Family Guy - Not Completed


This was a title that I had really been looking forward to. Since the TV show is a hit in my mind the game could only build off that and be a wonderful interactive world.

The game is a plat former that changes main characters after a set of levels. You play as Stewy, Brian, and Peter. Each character has its own story line which inevitably weaves itself into the paths of the other characters, think Pulp fiction. When it comes to plot I really don’t see this game lacking for people in its current fan base.

The first level grants you control of stewy, packing a weapon of some magnitude. At first aiming seems awkward, but very quickly the game informs you have the targeting mechanism that will lock on an enemy as you fire away. This made the first few levels fairly easy to pass through and let you bask in the humor which is family guy. Once you are so far in there is a puzzle element to the game, shoot a mirror and try to ricochet off it to blow up this or that and bring down the laser field. The precision aiming required is not something I think the PSP is capable of. This took a few try and a lucky random shot would do its thing and bring down the laser field. This wasn’t very frustrating since it went by quickly, but I could see with out getting that lucky shot I may have just put the PSP down and walked away.

We move on to Brian, whose power evidently is crouching down. With his ultimate power of being able to crouch the next few levels consist of hiding behind desks and in the shadows with out being seen. Now I am not a fan of metal gear solid games, for me it was more fun to shoot everything that moves with stewy then sneak around like you have to do with Brian. The only saving grace of this portion of the game for me was the humor, it had me laughing till my tummy hurt.

After doing my best to avoid cops and same sex oriented felons, I got to play Peter. This sadly was turned out to be the demise of the game for me rather then its salvation. With Peter your primary attacks are melee based, kicks and punches depending on the enemy. These attacks required you to be facing the correct direction which seemed difficult in a side scrolling plat former. Failing many times to accurately trounce my foes another problem came into light. The saving is only done ever so often and fairly far between instances of enemies. This required me to spend more time then I ever should have had to, fighting the same enemies. When my attempts failed the PSP was turned off set down.

To be honest the game is only flawed by the mechanics of it. The voices are spot on, the cell shaded graphics were as expected bring the cartoon to life quite well. But with out being playable the game couldn’t hold my attention long enough to get all the humor that I had hoped for.

The game for me was a 6 out of 10. I love the idea of it all and wish I was skilled enough to play it.