Joystiq hands-on: Hasbro Family Game Night

by Kevin Kelly { Jun 24th 2008 at 8:00PM }

Stepping into Electronic Arts' "EA3" event last week, we made a beeline for ... Hasbro Family Game Night, passing up the likes of Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, Mercenaries 2, and Tiger Woods Golf 2009: Busted Knee Edition along the way. We know, we know. But who can resist the lure of Battleship, Connect Four, Yahtzee, Boggle, Sorry and its new sibling Sorry Sliders? (Answer: you maybe; not us.)

Gallery: Hasbro Family Game Night

There's nothing groundbreaking about Hasbro Family Game Night, EA has just managed to nail fun gameplay, which is mostly a credit to the creators of the original (board!) games. The game designers have kept the transition to video game very simple. Most of the games have "updated" modes, but players can always revert back to the plain vanilla stuff. We played the new Connect Four, which has super-powered checkers that do things like crush your opponent, block a vertical column, and double your score. At first we thought it was sacrilege to tinker with these classic games ... but it works. "Pretty sneaky, sis!"

"Well worth a wrist flick."

It's been years since we've played Sorry or Boggle, but the Wiimote actually made spelling fun again, and knocking our opponents off the Sorry board was well worth a wrist flick. Unfortunately, Battleship was still in the shop, so we didn't get to play it -- even the EA representative wasn't quite sure how it's going to sail. "Right now we have it so the person you're playing against has to turn their head away when it's your turn," so they don't see where your ships are. Not exactly the best gameplay mechanic, but fun for cheaters!

EA has also added a "room" feature to the game, which can be decorated with purchased items (finally, that pink princess canopy bed you've always wanted!) and further customized with options to swap the view "outside" and more. It doesn't add much to the overall presentation, but it provides a space to rest your wrist between heated Yahtzee matches. Hasbro Family Game Night is being developed for Wii and PlayStation 2 and will be released this holiday (we're hearing November 2008) -- it'll be value priced at $39.99 for the Wii, and $29.99 for the PS2 edition.

And now, probably the most interesting thing to come out of our time with this game was the following exchange:

Joystiq: "Hasbro owns a lot of board game titles ... don't they own Risk?"
EA: "Yes, they do."
Joystiq: "Well, that seems like a no-brainer for an online game. Why aren't you guys making that?"
EA: "We've been having some very interesting discussions about that title in the office."
Joystiq: "Hrmmmmm..."
EA: *silence*

We also picked up a copy of the new Risk board game (with new rules and pieces) at Toys R Us over the weekend, and the back of the box is emblazoned with EA's logo, touting the Hasbro relationship synergy. Let's hope this means we'll get an XBLA/PSN Risk sometime soon. In the near future, it means you'll be seeing Monopoly on the Wii, 360, PS3 and PS2, Littlest Pet Shop on the Wii, DS and PC, and NERF "N-Strike" exclusively for the Wii later this year, all as part of EA's partnership with Hasbro. Game on.

Tags: Battleship, Board-Games, Boggle, Connect-Four, EA, EA3-2008, hands-on, Hasbro, Hasbro-Family-Game-Night, Risk, Sorry, Sorry-Sliders, Yahtzee

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

BPM [MKWii: 2578 3585 8392] @ Jun 24th 2008 8:11PM

Risk for WiiWare/XBLA/PSN with off- and online multiplayer.

DO IT.

colin @ Jun 24th 2008 8:35PM

Tiger Woods Golf 2009: Busted Knee (and still unstoppable) Edition

*fixed

Mr.ESC @ Jun 24th 2008 8:49PM

Monopoly for Wiiware,xlive or PSN would sell like pancakes.

rTwelve [xbl:chilblane] @ Jun 24th 2008 9:01PM

and I would play it...like...hotcakes.

Benny @ Jun 24th 2008 9:07PM

I want this!

... to disappear.

Grey Acumen @ Jun 24th 2008 9:19PM

Battleship should be done as a DS game, hands down, the dual screen setup and DS stylus is beyond perfect for the game. I just don't see how else you could do it.

Unknown @ Jun 25th 2008 2:18AM

That's an awesome idea...

auroragb @ Jun 27th 2008 12:36PM

I was thinking that you would have DS be the controller for the Wii game. So, you can set up the board using the DS and play on the Wii

Grey Acumen @ Jun 27th 2008 1:45PM

@ auroragb -
If you're going to use the DS in order to set up the pieces, you might as well just keep playing using the DS. You'd use the bottom screen to set up your ships (which could easily be done by drawing a line through the squares the piece would go on) then once they were set up, your side of the board would then switch to the top of the screen and the touch screen would be used to place your shots.

The interesting part about this is that your board cold be laid out in nearly any pattern, not just squares, but also in a hex grid.
On top of this, you could have it set up to allow ships to move(though movement would be limited to areas that have not already been attacked, and pieces that have taken damage can no longer move)
you could also have it set up to allow different size and shaped pieces. In the gameboy battleship game, your aircraft carrier was capable of launching a single square-sized piece that then moved around the field every turn.

You would also want to make sure you could adjust rules for different versions of battleship. I know of one version that allows you to take as many shots per turn as you have squares worth of pieces. So the battleship could fire 4 shots, the aircraft carrier can fire 5, etc. some takes on this had it set so that you lost a shot for each time a piece took damage, but another version has it so that you don't lose any shots until the piece is actually sunk.

There are a bunch of different modes that should be implemented to make the game worth while, but if those things were done, it could be an incredibly excellent game.