Hasbro Family Game Night Review Amendment: Boggle

“Boggle.” It’s a game that has been played for many years, many different ways, but the crux of the game has always been the same – make the most original words by stringing together letters on the 4X4 game board. It’s simple enough to comprehend, but challenging enough to keep players and families coming back to it time and time again Xbox Live now has its own, official version of the game courtesy of EA as part of the “Hasbro Family Game Night” compilation of games, and it is one heck of an addition.

The sixth of seven games to be released for Hasbro’s “Family Game Night” compilation, “Boggle” attempts to bridge the gap between vocabulary and board games, and it does a good job doing it. Much like my “Sorry!” review, this will be an amendment to my original “Family Game Night” coverage, and will include an individual game review, as well as an updated rating for the entire package. [Continue Reading]

Hasbro Family Game Night Review: Mr. Potato Head’s Wild Ride

For the past few years, EA has been doing their damnedest to grab as big of a slice of the casual gaming market as they can. They’ve taken ownership of one of the biggest casual online portals in Pogo.com; they’ve made all of their prized sports franchises more “accessible” courtesy of their All-Play line; and they’ve partnered with one of the biggest toy companies in history, Hasbro. It’s this last partnership that has spawned many recent releases across many different platforms for the publisher in an attempt to get games into the hands of as many potential fans as possible. The latest, and possibly their most creative, release from the two companies is “Hasbro Family Game Night” for the Xbox Live Arcade, which is essentially a port of last year’s Wii release of the same name. While it may not have the “fun” motion based controls integrated into it, “Family Game Night” on the XBLA is something that both traditional gamers, as well as their non-gaming families can enjoy together.

Right now, “Family Game Night” consists of video game remakes of four of Hasbro’s most beloved board and dice games – “Battleship,” “Scrabble,” “Connect Four,” and “Yahtzee,” with the promise of three more to be available for purchase soon, “Sorry,” “Sorry Sliders,” and “Boggle,” and potential for even more after that. Each of the games that are available offer an original style of play, as well as an updated, more video game-centric type of play. Each game offered as part of the “Family Game Night” package is its own purchase, and a separate download, and it’s for that reason that this review will be broken up into a few parts. [Continue Reading]