Fuzion Frenzy 2

"An average party game"

Fuzion Frenzy 2 is the obvious sequel to the not so hot Xbox title. I really don't remember the first game but I think I played a demo and I just wasn't impressed with it. Having played this sequel I can say I'm still not impressed and I'm more confused on the matter of why this game was even made. Does that mean it's a terrible game? Read on!

The game has no story. A group of four are in some planet hopping tournament. That is all.

Graphic wise the gems doesn't impress but it doesn't look terrible. The characters and stages are colorful but not overly vibrant. Actually, now that I think about it the levels all kind of look the same with its colors. So it lacks variety but it doesn't look horrible.

Sound wise I wanted to mute the game. The voice acting is annoying. The announcer is perhaps the most annoying announcer in gaming history. The music is utterly forgettable as I just finished playing it and I don't remember a single thing about it.

The game offers a very basic control set up. Left stick tends to move you and X is either jump or skill. If you need to grab something or throw something then X does that. It's simple and before each stage the game informs you of how to play and what each button will be used for.

The game offers a few different kinds of game play. Tournament, which has you setting up how many points a person needs to win and then you planet hop until someone gets that many points. Each planet has 5 or so mini games and a few hidden ones. You will play four or so rounds and sometimes a bonus round.

The game itself is very easy but there is a twist to the game play. After each game you get points for what place you're in. However you do have some cards that you start with and as you advance in the game you'll randomly gain new cards. I found on any setting over Easy constantly gave the AI cards while ignoring you. This would be fine if it was fair but the game tends to give them X6 multipliers so in the end if they get 2nd place it's 5 X 6. How is that fair when you're not even given a chance. I know it's all based on luck with you don't know if you'll score high or low but the game doesn't make it fair by giving everyone the same cards or a way to get the cards so while I've placed fourth in every game I lost to the first place guy by half of his points which shouldn't be possible but it is.

Besides tournament you can do a custom set where you pick how many points (1 point per game) and you can pick the mini games. It's simple enough. The other mode is just quick play.

Now, you can play all of those same modes online. I found that even though this is a new game that it was really hard to find anyone playing a tournament. Otherwise the online play was fun. Not best thing ever but I could see popping this in every once in a while.

The other problem is that the mini games really aren't very fun and are actually rather simplistic in nature. I'd rather have a better variety of mini games and perhaps ones that weren't so generic feeling.

So while the game offers a single player experience and a decent online experience (the loading is a bit much online). There just isn't much else to the game. It doesn't even offer a lot of mini games.

Would I recommend Fuzion Frenzy 2 as a buy? No, it's a decent rental but in the end it just isn't anything special. I highly doubt if this game will ever find its way into my collection and I think the only reason I'd ever play the game again would be to get the achievements that I either couldn't get because not enough people were playing online tournaments or because I didn't play like playing the bland single player stuff another 5 times.

Story - N/A
Graphics - 6/10
Sound - 5/10
Control - 9/10
Game Play - 6/10
Replay Value - 6/10

Final Score - 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/06/07