Common Sense Media Review
By Chad Sapieha
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Budget trivia/puzzle game is family-friendly fun.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 10+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Play
Videos and Photos
Family Game Show
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's It About?
Affiliated with the Game Show Network, FAMILY GAME SHOW provides players with three original TV game show-style games. After selecting an avatar, players can choose whether to test their knowledge via a simple three-round trivia game called Control Freak, work through a blend of crossword, sudoku, and word search challenges in Puzzle Addict, or exercise their minds in Brain Strain, which offers up a series of 15 different Brain Age-style activities. Each game show comes with three levels of difficulty that deliver appropriate content and time limits for various ages, starting with kids around age ten and moving all the way up to moms and dads.
Is It Any Good?
Family Game Show packs decent value for a $20 title. Its presentation and production values are as rudimentary as you’d expect given the price tag, and the games themselves aren’t terribly original, but the content is solid. The trivia game questions are diverse, well worded, and interesting, and the brain game’s activities are intuitive and can be unexpectedly challenging. It’s a little disappointing that players can’t choose the specific words or numbers they want to solve in Puzzle Addict's crossword and sudoku puzzles, but this restriction isn't a deal-breaker.
Thanks to multiple skill levels and the ability to tailor difficulty to individual players to help level the playing field between kids and grown-ups, this is a game that can be enjoyed by the whole family. Go in with the proper expectations for a budget game and you’ll likely be pleasantly surprised by what Family Game Show delivers.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the social nature of game show video games. Do you feel as though your family is drawn closer when your mom, dad, brothers, and sisters have Wii remotes in their hands and are taking turns answering questions? Is the experience better, worse, or the same as a family board game night?
Families can also discuss whether Family Game Show does a good job of ensuring the whole family is adequately and fairly challenged. Could you find a skill level that was appropriate for your age? Did the “Generations” mode level the playing field for contestants of different ages?
Game Details
- Platform : Nintendo Wii
- Pricing structure :
- Available online? : Not available online
- Publisher : Storm City Games
- Release date : May 4, 2010
- Genre : Party
- ESRB rating :
- Last updated : June 19, 2019
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