Sorry! Sliders Is the final add on for the Xbox Live Arcade Title Hasbro Family Game Night. It is based on the board game of the same name, which before i had played the arcade version, i had never come across. It is downloadable from Live Marketplace for 800ms points. In-game it bears almost no resemblance to the game Sorry!.
Although they can be customized, the rules of the game are very simple; 4 Players must slide pawns with the analogue sticks down a runway, aiming to place each pawn nearest to the middle of a target, or to knock other pawns out of the away. Now as i said, the game and its rules are simple, yet some players will soon develop strategies and rivalries which surprisingly can make this game very exciting and its players get very competitive! At the end of each round you get to race for home with counters on a scoreboard. This sounds very old-fashioned and it is, to me it begs the question whether or not you really should be playing a board game...on your xbox?!?
The board itself is very colourful and just looks good in general. Mr Potato Head is your host, and he likes to watch over you as you play, understandable i suppose, just in case things got out of control and pawns started to fly! The look is all very appealing to kids and is one that you would not mind seeing alot of, although the music and sounds can get annoying.
You will find your first few games fun, but eventually feel that the concept itself is lacking in depth. At this point you can head to the options menu and play around with some factors of the game. You can make the AI players harder, or make the scoring area spin, you can even throw in some power-up boxes which do weird and wonderful things to your pawns. This is all well and good and does add fun to the game, however the hardcore gamers will have trouble playing this for more than an hour as it does bore. I suppose as the title says, this game is for families, and it is true as i found out, playing with your family and friends is alot more fun. Yet it just is not how i remember board games as a young child. If this is what the younger generations are going to grow up with then it is a crying shame, as they are missing out on real board games, getting to move and touch the pieces themselves! I really find it hard to see the point of Sorry! Sliders.
There is one factor which i thought could save this game, and that is online play. Lets face it, when you were young, you never had the chance to play board games at home with people in Japan. And now with HFGN and Sorry! Sliders you can...Or can you? It may be because it is the newest add-on for HFGN, but i found that Sorry! Sliders has next to nobody playing online. Everyone is on Connect 4 or Boggle! And when you do get a game, and beat someone, i can assure you, you will receive the inevitable ten seconds of verbal abuse!
Overall Sorry! Sliders is not the greatest of arcade or HFGN games. It is hard to get into and will not keep you coming back for more over and over like other arcade games. At 800ms points it really is a big no. Chances are the most fun you will have with this game will be when you are under the influence of something very strong, and very illegal. If you really must buy Sorry! Sliders, buy it for your toddlers, as i am sure they will appreciate it.
Of the five on-disc games, Boggle and Yahtzee prove to be the most enjoyable, offering instant gratification either with multiple players or solo play. That every game is playable online – and compatible with those who have purchased the Xbox LIVE Arcade releases – is a saving grace, as both Sorry! and Sorry! Sliders fall heavily when no human opposition is available. All of the games feature customisable rules, the depth to which a player can tailor their games dependant on the depth of the game itself, and additionally feature a couple of pre-constructed alternative gameplay modes.
GV writes: "Ever since the launch of the Hasbro Family Game Night hub and accompanying downloadable board games on Xbox Live Arcade, I have been surprised and impressed at how much fun it could be to play classic board games on my 360 for less than the physical game costs. I had fun with Connect Four and Sorry!, so I was happy to take on Sorry! Sliders, even though I didn't actually know what it was, other than the fact that it was related to the apology-ridden game in some way. Even though I had fun with Sorry! Sliders, it was the weakest of the Hasbro Family Game Night titles I've played so far."
Spawn Kill has been through it all with Hasbro's Family Game Night series. We've covered every single one of the games from Scrabble to Battleship to Sorry, and now that the series has come to an end, we're going to be quite sad to see it over. It was still a lot of fun though, right? Our coverage of Family Game Night draws to a close with the final installment to the game room, Sorry! Sliders…that is, unless we can bribe EA to bring us more. Until then, though, kick back and let us bring the magic of the Family Game Night series to you!
I have the Spiderman edition of Sorry, but I've never heard of Sorry Sliders. Seems like they're just stretching for more cash... $10 for these games in DLC form is just unreal though, $5 would be fair but $10 is pretty demanding.
