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| Family Guy Back to the Multiverse |
Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse doesn’t suck. That might shock you, it might be
hard to believe, but I swear it to be true. Sure, there are licensed game
disasters such as Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime to make you question any game
with a property attached to it, but there are also licensed game success
stories such as Batman: Arkham Asylum. Back to the Multiverse isn’t Arkham, but
it definitely isn’t Ghostbusters. This Family Guy spinoff falls somewhere in
the middle of the spectrum. A sequel to Family Guy Season 8’s “Road to the Multiverse” episode,
Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse casts us as Brian and Stewie in a
third-person shooter. If you’re playing by yourself, you can switch characters
at any time, but if you have a friend, the game supports local drop-in/drop-out
co-op. Bertram, Stewie’s half-brother, is building an army from the multiverse
to destroy Stewie’s dimension, so our dynamic duo needs to leap from universe
to universe (each with a crazy theme such as pirates or chickens) foiling the
plot.
What Family
Guy: Back to the Multiverse does best is tip its hat to you, the Family Guy
fan. The game starts with the TV show’s opening, transitions from a shot of the
Griffin’s house to a scene with Brian and Stewie inside, and features a similar
cutscene at the beginning and end of each of the game’s 10 levels. That’s
what’s the third-person shooting is pushing forward – an episode of the show.
Sure, it’s a
bit bizarre to step onto the streets of Quahog and begin blasting people with
Brian’s shotgun, but once you’re past that, the action’s enjoyable enough to
keep you pushing to the next level staffed by obscure Family Guy characters,
the next visual jab at Meg, or the next Brian/Stewie exchange that’ll end in a
laugh.
Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse is actually funny (at times).
The cutscenes read like they could be part of the show, with the exception that
they look bizarre in 3D, and the sight gags in the levels are good for a
chuckle. Packing a Mature rating, the game even gets crasser than the TV show
in a few sections, notably in the frat boy level where a drunken Lois asks “Any
of you boys ever finish on a C-section scar?” and follows up with “I can’t have
babies anymore, so fill me up, fellas!”
Now, I put
the caveat of “at times” on saying Back to the Multiverse is funny. That’s
because running through levels and battling bosses can get a bit tedious.
Overall, the game uses lines from the show – sometimes full conversations from
old episodes – and that’s really cheap. Sure, it reminds us of old Family Guy
moments like Stewie’s feud with Santa, but it also reminds us that there’s a
lot of filler audio here. Filler audio that will be repeated.
Meanwhile,
the levels themselves wear on you because most don’t know when to quit; the
themes are all funny, but there’s only so much the Amish vibe adds to
third-person shooting and trying to shoot down Santa’s reindeer while taking
cheap shots from behind isn’t a blast. At some point, you get the joke and just
want to move on, but there are a ton of bad guys left to shoot. That’s a
problem because while functional, there’s nothing all that awesome about Family
Guy: Back to the Multiverse’s gameplay.
Stewie has a laser gun and flamethrower, and Brian has a pistol
and shotgun. All of these have their uses, and later levels will have you
switching characters quite a bit to kill a given foe with the best weapon.
Brian’s pistol seems to be the least accurate weapon, and that’s frustrating as
headshots will drop most foes quickly and give you bonus cash, but overall, the
weapons get the job done. There was never a boss or enemy I faced that felt
like a clever twist; everything from a turret to a chicken can be mindlessly
shot to death. The next gag or exchange is the highlight in Family Guy: Back to
the Multiverse, not the action itself.
Still,
killing nets you cash, which also litters levels. You can use these greenbacks
at the multiverse store to increase the characters’ health, ammo capacity and
more. There are also weapons and costumes to unlock. It’s a nice addition, but
the upgrades do little beyond keeping the playing field level as more and more
enemies take the stage.
When you’re
done with the story – and Trophies/Achievements for completing all the
secondary objectives in levels should keep completionists coming back – Family
Guy: Back to the Multiverse offers challenges and some local multiplayer modes.
Neither impress. The challenges are goofy things like running around as
Quagmire taking photos of girls but 1) You don’t get to see the girls and 2)
You’re getting bludgeoned by tons of bad guys so it’s not fun.
Initial
release date: November 20, 2012.
Developer: Heavy Iron
Studios
Publisher: Activision
Genre: Action-adventure game
Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft
Windows
Modes: Single-player
video game, Multiplayer video
game
