D3 Publisher’s Family Party: 30 Great Games had a good premise. Its a multiplayer game that’s designed to simulate Japanese game shows in a way, with obstacle courses, brief challenges and mini-games to give players the opportunity to show who’s the best fake athlete. The thing is, the controls suck. They’re horrible, atrocious and incredibly cumbersome. Its like whoever designed the game decided a ludicrously designed control scheme made a game “great.”
Like I mentioned before in my previous article on the five best games in Family Party: 30 Great Games, there are initially only 15 games available. Almost all of these 15 games have frustrating controls and nearly unplayable, so unlocking is pretty much impossible. Get used to seeing the same games over and over again.
Its sad, because the mini-games are promising. With different controls, Family Party: 30 Great Games could actually have been a wonderful budget title. As is, its destined for the bargain bin.
I do feel that it is interesting to play some of these five worst games. I discovered this little gem while playing the single player mode. In many of the following games on this list, the AI controlled characters couldn’t even win. They’d be floundering and failing, just like me.
#1: The Barrel Ride
I loathe The Barrel Ride. I think The Barrel Ride should be used to punish criminals. The premise is actually kind of good – you have to ride a barrel from point A to point B, jumping to avoid obstacles along the way. The problem happens with the execution. Want to know how you make your avatar move forward? You roll your remote. That’s right, you have to roll it clockwise to make the log move forward, counterclockwise to move back. If an obstacle suddenly pops up, you have to press A to jump. After trying this game five times, I can personally attest that it is impossible to roll your remote and press A at the same time. Even when playing in single player mode, the three computer opponents couldn’t make it past the first two obstacles.
#2: 15 Tier Jump
15 Tier Jump is another game that baffled me. Only one of my friends managed to find the proper rhythm to make it through this obstacle course where you must propel your character off sideways trampolines to get from point A to B. You wave the remote to make the character run, then, you must wave the remote right and left to bounce off the sides. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to nail the timing to jump properly. Its disappointing – with different controls, 15 Tier Jump could have worked.
#3: Jumphang
Jumphang is a situation where the mini-game has not only horrid controls, but seems really simple. If it had good controls, I would likely still condemn it, because its just a pointless, not challenging, mini-game. You have to make the character run, jump onto a platform, then grab onto a netting and nail a perfect landing. With good controls, this would be accomplished in the span of 10, 15 seconds. With Family Fun: 30 Great Games controls, it can take one to two minutes, if you’re lucky and manage to accomplish it at all. Let’s go through what you have to do: Shake the remove to make your character run to the end of the platform. Immediately press A to jump. Press A to jump again. Press B to grab the netting.
#4: Sky Swing
Sky Swing is occasionally amusing, because its fun to watch the characters shriek as they plummet to their doom. Again, this is a game where, with good controls, it could work. You have to progress across a gap from point A to point B, by grabbing the hands of other people on swings and swinging across. Except its incredibly complicated to make your character swing and progress. Between trying to remember controls and keep time, its incredibly daunting. You have to press A and B while swinging the remote left and right to swing. Then, you have to release A to let go, and press A again at the right moment to grab the next swing. If all Sky Swing required was to press A to release, then A to grab the next swing, it’d be a decent game. As is, its horrid.
#5: The Vaulting Horse
The Vaulting Horse is close to mediocre, which means that if you spend time practicing and perfecting the controls, you might actually become a Vaulting Horse master. If you just give it one or two tries, it falls in with the worst Family Fun: 30 Great Games games. You start by waving the remote up and down to make your character run. Then, you press A at the yellow portion to jump onto the vault. Then, you press A again while thrusting the remote up to jump. If you manage to do this successfully, your character will start to get to the top of the horse, and the horse will be made taller. You then have to press B at the right time to make your character propel over the horse to the other side. One of my friends did manage to figure it out. Personally, I was lucking if I managed to clear it once each time we’d play The Vaulting Horse.
Dis-Honorable Mention: The Double Flag
The Double Flag is kind-of like a Simon Says game. Its really more annoying than bad. The first annoyance is the voice that announced what you should do with the flags. It sounds like a chipmunk that inhaled some helium. The worst part is the controls. You have to press either the D-pad or the 2 button and either thrust the remote up or down to raise or lower the white or red flags. The problem is, the controls don’t always work. I and my friends had no problem raising the flags at the appropriate times, but would consider ourselves lucky if we actually managed to lower them.
Images Courtesy of D3 Publisher.
