Videogame adaptations of board games sound great on paper, but executing these translations is dicey. Hasbro Family Game Night 3’s results are questionable.

Each of the games comes in two formats: original and remixed rules. The original version of Clue isn’t bad, but remix-Clue’s additions — especially horrible movement-affecting events each turn that can lock off a room or force a player to sit out a turn — interrupt the flow of the game too much. Mouse Trap is slow, repetitive, and boring, while Yahtzee: Hands Down doesn’t fare much better: overly tough A.I. makes matching cards with the house hand a brutal slog.

Life is easily the best game on the disc, with mini-games such as memory-matching and implementing Twister into your wedding ceremonies adding subtle novelty to an otherwise shallow experience. (Oddly, Twister doesn’t require a peripheral: it’s a rhythm game played via your controller.) Remix-Life, on the other hand, takes what makes Life fun — making oodles more money than your friends — and swaps in a movement-based reward system instead.

We wish EA had gone the route of previous HFGNs and allowed a downloadable pick-and-choose option for which games to buy. Forty bucks for mostly junk is just way too much.

On Xbox 360

+ Regular Life is good and regular Clue is okay…

- …but the other games — and pretty much all of the remixes — aren’t very good.

- Virtual Mouse Trap and Twister? Those were bad ideas to begin with.

? Was Mr. Potato Head always this creepy? He was?

4.0