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Gamer Galaxy: "The Family Guy Video Game"

Nick Rudman
Published: Tuesday, November 14, 2006

“The Family Guy Video Game”

Take 2

PLAYSTATION 2

“Family Guy” is a show that has certainly been better known for its superb comedic content than its decidedly average look. To ardent fans of the show (myself included), this is not a problem. We’ll take funny jokes over slick animation any day.

It’s interesting, then, that in “The Family Guy Video Game,” what stands out is not the “content” (the writing and the plot), but the appearance. As perhaps expected, the game resembles a 3-D version of the show – but the sharp lines and bright colors of the world of “Family Guy” make for a gaming experience that, at the very least, is visually engaging.

But just because it’s fun to look at a perfect reproduction of the streets of Quahog doesn’t mean it’s fun to play through them. Repetitive, often frustrating gameplay combines with story lines and dialogue (which should be a major strength of this game) that feel rehashed and reheated from the show to form a mostly disappointing final product.

“The Family Guy Video Game” lets the player take control of three characters – Stewie, Brian and Peter – each of whom is working towards his own typically skewed goal. Also, each has his own special ability: Stewie can shoot enemies with his ray gun, Brian can don disguises and sneak around, and Peter can unleash a number of hand-to-hand combat moves to dispatch the townspeople of Quahog, who he thinks are being brainwashed by TV’s Mr. Belvedere.

While controlling the funniest main characters is novel, their respective storylines feel too similar to material that has been featured on the show in the past, such as Stewie’s quest to stop his half-brother Bertram from taking over the world (sound familiar?). The content is adequate, but taking into account what the writers of “Family Guy” are capable of producing, it could be hilarious.

A story that relies too much on the show’s ideas wouldn’t hurt the “Family Guy” video game so much if the actual act of playing the game was more enjoyable – or even a little enjoyable. Although some situations really put the subversive spirit of the show to good interactive use – such as Stewie’s periodic ability to use mind control on characters such as Quagmire – the game ultimately gets bogged down in frustrating side-scrolling conventions. It’s fun to fight your way through the many incarnations of Lois in Peter’s brain once, but not three or more times, which is what it will take. A poorly constructed point-of-view system that often doesn’t let the player see what’s coming next and mind-boggling “rules” for dispatching enemies (why can Peter kill an old lady with a punch but not a devastating triple-kick?) don’t help things.

The “Family Guy” video game is not offensively bad; it just could be a lot funnier, and more significantly, much more fun to play. Sure, this game might not create any new fans of the show, but remember – two years ago, we were living in a world without “Family Guy.” If the existence of a mediocre side-scroller is a necessary by-product of having new episodes of the show, that’s fine with me. But when it comes to deciding what to put in my PS2, I’ll stick with a “Family Guy” DVD.