This one was
bought as part of a four for £20 deal from Gamestation
so I wasn’t expecting big things from it. However, even with my initial low
expectations I was left with a brand new feeling of disappointment, only
achieved by playing probably the worst game ever released.
Anyway as
always, firstly an overview. As you would expect the game is based, very
loosely, around the plot of the movie with some bizarre additions. It’s been a
long time since I’ve watched the movie, which was also a pile of wank if memory
serves, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t fight a giant green dude called Super
Skrull and I’m also sure they didn’t travel to a Russian Space Station to fight
monkeys.
It’s hard to
find someone to say a kind word about the film and even harder for the game. To
start with, it’s graphically awful. The looks are more at home on an early
Playstation 2 game, not the dizzy heights of Xbox360. Equal effort was put into
the dreary repetitive soundtrack, and
despite my unfavourable view of these elements of the game, they are in
fact the better ones.
The gameplay
is probably the worst I have ever experienced in the history of games and that
is some award considering some of the games I’ve played in the past. The
gameplay is ridiculously unimaginative. There are three areas the developers
have worked on.
1.
The gameplay environment. Their work consisted
of having six different levels with different wallpaper. They are all corridor
based fighting sections where you have to fight enemies and press a button to
unlock the next corridor.
2.
The characters’ special attacks. Each character
has four special abilities that you can upgrade. They are all used once at some
point and then can be completely disregarded for the rest of the game
afterwards. The only reason they are there is because there are four characters
with ‘special’ powers. As you level up said abilities, they haven’t bothered to
improve the way they look or the graphical actions of you performing these
abilities, so the only reason you know they are upgraded is because the enemies
die faster. The only ability required to complete the game is The Thing’s
ground pound attack which makes all of the other character abilities redundant.
3.
The enemies. The same as the above. There are
two... no wait, three! Three different enemy types. One that cannot shoot you
with a gun, one that can and one that can fly. The lack of development is so
severe that when use The Thing’s ground pound attack, this is capable of
destroying the flying enemies as well.
This goes
back to my Toy Story review of how
the game was release solely to make money off the back of the movie and this is
even more evident here due to the complete lack of effort that has gone into
make the game. This is meant to be the Fantastic Four and the characters are
about as fantastic as manure.
In addition,
there are flying sections with the Human Torch because, you know, they may as
well make use some of their special abilities (considering flying is about as
useful as paper condoms in a corridor based game environment) and these
sections leave a lot to be desired. The flight plain and the environment don’t
balance which means you spend half the time flying into the ceiling or flying
into floor.
Achievements – 1,000 Points – 19 Achievements
As per the
actual game, the achievements are a load of crap as well. It’s fairly basic to
have stackable achievements where difficulty is concerned and it pains me to
have to play through a game twice but this was made even worse by my discovery
of something new to complain about which fucked me off so badly that I don’t
even know what to say about it.
The cut
scenes cannot, I repeat, cannot, be
skipped. They can’t be skipped and the game wants you to play through it twice.
They can’t be skipped and there is a requirement to grind out ability points to
upgrade all the characters’ abilities. Why can’t they be skipped?! It is one of
the most fucking annoying development issues I’ve ever come across. Do I want
to watch the same cut scene twenty times to grind out ability orbs? No! Fuck
you Take 2 Interactive, you lazy cunts!
There are
also achievements for collectibles which are generally easy to find due to the
corridor nature of the levels however, several were hard to find in last level
again due to the ‘only having a requirement to use abilities once’ extravaganza.
Earlier, I mentioned that the Human Torch can fly but this is pointless due to
the corridor-style nature of the levels, however, in the last level there is a
raised area that can only be reached by flying. Never has this happened in any
of the previous five levels so why now? Just to be different? To add a new
dimension to your one dimensional piece of shit game?
Downloadable Content – N/A
It’s just
shit. There’s nothing else to say other than that. The game play is shit. The
aesthetics are shit. The sound is lousy (just to be different) and everything
else is complete balls. The sheer lack of effort into the development of the
game has led to a very shit and very forgettable gaming experience.
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