Game Review: Family Guy: Another Freakin’ Mobile Game (Mobile – Free to Play)

Family Guy: Another Freakin’ Mobile Game’s more honest title should be something like…Family Guy: Not Another Mother-Fucking Free to Play Match 3 Mobile Game that Thinks Adding Popular Characters Into it Will Somehow Make It More Desirable Regardless of the Extortionate Cost of In-app Purchases.

Yeah, that name doesn’t quite roll off the tongue but it is at least true!

This latest Family Guy game is an exact copy of every other match 3 game that has flooded the mobile market. Here, the selling point is the Family Guy humour, toned down quite a bit.

The story is based around Peter going on the road to sell booze out of a truck. Each level has an objective that needs to be completed. Match the coloured drinks to the drinker, get Meg her makeup or snatch up condoms for Quagmire. No matter the quest it all amounts to the same thing. Match until the objective is complete & try to earn 3 stars per level.

There is a total of 160 levels split across 8 locations. These will be instantly recognisable to Family Guy fans. Locations such as Spooner Street, Barrington Country Club & the Pawtucket Brewery.

Once a certain number of levels are out of the way quests & collectables are unlocked. The former are ways in which you can earn free uranium, the premium currency in the game.

You have 5 lives that regenerate on a timer or you can connect with Facebook to ask for more lives or send lives to other players. Family Guy: Another Freakin’ Mobile Game is obsessed with Facebook. Every chance it gets, it tries to get you to sign up & annoy the hell out of all your friends. Lives aren’t an in-app purchase, those come in coin form.

Starting at 99p for 25 coins & ending at the eye-wateringly £99.99 for 3125 coins, Family Guy: Another Freakin’ Mobile Game continues the usual trend of disgusting greed by mobile developers.

In each level you can use boosters. These are bonus attacks that clear rows or columns making it easier to complete objectives. One such booster is a kitty crossbow & to restock them once you’ve run out costs 75 coins. 75 coins will cost you either 3 lots of 25 coins at 99p (£2.97) or £4.99 for 135 coins.

So that’s the same price as the excellent Oxenfree for 3 kitty crossbow boosters. Are these companies insane? Are they so blinded by greed that they don’t even stop to think about how to make their in-app purchases desirable? Again…for the same price as a detailed, imaginative & narrative driven game like Oxenfree you can get 3, just 3, kitty crossbow boosters. Absolutely stunning.

To add more fuel to the dumpster fire that is Family Guy: Another Freakin’ Mobile Game’s in-app purchases, uranium is used to unlock mystery boxes. These cost 450 uranium which in turn costs 200 coins (you get 600 uranium for that). The nearest coin purchase to that is 275 coins for £9.99. You tell me if this isn’t one of the most disgraceful prices in a free to play game.

Sure, you don’t have to pay for anything & there are no ads but as always, the difficulty curve is high & sudden. Roadblocks are dropped as soon as you begin to gain momentum & those purchases begin to flash up as well as desperate calls to make you connect via Facebook.

Even without all that in-app purchase rubbish, Family Guy: Another Freakin’ Mobile Game is just a match 3 game. It offers nothing new or interesting beyond its Family Guy setting. The sooner these types of games die, the better the gaming market will be.