In fact, Family Guy could have just as easily been made back on the NES, given the outrageously primitive gameplay. The gameplay is split into three sections – you play as Stewie, Brian and Peter throughout different segments, and the gameplay styles are vastly and deliberately different. Stewie plays as a platformer/shooter, Brian plays stealth levels and Peter plays in a side-scrolling beat-em-up fashion. This wouldn’t be so bad if each style was done well, but they are probably the most basic one could ever imagine the genres to be. Brian’s levels are particularly lousy. Frustrating, tedious stealth levels have you hiding behind tables and creeping down hallways, avoiding the eyes of carbon copy enemies. The police officers sitting at tables have a few animations – look around, write on some paper and drink some coffee. Here’s a hint: walk past the table when he isn’t looking around. It’s insultingly monotonous and uninspired gameplay that can literally be represented the exact same way using some red blocks for tables and green dots for police officers. Wait, was that NES? Perhaps Atari 2600 instead.
Kill the police, women and children. For no reason.
This police level is relatively early on, and one needs to force themselves to push through to determine if the game gets any better. Sadly, no, but it must be mentioned that Brian’s segments are the worst of the three. Stewie’s are the best, but that’s like saying getting punched in the face is better than being kicked in the balls. Lock on to yet more endless, carbon copy enemies and fire your gun to decimate them. Never mind that a baby is running around killing people. He has some lousy and unresponsive platforming elements, which are made worst by the fact there is zero camera control, ever. You are able to use the right analogue stick sometimes to see ahead or behind you, but otherwise it's locked. How deep can a stealth or shooting game be if you are limited to viewing everything front on?
For Peter’s segments, it appears no thought was made to create an original experience – someone around the office was probably playing Streets of Rage back on the Megadrive and then decided to put Peter in there instead. It literally plays just like Streets, only with fewer enemies, fewer moves and a completely ridiculous premise. The objective is almost always “eliminate all enemies” to proceed. To be mindlessly controversial, most of the enemies consist of old people and little children. Peter can punch and kick – and headbutt, but that can also be used to blow up barricades. Right. Children are completely invulnerable to punches, and can only be killed by kicks. Uh huh. It’s difficult to fathom why such simple attempts were made at varied gameplay, but in any case nothing is enjoyable. Enemies just throw themselves at you as you run along, so it’s common to be completely surrounded by people constantly hitting you. The only option is to mash square and circle as you try and figure out who can take damage from punches and who can be felled by kicks. Oh, and Peter collects hot dogs and cookies dropped by enemies to fill his “Snack Meter”.
This party sucks.
Family Guy is a dynamic show – what does it have to do with sneaking around, and running through levels killing people? It seems High Voltage just picked three of the most common video game genres, made them as simple and basic as possible and threw some Family Guy in there.
Ok, so the gameplay is terrible, and has nothing to do with the show - unless you consider the game to be a rather long episode. Yes, there is a storyline, and thankfully (maybe embarrassingly) all the original voice actors have provided the goods – and it can provide a few laughs. It’s just a shame that some witty dialogue is overshadowed by hours of unrelated, uninspired gaming. The often funny cutaway segments that are scattered in each episode are butchered by the game, thus eliminating half of the Family Guy charm. When a character mentions something they did, “like that time I…”, it’s minigame madness. Suddenly you are transported to a completely different setting, like the show, only to proceed you must figure out what to do and complete the task within seconds. It could be likened to the Wario Ware series, but without any thought. Push buttons rapidly, run around the screen wildy - it’s pointless, and takes away any humour that might have saved the game from complete destruction.
I'll control your mind so you don't buy this game.
But even though one may choose to view Family Guy as an episode, the graphics are so bad it never feels like an episode. Sharp lines, jagged edges and a strange blur make appearances as each originally 2D character becomes 3D. The cel-shading isn’t at all impressive, and the animations are stiff and jerky; not at all like the fast-paced episodes. Again, some cutscenes are occasionally funny, but it’s a much more productive use of one’s time to simply watch the show.
Family Guy is not a children’s show in any way. So why are we forced to accept such amateur gameplay in an adult game? It often seems like playing the latest Barbie or Mary-Kate and Ashley game, only with poorly animated Family Guy characters make crude jokes and adult references the whole way through. The gameplay is terrible and the storyline isn’t any better than any episodes (in fact it’s worse, as the story is built around setting up stupid beat-em-up and stealth segments). Family Guy is a waste of time, and a black mark on the usually high standard of the television show. One of the worst cartoon-based video games ever made, if not the worst.
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