At my in-laws during the holidays, we like to occupy our time by playing competitive board games which invariably results in family members insulting each other and arguing over inconsequential game rules. Does this stop us from repeating game time the next year? Nope...somehow, like that which is often said about childbirth, you often forget how bad the experience was until you set out to do it again. And so, each year, I re-join my in-laws to play another competitive game. I am, after all, just an innocent victim of marriage in the matter. But this past year we all became victims...of The Family Feud DVD Game.

Game show basis

Just in case you've never watched The Family Feud on TV before, I'd like to run through the basics of the game show, upon which this DVD game is based, for the sake of comparison.

On the game show, 2 families square off to guess the answers to questions that were posed in a survey of 100 people. Things like, "Name a famous Bob," or "Tell me something you find in a woman's purse." Initially 2 members from each family "face off" to determine which family gets the first shot at the question. Once a family has gained control, each member gives an answer until they have encountered 3 strikes (3 wrong answers). If the family has 3 strikes before naming all the correct answers, the other family has a chance to work collectively to steal the cash for that round. There are regular, double and triple money rounds and at the end, the highest scoring family chooses 2 members to play in the fast money round to determine the value of the family's final prize.

The DVD Game

We picked up the Family Feud DVD game at Target for $17.99, which I thought was a steal for a DVD game (compared to Scene-It and others). The game consists of very few parts: the DVD in its case, 2 whiteboard scorecards, blue & red dry erase markers, and the small instruction booklet. While the instruction booklet is easy to read, I suggest just watching/listening to the instructions on the DVD so that everyone learns how to play at the same time. It takes less than 5 minutes to figure it out.

The DVD game varies quite a bit from the game show, and not in good ways. There are 2 teams: Team A and Team B. It's a very basic game in that it doesn't even allow you to personalize team names. Team A will always go first and during game play, the teams will pass the DVD player remote back and forth frequently.

The DVD game has 5 rounds: 2 regular money rounds, 1 double money round, 1 triple money round and the fast money round. Each team plays independently in the first 4 rounds. Beginning with round 1, Team A will attempt to match the top 5 survey answers to the question that is posed on the screen by having one person write their guesses on the scorecard. They will have 30 seconds to do so. During this time, Team B must also write down 1 guess to be used as a steal. The survey answers are then revealed, one by one, while Team A checks its scorecard for matches. Upon finding the first survey answer which they did not guess, they are issued a strike and Team B will have a chance to steal the round if their guess is a match to a survey answer. In the event that their guess was already revealed, they have the option of making another guess to steal the round. Repeat these steps through the Triple Money round.

Once the Fast Money round is reached, both teams choose their "best" player to answer 5 questions in 25 seconds by writing them on the scorecard. For each answer that matches a survey answer, that team will receive the corresponding points displayed on the screen. After Fast Money, all the points are added up to reveal the winning team. Over all, 1 game takes about 15-20 minutes maximum.

Our experience

This game goes by so quickly and has such simple rules that it basically cut out our ability to argue, which is the only good thing about it.

First, we played this about 10 times (I told you we were gluttons for punishment) and although the DVD claims to have over 800 questions, we saw the same ones several times and had to keep starting over by pressing the menu button on the remote. After playing so few times, we should not have already seen duplicate questions.

Second, on the game show each family gets 3 strikes before the other can attempt to steal. With the way the DVD is set up allowing only 1 strike, the odds are in the stealing "family's" favor almost every time! Since when did the saying become "1 strike and you're out?"

Third, a lot of the survey answers are absurd. I know the idea is to answer how a group of the general public would answer, but when the question is "Name something that is dangerous to do in the bathtub," and the first answer is "use an electrical appliance," shouldn't that preclude other answers such as "use a radio" or "use a blow dryer?" Aren't those electrical appliances? This is only 1 of several such confusing instances in the game.

Finally, there is too much passing of the remote and lag time in between questions and revealing the answers. The game is quick overall, but when most of that time is spent pressing buttons and waiting for the answers to be revealed, it gets old. I would think that in this day and age they could have provided more automation.

Overall, this is not that fun of a game. I'd recommend it if you can find it for less than $10, but otherwise, don't bother.


Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 17.99
Type of Toy: Game
Age Range of Child: Whole Family