Fantastic 4 – Review

This is the game of the film The Fantastic 4, it’s common knowledge games of films and vice versa are usually, well, rubbish, due to the fact that 90% are shameless tie ins. Fantastic 4, in this respect, is no better or no worse than other movie tie ins. Fantastic 4 is a 3D action game where, given the level, you can play as any one of the fantastic 4. The game takes the form of, almost, a hack and slash RPG, your characters attacks can be increased in power by collecting points from killing enemies. Fantastic 4 in this respect can be best compared to The Lord of the Rings: Return of The King.

Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses Mr Fantastic can use his stretchiness to grab and attack enemies from a range and he can also hack computers. The Thing is incredibly powerful, he can pick up cars and use them as a club for example, he can also take more hits than the rest of the team but he is incredibly slow. Johnny Storm is the fastest character in the team and he can also use his fireball attack to set fire to enemies and he can also use his flame to undertake certain interactions such as weld pipes shut. Finally Sue storm can use her invisibility to sneak past enemies she can also use her shielding ability to protect an ally or deflect missiles back at enemies.

Graphically Fantastic 4 is not that much of a looker, I mean it’s not terrible but it’s nothing amazing, It merely gets the job done. There are some nice touches though such as Sue’s invisibility and special attacks and also Mr Fantastic’s stretching. The cutscene graphics are nice and shiny looking, mind you it looks just as good as the FMV’s from the Final Fantasy games on the PS one. Sound wise the game is not incredible either; it just uses sounds from a sound bank like most games, however just like the spiderman 2 game the characters are all voiced by the actors who play them. For the deaf or hard of hearing gamer the game also has extensive subtitles for all the level based mini cutscenes however there are no subtitles in the lovely FMV’s.

The story of the game follows the film to a degree, as there are several villains from the comics interspersed with all the movie tie ins, just like Spiderman 2 had comic characters in the game. Some of the villains range from street thugs to big stompy robots. Some of the enemies can get a bit far fetched but hey it’s a superhero game. The female characters in the game are represented well as Sue Storm is just as good a character to play as any of the others due to her special talents, there is also Ben Grimm’s girlfriend who seems to take up the role of female victim as she tends to get herself into hazardous situations only to be saved by her pet rock Ben.

Game play wise the game is a bit of a mixed bag with the good going hand in hand with the bad. The fighting in the game is generally good with there being a grapple button, a quick attack and a strong attack, you can also press R1 and a certain button to pull off a special and R2 to block. Combos are also possible by mixing strong and fast attacks in a certain order. The only real drawback about the fighting is it gets so repetitive. Boss fights can also be annoying due to the lack of any idea of what to do!

There are also little button mashing moments and puzzles, Mr Fantastic has to hack computers, this is achieved by spinning circles with lines in them until you get a continuous line going from the outer ring to the inner ring. The Thing has to mash X as much as possible in 5 seconds to pull off a feat of strength.

Johnny Storm’s task is similar to the Things but you have to push and hold repetitively, Sue Storm has to rotate the left stick as much as possible. There are also small platforming bits but these are in the majority infuriating after falling off a platform for the 10th time I was screaming at the PS2 as most missed jumps were due buttons not responding or camera issues.

That leads me on nicely to the camera control. The cameras are usually fixed but can be adjusted with the stick, quite a lot of the time though the camera is a beast of burden, constantly being where you don’t want it, the camera controls are also very slow so it takes a bit to cure your camera woes.

There are a few different game types aside from single player, you can go co-op and smash stuff with a mate, there’s arena where you can either train against enemies or try and survive waves of them in survival. Generally there is not much in the way of replay value unless you want to get annoyed all over again.

Fantastic 4 in general is a fun game in short bursts but is sorely let down by a bad camera, bad level design and the combat. Although it is fun for the first couple of hours there is just not enough there to spice things up. The inclusion of the mini games such as hacking computers and twisting analogue sticks round is fun the first 4 times but then becomes a pain. Fantastic 4 in general tends to be like the film it’s based on, cheesy fun that kids will enjoy but adults will feel that it’s missing something special.

Review by Nige