In the world
of Marvel comics, The Fantastic Four are considered the Founding Fathers. They
first hit the pages in 1961, and due to their complex characters and lack of
secret identities, they broke the traditions that comic books had followed for
decades. A group of friends and allies that were transformed into super-beings
thanks to a cosmic storm during an outer-space venture headed by team leader
Reed Richards. Reed, girlfriend Susan Storm, brother Johnny Storm and Reed’s
life-long stocky friend Benjamin “Blue eyed Benji”
Grimm complete the squad. Upon their return to Earth, they discover their
powers and after a period of retrospect, decide to help humanity with their
“gifts.” They were so influential in the 60s that they were featured in
several Marvel titles to help launch them. In fact, the first Amazing
Spider-Man comic (not Amazing Fantasy #15) had Spidey
battling against the FF—in an attempt to prove he was worthy of being a
5th member of the team. It was a good plan until he learned that it
was a non-paying gig. After Spidey took off, HE
became the official “Cameo Character” to launch new books or boost sales of a
struggling title.
Decades
later, having endured various revamping by some of the best minds in comics,
they have a legit big screen debut coming in July 2005. Along with, as is
tradition, comes a videogame release by Activision. In the genre of super-hero
videogame conversions, there is usually a high failure rate. Marvel, but
coincidence or not, seems to do better than DC. This is further proof of that,
versus DC’s new Batman Begins videogame, which has a lot of shortcomings.
Fantastic
Four for the PC is a sleek, dazzling array of adventure and playability. You
can play as any of the four characters, and will have to do so in order to get
anywhere. In the books, certain characters are more boring to me, but in a
playable world, they all have their own unique appeal. Sue, “Invisible Woman,”
can become transparent, create force fields for protection or destruction and
kick some butt physically. Johnny, “Human Torch,” can turn his whole body into
a fireball that can create and control flame. Ben, “The Thing,” is a hulking
juggernaut of stone with super strength. Reed, “Mr. Fantastic,” is the
proclaimed leader of the group with a super-high IQ and the ability to stretch
his limbs and torso into elongated or unusual shapes for various tasks. As you
can see, there is a lot of versatility to utilize in this game. It’s much like
controlling the X-Men in the sheer diversity. I admit to preferring certain
characters, but as I mentioned, you need to use them all for success.
It’s a
heaping game for the PC. It’s four (coincidence??!!)
CDs of data, which should give an indication of how deep
this game goes. Beyond some basic setup controls, you’re off and
running in the Marvel world, which begins in outer space. Though not released
at this time, the game touts running alongside the film. You are supposed to
be able to create the movie in your gameplay. However, you can go behind the
shadows and expand a “simple” scene to last quite a long time.
Ok, if
you’re a hero, you have to fight evil. Fighting with this diverse bunch is a
lot of fun. If you want to pound away as the (slower) Thing, you’ll have fun
smashing everything in site. It seems like whole world is your punching bag. I
also liked “Flaming on” as the Torch, though in certain spaces, his movements
are difficult and claustrophobic. You have got to have room to burn! Less fun,
except for doing the “impossible,” is Mr. Fantastic. He can do things that
need to be done to unlock areas and progress in the game. Sue is more fun than
she used to be in the books. They have developed her powers much more over the
years. She used to be a stereotypical screaming girl character, but is now
represented as a booty-kicking heroine that’s fun to use as a fighter. Her
force fields can so some serious damage, which makes me un-think the way I
have thought about such a power over the years. It can be used now as more of
a offensive weapon as opposed to the traditional
“You can’t hit me” type power. Very nice tweak.
There are a
variety of baddies from the books. You’d have to be a fan to recognize the
bundle. Their world, which is anchored in the Baxter Building in NYC, has some
colorful villains. There have been some mistakes, such as the downright silly
“Paste-Pot Pete” whose power was walking around in a funny suit with a
paint bucket full of glue that he can shoot from a gun. He was beefed up later
in the books, but that horrible, silly image is burned into my brain forever.
Sorry for the detour. Back to the game. The main
villain from the film is Dr. (Victor Von) Doom. He is about Reed’s
equal in intellect, and hides his disfigured face behind a mask-plate of metal
while wearing an over-the-top metallic suit with green cloak. In the books, he
was not involved in the life-changing space trip, but they have changed his
origins for the film/game to make it more intriguing. That’s fair, as his
character now has more power and depth. Doom is peppered in the game, but the
levels make you deal with the other villains, which adds to the fun. If it was
an ongoing duel against one foe, it would tire, quickly.
The game
falters as it follows a standard, tired formula of going through rooms,
smashing things (and people!) apart to discover objects and flush out a boss
villain. Rinse and repeat … level by level. It
is fun, but nothing new. It plays like Ninja Turtles (Ok, bad example),
X-Men, Justice League and any other where you have diverse characters to use
to get through it all. It still feels fresh, despite the familiar format.
There are some extras to explore, such as a sneak preview of the upcoming
Ultimate Spider-Man game, characters bios and five Fantastic Four
comics from the “Ultimate” series. Like the X-Men’s “Danger Room,” there is a
place to hone the skills of each character, which came in handy trying to
learn the complex PC controls.
Graphically,
it’s dazzling. Torch’s glow is very detailed like rolling lava at times. They
did a good job with the facial recreations from the movie’s actors, and the
environments have nice depth and shadow. Explosions jump out at you, and
that’s a lot of jumping, here. The way they make Sue invisible is nice, which
must have taken a full day of brainstorming in the Beenox Studios/Activision
think-tank – to come to life. It’s nice to see Sue with more ‘tude
and power than she had in the early days within the Marvel pages. Sorry Reed,
aside from nice-looking stretching, you still bore me as a character! You
look good, though!
The sound
rumbles and quakes the subwoofer of my PC. Headphones were a treat as well.
The voice acting is decent, though I think some of the lines seem pushed and
hurried. I can imagine, if the film’s director had
been in charge of it, hearing a lot of “CUT! One more
time – like you mean it!” in the
studio. It’s still better than most voice acting in games
today. It helps to have the actual cast involved.
This is a
fun game with flaws that are less annoying than others of the same genre
possess. I don’t know why it becomes so hard to make a super-hero game when
other games (Half-Life, Splinter Cell, etc.) excel in their development. It’s
as if developers get a pass on making it push the envelope in invention and
execution. Like there’s an understood “dumb it down” pass awarded to making
heroes come to gaming life. But, this is far better than most. Quite fun and
even non-FF fans will enjoy playing the various, creative characters. It’s
nice when you can enjoy a game based on super heroes without having to be a
die-hard fan in order to be interest. This one stands on its own — whether you
like the Marvel books or not.
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Gameplay: 8.0
Easier than a trip down Yancy Street, the game
is engaging and sometimes addictive to play. Some parts of certain levels
require using characters that are trickier to control, but the better parts
make up for the shortcomings. It’s not a game that you feel forced to play,
though I did have to step away often from frustration. Personally, mainly when
using the Human Torch (who knew so many things could catch fire??!!). It was a
large learning curve to use the keyboard and mouse to play it, but I wanted to
do it the way the default settings are supplied, so made it work. I prefer a
control pad for action games, but it is possible to play this with
standard PC peripherals.
Graphics: 8.5
One of the
strongest elements of the game are its graphics. Using four disks in the
install, that’s a lot of data. I was particularly impressed with the look of
the Torch, as he often took on the appearance of rolling lava. They could have
taken short cuts and just made him one dimension and a generic
“fire-yellow/red,” but made him with more depth. The force field effects look
nice, and the tricky structure of The Thing looked nice as well. The
environments don’t have the depth of a FPS, but they stand out as more than
just generic back-drops. Much of the interiors looked similar to the style of
Spider-Man 2. Just coincidence, but notable since it’s one
of the most recent hero genre games I have played.
Sound: 7.5
As
strong as the graphics and design are, the sound fell just a little
shorter. Not terrible by any means, but some of the voice-acting felt stiff
and out of place. The explosions and rumble had nice, deep sound that was
further enhanced with the help of a subwoofer. It was nice to have a game
envelop you in the surroundings visually, but the audio is more hit and miss.
Difficulty: Medium
The
game is fairly easy to pick up and play — but a thorough study of the
controls is mandatory. Playing an action game on a PC is a lot of (extra)
work. I tried to jump in and play without reading up on it first, but that was
an embarrassing disaster! The manual’s controls list is more than one page
long. I plan to play it with my Wingman or similar controller, next. We’ll see
how that goes.
Concept: 6.5
There are a lot
of multi-player games like this out there. X-Men, Justice League, etc. They
haven’t done much to set this one apart, so it feels familiar without quite
being tired. The variance in the heroes’ abilities makes it fun, but it’s a
basic take-turns multi-character action game with a high-profile brand behind
it.
Overall: 7.5
This is a good
game for any fan of action games. You don’t have to be a fan of the comics, or
attempting to get insight to the film. It’s just a good, solid action game
that is fun, if not sometimes addictive, to play. It wasn’t like some other
titles where I just didn’t want to stay away or be unable to get it out of my
head, but how many games like that really come along? It was fun enough while
playing that I was challenged and my attention was totally engaged to the
action. You have to think for the puzzles, and know your strengths to get
through the more physical situations. There’s enough of each application to
make it feel fresh and fun. The array of well-known characters is deep, and
its fun to see them animated on-screen in something other than a so-so cartoon
(they have yet to do a great FF cartoon adaptation, but I bet its coming
soon). Though I did not see him myself, I would not be surprised to find “Herbie
the Robot” within the game at some point (he was an absurd cartoon creation in
lieu of the “dangerous to kids” Human Torch) in the 1980s. Unlike many movie
tie-in games that are rushed out just to ride the wave of publicity, this is
good enough to stand on its own — despite a huge film being out to help it
sell. Given the poor history of comic hero games, I might have hesitated
getting this without the movie to boost my interest, but I would have missed
out. Nice game, good characters and exciting action all wrapped up to propel
the Foursome back into the Marvel limelight that they dominated for years. It
is, most definitely, Clobberin’
time!
