Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade Review

Consider this family party crashed.

Despite the negativity usually associated with party games, I tend to enjoy them more than most. Being a family man, who at times has company over, I can overlook some repetition or even gameplay flaws if it equates to fun with family and friends. So when I played a little game titled Family Party that boasts 30 "great" games, yet delivers nothing more than confusion and anger instead of competition and fun, I cracked my knuckles and got right to work on this review.

No, I don’t need more time to let it sink in. I don't even need much time to form a solid opinion. I know s*** as soon as I smell it, and this turd stinks from a mile away.

It was mere moments after booting up Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade when the frustration began. I was expecting the “obstacle” to be within the games themselves, not within the menu. After fumbling about with even the most menial of tasks—like choosing between one or two players—it was time to enter my name.

But Family Party doesn't care what my name is. Even though I was prompted to enter my name, each character already has a “nickname," and that’s what counts. You may notice your name on the leaderboards, but that is where it ends. Name matters little to me, but try explaining to a child, who can clearly see that you’ve input her name, why she’s repeatedly called “Carly." Why even offer the ability to add a name in the first place if you’re just going to call me something else? That’s just stupid. And it's stupid design decisions like these that plague every aspect of this game.

By that point, I hadn't even touched the game portion yet. I wish I had stopped then, because things took a turn for the worse.

I feel as though it should be considered criminally inappropriate to call these 30 mini-games “great." They consist of “family fun” activities like spinning in a teacup uncontrollably for a full minute, with the character shouting “woo hoo." I wanted to vomit uncontrollably, not from the spinning, but because of the thought that there are people out there who are going to pay money to play this game. That’s just sickening.

If teacups aren’t your cup of tea, there are some other exciting complete garbage games to play, like “don’t pick the joker card out of the other cards." None of these thirty games are even on the verge of mediocrity, let alone greatness.

If what I’ve experienced thus far wasn’t offensive enough, the next game was decided by a roulette wheel on the Wii U GamePad. Before I could actually play the game that was chosen, it told me a Nunchuk controller was required to continue. Required. I plugged in the Nunchuk into my Wiimote… and nothing. It wasn’t until I plugged in another Nunchuk to the second player that could I proceed. If you’re still actually reading this review and following along, this happens for each player, for up to four players. As if this game wasn’t a ripoff enough—and it's outright robbery—it forces you to own four Wiimotes, four nunchuk controllers, on top of the Wii U GamePad. If you don’t have enough Nunchuks, or just want to share the one you do have, well tough s***.

Worse, imagine my confusion when the mini-game that started was nothing more than a point-and-shoot type mini-game where you aimed at windows in a haunted house to shoot ghosts. Something that could be easily accomplished with just the f***ing Wiimote. The Nunchuk is used to move the reticule over each window, instead of just pointing—you know, like how it is in every other Wii or Wii U game. If you wanted to aim at the windows around the perimeter of the screen, well then, hold the Z button and move the analog stick, because that makes perfect sense. Please excuse my sarcasm, but I really cannot help myself. It’s like the developers threw any sense of intuitiveness out the window.

Family Party is terrible. Not only is it bad, it’s borderline unplayable. In my 28 years of playing video games, I've never experienced anything this awful. It has absolutely zero redeeming qualities. D3 Publisher, Nintendo, and anyone else associated with the creation of this game should be ashamed of themselves. Nobody should buy this. Ever. I fought with myself over awarding this game one-half point simply because it turned on and wasn't broken from glitches or crashing, but then decided against it because, ultimately, that would have been a better fate than playing this.