''Hasbro Family Game Night'' is a series of video games that adapt board games manufactured by Hasbro.

Games

''Hasbro Family Game Night'' (2008)

''Hasbro Family Game Night'' is the first installment of its eponymous game series, published by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

. It is a mini-game collection consisting of six Hasbro board games -

Battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...

, Boggle, Connect Four, Sorry!, Sorry! Sliders and

Yahtzee Yahtzee is a dice game made by Milton Bradley (a company that has since been acquired and assimilated by Hasbro). It was first marketed under the name of Yahtzee by game entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe in 1956. The game is a development of earlier ...

. The games all have traditional versions as well as "advanced" variants exclusive to the Family Game Night package. The mini-game collection is hosted by

Mr. Potato Head Mr. Potato Head is an American toy brand consisting of a plastic model of a potato "head" to which a variety of plastic parts can attach — typically ears, eyes, shoes, hat, nose, pants and mouth. Mr. Potato Head was invented and manufact ...

. ''Game Night'' was initially released on Wii and PlayStation 2 in late 2008, with ports to the PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS the following year. The Xbox 360 version was first released on Xbox Live Arcade on March 18, 2009 as a free hub application, with the individual games available for separate purchase at the time. The Xbox 360 port eventually saw a physical release, plus a digital localization for Japan in November of that year. In North America, the Xbox 360 version includes Scrabble along with the previous six games. The PS3 port was released on October 29, only in North America and Europe, but only in a digital format that can be purchased and downloaded from the PlayStation Store. This release features the main six games, with the North American version also featuring Scrabble, and is presented in widescreen format with

PlayStation Network PlayStation Network (PSN) is a digital media entertainment service provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Launched in November 2006, PSN was originally conceived for the PlayStation video game consoles, but soon extended to encompass smartp ...

support. Ahead of the digital PS3 port and the physical Xbox 360 port's releases, Electronic Arts announced that the game will receive a sequel in October that would exclusively target

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...

platforms (the Wii and DS). The sequel's planned Nintendo DS version instead became a port of the first game, adapting two games from each of the first two installments (Battleship and Connect Four from the former and

Operation Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Ma ...

and

Bop It! ''Bop It'' toys are a line of audio games. By following a series of commands issued through voice recordings produced by a speaker by the toy, which has multiple inputs including pressable buttons, pull handles, twisting cranks, spinnable wheel ...

from the latter). While the port was released on the same day as the sequel, a PC version replaced its planned DS version.

''Hasbro Family Game Night 2'' (2009)

''Hasbro Family Game Night 2'' was released in 2009 for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and Wii, with the former replacing a planned DS version that was repurposed. Both versions feature the games Operation and Pictureka!, while the Wii version has Connect 4x4, Jenga and Bop It! and the PC version has

The Game of Life ''The Game of Life'', also known simply as ''Life'', is a board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, rol ...

Monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

, Clue and

. Despite this installment being available on only two platforms, three select games from the Wii version (Pictureka!, Jenga and Connect 4x4) were made available as

downloadable content Downloadable content (DLC) is additional content created for an already released video game, distributed through the Internet by the game's publisher. It can either be added for no extra cost or it can be a form of video game monetization, enablin ...

for the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the first game on June 23, 2010, just months before a new sequel, ''Hasbro Family Game Night 3'', was released.

''Hasbro Family Game Night 3'' (2010)

''Hasbro Family Game Night 3'' was released on October 26, 2010 for the PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360. This installment adapts five games: The Game of Life, Cluedo, Twister,

Mouse Trap A mousetrap is a specialized type of animal trap designed primarily to catch and, usually, kill mice. Mousetraps are usually set in an indoor location where there is a suspected infestation of rodents. Larger traps are designed to catch other s ...

and Yahtzee Hands Down.

''Hasbro Family Game Night 4: The Game Show'' (2011)

''Hasbro Family Game Night 4: The Game Show'' is a video game in the Family Game Night series, released for PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360 in late 2011. The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions support motion controllers ( PlayStation Move and

Kinect Kinect is a line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB cameras, and infrared projectors and detectors that map depth through either structured light or time of flig ...

), which are required in the Wii version, played with just a Wii Remote, like in prior installments. As this installment is closely based on the series' TV game show adaptation on the Hub Network, all of the commentary is voiced by

Todd Newton James Todd Newton (born May 5, 1970) is an American entertainment reporter, game show host, and author. Career Newton started his entertainment career at age sixteen as a disc jockey for Kincaid Entertainment in St. Louis. Later, the compan ...

, its host. Unlike past games, an online mode is not included in the game, due to the game being branded as a $40 budget title and thus ineligible to be included on EA's online pass. The game adapts several Game Show-enhanced variants of Hasbro board games: Bop It! Boptagon, Connect 4 Basketball, Scrabble Flash, Sorry! Sliders and Yahtzee Bowling. Despite being part of the first season of the TV series this installment is based on, Guess Who?,

Cranium The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, the ...

, Bounce & Boogie Boggle, Operation Relay, Twister Lights Out and Guesstures Freefall are not present on this videogame simulator

''Hasbro Family Fun Pack'' and ''Hasbro Game Night''

In 2013,

Ubisoft Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Assassin's Creed'', ''Far Cry'', '' ...

acquired the license to develop console video games based on Hasbro board games from Electronic Arts, effectively ending EA's original ''Hasbro Family Game Night'' series. With this new license, Ubisoft developed and released two games that follow up on the original series, ''Hasbro Family Fun Pack'' and ''Hasbro Game Night'', with the former being released in 2015 for the

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 in ...

and

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

, while the latter was released for the

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

in 2018. Both games adapt Trivial Pursuit LIVE, Monopoly Plus and

Risk In simple terms, risk is the possibility of something bad happening. Risk involves uncertainty about the effects/implications of an activity with respect to something that humans value (such as health, well-being, wealth, property or the environme ...

and are available in North America and Europe, with the former also being available in Australia and including the game Scrabble.

Reception

''Hasbro Family Game Night'' (2008)

The Wii version of the game received mixed reviews from critics. The review aggregator site

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

has an average score of 64% for the Wii version, based on 11 reviews.

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

rated it as 7 out of 10 ("Decent"), and said that control and interpretation issues cause problems for some of the games. Games Master UK magazine said: "Overall, this does everything you'd want it to (and no more)". IT Reviews concluded about the Xbox 360 version: "We would pass on Battleship, which just didn't hold our attention and had fairly weak variants. Connect 4 is worth a pop, though, with alternative play modes that really bring the game to life, and Yahtzee is certainly a little gem for the asking price".

''Hasbro Family Game Night 4: The Game Show'' (2011)

Reception of the game has been mixed to poor. The Xbox 360 and Wii versions were the highest rated versions on Gamerankings, with scores of 37% while the PS3 version was slightly below them at 35%. Push Square claimed that the game was much more fun with another person, but was still "a harsh drop off in quality compared to other ''Hasbro Family Game Night'' titles" and gave the game a 3/10. Official Xbox Magazine UK gave it a 3/10, claiming that the games were poorly represented and saying: "This casts doubt on whether Hasbro understand what makes its non-digital games good. Whatever the reasons behind ''FGN4'' - this is reprehensible".

References

{{Scrabble Electronic Arts franchises Electronic Arts games Hasbro games Multiple-game video board games Party video games Scrabble software Video game franchises Video game franchises introduced in 2008 Video games scored by Richard Jacques Video games developed in the United Kingdom