There is something endlessly entertaining about watching an anthropomorphic potato dance "The Robot." Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the minigames included in Hasbro Family Game Night 2. Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a terrible game, and considering its bargain price, I wouldn’t hold it against you if you picked this up for some quality family gaming time. However, many of Hasbro’s gaming properties are considered timeless – such as Operation, Connect 4, and Jenga. And sadly, their video game equivalents just don’t stack up (no Jenga pun intended) to the lofty status of their real life counterparts.
There are five games in this collection, which you can either play individually or in a game show type setting, where Mr. Potato Head acts as your host. Your Miis move across a board competing in various minigames based on the Hasbro properties in the collection. It’s a nice addition, but since some of the games in this collection are simply not worth playing, I found I’d much rather just play the games I know I like rather than risking a grab bag.
Letting Mr. Potato Head choose your game could be a mistake…
That being said, there is some fun to be had here, beginning with the best game in the batch: Pictureka. For those of you that haven’t played the original, Pictureka is a game in which you must find pictures hidden amongst various crowded collections. The game is entertaining enough to warrant repeat visits, especially in multiplayer. Each game in the collection also includes a "Remix" version of the original title that adds extra features and/or rules to the standard gameplay. In this case, this means adding new colors to the die that decide what pictures you need to find. For example, you may now have to find all the letters that spell out the word "rust." This is really the only game in the collection whose Remix mode is better than the original game. My only complaint is that occasionally it’s hard to choose the picture you want with the Wiimote since some are very small, and the game’s overall controls are quite floaty.
Operation is also quite a bit of fun, but only the first one or two times you play it. It’s simply too repetitive and easy to hold your interest for very long, even though extracting items by twisting and turning the Wiimote is entertaining. Unfortunately Operation is one of the games in the collection that does not have the option of changing your difficulty setting. The Remix version seems completely pointless, as all it does is add a new randomly appearing minigame where you shoot germs with the Wiimote. It’s not fun and doesn’t serve much of a purpose.
Game Night includes three versions of Connect 4: the original, Connect 4×4, and 4×4’s Remix version. I found 4×4 to be somewhat confusing. The only benefit of it is that it allows up to four players. Otherwise, it’s basically just two Connect 4 boards superimposed onto each other. The Remix version adds special properties to some of the slots, but it only serves to make the gameplay even more confusing. This is another game that suffers from a ridiculously low difficulty level as well. Although it does have a difficulty setting for its AI, I was able to win on both Easy and Normal by simply stacking four checkers on top of each other, completely unchallenged.
Jenga holds true to the original in that it is extremely difficult. As you may know, the game consists of you pulling blocks out of a wooden tower and stacking them on top of it. If the tower falls on your turn, you lose. Unfortunately, the game sometimes switches to the next player’s turn even while the tower is falling, which means my friends and I quickly developed the strategy of placing a block on top of the tower in such a way as to make the tower fall as the turn passed to the next player. Some may call that cheating, since that wouldn’t be possible to do in the real game. In the real game, turns wouldn’t pass until everyone was certain the tower was stable. In order to turn the camera, the game suggests holding the B button and twisting the Wiimote – but this works horribly. Instead, simply use the left and right buttons on the D pad and save yourself a lot of aggravation. Jenga’s Remix mode adds in Boom Blox-ish qualities, such as exploding blocks, which adds some replayability.
Finally, the last game on the disc is Bop It. Basically, Bop It is newer version of Simon Says, which requires you to perform different actions with the Wiimote in sequence. However, most of these actions are so similar that you can get away with just waving or shaking the Wiimote to pass – especially in the Remix version which adds even more motions to remember. Bop It is easily the worst game in the collection, unless you’re a memory nut who is willing to follow the rules and not just shake the controller like crazy.
Game Night does try and introduce some additional replay value by having you collect various parts and costumes for the affable Mr. Potato Head in lieu of a traditional achievement system. Unfortunately, it’s hard to care about the unlockables since it is impossible to unlock any new games, no matter how hilarious Mr. PH looks in a pimp hat.
If you’re looking for a decent game collection to share with the kids, Hasbro Family Game Night 2 isn’t a terrible call. Just don’t expect to get much more than a couple of nights out of it. I might also suggest that you look for the original game which includes classics like Sorry and Battleship.
