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Action movie marketers are quite savvy about merchandising, so it wasn't a reach to see the Fantastic Four video game show up with the movie. The game is nicely aligned with the movie and features the same actors to voice the Fantastic Four characters. The game also loosely follows some of the events in the movie, and ably recreates the look of the characters.
Unfortunately, this game left me feeling flat. It's competent enough as a basic arcade game, but a few classic problems dog the title. The camera angles can occasionally veer off the heroes and this causes severe disorientation several times during the game. The game is also not always clear about where to go next in a level. You figure it out eventually by exploring, of course, but many of the levels are dark and hunting around them can be tedious. It's not like a directional cursor or mini-map with a destination marker are new technologies in video games. The general play tends to be pretty bland. It consists mostly of button mashing your way through a level full of monsters, then going to a new level to button mash your way through some more monsters. If you've been playing video games for a while there will be very little here that's original. The puzzles, mini-games, and goals in the game are things you've seen before, like having to depress floor tiles to open a gate or beat a timed arcade exercise.  It's also unfortunate that in a game about four heroes there is multiplayer support for only two players. One of the neat things about Activision's Shrek 2 game is that you can play it with up to four players. Fantastic Four should lend itself easily to similar multiplayer capabilities. But as it is, the camera has enough trouble keeping two players on the screen at once, so perhaps two is the appropriate number for Fantastic Four's multiplayer support. There is a strong emphasis on teamwork. Although the implementation is simplistic and simply involves making a certain character perform special functions by pressing a button when standing near a colored icon, it works well and is certainly approachable for novice gamers. Finally, I appreciated the finishing move feature on boss battles, which gives players a chance to shorten the time they spend on what are normally grueling and tedious boss battles.  
For the typical youth that might play the game with a GamerParent, the game is certainly adequate fare. There are many levels to play, and most children will probably really enjoy the visual variety of each hero's different powers, as my son (age 5) did. It's also nice to see that men and women work together in the game. My son initially liked the Human Torch the most because he could fly and throw fireballs, but eventually learned to appreciate the Invisible Woman's powers and skills. The ability to upgrade powers after earning experience points also gave him exposure to basic economic concepts of buying and spending (although that that's something most kids have trouble figuring out).
The violence in Fantastic Four is typical for a fighting game though it doesn't get grotesque or gory. Defeated opponents disappear in a cloud of smoke or sparks. There are some comments made by the characters in the game that lean to the adult side though most of those will go over the heads of the very young children (The Thing, after seeing Johnny Storm become the Human Torch, quips, "Flames, huh? How appropriate."). Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Fantastic Four |
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