Reviewed: July 2, 2007
Reviewed by: Justin Nixon

Publisher
2K Games

Developer
Visual Concepts

Released: June 15, 2007
Genre: Action
Players: 1-4

5
6
5
2
4.5

Supported Features:

Two years ago Activision released The Fantastic Four which coincided with the movie of the same name. It didn’t turn out so well. Another movie another game, but this time it is up to Visual Concepts to fix the problems that the last game had in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Unfortunately, instead of fixing these problems they added to them, making this game even worse than the last.

Each character in Fantastic Four has their own set of super hero powers. Mr. Fantastic can jump through lasers and break boxes on ceilings to open doors. The Human Torch can fly over lasers and shoot fireballs. Invisible Woman can turn invisible to avoid enemies and use telekinesis to move large objects. While all these abilities sound great, none of them are that useful in combat.

The Thing, however, can create a type of earthquake attack by pounding the ground, pump himself up and make each physical blow more powerful, perform a rush attack, and use a shield that makes him temporally invincible. He can also pick up heavy objects and use them as weapons. These objects include boulders, boxes, cars, streetlights, motorcycles, and soda machines. To put it short, The Thing is the most useful character in the game. I found myself using him for about 95 percent of the game. The others just tagged along for the ride.

After about five minutes into the game, you may think that this game isn’t terrible, but it is. This game can easily be beaten in less than six hours, but at the same time there are only six levels. I’ll let you do the math. With almost an hour being spent on each level you would think that you would see a lot. Well, you thought wrong.

You start off each level in an area with tons of baddies. Once you pummel all of them you must find a secret switch to open the door to the next area. Once you open that door and advance to the next room you may get a sense of déjà vu. This area looks exactly like the last. Those baddies coming toward us look just like the ones in the last area too. This continues throughout the entire level until you defeat the final boss. Then you move on to the next level and this repetitiveness continues. Beat up some baddies, hit a switch, and move on to the next area that looks just like the last. Throughout the game you only see 6 different kinds of environments.

The AI in the game is also a train-wreck. Not only is the enemy AI horrible, but your own team members are about dumb as they come. Instead of looking for a switch to turn off a gun turret they will run right out in front of it, getting gunned-down in the process. Even Invisible Woman and the Human Torch, who both have projectile powers, will run up to a huge robot and try to pummel it with their fists, getting stomped to death while doing so. Needless to say, your team members die a lot, but as long as you use your brain they will recuperate after about 5-10 seconds.

It’s always nice to have a hint option for when you get stuck. This game doesn’t have that. In most games it doesn’t hurt to leave that out though. In this game it does. At times I had no idea what to do. The game wouldn’t give me any kind of direction either. For example, I walked onto a huge dark missile silo, beat some baddies, and then was left with no direction. I spent over ten minutes running around this large area. Eventually I found a switch on the side of a pillar. Again the silo was dark so the only way to see is using The Human Torch’s Fame-On ability. After I hit the switch I was again left with no direction to what it opened, and the doors were still locked. I finally walked over a panel that started to rise like an elevator. The panel blended into the rest of the floor so I couldn’t see it. This occurs 3-4 times throughout the game. Even with these time-consuming annoyances, you can still beat the game in less than six hours.

The only thing that is remotely good about this game is its multiplayer support which is only offline. This is the one high point of the gameplay. You and up to three of your buddies can play out the events of the movie together. Does this really save the game? Absolutely not, but it does add some level of playability to it. The combo moves are especially fun. A combo move is one in which you combine the powers of two of the super heroes to create a really cool move. This is nearly impossible with the lackluster AI in the game when playing by yourself, but when you have more than one human player these moves can be accomplished with ease.

At the same time the character models look good, especially The Thing, and the animations are nice too. The Fantastic Four’s suits have a lot of detail and texture as well. The Silver Surfer is also very impressive visually.

A Second Opinion
By Stacey Meade

Fantastic Four is one of those games that has to be played with a group of people to be remotely fun at all. Playing by yourself is about as boring as it gets. All the enemies look the same. The AI is terrible. The character graphics are good, but the environments are repetitive and bland. At least with a group of people you can talk about how bad this game is. The only issue that you have to resolve with your friends is who gets to be the Thing.