This would still make a great drinking game. 'Buzz' and 'Chug'!

With the success of the first installment of these table games, Hasbro and EA are promising five new games to add to your family feuding arsenal. The first (and one we’re most excited about) is Operation, which teaches you how to keep a steady paw, while removing all the important organs and bones (seems like my last ex did that with not so much precision at all, dah duh tsss). The rest of the titles are somewhat new: Bop-It, Pictureka, Connect 4X4 (ouch) and that last being Jenga.

In conjunction with the release of Family Game Night 2 will be Hasbro Family Game Night for the Nintendo DS, featuring the same games from the first game in convenient portable form.

I’m still waiting for Hasbro and EA to blast out some more old school table top titles like Stratego or Clue. You know you wanna see your Xbox Live avatar murder your opponent with the candlestick in the study. We’ll, we do anyhow.

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-Crutchboy Out

Will it let you spell bad words? Try it and see...

This week Hasbro Games along with Electronic Arts now have a nice selection of old school goodies that you can download to your Xbox 360 console. I myself grew up on a few of these games like Scrabble, Boggle, Battleship and Yahtzee. The download is titled ‘Hasbro Family Game Night’ and it provides a platform, or game room, for you to add these family favorites to your online gaming arsenal. The initial download is free but to acquire an online playable version it’s going to cost you 800 Microsoft points ($10). Now mind you that is for each of the titles too. The cool thing is it looks like they will be adding more games as the year progresses.

I picked up Scrabble first and was able to get in a few heated games at launch. At first try the EA server was down (not a suprise being the first day and all), but then it wasn’t long until I was able to find a random group in the ‘Quick Match’ option. As expected, a game of Scrabble is not fast paced at all. I mean you can play your turn, get up, grab another beer, take a bathroom break and come back before your next turn has started. The only peev I encountered was the inability to see the board very well when it is not your turn. I would like to be able to scan for possible word slams before my turn actually starts. I think that would keep that gamepace up and not have to start looking for a high scoring play at the beginning of your turn. Other than that, the onscreen adaptation is nicely done – very stylized and you can even download different room themes to fit your style (some of those are even free which is a plus!).

I plan to pick up a few more of the titles, Yahtzee seems like a good choice next, and I think that it would be nice to see some other Hasbro games like Stratego, or Clue available. I’m sure they will be rounding the bend soon enough.

-Crutchboy Out