Fantastic Four

"Really not as bad as most reviews say, but not great either."

Fantastic Four on the Sony Playstation has the unfortunate, and somewhat unwarranted distinction of being on several gaming magazines “ten worst” lists for the system. I think this rating is a bit harsh. Really, there are dozens of completely forgettable pieces of crap like Brahma Force: Assault on Beltlogger 9 and Machinehead that would easily displace FF for the title of worst game if they were placed side by side. The problem with Fantastic Four , however, is that it made it onto gamers' radar, by virtue of its popular licensed source material and its fairly well-known developer (Acclaim). So compared to other reasonably well-known titles, it lags behind (though not necessarily compared to other early Playstation era licensed games), but there are many, many other games so much worse that they are tossed into the gutter of gaming history even before they are released.

With that said, a review of the game based on its own merits is in order. Fantastic Four actually does a lot of things right, creating a fun side-scrolling brawler with multiplayer potential. For one thing, the characters and their moves are authentic. You can choose from among 5 different team members... Wait a minute, isn't this the Fantastic FOUR (4)? Well, even in the comics the actual roster varied from 3 to 5 members at various times, with She-Hulk (the fifth character in this game), Crystal of the Inhumans, and Ms. Marvel, among others filling in, so this isn't a problem. It also provides more variety for multi-player, so that the fourth player isn't stuck with the last remaining character. Each character has a variety of punches, kicks, throws, and special moves that fit their powers perfectly. For instance, Reed Richards, a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic, stretches and forms his body into various shapes to pummel opponents, or uses high-tech gadgets as befits his engineering and inventing prowess. The Thing can shoulder-charge enemies and do a thunder clap, among other actions. Essentially, each character has multiple unique attacks befitting their character.

Some of these moves are more useful than others, however. For one, the Human Torch's dive bomb attack reaches far across the screen in a straight line, but pretty much requires you to guess where enemies will be coming from off-screen due to the timing involved. Also, the control scheme for using special moves is awkward: you have to hold down a shoulder button and then press a combination of 2 directional buttons on the D-pad, and these presses must be quite accurate for it to work. As you play, you end up sticking with just a couple of moves, special and normal, that work well in a variety of situations. Basically, there isn't always good balance between the different moves available to you. And the only encouragement the game gives you to keep variety in your actions is to flash a cheese icon if you just use the same move over and over again, trying to shame you into changing things up. But hey, if you can put up with cheese, go right on doing whatever works.

The challenge level of the game is unbalanced at times as well. In most levels there are small sections that are incredibly difficult to get through without losing a few lives in the process, such as one spot where a tentacled monster bursts through the wall in the background, and the only way to hit him is to throw attacking cavemen back into him. However, the cavemen are very difficult to get a hold of, and while you're trying the monster keeps whacking you over with his tentacles, leaving you little opportunity to stay on your feet. Sections like this can be frustrating, especially when you die 6-7 times trying to get through them. To help in this respect, though, there are tons of power-ups scattered throughout the game for healing and free lives. Also, you can continually replenish your super-special meter by picking up the energy dropped by enemies that are hit while in the air (which is actually quite easy to do). This helps a little, but then again there are also some monsters later in the game with very cheap damaging moves, like a sonic scream from the whale monsters from Atlantis, that kills everyone without any real warning. And though it can help to have other players helping out, the number of enemies that come out is based on the number of players, so this can work against you at times too.

Whether you're playing solo or with up to 3 friends (via multitap - a peripheral that I don't see a lot of people actually owning), the action in the game is pretty much non-stop, which makes it fun to play. This non-stop approach was also unfortunately applied to the story, which is virtually non-existent, going something like this: “Oh no, the Moleman's minions are attacking New York. Let's stop them! Wait, now we've been transported into the microcosmos. What, now were on the Skrull homeworld during a war! Oh, now Atlantis is attacking! You mean Doctor Doom has been behind this whole thing?” You're pretty much just zipping from one classic FF villain and the associated environment to another without any tie-in. But hey, since this is primarily an action game, does it really matter? The designers just threw together levels pulled from the licensed source material and called it a game, but the high level of action is consistent throughout, so I can't complain.

You have a lot of choice of customization of the game, especially for a game of its time. You can set the starting number of continues and the number of lives within each continue, the difficulty setting, the control scheme, whether or not fellow team members can hurt each other, and you can even turn on computer-controlled drones of the other FF team members when you're playing on your own. There's also an arena mode, where you fight one-on-one fighting game style against each other or against other Marvel characters not otherwise in the game (like Dragon Man and Iceman). Finally, while the levels are loading, there's a little top-down racing game to play if you want to. All in all, there's a lot you can do to make your game easier or harder, and little extras to provide a complete Fantastic Four experience.

And now to an aspect of the game that is often highly criticized: the music and sound. Okay, the upbeat funk/jazz score is pretty cheesy, but it makes a great action soundtrack... if the game were set in the 70's. Personally, I don't mind it at all, but I can see how it could turn a lot of people off. It's not bad music, it just strikes you as inappropriate for the kind of game you're playing. But as if this weren't enough, there's also an announcer saying things like “Powweerrrr up!” and “Continue!” as if it were Tony the Tiger saying them. Between this and the music, the best way to describe the sound of the game is ‘cheeseball'. The sound effects from the attacks and hits are nothing noteworthy, but nothing to get upset about either. At least you do get spoken classic FF lines from the characters when they start a level or continue after dying, such as “Flame on!” and “It's clobberin' time!”.

Overall, Fantastic Four is actually quite fun to play, if you enjoy the source material at all. Though the graphics are on the lower side of the Playstation quality continuum, they're clear and colorful, and you never have any doubt what a character or object it. The music and sound, as just mentioned, could have safely gone in a different direction. The controls are poorly implemented but passable. But despite all that, the variety of options in setting up the game and the moves available to you while playing, and the faithfulness to the source material, make it fun to play for an hour or two, especially when making use of the multiplayer capabilities. Acclaim released a lot of crappy games around the same time as this one ( Magic - the Gathering: Battlemage, anyone?), and Fantastic Four doesn't completely fall outside that category, but in no way does it deserve the critical beating it has received. It's only real crime is being high enough on the gaming radar to attract attention to its shortcomings, a feat that many far more awful games never achieve.

And hey, the cover art is awesome, so it can't be all bad, right?

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/13/05