PixlBit

Family Feud is a TV game show that began over 30 years ago, back in 1976. The game has had a long history of turmoil, going through over three hosts, and the process of being canceled then brought back on-the-air well over five times. By far the most memorable host, one who left and made a return several times, was Richard Dawson; a charismatic man who couldn't control himself from offering a peck on the cheek to everyone woman to come on the show.

It was a simple game, asking people to guess the top answers of individuals who were interviewed pertaining to a specific subject. Two families would compete and one would leave as winners.

Recently, Ubisoft published a video game version of Family Feud for Wii, and while it is disappointing to not see the beloved host, Richard Dawson, this game will satisfy any Family Feud fan, and may even create some new ones.

The game itself is very simple, offering the player two different gameplay modes: Single Player and Multiplayer. Within single player, you will compete against dozens of other families, each with a unique personality, and difficulty level. Similar to the real game, both teams will begin in a Face-Off, where the host reads the question and the first player to think of an answer buzzes in. However, in order to truly win, the player must provide one of the top answers, or the other family may steal the round.

While single-player mode is quite fun, Family Feud has always been about pitting two sets of people against one another, and is therefore much more entertaining in a group.

Multiplayer mode follows the same exact formula as single-player mode; a face-off to begin, and then subsequent rounds following that. Nothing is better than playing with a bunch of people, stealing a question they received three strikes on, and claiming all of their hard earned points for your team. Do not underestimate the power of this game to make people yell loudly at one another and induce hysterical laughter.

By far my favorite part of the game and game show alike has been the final challenge, where people are asked five questions and with the timer ticking away, under heavy pressure, are required to think as fast as they can about what the top answer could possibly be. Contestants are given two rounds to score 200 points, and if they succeed, they win $30,000! Now if only the Wii could print money…

Honestly, I truly liked this game, and despite the absence of a beloved host and laughing audience, it didn't detract too much from the overall feel of the game. However, there were some very clear issues that may make playing this game difficult for some gamers.

The worst of these issues is the 18-second time limit when it comes to inputting an answer. On the show, contestants had limited time to answer, but they were not required to input their answer, just shout it out. Here, players need to think of an answer and input it all (via Wii Remote pointing) within a short time frame. Now this wasn’t a problem for me, but people like my parents would have a very hard time with this time limit. The suggested words help answer most of the questions quicker, but often even the top answer wouldn’t pop up as a suggested answer forcing me to input each and every letter.

In addition to the problems associated with input, the answers themselves are sometimes a bit misleading. Many times, the answers are so alike that players would never think to enter a word because of another word already on-screen is so similar. For example, in one challenge I answered college, and the only answer I could not figure out wound up being "School". Now, last time I checked college is a school. This could be an issue with the way the interviewed people answered the question, but it seems like the game should be able to make the association.

Regardless of these issues, Family Feud is still a very entertaining representation of the original game show. While much of the soul feels missing from single player mode, a room full of witty people will negate that complaint for multiplayer mode, and as far as I'm concerned, that's the only way to go with this game.