Fantastic Four
Posted August 3, 2005
When a game is released in conjunction with the movie that's it's based on, I tend to shy away from it for one main reason; chances are high that the game was rushed to make it to market at a certain window around the movie, resulting in a less than stellar gameplay experience. Remember what happened with Enter the Matrix? Fantastic Four does suffer from movie-itis, but not nearly as bad as the steaming pile that was EtM.
Fantastic Four follows the four fantastic superheroes (Sue, Johnny, Richard and Ben) that graces the movie of the same name, but deviated slightly from the already history altering movie(origins of Dr. Doom). The game does however cover some additional ground than the movie to help build the gameplay up even more, with additional bad guys and locations to help prove the point that this group of superheroes really are a team, and without the cooperation of the four of them, things wouldn't be pretty.
Gameplay:
Fantastic Four is a straight up, linear brawler taking the player through 10 distinct levels ranging from the jungles of Tikal to a Museum. Not unlike classic brawlers like Double Dragon, you can learn new combos and upgrade your move set throughout the game. Some levels you'll be using a single hero, while others may have all four on screen and controllable at any time. Each character, thanks to their unique set of skills that the solar radiation donated to them, can perform specific super actions when they enter a glowing spot on the ground in a level. Now this was a decent way to introduce something different into the button mash gameplay, but overall the "powers" mini-games resorted to button mashing or control stick swirling. Once the mini-game was completed, the hero of choice would perform his action, like Mr. Fantastic would stretch to reach a distant button, or Sue would use her powers to make the hands of a giant enemy immobile allowing Ben to pound it in the face.
With each enemy you vanquish, you gain a block of experience points to which you can purchase upgrades for your hero of choice. Upgrading a button mashing game seems a little like trying to polish a stick of butter with steel wool; it's not going to accomplish much. Sure your attacks are more powerful, but actually getting the character to perform them was a different story. Let's say you're going to perform the typical X,X,A three hit combo, timing is usually important when doing this, so you set off on a nicely paced button squashing extravaganza, and when you hit the third button, you just realize that only the first attack took place so in a panic you hit the second button again only to lose the combo because you hit too many buttons. This scenario happens all too often with all four characters thanks to an extremely sluggish response, and really makes the game seem to move much slower than it should.
One thing that the game does have going for it is the ability to play co-op with a friend. This lets you travel through the game's locales in tandem beating the various enemies senseless, ranging from the thugs on the street to the Moleman's minions, or giant spiders who can trap you in their webs. But unlike another superhero game that emphasized team play, stringing together character combos is almost non-existent. In X-Men Legends, it was possible to combine blasts from Cyclops with Storm's wind to make a powerful attack, yet in FF the extent of combos is one character holding a baddie while someone else pummels him. It is also possible however to buff another hero pal, which instills some additional protection or power onto them for a short time, cool but not nearly as well executed as it was in X-Men.
Another great thing that the game has is a slew of extra unlockable material, ranging from new levels when you beat the game on either medium or hard difficulty, to cast interviews (mmmm...Jessica), comic covers and concept art. An additional level is unlockable only by inputting a code, so for those internet sleuths, it should take you approximately 15 seconds to find the code. Also here is an arena mode, which pits you and a friend against an onslaught of enemies to help polish your combo skills, not terribly exciting, but an additional mode of play none the less.
Graphics:
Yet another thing that seemed to suffer as result of rushing to meet the movie deadline was the graphics. The quality here is not what I expect to see in games this close to the end of this generation of consoles. Admittedly, the animation for the characters was actually quite decent, with Mr. Fantastic and his elastic limbs stretching quite cleanly and the Thing was convincingly string enough to warrant his ability to crush rocks and fling cars around the street. The overall graphical feel however was slightly muddy with not as much attention to detail as I would have liked to have seen.
Audio:
I was actually more than disappointed with the audio portion of Fantastic Four, mainly in the voice department. The stars from the movie did do the voice work for their game counterparts, but somewhere along the line they forgot how to act. Especially bad is the work of the outstandingly beautiful Jessica Alba, but thankfully there's some slight redemption by "The Commish", Michael Chiklis. I mean, actors tend to do very well when it comes to doing voice work for a cartoon, and a game should be treated in similar fashion in my opinion, sadly here it wasn't.
Sound effects and background music are not spectacular either, with generic music filling the aural void and not leaving any impression whatsoever once the game is turned off. Sound effects are merely adequate, but really how hard is it to make the sound of a car or rock getting pummeled by a human rock?
Conclusion:
Is Fantastic Four worth your hard earned cash, I can't say that it is. But I can say that you might get a few good hours out of some co-op play with a friend but the overall replay value of the game is quite low. I know that I didn't feel like working through the game on the hard difficulty level just to unlock another hidden level, and the arena mode was fun for a couple of rounds but the joy quickly fades once the game is over. Not completely worth skipping, the hard core FF fan will really dig the artwork and comic scans, so to them I give the advice to rent the game, not buy it.
Fantastic Four follows the four fantastic superheroes (Sue, Johnny, Richard and Ben) that graces the movie of the same name, but deviated slightly from the already history altering movie(origins of Dr. Doom). The game does however cover some additional ground than the movie to help build the gameplay up even more, with additional bad guys and locations to help prove the point that this group of superheroes really are a team, and without the cooperation of the four of them, things wouldn't be pretty.
Gameplay:
Fantastic Four is a straight up, linear brawler taking the player through 10 distinct levels ranging from the jungles of Tikal to a Museum. Not unlike classic brawlers like Double Dragon, you can learn new combos and upgrade your move set throughout the game. Some levels you'll be using a single hero, while others may have all four on screen and controllable at any time. Each character, thanks to their unique set of skills that the solar radiation donated to them, can perform specific super actions when they enter a glowing spot on the ground in a level. Now this was a decent way to introduce something different into the button mash gameplay, but overall the "powers" mini-games resorted to button mashing or control stick swirling. Once the mini-game was completed, the hero of choice would perform his action, like Mr. Fantastic would stretch to reach a distant button, or Sue would use her powers to make the hands of a giant enemy immobile allowing Ben to pound it in the face.
With each enemy you vanquish, you gain a block of experience points to which you can purchase upgrades for your hero of choice. Upgrading a button mashing game seems a little like trying to polish a stick of butter with steel wool; it's not going to accomplish much. Sure your attacks are more powerful, but actually getting the character to perform them was a different story. Let's say you're going to perform the typical X,X,A three hit combo, timing is usually important when doing this, so you set off on a nicely paced button squashing extravaganza, and when you hit the third button, you just realize that only the first attack took place so in a panic you hit the second button again only to lose the combo because you hit too many buttons. This scenario happens all too often with all four characters thanks to an extremely sluggish response, and really makes the game seem to move much slower than it should.
One thing that the game does have going for it is the ability to play co-op with a friend. This lets you travel through the game's locales in tandem beating the various enemies senseless, ranging from the thugs on the street to the Moleman's minions, or giant spiders who can trap you in their webs. But unlike another superhero game that emphasized team play, stringing together character combos is almost non-existent. In X-Men Legends, it was possible to combine blasts from Cyclops with Storm's wind to make a powerful attack, yet in FF the extent of combos is one character holding a baddie while someone else pummels him. It is also possible however to buff another hero pal, which instills some additional protection or power onto them for a short time, cool but not nearly as well executed as it was in X-Men.
Another great thing that the game has is a slew of extra unlockable material, ranging from new levels when you beat the game on either medium or hard difficulty, to cast interviews (mmmm...Jessica), comic covers and concept art. An additional level is unlockable only by inputting a code, so for those internet sleuths, it should take you approximately 15 seconds to find the code. Also here is an arena mode, which pits you and a friend against an onslaught of enemies to help polish your combo skills, not terribly exciting, but an additional mode of play none the less.
Graphics:
Yet another thing that seemed to suffer as result of rushing to meet the movie deadline was the graphics. The quality here is not what I expect to see in games this close to the end of this generation of consoles. Admittedly, the animation for the characters was actually quite decent, with Mr. Fantastic and his elastic limbs stretching quite cleanly and the Thing was convincingly string enough to warrant his ability to crush rocks and fling cars around the street. The overall graphical feel however was slightly muddy with not as much attention to detail as I would have liked to have seen.
Audio:
I was actually more than disappointed with the audio portion of Fantastic Four, mainly in the voice department. The stars from the movie did do the voice work for their game counterparts, but somewhere along the line they forgot how to act. Especially bad is the work of the outstandingly beautiful Jessica Alba, but thankfully there's some slight redemption by "The Commish", Michael Chiklis. I mean, actors tend to do very well when it comes to doing voice work for a cartoon, and a game should be treated in similar fashion in my opinion, sadly here it wasn't.
Sound effects and background music are not spectacular either, with generic music filling the aural void and not leaving any impression whatsoever once the game is turned off. Sound effects are merely adequate, but really how hard is it to make the sound of a car or rock getting pummeled by a human rock?
Conclusion:
Is Fantastic Four worth your hard earned cash, I can't say that it is. But I can say that you might get a few good hours out of some co-op play with a friend but the overall replay value of the game is quite low. I know that I didn't feel like working through the game on the hard difficulty level just to unlock another hidden level, and the arena mode was fun for a couple of rounds but the joy quickly fades once the game is over. Not completely worth skipping, the hard core FF fan will really dig the artwork and comic scans, so to them I give the advice to rent the game, not buy it.