Family Feud (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
113A playthrough of GameTek's 1991 NES game, Family Feud.
The video shows four "episodes" to win the final prize of $20,000. The final "ending" is shown.
As soon as you turn it on, you'll probably recognize that Family Feud doesn't really resemble many of the other game show adaptations published by GameTek on the NES. You might be expecting some fun, quirky animations, lots of good music, and a generally friendly and accessible playing experience.
That being the case, does it match what you'd expect? Probably not, and that's understandable: it wasn't developed by Rare, who handled stuff like Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! It was developed by Beam, the Australian company that sometimes smashed a game out of the ballpark, and sometimes... didn't. And while this one obviously wasn't a home-run, it's not as bad as it initially appears to be.
Once you get past the hideous choice of colors and that terrible rendition of the TV show's theme song, you find a reasonable recreation of the TV game. It features all of the same elements - the initial face-off, choosing to play or pass, and fighting to be the first family to hit $200 in order to go onto the Fast Money round are all here. It all also works much like you'd expect, until you realize how rigid and infuriating the text parser can be. I'm sure you'll notice at a few points here where I clearly knew the answer but got a strike because I didn't phrase it like the game wanted, leaving me wonder how was I supposed to figure out exactly what it was expecting. Many of the answers are really unintuitive, and it can be infuriating when the CPU opponent wins with an answer nearly identical to what you had just put in and had received a red X for.
As for the art "style" - what the hell? These contestants are all good examples as to why eugenics might not be a bad idea - they're absurd, ugly, and don't even bother to occasionally twitch through basic animation cycles. They just stand there, looking super handicapped and unfit for life. I have no idea what inspired the look, but I can't help but imagine that it's the product of either a tortured mind or lots of hallucinogenic drugs. Either way, it's repulsive.
Family Feud isn't a terrible effort by any means, and it is totally possible to have fun with it. It's just unfortunate that it falls into so many traps that Rare's games sidestepped with seeming ease, and the issues cause just enough friction to make game frustrating. If it had been released in 1988, some of these issues might have been a bit more understandable, but this came out not six months before the SNES launch. By 1991 standards, this really didn't cut it.
If you want to play a video game version of Family Feud, skip this one and go play the SNES one - or better yet, ditch the carts and play the insanely awesome 3DO version. You can thank me later.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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