just didn’t appeal to me, no matter what settings were used, and I’m sure this is down to the fact that bashing or pulling at a physical toy is more fun than tapping the touch-screen with a stylus.

I always found Operation to be a pain in the ass so it’s good news (or bad, as the case may be) that this DS version is very accurate in that respect. This is one of a selection of games which were created to frustrate the person playing. The feeling of relief which comes from eventual success is confused for enjoyment and the prior frustration is washed away. I wish this was true for me but I remember the frustration all too well. Trying to work an odd-shaped object through the body of a patient must be a nerve-wrecking experience for surgeons but when the items in question are spinning it is enough to induce blind rage.

Battleships is by far my favourite game in the collection. Two players placing battleships on the opposite side of a grid and attempting to find and destroy the others before they destroy yours is such a simple but highly effective premise. I had a lot of fun in both modes but Salvo is my favourite. More than a single missile is fired each turn and this adds to the excitement as with some well-placed (lucky) strikes it’s possible to cause a lot of damage in one round.

The graphics aren’t great and this is mainly due to a lack of detail, even with the few backgrounds which attempt to add a little variety, but if you ignore the limitations of the DS there still wasn’t much anyone could do to jazz up handheld versions of boardgames. 

This is a decent collection but in my opinion only Connect 4 and Battleships have pass marks as Operation is frustratingly fiddly and any enjoyment of the physical Bop It! fails to translate to the DS. Kids are sure to enjoy this title but Bop It! should really have been replaced with a game which works better on this platform.

6/10

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