Fantastic 4 Review

Now, not all such translations are horrible, last year's release from Activision, X-Men Legends, was an example of the right way to craft a game with a superhero license. Certainly the first and second Spiderman movies both contained fairly playable video game translations as well. Of course last year's Chronicles of Riddick showed us that not only can a licensed game that serves as a movie tie-in be good, but it can actually be better than the movie itself.

The Fantastic 4 is easily one of the oldest, storied franchises to come from the mind of Marvel's Stan Lee. Their fans have always struggled against the herds of X-Men fans and even though different than the X-Men, they have always been compared to them. The biggest difference with the Fantastic 4 is that they actually have no secret identities--in fact everybody knows who they are and their story is no mystery to the world around them. The Fantastic 4 have lived outside of the comic book universe with a short-lived cartoon series that spanned 26 episodes. It came as no surprise to learn that with the success of Spiderman, Batman and the X-Men movies, that the Fantastic 4 would finally receive the attention they deserved, but would the attention prove warranted?

In the Fantastic 4 you take on the roles of Reed Richards, Ben Grim, Sue Storm and her cocky brother Johnny. These four are better known as Mr. Fantastic, the Thing, The Invisible Woman and the Human Torch. This game follows the movie, with large portions of side levels added to extend to the life of the game, as well as to introduce some classic villains to the gamers and fans alike. It will be up to you, playing as the 4, to learn to come to terms with and to use your powers to defend those weaker than you. Amidst it all, the evil genius of Dr. Doom plots your demise.

Gameplay
Bash-em-up action games are almost always a staple of the console market. From the days of Double Dragon, to Sony's sorry game the Bouncer, we have seen both the ups and downs of the melee brawling genre. This game seems to be a combination of the standard 3 rd person brawler, with a good dose of combat from X-Men Legends. Still the question as always is simple: “How is the gameplay?”

To answer this question is not so simple. I will say this once, without a quality gamepad, this game is not truly enjoyable or even easily playable. Having a bad feeling prior to picking up this game, I also purchased a Logitech Cordless Rumblepad 2. This purchase would make all of the difference. I quickly learned that this game really doesn't allow for mouse control, in fact it forces those without gamepads to play via use of a very awkward setup of keyboard keys. Even the ability to re-map these keys cannot take away from the fact that playing the game with the keyboard simply wasn't any fun.

Aside from that, using the gamepad that I purchased with this game turned out to be the best possible way to play. The game allowed for control via the use of the gamepad's dual analog controllers, using one for movement and one for moving the camera around. This created a very solid console style feel for the game and ultimately seemed the best way to proceed.

Each of the four playable characters possesses their own individual abilities and combos for fighting, as well as the ability in various areas of the game to use their powers to effect the environment around them. The levels themselves are covered with various rocks, boxes and furniture, all of which you are capable of destroying with your characters. These destructible portions of the environment often contain secrets as well as power-ups and health for your characters. Each character in the game features has access to 10 different melee abilities, ranging from use of your cosmic abilities, to devastating three- and four-hit combinations which--while sometimes tough to trigger--will help to build your Super meter.

This meter fills up with each successful combo you pull off, resulting in the collection of at least one stored use of a Super. The Supers vary with each character, but typically either destroy all nearby enemies, or boost the strength of your character's abilities--turning you into a killing machine. Switching heroes is as easy as pressing the direction pad in the direction of the mapped hero. This ability to change characters on the fly is intuitive and very necessary as you are sometimes forced to use your characters in unison. You are also able to lend your cosmic powers to others, for example using the Invisible Woman to form a shield around another teammate, which then allows that hero to walk past electronic barriers. Your characters also possess the ability to use points gained via combat for upgrading both their cosmic powers and combos which help increase your potency. The enemies throughout the game get more difficult as the game proceeds.

Reed Richards--Mr. Fantastic--features the ability to stretch his body in various combinations as if he is made of rubber. His abilities range from being able to stretch his arms to deliver long-range punches to the ability to spin like a top with his fists flying. Reed Richards is also a computer genius and is needed frequently throughout the game to hack into computers and networks--via the use of a mini-game which, while fun at first, is typically easily solved and seemingly without any penalty for failing to hack the computer in the given time. You will also occasionally be needed to rescue civilians or to slip through small areas in order to find ways around obstacles for the rest of your party.

Ben Grimm--the Thing--was gifted and cursed with a rock solid 600-pound body and superhuman strength. The Thing's gifts are obvious--featuring various ways to create destruction; whether by ramming your enemy or simply jumping and landing an elbow. The Thing will also find that through various levels, he will be required to use his tremendous strength to save lives and lift objects. He also possesses the ability to land finishers--timed button combos that allow for creative ways to kill both the end-bosses and mini-bosses of this game. While there is not much finesse involved with the Thing, he is easily the most powerful of the characters and an easy selection for combat.

Sue Storm--the Invisible Woman--is perhaps the strangest of the group. Sue has always been perceived as the least useful of the four, possessing only the ability to turn invisible and to create shields. However in this instance, she is much more than she appears. While invisible, Sue possesses the ability to avoid enemy scanners and attention, allowing for an impressive, yet underutilized, stealth-kill ability similar to last year's Demon Stone. In the early levels where Sue is the only playable character, you are able to use the stealth-kills, however as the game proceeds these become less usable and almost an afterthought. While not as strong as the others, I found Sue's combos to be easily used. By the end of the game, I was able to take down dozens of enemies using her fighting abilities and her cosmic powers in tandem. Sue's ability to freeze enemies was quite useful at times, as was her telekinetic ability to take control of an object across the room and fling it. Sue also has the ability to create a protective shield around herself, but aside from the times I was required to do so, I didn't find the shield very helpful at all. As Sue, you can also use your abilities to help others, but outside of the necessary areas, this will likely be one the side abilities she possesses that most don't use.

While Johnny Storm--the Human Torch--will always top the list for people's most desired superhuman powers, I found him to be the worst of the 4 fighters. He does have the ability to launch flame projectiles at his enemies, but they are mostly useless as they cause very little damage. In fact, I didn't use him outside of the stages in which I was forced by the game to use him. Similar to X-Men Legends, Johnny doesn't fly so much as hovers and I cannot help but feel that his ability to fly would have made him much more valuable as a character to play. His combinations were mediocre at best: his ability to do a flaming dragon-punch style move was his best power. You will find some occasions in which he uses his flame powers via mini-game to melt through doors. Ultimately, this is another interesting, underutilized ability.

The ability to interact in the environments was a great inclusion, but sadly it wasn't used often enough to be anything other than a gimmick. Certainly the game makes it obvious which power and character is needed in each stage with a nice glowing circle and an appropriate color for each hero--thus taking away from the puzzle solving aspects of the game. There are puzzles scattered throughout the levels, ranging from memorizing a pattern of computers to access, to the infamous platform jumping puzzle. These are scattered throughout the game and never seem to be included enough to truly add to the game. You will also find yourself later in the game using a turret to take on hordes of enemies, and making use of a giant robot. Again, these are small areas in the game. I truly enjoyed the wide range of elements, but cannot help but feel they were included for the sake of variety and not for innovation. Overall, it was a case of dozens of great little things, but not enough of any of them to truly make one take notice.

The play control--when I used the gamepad--was the closest I have come to feeling like I was playing an Xbox game when I was using my PC. While PCs will always be the platform for true FPS games, this game made it seem possible that the 3 rd person action games and platform games could easily exist on the PC and function just as well as their console equivalents.

Graphics
Although not available in-game, this game does allow for the changing and customization of the game resolution, allowing for a 1280 resolution which helped clean up the graphics. The cut scene movies have been poorly ported to the PC and this makes it obvious that they were designed and compressed for the console. This compression creates a horrible grainy appearance that limits the quality of scenes.

The character models of both the Fantastic 4, as well as their main enemies, mini-bosses and main bosses are all quite well done. I particularly enjoyed how the models ranged from small to huge and helped create great a sense of scale between you and those you are fighting. The visual effects included in the game are also well done and often made for some very attractive light shows.

Overall, the graphics were a slight step above the console versions, but not enough to give them full recognition. Still, I noticed no slow down with my video options maxed out and that is always a good sign--especially in this type of action brawling game.

Sounds Fantastic 4 features all of the main actors of the movie, doing the voice work for their game personas. This would turn out to be a mixed bag, as quite often, especially in the case of Jessica Alba, they sucked. Jessica Alba voiced Sue Storm and sounded like perhaps the most bored and wooden superhero ever to grace a video game. This is an example of where sometimes celebrity voice acting does not automatically mean great things. The voice work for Mr. Fantastic and Johnny Storm were merely adequate, with brief moments where they seemed to truly be in the moment with the character.

As in the movie, Michael Chiklis' work as Ben Grimm was truly something to witness. He provides great emotion to his character, as well as the proper amount of humor in his portrayal. The Thing was easily the best voiced character and it's obvious that Chiklis took his voice acting role quite seriously.

The actual game music is somewhat subdued and not always noticeable or memorable due to the use of the in-game sound effects. This is a very loud game when played correctly. The sheer levels of destruction that can be wrought are impressive, and my neighbors complained more than once about all of the explosions coming from my speakers and subwoofer. This game is a savage, in your face, bash-em-up brawler and the sound effects were clearly designed to match this.

Multiplayer
In the realm of the multiplayer functionality, Fantastic 4 features the addition of a 2 player cooperative gameplay mode, but it is all done offline. One day the makers of games will realize that online cooperative play is the future of gaming and move in that direction, but until then we are left with offline cooperative play. While this mode was fun enough, I only had one quality gamepad and this led to a very short-lived experience for me and my second player.

Replay Value
Fantastic 4 features easily one of the highest replay values that I have found in a PC title in quite some time. Throughout the game, you will have the chance to find and collect secret icons. These icons allow you to unlock various game extras, including some very well-done and informative interviews with Stan Lee. The points that you collect throughout the game can also be used to purchase comic book covers, artwork for the game, and my favorite: video reviews with all of the major voice actors for this game. The ability to see and hear Michael Chiklis explain that he has always wanted to be the Thing and that he actually read the comic book growing up is a great thing. It was also entertaining to see him in the studio during the voice recording sessions, something you will see with all of the main actors from the movie.

Via the launch menu of the game, you can gain access to even more bonus material, including access to the songs of each member of the Fantastic 4, bio blurbs about each character, and actual page-for-page Marvel comic book issues of the Fantastic 4. My only complaint here is that the writing is illegible--then again I always did like the pretty pictures. All of this is coupled with 3 difficulty levels, 2 unlockable and rather intense gameplay levels, and an Arena Fight mode (which allows you to practice your moves on enemies, or play through an intense survival mode where you test your skills and endurance against enemy hordes.)

This game has a rising difficulty level and a fairly solid learning curve. While you can possibly make it through the game button mashing, I found myself forced to learn how to fight using all my powers and combos available. While I completed the game in a week, I logged in somewhere around 16 hours of gameplay and would rate the game as falling in between 10-16 hours, depending upon how fully you wish to complete the game and unlock its content.

Conclusion
This review was easily the toughest one I have ever had to do for various reasons. When I bought this game, I had absolutely no faith in the fact that I might actually enjoy the game. I had resigned myself to finally playing and then reviewing an actual “bad” game. Something I have avoided in my years plus here at 2404.org. What I was faced with, was easily one the most fun arcade-type experiences I have ever had on the PC. I have always played these styles of games on the consoles as the gamepad technology has always been so abysmal. Instead I found a solid 3 rd person action brawler with responsive controls and enough fun included to force me to play through the game more than once and then to play through the more difficult bonus levels. All of this coupled with a price tag of $29.99 makes this game a good buy in my book.

Still, this game is not without its issues, first and foremost being that the game is impossible to enjoy without a quality gamepad. This fact alone will hurt the final score, as we rate games on how complete they are out of the box and the fact that I had to buy a gamepad in order to play through this game does need to be factored in. Other problems include graphics that are all fairly reminiscent of Xbox and PS2 games and just don't seem to have the edge one expects in the era of Half-life 2 and the wonderful Source engine. Still, Beenox Studios and Activision should be proud of a game that I would, with a gamepad, recommend to all fans of this genre.

Key High Points
- Action-packed romp through 10 gameplay levels and 2 hidden ones featuring famous villains like Mole Man and Diablo.
- Huge amount of quality, unlockable material, including video interviews and extra levels

Key Low Points
- Gameplay minus the gamepad = horrible play control
- Console style graphics in parts
- Still a tad bit on the short side for the main game