Fantastic Four
7 Studios tries its hand at an X-Men Legends-style beat 'em up. We go hands on a report back with first impressions inside.
Published: June 20, 2005
We're going to fight the urge to pad this review at great length with talk of how comic games have sucked in the past. It's something most gamers have had to learn the hard way, but it's starting to change thanks to major releases like Activision's own Spider-Man 2, and we know you know it (cause you're so smart you little dickens). So, let's just get into the meat of things, shall we?
The aforementioned partnership between Activision and Marvel has served them well. Properties like Spider-Man and the X-Men games have made the transition from the movies to video games remarkably well. Part of this is no doubt due to the partnership between the movie studios and the wealth of source material that's easily tapped into making games like this, but it shows that the lines of communication are open between not only comic publishers like Marvel, but with the movie studios that have spent all that money helping to sculpt the look and feel of the film adaptation.
Fantastic Four the game follows suit, taking a page from the overall costume aesthetic and visual look of the movies, but taps heavily into the comic books to thicken up the number of environments and villains that wouldn't fit into the hour and a half big screen experience. The result is a game that has obvious ties to the basic design of X-Men Legends, but seeks to be more than just a co-op beat-'em-up.
Don't misunderstand, it's not trying to be that, much more, but there's a definite emphasis of using the different characters' powers to get past some basic puzzles. The first level we played through served as a tutorial for each of the characters (though we only played as Mr. Fantastic and The Thing), and helps set up the different characters, gives a bit of insight into their reactions to their powers, and then turns them loose with a laboratory and enemies that are basically the same, but things are obviously tweaked to best show off the differences between the characters.
Case in point, the mini-games that are scattered throughout the different levels; whereas Mr. Fantastic favored hacking into systems with a simple but interesting little hacking mini-game that let us rotate bits of a line stuck on a couple concentric circles until we could get them all lined up, The Thing was more about brute force and button mashing or timed hand held presses to brute forcibly open obstructions. Later levels took advantage of The Human Torch's ability to fly through fire or take fire-based attacks to help The Invisible Woman get through so she could use her telekinetic blasts to clear rubble. Again, the mini-games built into the game let you rotate the analog stick to build up a blast.
This apparently extends to the boss fights too. Towards the tail end of the laboratory level early on, we got to switch characters while taking on a giant killer robot. Weaking them enough with The Thing opened up the opportunity to grab them and start a simple timed button press mini-game to deliver a final blow. It was a nice mix-up to the string of simple combos we were unleashing.
All the characters have the same basic movesets, so a triple-tap of the light or hard attack button (X or Square, respectively) or mixing them up would help attack, but holding a modifier like R1 and pressing each of them helped quite a bit. This can be extended to jumping attacks too (tapping Triangle is normally just a jump, but it can be turned into a powerbomb or uppercut-style attack too depending on the character), and it does make for some fun combinations.
It also highlights the approach of making all the characters subtly different; The Thing in particular really emphasized up-close attacks complete with grapples that allowed him to bash or throw enemies or objects in the level, but Mr. Fantastic's stretching ability worked great for long-range and room clearing moves, The Human Torch's speed was noticeably better than anyone else, which helped in the second enclosed boss fight we participated in, and The Invisible Woman's shield and ability to turn invisible or shield other characters makes her a great support role.
We didn't get a chance to test out the co-op, since there were no other players around, and no free extra controllers, but we did get a basic idea of how some powers can be combined (again, in a nod to X-Men Legends) for added effect, and we got a great demonstration of how each character can build up a meter with combos to unleash a massive room-clearing attack, completely with plenty of effects and a healthy dose of slo-mo. It's an obvious nod to the emphasis on mixing up combos and the game's focus on combat first and foremost, but it's nice to know that just hammering buttons between those mini-games will at least reward you after a while.
Visually, the game looked fair, but the framerate was rather dodgy and the overall level designs were decidedly of the boxy variety. Hopefully the levels we were shown weren't the bulk of the design aesthetic, but at least the levels were populated with lots of interactive elements -- particularly useful to The Thing's attack style. The venue we were situated in (the perfectly fitting Cartoon Art Museum in downtown San Francisco) was also a bit too noisy to see how the audio was coming along, but we did get confirmation that all four stars of the movie would be donating their voices to the digital versions, which is a nice touch.
When all's said and done, it's pretty tough to gauge how nicely a game is coming along with just an hour or two of play time in a noisy venue (but it's a whole hell of a lot more than we'd get at E3), but 7 Studios is certainly working hard at giving the game some decent variety and a heaping helping of comic book lore that should help it extend the whole experience beyond the "ooh, I remember that from the movie!" moments. We'll have more info as soon as we can get more play time with the final product, but hit up the [media=681]media page[/media] to see how things are coming along in the mean time.
The aforementioned partnership between Activision and Marvel has served them well. Properties like Spider-Man and the X-Men games have made the transition from the movies to video games remarkably well. Part of this is no doubt due to the partnership between the movie studios and the wealth of source material that's easily tapped into making games like this, but it shows that the lines of communication are open between not only comic publishers like Marvel, but with the movie studios that have spent all that money helping to sculpt the look and feel of the film adaptation.
Fantastic Four the game follows suit, taking a page from the overall costume aesthetic and visual look of the movies, but taps heavily into the comic books to thicken up the number of environments and villains that wouldn't fit into the hour and a half big screen experience. The result is a game that has obvious ties to the basic design of X-Men Legends, but seeks to be more than just a co-op beat-'em-up.
Don't misunderstand, it's not trying to be that, much more, but there's a definite emphasis of using the different characters' powers to get past some basic puzzles. The first level we played through served as a tutorial for each of the characters (though we only played as Mr. Fantastic and The Thing), and helps set up the different characters, gives a bit of insight into their reactions to their powers, and then turns them loose with a laboratory and enemies that are basically the same, but things are obviously tweaked to best show off the differences between the characters.
Case in point, the mini-games that are scattered throughout the different levels; whereas Mr. Fantastic favored hacking into systems with a simple but interesting little hacking mini-game that let us rotate bits of a line stuck on a couple concentric circles until we could get them all lined up, The Thing was more about brute force and button mashing or timed hand held presses to brute forcibly open obstructions. Later levels took advantage of The Human Torch's ability to fly through fire or take fire-based attacks to help The Invisible Woman get through so she could use her telekinetic blasts to clear rubble. Again, the mini-games built into the game let you rotate the analog stick to build up a blast.
This apparently extends to the boss fights too. Towards the tail end of the laboratory level early on, we got to switch characters while taking on a giant killer robot. Weaking them enough with The Thing opened up the opportunity to grab them and start a simple timed button press mini-game to deliver a final blow. It was a nice mix-up to the string of simple combos we were unleashing.
All the characters have the same basic movesets, so a triple-tap of the light or hard attack button (X or Square, respectively) or mixing them up would help attack, but holding a modifier like R1 and pressing each of them helped quite a bit. This can be extended to jumping attacks too (tapping Triangle is normally just a jump, but it can be turned into a powerbomb or uppercut-style attack too depending on the character), and it does make for some fun combinations.
It also highlights the approach of making all the characters subtly different; The Thing in particular really emphasized up-close attacks complete with grapples that allowed him to bash or throw enemies or objects in the level, but Mr. Fantastic's stretching ability worked great for long-range and room clearing moves, The Human Torch's speed was noticeably better than anyone else, which helped in the second enclosed boss fight we participated in, and The Invisible Woman's shield and ability to turn invisible or shield other characters makes her a great support role.
We didn't get a chance to test out the co-op, since there were no other players around, and no free extra controllers, but we did get a basic idea of how some powers can be combined (again, in a nod to X-Men Legends) for added effect, and we got a great demonstration of how each character can build up a meter with combos to unleash a massive room-clearing attack, completely with plenty of effects and a healthy dose of slo-mo. It's an obvious nod to the emphasis on mixing up combos and the game's focus on combat first and foremost, but it's nice to know that just hammering buttons between those mini-games will at least reward you after a while.
Visually, the game looked fair, but the framerate was rather dodgy and the overall level designs were decidedly of the boxy variety. Hopefully the levels we were shown weren't the bulk of the design aesthetic, but at least the levels were populated with lots of interactive elements -- particularly useful to The Thing's attack style. The venue we were situated in (the perfectly fitting Cartoon Art Museum in downtown San Francisco) was also a bit too noisy to see how the audio was coming along, but we did get confirmation that all four stars of the movie would be donating their voices to the digital versions, which is a nice touch.
When all's said and done, it's pretty tough to gauge how nicely a game is coming along with just an hour or two of play time in a noisy venue (but it's a whole hell of a lot more than we'd get at E3), but 7 Studios is certainly working hard at giving the game some decent variety and a heaping helping of comic book lore that should help it extend the whole experience beyond the "ooh, I remember that from the movie!" moments. We'll have more info as soon as we can get more play time with the final product, but hit up the [media=681]media page[/media] to see how things are coming along in the mean time.
