So. You know when you're playing Jenga. And it falls over. And you have to build it again. Pretty annoying, right? And you know when you're playing Connect 4, how sometimes the circular discs sort of chafe your fingers a bit? Don't you just hate that?
Hasbro Family Game Night 2 is a difficult game to take seriously. The premise – playing board games on your TV – skirts so perilously close to farce that I wouldn't be surprised to see the game attacked in some "what's the world coming to?" Daily Mail comment piece before the month is out.
The simple problems, as if they need stating, are first that the five games featured could probably be picked up from a charity shop or car-boot sale for less than a tenner all in, and second that the tangible experience of playing a board game around the family table is in no way improved by huddling in front of a television.
For what it's worth, the game is fairly well presented. Playing Jenga is impressively lifelike, and the alarm bells that sound as the tower wobbles make for a genuinely tense experience.
Still, none of the games are made more fun by playing them on the Wii than they would be in real life. And for a game that retails at just under £30, released on a console in 2009, to feature just five games, all of which would be called "mini-games" were they to feature in a proper video game, is pretty much inexcusable.
There's a half-arsed attempt at an achievements system, as you collect items to put on a virtual Mr Potato Head. Again, it's probably more fun to do this with an actual Mr Potato Head. The character acts as the "host" of the game, though disappointingly he never speaks.
And as for the games themselves; Jenga is fun, though the physics don't quite feel right. Pictureka is nigh-on impossible to play unless you have a very large television. Connect 4 is, well, Connect 4. And Operation bears little semblance to the board game, as you guide small objects through shaped holes using your Wii remote. Bop-it, meanwhile, doesn't really work properly as it doesn't always recognise your wrist flicks and twists in time.
The fact that this game is a sequel suggests that there is in fact a market for it – and I'm sure it is in fact possible to have a certain amount of family fun with it. But a Wii disc could fit dozens of such simple games on it. And even if it did, it would still be better to play them in real life.
Sure, it looks nice, and I understand that certain concessions should be made for "casual" gamers. But Game Night 2 is simply the lazy execution of a deeply flawed concept. Avoid.
