The Family Game Night Challenge
Published April 17, 2009
Recently, Xbox LIVE® Community Manager trixie360 conducted an experiment. She provided codes for four of the Hasbro Family Game Night games to families around the country and asked them to try them out and report back. The verdict: Scrabble, Battleship, Yahtzee, and Connect Four are definitely fun for the whole family. Try them yourself and see!
The Start of a Weekly Tradition
King Quagmire's family relaxing and playing games.
So, we had our Family Game Night tonight. Played for about two hours and I must say, this will probably become a weekly thing for us. We had an absolute blast! The variety was much more than I thought it would be. I (along with wife and kids) expected just an electronic version of the games we have played many times in the past. What we soon discovered was that if you include all the different flavors of each game, two hours isn't long enough. We barely scratched the surface. Anyway, tonight my two oldest kids, Alex (Haystack2009) who is 11, and Cheyanne who is 9 along with myself, sat down to play while my wife took pictures.
There's a happy gamer.
My youngest, 5 year old Elora opted out as I only have three controllers for my console. We started out with just Alex and myself playing a round of traditional Battleship while we waited for Cheyanne to finish her chores. After a few minutes of learning the strategy behind the game (as I was destroying his fleet, Mwhahahaha), my son promptly caught up and proceeded to send my Navy to the bottom of the ocean floor. *sigh* I really thought I was going to beat him. Instead he handed me a full plate of humble pie along with a voucher for seconds. Just as that game was finishing up, Cheyanne finished her last chore, so we added her in. After just one round of kicking my rear end, Alex had decided Battleship was the game for him (as long as he gets to play against me). Chey wanted to play something else. Being siblings, the arguments began. In order to quell things, I picked the short Party game. I had no idea what I was getting us into, I just knew it was going to be a variety of games so hopefully each child would be happy, and the arguing would cease (yes, I had my fingers crossed as I did it). It worked! Everyone was happy!
—King Quagmire (El Mirage, AZ)
Competition in California
Trixie, here is a little about myself and the participants. I am USC Joe, an Xbox Ambassador and a 48-year-old married father of two beautiful girls, Cali age 8, and Lexi age 5. I had a very eye-opening experience playing the games with my daughters. I never realized how competitive they were, especially between themselves. We played three of the four games that are currently available. The only one we did not play was Scrabble (that was a little bit too tough for my oldest). My daughters enjoyed playing Battleship and Connect Four. My oldest and I played Yahtzee, as my youngest still has a problem comprehending numbers.
USC Joe rocks the cowboy hat.
Whenever we (or should I say they) played Battleship or Connect Four, some type of argument would ensue. Lexi, my youngest, would always claim that Cali would move her ships in Battleship because she (Lexi) would be missing a lot. It was hilarious because she was claiming that Cali was doing something with her controller to make the ships move around the board. With Connect Four, Cali's devilish side came out by slyly suggesting to her little sister to put her token in certain spots so that Cali's next move would be set up perfectly for a connect four. Whenever Dad got involved, I had to make sure I lost because should I have won a game (God forbid) anything that we played, they would want to quit. But in all honesty, we had fun playing these games and look forward to when the Sorry games are available for download.
—USC Joe (Valencia, CA)
Short and Sweet in Phoenix
It looks like the Schnauzer wants to play, too.
lostassassin13 and his wife CherrieBomb tried out all the games, but Hayden (age 6) and Mace (age 4) really got into Connect Four and Battleship. They had a blast going back and forth and having something to play together.
Yeah, it looks like they're having fun.
—lostassassin13 (Phoenix, AZ)
Party in Palmdale!
To be honest, when I heard these games would be coming to Xbox LIVE® Arcade, I had my doubts. I doubted they could bring the games to the console with the same appeal the original board games had. I was looking for things to be cut out or added to attempt to make the game more appealing to the young ones not used to playing these classic games.
Well I was 100% wrong! WONDERFUL JOB!! Battleship is true to form. It even has where you can close the lid in case you think someone is looking! I also like the fact that there is no way you can cheat once your ships are set. My 13-year-old only liked playing the original Battleship because he would cheat and move his ships when they were hit.
Battleship on a big scale.
Connect Four is simple but true to form. I still spent hours and hours playing this game on the console just like I did back in the day on my dining room table. Scrabble is just as complete as the board game. I like the fact that you can save and come back to the game if it gets too long. Yahtzee brings back so many childhood memories for me. I used to sit and play this game for hours with my Mom. Everything from the scoring down to rolling the dice is 100% the way it is when you play the board game! All in all, this has brought my family together and has given all of us something that we can enjoy playing together. When you have a wife that is not a gamer, this will be sure to get the whole family involved!
—H2O Cena (Palmdale, CA)
Rhyme Time in Alabama
This family is ready to play.
My son Adam (Lil Rhymescheme) is 10, my daughter Bella is 6, and my wife's name is Hope. We tried all the games but really loved Battleship the most, although my little girl liked Scrabble because she is learning to spell. None of us knew anything about Yahtzee so we were kinda clueless on that one. And we also enjoyed Connect Four.
—The RhymeScheme (Elmore, AL)
Pizza and Games in Massachusetts
We had planned on an Easter evening game night with HFGN and since we are all big board game fanatics, we assumed it would be a natural and fun experience. Present were myself (Jason) my wife (Krysten) and my two sons (Seth and Luke). My sister-in-law stopped by (Amber) with some of her friends (Bonnie, Seth, John) and joined in. We ordered a whole mess of pizza and started with Battleship. We let my sons go first. My youngest (Luke) thought it was the best thing in the world to blow up his older brother, especially with the special shots that covered five squares, and would jump up and down screaming when he hit him. Strategy wasn't really important, just that his brother exploded into shrapnel every once in a while. The loser traded with Bonnie and Seth (boyfriend and girlfriend) back and forth.
Pizza and games; doesn't get much better than that.
Some of us got dizzy from watching the board swing back and forth and there were philosophical discussions about how Mr. Potato Head had two faces that were always looking at the camera. My wife and I switched to Connect Four. I expected an easy win, and was summarily destroyed for my lack of humility. In fact I don't think I won a single game the entire night. At one point the entire room was rooting me on as I clearly had the win. Then, as my wife attempted to block, she scored a win that no one realized she had. Dejected, I passed the controller.
Yahtzee was the next game and it took folks a bit to remember how to play since none of us had pulled out the game in at least a decade. We figured it out pretty quickly and everyone's poker instincts kicked in pretty hard.
The night ended with a long game of Scrabble with my wife winning consistently (I refuse to play her because she usually beats me by 100 points) and all were amazed by her consistent placement of single tiles creating four words at a time.
We are all looking forward to playing again and for any future titles that Hasbro decides to publish.
—jcallina (Somerset, MA)
