	Fantastic Four
	Developer: Activision Publisher: Activision Release Date: Out Now Players: 1or 2	Words By:
Yep, it’s another movie tie-in to compliment and accompany the spectacular Fantastic Four movie starring Ioan Gruffudd (who?) Jessica Alba, Chris Evans (no, not the ginger twat) and Michael Chiklis (Vic in The Shield) that’s been getting some very mixed reviews. If you aren’t familiar with the Marvel comic hero foursome of Reed Richards (Mr Fantastic), Sue Storm (The Invisible Woman), Johnny Storm (The Human Torch) and Ben Grimm (The Thing), well, then they’re just about the weirdest bunch of superheroes you’ll come across. The four are astronauts who get blasted by cosmic rays that leave them with super-powers! This means that Mr Fantastic can stretch his body to impossible lengths, you can probably guess what the Invisible Woman and the Human Torch can do, and The Thing is much a cooler, powerhouse kind of an Incredible Hulk, if he were made out of rock rather than green muscle. They set out to battle crime, find a cure for The Thing’s skin problems and get caught up with the sneaky Victor Von Doom, who turns out to be a super-baddie called Dr. Doom. FF plays as a simple arcade adventure/scrolling beat ‘em up and nicely you can play co-operatively with a friend (you control a hero each, and can switch between the other two if they’re available). Unfortunately this is played not with a split screen mode, but by having two players on the same screen, and all that that format brings with it. What I’m talking about is getting hit by enemies that are off screen and out of sight, getting stuck, and general camera problems that mean that you hardly ever seem to be able to see what you want to see, despite having a ‘target’ button (L1). We were amazed and disappointed that there was no 4-player mode in a Fantastic Four game, and would have thought it was one of the first requirements on the design list, but clearly this game engine could never have handled it. The Fantastic Four all have their individual super ‘cosmic’ attacks or can simply beat seven bells out of the enemy (X or square buttons for light and heavy attacks, and R2 to block), and these numerous enemies could be anything from human criminals to mummies, robots or reptiles. Some moves are accessed by button combos and their strength can be upgraded during the game as you earn points for completing certain mission goals. The heroes can also team up and one can grab an enemy (circle button) while the other thumps/blast them – nice! The game’s levels tend to progress in a similar way, start off nice and easy with a bit of exploration to be done, and then batter you with loads of enemies before a final face–off with an end of level boss character, who is often MASSIVE. For the solo player this will soon get repetitive, and only the two player mode kept us interested, one of the best features being that you actually have to co-operate sometimes in order to progress. Although we had some fun with FF it’s difficult to recommend as it has so many minor annoyances, and despite some quality gameplay moments and smart visual effects and nice rendered cut scenes, it fails to impress with some graphical glitches and a general lack of imagination and finesse in the important places. We love our co-op games here at Gamecell, but even so this less than fantastic game means you should probably look for your superhero fix elsewhere.

Best Bits
- The co-op mode.
- Nice rendered cut scenes.
- You get to be The Thing.

Worst Bits
- Graphical glitches.
- The camera hates you, and doesn’t pan out far enough.
- It’s rather repetitive.
- No four player option in a Fantastic Four game?


by: Diddly