Family Guy Back to the Multiverse is...
a Family Guy game, and is the second console Family Guy game.
The story can be considered a sequel to that of the first game, however in terms of variety, it's reduced in terms of what the gameplay is.
The story itself is very simple, Bertram is back attempting to destroy Stewie and Brian once again, and take over the MULTIVERSE. Brian and Stewie have to stop him by traveling to different universes in order to set things right in other universes and stop Bertram.
In the game you to 4 different universes, which is a bit lame because the show revealed there are more multiverses and sadly the utopian universe with Hot Meg and futuristic trains and super pigs isn't in this game.
The universe you travel to are:
- Frat Universe (universe were everything is run and treated by Frat Boy Culture. Stewie's teleporter isn't working because it sends to a universe where everywhere is treated like a sorority frat boy house. And both need to help an alternate Mort get lucky and he'll fix their device. )
- Amish Universe (Universe where technology failed and Amish values continued, main enemy here appeared in the show and is Ezekiel, who has been ordered by Bertram to kill Brian and Stewie)
- Handicap Universe- (Universe where everyone is Handicapped and Joe is essentially the leader of the Handicappable, again order by Bertram to kill Stewie and Brian. The best thing here is that they brought back Crippletron as the boss for this world).
- Evil Universe - (Universe where everyone is evil and we see the return of Evil Stewie, however sadly we do not get to see Evil Peter [Retep], Lois, Chris, or Meg, we do however get an Evil Adam West who wears a red suit and a blue tie. Brian and Stewie have to stop Evil Adam West and after being spared, asks them to kill Evil Mayor McCheese in order to take office once again in Evil Quahog).
- Pirate Universe - (Universe where everything, everyone, and everywhere are in the theme of Pirates, and you're enemy hear is Long John Peter. This is more so just a level as you don't really see anything worth while, as you're stuck on the boat and you only fight other boats, and later have a last stand with Long John Peter)
- Industrial Christmas - (Universe where people bought all their Christmas presents online and Santa had to abandoned making toys for kids and instead manufactures weapons for sell and for Bertrams Multiverse Army.)
- Chicken Aliens - (This Universe is where Chickens, like the one Peter Fights, took over the world and Brian and Stewie are transported to the Mothership. You never directly interact on planet Earth seeing the chickens and what they've done to Quahog, instead you just fight the Giant Chicken's wife who acts similar to that of the Xenomorph Queen. They kill the Queen and save Peter, only for the Giant Chicken to appear and as Brian and Stewie are returning to their universes enter the teleporter as well.)
- Original Universe - (Original Family Guy Universe is broken down into 2 different final fights.
1. First you play as Peter for the one and only time and have a fight against the chicken in the Quahog airport, and Peter here defeats the Chicken by punching him into a plane engine, but as always the Chicken is SOMEHOW still alive.
[Also one inconsistent thing is that I'm not sure if the Chicken and Peter who fight are from the Chickens in Space Universe, or the Original Universe, because if it's the former, then there are 2 Peters in the official universe, if it's the latter then Bertram stole the Original Peter and Giant Chicken]
For Brian and Stewie they have a last stand against Bertram who has taken over Quahog with his giant, weapon strapped T-Rex and army of alternate multiverse versions of himself. Stewie and Brian defeat all the multiverse variations of Bertram and defeat Bertram and his T-rex. Brian destroys Bertram's teleported and his later fed to hid T-rex killing him once and for all. The Family meet together at the end and crack a meta joke about game sales as the game ends.)
The gameplay is just running and gunning in 3rd person with Stewie and Brian having an arsenal of weapons pretraining to what they would reasonably use as weapons in the show. Stewie gets an arsenal of hightech laser weapons and explosives with his main being his standard iconic laser pistol, while Brian has an armory of regular military weapons with his main being a desert eagle.
The game's story mode allows you to play in co-op with Player 1 controlling Stewie and Player 2 controlling Brian, however if you play in single player you're allowed to switch alternatively between them, and they share separate health. So if you're in a pinch with Stewie, you can quickly switch to Brian in order to save yourself.
The game essentially has you progress forward in each level, having you solve puzzles, eliminate enemy spawns and turrets, fighting standard repetitive enemies of different varieties in terms of attacking you in hand to hand combat or using weapons. Throughout the world you're able to collect collectibles pertaining to each world, as sort of a side mission if you want to go for the full completion.
This leads to unlockables such as more characters for team death match offline multiplayer co-op and alternate costumes for Brian and Stewie for the main game.
The standard run and gun gameplay is sort of the central focus of the game and I think based upon the previous game, the developers saw it as the only fun part of the original. However the only time the gameplay changes is when you play as Peter for the only time where the combat is essentially a more open, 3d version of the combat from the previous game.
The game has a legit boring and unfun multiplayer mode you'll get bored playing as while it does feature different locations to "revisit" levels from the game but set as a team death match and other modes where you and a friend fight each other. Here there are more characters to play as, each with their own special weapons and arsenal, making me think the entire family was suppose to be involved in the game's story, but they changed the story to be just Brian and Stewie.
Multiplayer features the following characters (6 base roster, 4 unlockables):
[Base Roster]
- Stewie
- Brian
- Peter
- Meg
- Chris
- Lois
[Unlockable]
- Cleveland
- Quagmire
- Mayor Adam West
- Death
Each having their own 4 unique costumes to be able to unlocked via the shop as throughout the main story you're able to collect money that can later be used to unlock said items.
The only thing is while the alternate costumes are cool and you're able to play as the Griffin Family and 4 others, the multiplayer is just genuinely not fun and boring.
The game has a fine enough story with a lot of missed potential with the universes they feature and missed opportunities in the universes that they don't have in the game.
A big con is the amount of stupid reused catchphrases they use whenever the characters do ANYTHING in the game. You pick up an item: catchphrase, you get hurt: catchphrase, you literally are walking and enemies appear: ANOTHER DAMN CATCHPHRASE. And it's not "dialogue from how the characters are reacting" it's literally reused voice lines and reactions from the show.
I'm surprised that there wasn't a single cut away gag in this game, and if there was I forgot. The cutaway gags in the previous entry led to upgrades and items that helped you on your journey, it was a good aspect from the previous games. Kind of weird they didn't take that aspect of the previous entry and do that here, however I can infer that perhaps they didn't do that since most of the cutaway minigames were tedious and sometimes unfair.
I think for the most part it's average, it's fine. I think the story is a fine enough Family Guy Stewie and Brian episode game.
The story is simple, and the gameplay is repetitive. The levels themselves all look unique in terms of the universes that are within the game, the only one really looking bland and boring being the Pirate Universe. The game has a lot of missed potential in terms of more universes they could've explored that would've been more interesting, but all in all... it's fine enough, average shooter platformer.
I'm giving it 3 stars in terms of nostalgic value for me, but I could drop it down to 2 or 2.5 due to the AWFUL multiplayer vs mode, but really 3 stars just means it's something that I'll probably forget considering how forgettable it can be. Only reason I ended up doing this long review is because someone brought it up in a convo and it unlocked this memory of this game.
Still though I think for what it brings to the table in terms as a game, it's just average.
a Family Guy game, and is the second console Family Guy game.
The story can be considered a sequel to that of the first game, however in terms of variety, it's reduced in terms of what the gameplay is.
The story itself is very simple, Bertram is back attempting to destroy Stewie and Brian once again, and take over the MULTIVERSE. Brian and Stewie have to stop him by traveling to different universes in order to set things right in other universes and stop Bertram.
In the game you to 4 different universes, which is a bit lame because the show revealed there are more multiverses and sadly the utopian universe with Hot Meg and futuristic trains and super pigs isn't in this game.
The universe you travel to are:
- Frat Universe (universe were everything is run and treated by Frat Boy Culture. Stewie's teleporter isn't working because it sends to a universe where everywhere is treated like a sorority frat boy house. And both need to help an alternate Mort get lucky and he'll fix their device. )
- Amish Universe (Universe where technology failed and Amish values continued, main enemy here appeared in the show and is Ezekiel, who has been ordered by Bertram to kill Brian and Stewie)
- Handicap Universe- (Universe where everyone is Handicapped and Joe is essentially the leader of the Handicappable, again order by Bertram to kill Stewie and Brian. The best thing here is that they brought back Crippletron as the boss for this world).
- Evil Universe - (Universe where everyone is evil and we see the return of Evil Stewie, however sadly we do not get to see Evil Peter [Retep], Lois, Chris, or Meg, we do however get an Evil Adam West who wears a red suit and a blue tie. Brian and Stewie have to stop Evil Adam West and after being spared, asks them to kill Evil Mayor McCheese in order to take office once again in Evil Quahog).
- Pirate Universe - (Universe where everything, everyone, and everywhere are in the theme of Pirates, and you're enemy hear is Long John Peter. This is more so just a level as you don't really see anything worth while, as you're stuck on the boat and you only fight other boats, and later have a last stand with Long John Peter)
- Industrial Christmas - (Universe where people bought all their Christmas presents online and Santa had to abandoned making toys for kids and instead manufactures weapons for sell and for Bertrams Multiverse Army.)
- Chicken Aliens - (This Universe is where Chickens, like the one Peter Fights, took over the world and Brian and Stewie are transported to the Mothership. You never directly interact on planet Earth seeing the chickens and what they've done to Quahog, instead you just fight the Giant Chicken's wife who acts similar to that of the Xenomorph Queen. They kill the Queen and save Peter, only for the Giant Chicken to appear and as Brian and Stewie are returning to their universes enter the teleporter as well.)
- Original Universe - (Original Family Guy Universe is broken down into 2 different final fights.
1. First you play as Peter for the one and only time and have a fight against the chicken in the Quahog airport, and Peter here defeats the Chicken by punching him into a plane engine, but as always the Chicken is SOMEHOW still alive.
[Also one inconsistent thing is that I'm not sure if the Chicken and Peter who fight are from the Chickens in Space Universe, or the Original Universe, because if it's the former, then there are 2 Peters in the official universe, if it's the latter then Bertram stole the Original Peter and Giant Chicken]
For Brian and Stewie they have a last stand against Bertram who has taken over Quahog with his giant, weapon strapped T-Rex and army of alternate multiverse versions of himself. Stewie and Brian defeat all the multiverse variations of Bertram and defeat Bertram and his T-rex. Brian destroys Bertram's teleported and his later fed to hid T-rex killing him once and for all. The Family meet together at the end and crack a meta joke about game sales as the game ends.)
The gameplay is just running and gunning in 3rd person with Stewie and Brian having an arsenal of weapons pretraining to what they would reasonably use as weapons in the show. Stewie gets an arsenal of hightech laser weapons and explosives with his main being his standard iconic laser pistol, while Brian has an armory of regular military weapons with his main being a desert eagle.
The game's story mode allows you to play in co-op with Player 1 controlling Stewie and Player 2 controlling Brian, however if you play in single player you're allowed to switch alternatively between them, and they share separate health. So if you're in a pinch with Stewie, you can quickly switch to Brian in order to save yourself.
The game essentially has you progress forward in each level, having you solve puzzles, eliminate enemy spawns and turrets, fighting standard repetitive enemies of different varieties in terms of attacking you in hand to hand combat or using weapons. Throughout the world you're able to collect collectibles pertaining to each world, as sort of a side mission if you want to go for the full completion.
This leads to unlockables such as more characters for team death match offline multiplayer co-op and alternate costumes for Brian and Stewie for the main game.
The standard run and gun gameplay is sort of the central focus of the game and I think based upon the previous game, the developers saw it as the only fun part of the original. However the only time the gameplay changes is when you play as Peter for the only time where the combat is essentially a more open, 3d version of the combat from the previous game.
The game has a legit boring and unfun multiplayer mode you'll get bored playing as while it does feature different locations to "revisit" levels from the game but set as a team death match and other modes where you and a friend fight each other. Here there are more characters to play as, each with their own special weapons and arsenal, making me think the entire family was suppose to be involved in the game's story, but they changed the story to be just Brian and Stewie.
Multiplayer features the following characters (6 base roster, 4 unlockables):
[Base Roster]
- Stewie
- Brian
- Peter
- Meg
- Chris
- Lois
[Unlockable]
- Cleveland
- Quagmire
- Mayor Adam West
- Death
Each having their own 4 unique costumes to be able to unlocked via the shop as throughout the main story you're able to collect money that can later be used to unlock said items.
The only thing is while the alternate costumes are cool and you're able to play as the Griffin Family and 4 others, the multiplayer is just genuinely not fun and boring.
The game has a fine enough story with a lot of missed potential with the universes they feature and missed opportunities in the universes that they don't have in the game.
A big con is the amount of stupid reused catchphrases they use whenever the characters do ANYTHING in the game. You pick up an item: catchphrase, you get hurt: catchphrase, you literally are walking and enemies appear: ANOTHER DAMN CATCHPHRASE. And it's not "dialogue from how the characters are reacting" it's literally reused voice lines and reactions from the show.
I'm surprised that there wasn't a single cut away gag in this game, and if there was I forgot. The cutaway gags in the previous entry led to upgrades and items that helped you on your journey, it was a good aspect from the previous games. Kind of weird they didn't take that aspect of the previous entry and do that here, however I can infer that perhaps they didn't do that since most of the cutaway minigames were tedious and sometimes unfair.
I think for the most part it's average, it's fine. I think the story is a fine enough Family Guy Stewie and Brian episode game.
The story is simple, and the gameplay is repetitive. The levels themselves all look unique in terms of the universes that are within the game, the only one really looking bland and boring being the Pirate Universe. The game has a lot of missed potential in terms of more universes they could've explored that would've been more interesting, but all in all... it's fine enough, average shooter platformer.
I'm giving it 3 stars in terms of nostalgic value for me, but I could drop it down to 2 or 2.5 due to the AWFUL multiplayer vs mode, but really 3 stars just means it's something that I'll probably forget considering how forgettable it can be. Only reason I ended up doing this long review is because someone brought it up in a convo and it unlocked this memory of this game.
Still though I think for what it brings to the table in terms as a game, it's just average.