I was relatively excited to see this one despite not really being a fan of Family Guy. After years of hearing how this is one of the best cartoon tie-in games ever, I can finally say it's... painfully mid. Emphasis on 'painfully' because I wasn't expecting this game of all games to be difficult to play through.
The presentation is alright, most characters made for 2D mediums won't look as good in 3D but if I can forgive Hit & Run then I can certainly forgive this one as it does try to emulate the style of the original show and does it well enough for PS3-era graphics. The fanservice is also really nice... well, to a point; after a while it does sort of become "haha yes I know Fam Guy" and gets especially egregious when they copy jokes from the show basically word-for-word. Though the aforementioned Hit & Run had similar references, the copied lines were basically limited to occasional quips heard whilst driving whereas it's very 'in your face' here. It did become genuinely tiring by the time of the seventh stage.
The gameplay is here, it works most of the time. It's nothing all that special to be honest. Most of what I remember were frustrating aspects that I basically had to play around, such as the weapon wheel sometimes just deciding to not swap your weapon because... I dunno. Combat is enjoyable at first but quickly gets repetitive, I think by the third level I discovered an infinite loop with the melee attack that just trivialized isolated enemy encounters. I suspect the devs knew this too as they'll often just chuck a big number of enemies at you, and then another wave of the same enemies, and then another... but unlike other beat 'em up games like Final Fight or River City where you're constantly on the move between waves, this game just expects you to stay and fight in one area to fight them all. And when I eventually gave up and just ignored enemies, stages became far shorterer... unfortunately the most annoying stage in the game cannot be beat this way, but it definitely would be incredibly short if not for the dumb amount of enemies constantly barraging you. This issue is especially egregious during the final boss fight, which would have been an enjoyably fun stage if not for the seemingly infinite number of enemies getting in your way and leading to repeated unnecessary death.
Honestly the most fun comes from the multiplayer, and it's at this point I should say I only played this game because a friend wanted to do co-op with it. If not for them I wouldn't have picked this up at all, let alone finish it. But anyways... the most fun was the multiplayer, mainly the 'capture the flag' ripoff which was just a lot of chaotic fun even with only two people barely understanding the game. The MOST fun was the second to last story stage where it turns into a 1v1 battle for two players, a worthy reward for suffering the game's flaws to that point. I wish it had just been a full Street Fighter clone at that point, but I loved it regardless.
Sorry to say but I obviously didn't understand the hype for this one. This mediocre, annoying to complete on minimal objectives game is one of the best tie-in games? ...I can't tell if people are just accepting anything that isn't the PS2 Family Guy, or if their tolerance is far more sturdy than mine. Because this game had a promising start but just became unfun to beat. Good for you if you like it, but I don't get it.
The presentation is alright, most characters made for 2D mediums won't look as good in 3D but if I can forgive Hit & Run then I can certainly forgive this one as it does try to emulate the style of the original show and does it well enough for PS3-era graphics. The fanservice is also really nice... well, to a point; after a while it does sort of become "haha yes I know Fam Guy" and gets especially egregious when they copy jokes from the show basically word-for-word. Though the aforementioned Hit & Run had similar references, the copied lines were basically limited to occasional quips heard whilst driving whereas it's very 'in your face' here. It did become genuinely tiring by the time of the seventh stage.
The gameplay is here, it works most of the time. It's nothing all that special to be honest. Most of what I remember were frustrating aspects that I basically had to play around, such as the weapon wheel sometimes just deciding to not swap your weapon because... I dunno. Combat is enjoyable at first but quickly gets repetitive, I think by the third level I discovered an infinite loop with the melee attack that just trivialized isolated enemy encounters. I suspect the devs knew this too as they'll often just chuck a big number of enemies at you, and then another wave of the same enemies, and then another... but unlike other beat 'em up games like Final Fight or River City where you're constantly on the move between waves, this game just expects you to stay and fight in one area to fight them all. And when I eventually gave up and just ignored enemies, stages became far shorterer... unfortunately the most annoying stage in the game cannot be beat this way, but it definitely would be incredibly short if not for the dumb amount of enemies constantly barraging you. This issue is especially egregious during the final boss fight, which would have been an enjoyably fun stage if not for the seemingly infinite number of enemies getting in your way and leading to repeated unnecessary death.
Honestly the most fun comes from the multiplayer, and it's at this point I should say I only played this game because a friend wanted to do co-op with it. If not for them I wouldn't have picked this up at all, let alone finish it. But anyways... the most fun was the multiplayer, mainly the 'capture the flag' ripoff which was just a lot of chaotic fun even with only two people barely understanding the game. The MOST fun was the second to last story stage where it turns into a 1v1 battle for two players, a worthy reward for suffering the game's flaws to that point. I wish it had just been a full Street Fighter clone at that point, but I loved it regardless.
Sorry to say but I obviously didn't understand the hype for this one. This mediocre, annoying to complete on minimal objectives game is one of the best tie-in games? ...I can't tell if people are just accepting anything that isn't the PS2 Family Guy, or if their tolerance is far more sturdy than mine. Because this game had a promising start but just became unfun to beat. Good for you if you like it, but I don't get it.