Many were excited to hear that TinyCo were putting the finishing touches on what turned out to be called Family Guy: The Quest For Stuff, and I must confess I was one of them. I’m a big Family Guy fan, and I’m an avid Simpsons Tapped Out player so it ticks all the boxes. In the interests of fairness, I have abandoned Springfield for the past week and concentrated all my attention on Quahog to see how it compares. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to report that the comparison is ‘not favourable’. What I have done therefore is do a comparison between The Simpsons and Family Guy, strengths and weaknesses, and let you make your own mind up.

What does it look like?

Tapped Out has bright vibrant colours and all objects are easily identifiable. TQFS tries to do the same, but it almost feels like they’ve tried to up the graphics a bit and it hasn’t really worked. Everything looks like its sharp, but the whole affair is a bit grey, dull and disinteresting. This could in part be because the town is covered in a cloud of grey dust, which you can pay (more on that later) to clear and build on. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but the environment doesn’t look quite as nice as Tapped Out. That said, the character renderings and animations are much better. They disappear into buildings for certain actions, others you’ll find them twerking or dancing the bird in the streets which is quite enjoyable.

Score – pro’s and con’s for both, so we’ll call it a score draw

What’s the interface like?

Tapped Out has a couple of buttons, and a list of pending tasks in the bottom left corner. TQFS has a couple more buttons, and a list of pending tasks in the bottom left corner. That’s where the similarity ends however, as Family Guy then runs a bit downhill. It might be just me having sausage fingers, but the buttons are fiddly; I’m frequently pressing the wrong button which, as we’ll talk about in a bit, is not a good thing. When you select a character to assign a task, you get a full page screen (instead of the smaller font lists in Tapped Out) with tasks that you drag and drop to complete. Whilst that description makes it sound better, it doesn’t feel like it. It feels over-engineered and unnecessary, and I can’t say that it makes things any easier.

Score – Tapped Out leads 2 – 1

In Game Animations?

Family Guy is strong here. As mentioned above, the characters don’t spend the majority of their time hidden away in buildings which, particularly early in the game when you don’t have much going on, gives it the edge over The Simpsons which in the most part is a ‘see you in an hour’ affair.

Score – The Quest For Stuff claws it back to 2 – 2

Missons?

Family Guy has tried to do something different here, and in my opinion it hasn’t worked. You’re told to build a building, and that building comes with a character. Once built, the character stands outside and your other characters have to complete missions for them in order to unlock them and make them playable. It sounds clever, however in practice what you’re left with is a character with three or four action buttons around them, making them look cluttered. Because there are three or four, they’re too small, meaning they’re difficult to press accurately. Once unlocked, the characters have a reasonable selection of missions and you can unlock more as you upgrade them each time you finish one, and occasionally different outfits. The problem is that it all just feels too much. I once heard that the brief for the iPod was that you should be able to do anything in no more than three button clicks, and that’s what made it successful. You don’t get the impression that anyone who has worked on TQFS owns an iPod, as everything just feels fiddly. Tapped Out, as we already know, is one or two clicks for anything and everything, and I found myself really missing that as I got further into the game.

Score – Tapped Out makes it 3 – 2

Does the screen rotate?

Family Guy yes, Tapped Out no. And for those who don’t play Tapped Out, yes this is important.

Score – Once again The Quest For Stuff pulls it back to 3 – 3

 

Am I going to be gouged into oblivion?

Oh Lord are you going to be gouged into oblivion. If you thought The Simpsons was bad, wait until you get a load of Family Guy. To give you an idea, in stark contrast to what I’ve written above, I am yet to find a page or screen where you are more than one click away from spending a bus load of money. I’m not joking when I say there is actually an option to purchase $99.99 worth of in game currency – who in their right mind is even going to consider doing that?! And what’s more, although it’s very in your face in Tapped Out that there’s loads of stuff you can buy if you want to put your hand in your pocket, you never actually feel like you’re being patted down by the game to try and grab your wallet. TQFS makes a big deal of telling you that the game is much better if you buy some money or clams, and unlike Tapped Out you really feel like you’re missing out if you don’t spend real world money.  The menus are already littered with unobtainably expensive premium items, each character has the option to spend your clams (which take even longer than donuts to accrue) rather than actually play the game; you are actually given missions to buy in game currency which clutter up your task bar throughout the game if you don’t do them. What’s perhaps worse is that this game is extremely limited without Facebook integration. I HATE Facebook integration, as I hate the way Facebook plays fast and loose with my personal information. I hate the way that I am constantly bugged by ‘play Candy Crush Saga!’ requests from inconsiderate friends who consider their ongoing enjoyment of their crappy game more important than your time and attention. And that is only going to get worse with missions such as ‘invite five friends to join Family Guy!’. As I’m considerate, I had intended to send them to only people I thought may be actually interested in it, but found myself faced with unticking 200 odd people as all are automatically selected. And every day, I’m getting two or three requests anyway. Tapped Out uses Origin which at least offers some sort of privacy to those who generally wont be interested in playing the same games as you (your nan for example), but in TQFS there’s nowhere to hide. I have a rule – if a game requires me access to my Facebook details and the ability to read my details and post stuff on my behalf, I ask myself to think of a good reason why that game needs to have access to that information and what it might do with it. What The Quest For Stuff does with it is not worth the compromise.

Score – The Quest For Stuff fairs so badly here it loses two points to fall behind 3 – 1

Next goal wins – Will I enjoy playing it?

I still enjoy playing Tapped Out, even after playing it for several months. The Quest For Stuff however, has failed to snatch my interest. Whilst the Tapped Out universe is a nice place to be (the sound effects as money is collected, the roaming around the environment etc), TQFS just kind of isn’t. Collecting money and XP is (once again) fiddly, navigating around the town is slow and juddery, and placing items is awkward and frustrating. What should be an entertaining mission became so frustrating that it has ended up with me having a pole dancing stage in the middle of my map, purely because I just can’t be bothered to wrestle with the interface to put it in a more appropriate place. For me, I’m disappointed. It has put into perspective how hard it is to make a success out of a game like this as for all its faults (and there are many faults), Tapped Out remains an enjoyable experience whereas The Quest For Stuff has all the feel of exactly what it is; a copy. I know plenty of people who love it, and despite the review I would encourage you to go and check it out, just don’t be surprised if you walk away unimpressed.

 

EDIT – since the time of writing, the social elements of this game have been taken down for maintanance. We will report back once we have heard the news.

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