Bad Habits - Geeked - January 04 2006
Recently, due to the vagaries of the videogame release schedule, we’ve had to review a lot of movie tie-in games. It hasn’t exactly been fun. Movie tie-in games tend to be short, wreck the movie by giving away plot elements, and ultimately make you feel like you wasted your money. While all of that is true for Activision’s new Fantastic 4 game, it’s actually better than one would assume from its movie-shilling heritage.
The game is simple: You are the Fantastic 4 as you fight through the various perils that mirror the movie’s plot, ultimately leading to a battle with supervillain Victor Von Doom (and his inconsistent-with-the-comics electrical powers). Mostly you play each level and sublevel with individual team members, but team up with one other character or the whole team for that level’s boss battle.
Much like an RPG, the powers for each character grow more useful as you gain experience for each player. It’s not easy to master your superpowers, which I suppose increases the length of the game, but that’s not what I would call quality playtime. Developing your characters’ abilities can be fun, but it’s annoying to start the game and realize the Thing ain’t quite as strong as he should be.
Speaking of the Thing, he can’t just pick up any car on the street. There are only a few specific cars he can pick up, all of which are marked by discoloration. That takes you out of the fun of being the Thing and reminds you that the programmers are lazy people who want nothing more than to get on to their next, more interesting game.
The game’s graphics are excellent, really bringing you into the world of the Fantastic 4 - and yet some of the camera angles are so bad, you can’t see what’s happening with your character. Additionally, some transitions are so graphics-heavy that the PS2 will churn just a bit too long while it pulls files from the disc, making gameplay a bit choppy. The game excels in its voiceovers, though, using recordings from the movie’s cast. Yep, that’s Michael Chiklis yelling, “It’s clobberin’ time!” and yep, you’ll be sick of it pretty soon.
Finally, a word to all you perverts out there: Yes, you can make Sue Storm invisible, but no, you can’t make her clothes invisible. Save all your ogling for FHM or Maxim, whichever one Jessica Alba has most recently posed for. As for those who prefer the company of men, yes, Reed Richards can stretch any part of his body, but the body part you’d want to stretch happens to not be stretchable in this game, so just relax and concentrate on defeating Doctor Doom.
Bottom line: The game is fun and worth playing, which is not something usually said about movie tie-in games. Of course, once you finish the game after a couple of days, how fast will you turn it in for credit toward something else? Pretty damn fast - there’s absolutely no replay value here. So go ahead and rent it. Anything more would be a waste of money.
WHAT’S COOL: Playing all of the Fantastic 4 at once during battles; seeing classic FF villains at early levels; RPG-like upgrading abilities; being able to just fight bad guys with your friends in the mini-games.
WHAT’S UNCOOL: It’s a movie tie-in game, with all the plusses and minuses therein - short levels and not a lot of replay value.