Games / Game Reviews

Review: Fantastic 4

By Eli Green
November 13, 2006 - 10:00

During an attempt to study a cosmic storm, a group of average humans is bombarded with cosmic rays and are given super powers. Mostly anyone who knows a short history of comic books would be able to tell you that is the origin of the Fantastic 4, and also that of their nemesis, Dr. Doom. The Fantastic 4 movie, which released last year, spawned a video game based, mostly, on the movie's story.

The game actually begins at the end of the story, with Dr. Doom close to defeating the Fantastic 4. He fires a bolt of lightning, but The Invisible Woman shields herself and, before being overpowered by the blast, makes a last attempt to call The Thing to come to their aid. The shot quickly switches to Ben Grimm (no longer The Thing) stuck in a reversion chamber, recounting how the story began.

From that point, the game follows a basic plot and objective line mixing between parts from the movie and levels which were added to make the game longer, all of which were split into chapters and the acts of each chapter. The unfortunate problem that comes from this is that many parts of the story don't even connect with each other. These parts are particularly noticeable between the chapters, where after an objective is completed, and you would normally expect the next part of the story, the game skips into the next level with something completely unrelated. Overall, the objective based story which comes about from this poor construction of a storyline is essentially a hunt for cosmic power for the purpose of changing Ben Grimm back to his normal self.

Gameplay



Controlling the Fantastic 4 team is a relatively simple task. When a character is available, their icon will appear in the lower left corner of the screen, and you can switch to them using the button which corresponds to their icon. Movement in-game is simple, but navigating through the menus using the control stick is pointlessly slow, so using the D-Pad is suggested when controlling something other than the characters. Attacks are done using very few buttons, but combos allow for added power. By holding down a specific button and pressing one of the regular attack buttons, the characters' super powers will be used. The Fantastic 4's attacks can also be upgraded to add more power, as long as you have enough points.

Players will find themselves smashing and punching their way from level to level, excluding times when they have to take some time to complete an objective or , from time to time, a secondary objective. Changing the difficulty in the game actually does something, so depending on just how much of a challenge you're looking for, the selection ranges between easy, medium and hard. Either way, once you've gone so far in the game, even if you're changing characters, gameplay will start to become repetitive and boring. The one saving grace in all of the repetition is The Thing. Getting to take advantage of almost everything in the environment made playing as The Thing quite enjoyable.

Boss fights have to be my biggest complaint. It's not just the fact that some of the bosses, like some of the levels, had no reason to be in the game, it's the fact that fighting them was so boring. This not only has to do with the actual gameplay aspect, but the sound, which I'll mention later in the review. Almost every single boss fight in the game plays out in the same way. Fight the minions until the boss' shield is down and then attack him in the necessary way, until he goes down.



Environment and Graphics

Other than a couple of glitches here and there, and unfortunately they were quite noticeable when they happened, the in-game graphics were quite impressive. The super power effects, explosions and even the character likenesses were nicely done. Essentially, what you see of the characters in the FMV cutscenes is what you'll get in-game, though the detail won't be quite as nice. Even the enemy models looked to have a decent amount of work put into them. For instance, the mummies in the museum level had their own unique touches where, if hit properly, they would split in half and the upper body would still come after the character. The bandages would flow along with them until, when finally destroyed, they would turn to a cloud of dust.

The environments were also well done, though outdoor areas, like the jungle/temple level left something to be desired. Places like the hospital or “The Vault” had their own unique feel to them. Neither of the two levels were quite alike, though both were meant to be high tech facilities. They each had the design and layout which made them distinct and similar to what would be expected of a futuristic, high tech hospital or prison. The jungle/temple level, which I mentioned before, was very closed off and had very little area to move, which is not what one would expect from jungles which are usually vast and expansive. Compared to something like the New York City alleyways and subway system levels, that level was cramped.

The cutscenes in the game were all FMV so, as would be expected with most FMV videos in games, they were nicely done. I don't know why they couldn't have used some video from the movie, but there are so many different reasons I could think of them not being able to – legal issues, time constraints, footage might not have been available or matched – that I can understand why they ended up going with FMV instead of live video.

Sound



The sound in some games makes you wonder why the development team even bothered to put it in. While many of the sound effects were good, some even well done, many were either off or missing altogether. It's kind of strange to watch an out of control fire truck smash into the side of a bridge, but to only hear the screeching tires before it hits and not to hear the sound of the impact. And that's only one of a few example of impact sounds that were completely non-existent.

The music had many sections left out too. While silence is the way to go in some situations, the music was almost non-existent or a bad selection during most of the levels, and to continue from before, particularly in the boss fights. The musical score for the game was poorly chosen, and the boss fights were the worst because they gave no extra force to the fight and added to the boredom. When there was music during a boss fight, it ended up being the same music from the rest of the level, instead of something that could be dubbed “boss fight music”. Worse yet, when the level music played during the boss fight, it would repeat over and over again until the boss was defeated.

Thankfully, most of the other sound effects were there, the most prominent of which were the sounds of the Fantastic 4's powers – stretching sounds for Mr. Fantastic, force field sounds for The Invisible Woman, The Human Torch's fire sound effects and The Thing's stone on stone footsteps and hitting sounds. The only other sounds which truly seemed dead on were those of metal getting hit, and that happened a lot in the game. Whether it was throwing a car, as The Thing, or plowing through the plethora of robots that can be found in the game, the sound of scrunching metal sounded just right.

The game's voice acting was a bit hit and miss, which might seem odd to the average person when they see that the voices, at least those of the Fantastic 4 and Dr. Doom. One of the problems that can arise from using the original actors from a live action movie in a game is they may not have a smooth transition from acting on set to acting in front of a microphone. Not all actors can do it. Most of the cast did rather well in reprising their roles for the game, particularly Julian McMahon (Dr. Doom), but Ioan Gruffudd (Reed Richards) seemed to have a tough time of it. Even some of Michael Chiklis' (Ben Grimm/The Thing) lines seemed off at times. Then again, maybe the trouble that they had came from the fact that most of the lines they were reading were poorly scripted.

Conclusion

From what I could see after playing Fantastic 4, it was simply put together as a marketing addition to the film. The game controls were solid, and it looked quite nice during most of the levels, but it was boring, repetitive and, excluding most of the voice acting, the sound and music were awful. A game like this makes it difficult for people to trust, and buy, titles licensed from other formats, and it's a shame.



Gameplay: 6.5

Environment and Graphics: 8

Sound: 5

Story: 4

Fun: 5

Verdict: Not Worth Your Time

Rating: 6 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12