As our dear friend Gilly would say, "Sorry!" is the latest board game to be pixelated and graphicized and added to the Family Game Night on XBLA this past Wednesday. Adding to an already long list of board games including Battleship and Yahtzee to name a few, Sorry! is just as you remembered it from your childhood. Originally adopted by Parker Brothers in 1934, if you've never played this at some family function, you should write to someone explaining your messed up childhood. But that's just it, most likely you've played Sorry! before, so there's little need of discussing the finer strategies and skills of it (hint: there are none!)
Coming in at 800 Microsoft points ($10 to those of us still using the ever-decreasing USD), the game by itself is a little pricey, but that's only when you compare the fact that all 7 of the games on the Hasbro Family Game Night are available on one retail disc for the Wii and PS2 for less than $50, though the actual board game will cost you $16.99 currently on Amazon
(so some might even say it's a bargain?).
The integration with the features you've come to love (or hate) with XBLA games, (Avatar and Party support) will set it apart from simply playing with your family around the kitchen table and is a nice touch to be sure. The only complaint I had was that it just about made me dizzy watching Mr Potato Head run around the board in a circle, I longed for a feature to turn him off.
A slightly skewed score, we've rated the game based on two time-lines. The first for nostalgia, the second for present-day relevance and how it holds up.
Present-day Rating (7 out of 10) - SORRY! is sorry for the current generation. At least at it's basic premise. That's not a negative towards the game more than the current generation is looking for something more. But as far as the original is concerned, you can't go wrong with an all digital version.
Nostalgic Rating (8 out of 10) - SORRY! is one of the classics. Easily in the top 5 games that anyone can play, with little need for strategy development, etc, and with a newborn in my family, I look forward to playing with my own family - Now if they can pixelate and graphicize ALL my board games from my closet, that would save alot of space.
You can queue up the download via the Xbox Live Marketplace here and stay tuned as we hope to review the full catalog the Family Game Night offers.
