Fantastic Four
A big improvement from “worst game of all time!” But good enough?
Tags: Fantastic Four Categories: PS2 Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Jul 29th, 2005
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Fantastic Four (title page) | 1-2 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
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Back in the days of the original PlayStation, a Fantastic Four game was released; it went on to become one of the most despised games of the PSOne era, winning many awards as “worst game of the year,” “worst game of the decade,” and “worst PlayStation game of all time.” If you think I’m exaggerating, go out and find it and try it for yourself. I mean it. I can wait. I’ve got all day here. I’ll be around when you get back. I’ll just pop in Guild Wars on my PC, get lost in an online world and wait for you to come crawling back, begging forgiveness, shame-faced and pleading never to have to touch that game again … ever! Oh, you’re back already? See? I told you so.
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Now that that’s out of the way, lets talk about the PS2-era Fantastic Four game developed by Seven Studios and published by Activision. Considering the F4 game that came before it, can you now understand what I mean when I say, “The license had nowhere to go but up?” Good. Since my honesty is now established, we can get down to bid’ness. The new Fantastic Four is not a PS2-exclusive, but a multiplatform affair, hitting every game system known to man. Fortunately, Activision and Seven Studios are the all-new license holders and there’s pretty much nothing in common with the PSone game and this action-fighter.
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That’s good news. Based on the sizzling summer action flick, this Fantastic Four game features the voice of the movie cast, including Jessica Alba as Sue Storm; Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm; Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards, Chris Evans as Johnny Storm and Julian McMahon as Victor Von Doom. If you’re expecting anything like the comic book Fantastic Four, however, be prepared to be disappointed; this is the movie F4, which replaces a space station deserted by everyone except our five principle characters during a cosmic storm that arrives early, causing things to go horribly wrong, but in true Marvel fashion, with somewhat good results – it grants four of our wunderkinds with powers that reflect the four elements, and the remaining bloke – Von Doom, naturally – inherits electrical powers while his skin transforms into metal. If that sounds strange, you’ve probably read the comic book series. If it makes sense, you come to this as a fan of the movie first and foremost.
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Skipping over some of the movie’s set-up, our tale begins in the space station where you get a basic feel for the controls as Ben Grimm – still in human form – tries to complete a repair task before the cosmic storm arrives. Ben narrates to fill gamers in a bit, but after that small interactive segment, the storm moves forward in cutscenes again until you start controlling the F4 as they awake in Von Doom’s laboratory, discovering they suddenly have powers they don’t understand. Of course, unlike the movie, throwing these folks full-fledged into their powers and tossing them into battle happens much more quickly in the game than in the movie. That’s a bit too bad, because a more gradual discovery could have forced the game to blaze new trails previously unexplored in gaming. Oh well.
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The game introduces each of the characters and their controls one at a time, which is solid. As long as only one player-controlled character is on the screen, the action battle system works fairly solidly, allowing you to strategically battle foes. Want to sneak up behind a ‘bot? Use Sue’s invisibility. Want to pound things? The Thing is a good answer. Want to burn a lot of stuff up? That’s Johnny. As for Reed? Well, at least Sue loves him. He’s good for distance attacks but power ain’t his bag. The real trouble begins when this team hooks up. If you’re playing solo, trying to control battles strategically is pretty much a lost cause; you don’t even really need to because a bunch of mad, out-of-control button-mashing actually works much better, most of the time. It’s unfortunate when a game rewards mindless button-pushes over strategic combos. But I guess that makes it more fun for the mainstream audience. The game gets a bit easier to control when you have a second player and can tackle it in co-op mode, but it’s still easier to mash buttons like mad, even then.
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The graphics are nice, though not quite up to Spider-Man 2 or X-Men Legends level. At times sharp and at times a bit muddy, the results are a bit uneven, with some characters looking better than others, some environments and objects looking better than others. You almost have to divorce yourself a bit from the movie to appreciate how it looks; the game’s Ben Grimm looks like Michael Chilkas, for example, but the game’s Sue Storm only bears a fleeting resemblance to Jessica Alba. It’s the very definition of a mixed bag. Sound-wise, the game is guilty of some of the same muddy mixing that has popped up in a lot of games lately. For example, between the sound effects and music combining together in the opening cinema, Ben Grimm’s narration gets lost in the mix a bit, making one wish there were a subtitle option, since his actual words are hard to distinguish in the cacophony of sound.
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The game follows the movie in a linear way, unlike Spider-Man 2, expanding on the storyline but without the benefit of a more open level design that allows for GTA-style exploration. Oh well. In the end, the game is fun on a basic level and is great for younger gamers coming home from seeing the movie, all hyped up. However, for older, more experienced gamers, Fantastic Four is a bit too simplistic of a fighting game to hold deeper appeal. Just as the film was conceived of as a popcorn movie, as opposed to a thinking person’s action film in the James Bond/Batman Begins move, the game was conceived of as a popcorn game, good for some basic fun in the cinematic world that inspired it, but not deep and strategic enough to appeal to those who enjoy Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider, or other, deeper action-fighting games. If you’re thinking you might like the game, rent it first, just to be sure. Still, even though Fantastic Four isn’t everything it could have been, it’s not going to make anyone’s all-time worst list this time out… and that’s progress.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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+ Full cast from the movie provide the voice acting. + The powers of the team are incorporated believably into game play. + Good, basic fun for younger gamers. |
6.4 |
| What Doesn't | |
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— Graphics are solid but uneven in quality. — Poor sound-mixing in which voiceovers get lost or muddled; no subtitle option. — Rewards mindless button-mashing more than any attempt at strategic combos. |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Fantastic Four is a vast improvement over the PSone-era game of the same name. That doesn’t take much, though, and like the movie, this game is simplistic and designed to reward younger gamers who enjoy mindless button-mashing more than executing strategic combos. Rent first to be sure it’s your style of game. | |
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Tags: Fantastic Four
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Jul 29th, 2005 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
