Family Guy
This is like that one time when I had to play a really average licensed game.
Published: October 25, 2006
And maybe that was the idea. The game spends enough time making fun of things like development budgets and invisible walls that you can tell it's not trying to take itself too seriously, but when limited gameplay meets limited writing, it just sort of gives you that "....huh" feeling rather than being something that is worth pushing through to hear the next bit (even though I ended up doing that anyway).
Visually, the game is actually rather nice. The modeling as a whole does a great job of translating 2D cel animation into 3D cel-shaded visuals with a couple of minor exceptions (Peter never did look or move right). The animation in place -- particularly in the cutscenes where the show's trademark lip-synching is important -- manages to also mimic the look and feel of a given series, and it's usually in these extended bits where the best laughs hit. Texture detail (such as it is), paints the world in the same vivid colors as the TV show, and while it's all sort of sparse, that is the idea.
Given that this is the exact same game on the PSP and PS2, it's impressive that the game works as well as it does, but there are some problems. The framerate as a whole is rather low, which can affect the gameplay and it can take a couple of serious nosedives from time to time. The camera control is a little bizarre (it's locked all the time, with the right shoulder button and analog nub allowing you to look around just a little), but I can sort of appreciate the attempt to simplify things; Peter's levels in particular are meant to recall the old-school arcade brawlers and they do a nice job.
The audio is quite strong... the first time you hear it. Subsequent play-throughs of the same section start to grate quickly because there's hardly ever any change in the clips, but at the very least the fact that the show's actual voice cast participated means that everything is delivered fairly well, though a part of me can't help but think some of the lines came off as being mindlessly spoken from the page. The music, too, is either lifted from the show during loading screen transitions or is original content that is plucky but not terribly memorable (though there are a few nice licensed jazz bits thrown in there).
It pains me to say this, but Family Guy just isn't worth buying. It's a decent rental, in the same way that a softcore flick about aliens coming to earth to learn the ways of love is fun once, but there's no real longevity to any one part of the game. The gameplay bits start to wear on, and the comedy just isn't strong enough to prop up the rest of the game when the gameplay starts to sag. If you can stomach a game that plays and feels like a really, really long bad episode of the show, you'll probably have a decent time here. There are some really funny parts to be found, but they require too much patience for the payoff.
