Fuzion Frenzy 2
Posted April 1, 2007
Microsoft generated a fair amount of buzz when it announced the Xbox Rewards program. The ability to earn a free copy of a retail game by bumping up one's Gamerscore appealed to a lot of gamers. Because of the program, quite a few people will soon have free copies of Fuzion Frenzy 2 in their possession. If you are one of those people, here is a little advice: As soon as you get your game in the mail, trade it in for credit at your local shop. If you're obsessed with your Gamerscore, pop it in long enough to earn the Achievements, then trade it in. At a minimum, you can hopefully get a 1600 Marketplace Points card for it, which would let you grab some games that are worth playing. Yes, Fuzion Frenzy 2 is that bad.
Gameplay:
Minigame collections can be quite a bit of fun. Nintendo’s Mario Party series has enjoyed consistent success. More recently, Ubisoft’s Rayman Raving Rabbids offered up a fun and entertaining experience. Both of these examples tend to contain a fair amount of variety and creativity among their minigames, solid gameplay mechanics and enough personality to keep the weaker games from growing too tedious. Fuzion Frenzy 2 fails on all of these fronts.
In Fuzion Frenzy 2, players are competing on an intergalactic gameshow that takes place on multiple planets. Each planet contains a handful of minigames built around a theme. For example, Blazure’s games take place around fire or lava, Icicle’s games feature ice, Moisture’s games utilize water, and so on and so forth. Some of the contests involve pushing buttons in either a particular order or as quickly as possible. Others consist of simply steering a character or vehicle around a course. Still others are made up of simple combat, with buttons for jump and attack. The vast majority of the minigames fall into one of these three categories. Most are merely mediocre, while a handful are pretty terrible.
While the controls tend to be somewhat intuitive, the overall gameplay is very inconsistent. Computer-controlled players might perform terribly at one minigame, only to become extremely challenging in the next. Even when playing the same minigame multiple times, the players often go from totally inept to amazingly competent and back again. This can become extremely frustrating and severely hampers the gaming experience.
If the repetition and inconsistency are annoying, the game’s personality is almost enough to push it into the realm of being physically painful. Fuzion Frenzy 2 features a host that introduces and provides play-by-play commentary during the minigames. He permeates the whole of the game and must be one of the most poorly conceived and irritating characters ever to grace the digital realm. In nearly any other game, the comments and voice acting of the six generic, interchangeable playable contestants would be worth criticizing. In Fuzion Frenzy 2, they provide a welcome reprieve from a nearly constant stream of irritation.
While most aspects of the game range from mediocre to awful, those excessively concerned with their Gamerscore might want to rent it for a quick 1,000 points. The achievements are very easy to earn, with 675 points attainable through solo play and the remaining 325 awarded for competing online.
Graphics:
The graphics in Fuzion Frenzy 2 are on the low end of average for an Xbox 360 title. If other aspects of the game were enjoyable, the visuals would not be reason enough to avoid it. As it stands, they simply fail to offset the game’s other weaknesses.
Audio:
The music in Fuzion Frenzy 2 is entirely forgettable. If only the same could be said of the voice acting. In an attempt to salvage the game, Microsoft should really consider adding a downloadable option that rewards high performance by allowing the player to hear the host being tortured.
Overall:
If Fuzion Frenzy 2 were a cheap Live Arcade title, it might be worth checking out for those who love the genre. As a regularly priced retail game, those truly obsessed with their Gamerscore should rent it at most and everyone else should skip the game entirely.
Gameplay:
Minigame collections can be quite a bit of fun. Nintendo’s Mario Party series has enjoyed consistent success. More recently, Ubisoft’s Rayman Raving Rabbids offered up a fun and entertaining experience. Both of these examples tend to contain a fair amount of variety and creativity among their minigames, solid gameplay mechanics and enough personality to keep the weaker games from growing too tedious. Fuzion Frenzy 2 fails on all of these fronts.
In Fuzion Frenzy 2, players are competing on an intergalactic gameshow that takes place on multiple planets. Each planet contains a handful of minigames built around a theme. For example, Blazure’s games take place around fire or lava, Icicle’s games feature ice, Moisture’s games utilize water, and so on and so forth. Some of the contests involve pushing buttons in either a particular order or as quickly as possible. Others consist of simply steering a character or vehicle around a course. Still others are made up of simple combat, with buttons for jump and attack. The vast majority of the minigames fall into one of these three categories. Most are merely mediocre, while a handful are pretty terrible.
While the controls tend to be somewhat intuitive, the overall gameplay is very inconsistent. Computer-controlled players might perform terribly at one minigame, only to become extremely challenging in the next. Even when playing the same minigame multiple times, the players often go from totally inept to amazingly competent and back again. This can become extremely frustrating and severely hampers the gaming experience.
If the repetition and inconsistency are annoying, the game’s personality is almost enough to push it into the realm of being physically painful. Fuzion Frenzy 2 features a host that introduces and provides play-by-play commentary during the minigames. He permeates the whole of the game and must be one of the most poorly conceived and irritating characters ever to grace the digital realm. In nearly any other game, the comments and voice acting of the six generic, interchangeable playable contestants would be worth criticizing. In Fuzion Frenzy 2, they provide a welcome reprieve from a nearly constant stream of irritation.
While most aspects of the game range from mediocre to awful, those excessively concerned with their Gamerscore might want to rent it for a quick 1,000 points. The achievements are very easy to earn, with 675 points attainable through solo play and the remaining 325 awarded for competing online.
Graphics:
The graphics in Fuzion Frenzy 2 are on the low end of average for an Xbox 360 title. If other aspects of the game were enjoyable, the visuals would not be reason enough to avoid it. As it stands, they simply fail to offset the game’s other weaknesses.
Audio:
The music in Fuzion Frenzy 2 is entirely forgettable. If only the same could be said of the voice acting. In an attempt to salvage the game, Microsoft should really consider adding a downloadable option that rewards high performance by allowing the player to hear the host being tortured.
Overall:
If Fuzion Frenzy 2 were a cheap Live Arcade title, it might be worth checking out for those who love the genre. As a regularly priced retail game, those truly obsessed with their Gamerscore should rent it at most and everyone else should skip the game entirely.