Fuzion Frenzy

"No no no... THE party game."

Fuzion Frenzy is a multi player party game. So before you even bother reading this review, make sure you have people to play with. Let me break it down.

Game Play:
The game play is simple, yet one of the best I ever seen. First off, you select a character of a possible six… you could be a little annoying kid named Zak or a ghetto girl named Geena... they only different in color and what they say... any ways... This game consists of you moving, jumping, driving, and throwing things around, here are examples of what you can do exactly (The name or type of game).

Twisted System: This has to be one of the most fun game in the whole Fuzion Frenzy world of mini games. You and your friends start out slow on a cork screw type thingy. The idea is to jump the blue bumps and duck the orange poles, makes great fun especially when you opponents get knocked in the face about five times… Other games of this gender include having to collect coins while dodging a fan and jumping electrodes.

Sumo: This is another fun game. It involves you in an American Gladiator type huge hamster ball. You are on a little plat form and you must push the other players into the water. What makes this fun is a little fuse will go around the circumference of the circle and cut it off making it shorter... These games also include a race and one when you have to hit targets.

Trail Blazer: In this mini game you will have to try and make your opponent run into a tail that is projected from a ice car type thing. The tail gets bigger as the game goes and this is a fast action game, very fun too.

Those are just some of the things you can do in this game. There is about forty-five different games you can do also, including a couple “Step Step Revolution” type games and more with racing (with boats, tanks, ice vehicles...)

But the main game in Fuzion Frenzy is the tournament in which you first must choose how many cities you want to include... two, four, or six may be picked. Now each city has three mini games in them, which include any of the few I mentioned before, then after they are all done you go to a game, conveniently named, Fuzion Frenzy! Before this game even starts you must gamble some or all of the “orbs” you have achieved in the mini games so far. Then once the game starts, you and your friends have to collect orbs and put them in a little area. The person who has the most obviously wins and is crowned the champion.

Either way, it is very important that you have friends over... the AI in this game isn’t the most fun and can have an impact...
Outstanding

Challenge:
Well, even though this game is suppose to be played with four human players... like all the time, there is still an AI to be used. Well you do get to set their difficulty... from easy to medium to hard. This would be fantastic, but all the difficulties are the same, and the computer is only good on a certain few levels and absolutely suck on other levels. So this means on a pod catching level you will get you ass raped by the computer but on a Sumo level they will hardly try even on the hardest difficulty.

Getting to learn how to play the game is simple how ever. Before a mini game starts they give you the point of the goal and then a (sometimes) useful hint. Learning to do something is easy since you only need at most like two buttons...

If you have friends, this area shouldn’t even be taken into consideration.
Below Average

Control:
Now just let me tell you this, I hate the Xbox’s controller and everything about it. I am very biased towards it... With this in mind, I find this to be the easiest Xbox game to control. Not only that, but it is actually good too.

You usually can use either the joy stick or the directional pad to move. Then other than the three “Step Step Revolution” type games use the red and green button to jump/duck, accelerate/reverse, or other things like attacking or getting boosts of speed in a vehicle.

The controls are perfect, some mini games only require the use of the left analog stick or one button.
Outstanding

Story:
There really isn’t too big of a story in this game other than to try and be the best...

Samson is the red African American that is all pimped out in sun glasses, he takes this game seriously and will only play to win.

Geena is the blue ghetto girl with some tude.

Dub is the green guy with the head phones with the English accent.

Naomi is just an orange token girl...

Zak is the yellow annoying kid who is about half the height as everyone else.

Or Jet, who is the purple girl with spirit who wants to be a winner like her sister.

You shouldn’t take this aspect of this game in to any consideration.
Lacking

Visuals:
The games graphics are great, nothing else really you can say.

This is the Xbox for god’s sake... All the characters look surprising detailed for this type for game, maybe even too detailed... The levels look great too.

This game does lack any type of special movies, however, but that’s OK.
Outstanding

Audio:
I’m surprised to say this also... This game sports one of the best sound tracks in my opinion. I love the tunes they play in the back ground. One or two songs are a little on the lame side, but all the rest are great. It usually plays some type of Techno or Rock music. One song sounds like the Dentine Ice commercial...

The effects are OK I guess, I never really paid attention to them... since usually when I play, I have three other people screaming or cheering... so the effects get kind of drown out. Plus the music is so loud (most of the time) you could hardly hear anything.

The Voices are near perfect. All the characters sound different and there is just something so cute seeing jet in a huge ass vehicle saying “You lose!” The only bad part, is that the announcer sounds really crappy and really annoying... Every round “Three... Two... One... Go!” it gets annoying really quick. Also, if you lose, he will make you feel like taking your own life... he just gets under your skin so much.
Great

Re playability:
Well lets see here... there is forty-five mini games and six Fuzion Frenzy rounds, so this game will last you a long time indeed. Competing has never been better...

But there is one very, very bad part. If you are friendless, you can’t have that much fun. The AI does get really boring really fast... so once your friends bounce, this game starts its dust collection.
Pending

Pros:
Great Multi player
Great Music

Cons:
Announcer is annoying
Horrible single player

Rent or Buy:
This game makes a perfect rental, especially if you know some friends are stopping by for a weekend.

Final Rating:
I give this game a nine out of ten. Not only because it is a decent game, but because it is the best party game I ever played. All the other party games are dumb and stupid and consist of that systems mascot to milk money from people. Xbox has the only good one because instead of shallow themes like Crash or Mario, they focused on fun stuff and gameplay.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/10/03