This batch also has a specific distinction; it's the first playable appearance of the Fantastic 4…in this retrospective series. Chronologically, their first actual playable appearance was on the PS1 (the next article series; spoilers) in 1997. I kinda overlooked the whole “the GBA came after the PS1” thing when I started this second handheld leg of the series. I was trying to follow my previous article's order of ‘home console, then handheld’, so shhhh; don’t worry about it. The GBA totally came out before the PS1.
What does my ‘middling game’ sense say about these four games? Well, the first F4 game is the handheld port of a tie-in game to the entirely forgotten first Fox movie starring Jessica Alba and proto-Chris Evans (and the underrated Michael Chiklas as Thing!), meaning my sense is definitely a tingle there. I'm also getting some strong no-no tingles from the last game, an another movie-tie into the third X-Men movie, despite being called only X-Men; then there’s the handheld version of a console Spider-Man game, but said console game in question is pretty spectacular so who knows. But, there’s some hope in the middle filling here, and with no further ado let’s get into it.
Here we go; movie tie-in Fantastic 4. Oh, ****.
Fantastic 4
Developer: Torus GamesPublisher: Activision
Year: 2005
Yeah, my game sense was right on the money with this one. This game is just bleh.
It's an isometric action game, and a very rough one at that. You have two attack buttons, even though they do mostly the same thing. One button I guess is a ‘light’ attack, and the other is a ‘heavy’ attack and they both feel exactly the same really, save for Human Torch and Susan who shoot projectiles with their heavy attack. Each character can also do a sort of special move by quickly hitting B then A, which is a rather uncommon input method for sure.
The game sees you battle and run and solve simple character interaction based puzzles. Reed can hack computers, Johnny can explode conveniently placed barrels, Susan can turn invisible to get around cameras or something; it's nothing you haven't seen before.
My mistake, how could I not mention the Thing’s greatest interactable ability; shaking fire escapes. No one else on the team could do this.
The game adapts the storyline of the very beloved and remembered 2005 Fox movie; but once again, as is gaming tradition, it's very loose. I don't remember the Fantastic 4 fighting Not-Yet-Dr. Doom’s ‘medi-bots’ in the movie, for one. Why are these medi-bots attacking the Fantastic Four? Well, it's said that they're programmed ‘to help humans’, and so from the fact they're attacking you on sight I can only infer that they're also programmed to purge mutates (not ‘mutants’, ‘mutates’; there's a difference) from the world. Brutal, man.
You can swap between the different characters as they become available, with the game seemingly splitting up the team frequently. Each character also has two big attacks they can do that use tied to an energy meter, and they’re kinda useful? Reed does the classic spinning-helicopter-lariat-fist thing, Johnny can shoot two almost identical fire attacks, Ben can stomp real hard, and Sue…turns into Taz from the Looney Tunes, and runs around as a tornado? Not sure where that comes from, as you'd think that would be more on brand for Reed.
You see, she’s using a force shield to do this…somehow. Also; what?
Every video game Mister Fantastic appearance requires the spinning-helicopter-lariat-fist. So is the way.
Something that greatly annoyed me is the camera; your character is just always off center. You may be asking “isn't that sort of good since you can see more of the screen around you?” and yeah, sure, but it's also hard to get good screenshots when the character is always off center. I need my compelling and silly captions, damnit. Also, enemies would frequently be hitting me from off screen since it was always more focused on one side of the screen than the other, so it's not just me being neurotic.
Graphically, the game is eh. The game is using the classic pre-rendered GBA look for just about everything, and it’s hit-and-miss. The character models are fine, but are lacking a lot of detail when they move around in that blurry, pre-rendered sort of way that’s immediately recognizable. Combined with the camera always being just off of your character, I often entirely forgot which character I was currently controlling and lost track of where I was just as frequently, since everything kinda just looked like a blob of odd greens and blue jumpsuits.
Once again, full disclosure, I did not play through the entirety of the GBA’s Fantastic 4. I beat the boss in the second level, that was also far too long by the way, and called it there. I didn’t really need to see much more to know that the game was not worth any more time.
It was a pretty cool idea for a level to take place in a museum overrun by scientifically resurrected mummies and velociraptors, I will give them some credit there.
That's really about all I have to say about Fantastic 4, honestly. It's just as bland and uninspired as they come. Nothing stands out, and while I think they had the right idea basing the game around a swappable teammate format, it's just nothing. The game is nothing.
Score
2 HERBIE’s out of 5.
Fantastic 4: Flame On
Developer: Torus GamesPublisher: Activision
Year: 2005
Alright, here we go; something I've actually wanted to play for a bit now. Basing a game entirely around Johnny Storm is a great idea, as I think he has a lot of potential for a good action-platformer. You got some flight, you got your fireballs, you got your sassy attitude; it just makes itself, you know? So thank god, because Flame On is actually pretty great.
The game is similar to Torus Games’ previous Iron Man that we covered in the first article, and improved even from that already decent enough offering. Also, thank god it’s not like their last F4 game we just covered.
The only good Skrull is a torched Skrull.
You play as Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, the prince of plasma. You fly around, sort of, and shoot plenty of fire out of your fire body. The game doesn’t take itself seriously; health ‘power-ups’ are sexy nurses blowing kisses at you, the first few levels are Johnny going on a date before getting randomly attacked by unexplained Skrulls, there's both a snowboarding and motocross stunt mingame thrown in there for some variety, some guy named Terrax the Untamed says he’s going to suck the cosmic energy out of your bones. There's even a couple side scrolling shooter sections thrown in there, and unlike Captain America and the Avengers the game is actually good. It’s great stuff.
WhoaaaAAAh dude, totally gnarly!
You can’t fully fly around of course, but can do both a fast but undamaging air dash or a damage dealing one that also makes you invincible during it. Johnny’s jump is also very floaty, and combining these let’s you more or less soar across levels. You can punch, and do a few different little three hit punch combos and you can, of course, spit hot fire. You also have two screen clearing ‘cosmic moves’ tied to a meter that builds as you roast enemies; a 360° explosion of…lines? or a giant fire beam that was very satisfying to throw out. Something I enjoyed about the basic gameplay is that you're able to destroy enemy projectiles with your own or by doing the attack dash into them; it's something simple that really feels satisfying to pull off.
Johnny is far more mobile than Tony was in the previous Iron Man, owing to his far better aerial mobility, and this makes the levels much more open and usually with a bigger focus on verticality. There's also a leveling mechanic in between them where you can assign points into four different categories. There's the obvious health and damage, then the damage of your cosmic ability, but the most interesting one was how many dashes you could do in the air before you have to land. With a few points in that, I was zipping around just like the Human Torch should be able to, barring a completely open full flight system of course.
'Captain America and the what' again? Never heard of it.
Graphically the game is great, thankfully much better than the last F4. There's clearly some love put into Torch’s animations as well as the Skrull and robot enemies, the levels are varied and the colours really pop, once again unlike that last dreadful First Family offering. I think it was a good idea to bring the game back to being a sidescroller with more traditional sprites; the game looks good, and thankfully ditches the whole pre-rendered graphical look.
If you can't tell, I really enjoyed Flame On. It plays great, has some great goofy characterization befitting the character, varied levels, dashing around is satisfying, and looks good during all of this. It's unfortunate that I'm guessing most people don't even know about it; I didn't until I first compiled my game list back when I first started this retrospective series. I think it just got absorbed by the blob of the sheer nothing of that previous F4 game, lost in that nebulous and terrible gnawing void of quality and forgotten by it's name association.
Play Flame On, basically. It's great, and turned out to be a dark horse of this whole GBA journey.
Score
3 ½ HERBIE’s out of 5.
Ultimate Spider-Man
Developer: Vicarious VisionsPublisher: Activision
Year: 2005
There's always been a debate amongst Marvel game aficionados/weirdos such as myself about what's the best sixth gen console Spider-Man game. Some are Team Spider-Man 2, some are Team Ultimate Spider-Man. What’s my stance? You’ll have to wait and see, of course. What I can say is the handheld version of Ultimate Spider-Man is actually pretty good, unlike GBA Spider-Man 2 which made me go a little nuts while playing it last article. So one point for Team Ultimate Spider-Man.
The game sees you as the Ultimate universe Spider-Man swinging webs and doing a lot of kinda funny looking kicks to the usual ne'er-do-well enemies. Not only that, but Venom is also a playable character. Normally I'd insert my usual ‘I don't even like Venom’ grumpy old-man remark (I don't, by the way), but at least this time it's the Ultimate continuity Venom making it somewhat more tolerable. At least it's something new unlike the same recycled character over and over and over and over again.
Spider-Man plays just like you'd expect. You have your web slangin’, your punching, and a dedicated kick button for a bit of added range over your punch button. You can't mix and match them into different combos or specials or anything, but it's decent enough for a simple 2D platformer. You can webzip in all eight directions as well, and I found this felt much easier to use and navigate with than in the previous Digital Eclipse Spider-Man 1 and 2 which had the same idea. Venom plays much differently this time around then in his previous video game appearances, owing to the different comic continuity; he can't webswing, is very slow and even slowly loses health every couple of seconds. He can gain health to counteract him losing it by ‘devouring’ weakened enemies in a very Venom way.
Snack time!
Levels are decently varied in terms of objectives. Some see you reaching hostages, or disarming bombs, preventing Venom from snacking on random civilians, or chasing the very sassy Symkarian mercenary princess Silver Sable around in some sewers (every comic game needs sewers). The game generally focuses more on platforming and navigating the maze-ish levels than full combat levels, but they do throw those at you every once in awhile and I was diggin’ it.
That’s it, Peter, show that foreign princess mercenary who’s got the better high kicks.
The game is sort of good looking on a graphical level. It’s going with that pre-rendered look like many a GBA game before it. The models are of course a little blurry, but it’s not to the same extent as something like Fantastic 4 which is now a graphical benchmark being used, yes. The devs clearly tried to adapt the cel shaded graphical style of the console version, itself based on the exquisite Mark Bagley art from the source material with its strong inks, and it does a pretty good job at it; this may be the one time I’ll say the pre-rendered GBA look suits the game because of that.
It’s nothing that reinvents the wheel in terms of platformers, but there’s also nothing wrong with that to me. Sometimes you just want a decent little competent action-platformer, particularly after you’ve spent like 7 months or something playing varying levels of atrocious other Spider-Man ones for an ongoing retrospective series. Yes, then even a just good enough Spider-Man game would feel like the comfort of a gentle and pleasant breeze through your hair on a warm summer's day, and soft sand beneath your feet as you wade out into the crowning waves of a beautiful ocean. You used to play good games, Octopus, you think to yourself as the ebbing tide washes over your tired body, you used to play good games. Why don't you play good games anymore? Why didn't you just make a review for the X-Men Legends series and Ultimate Alliance like you planned in the beginning? Before the retrospective came out of you like a bursting parasite from a withered organ, when you thought Adamantium Rage was the only terrible X-Men game. Before you learned of all the other ‘bad’ bad Marvel games that wore you down like leeches sucking your blood. Before the dark times, before that ****ing opening pizza delivery level in Spider-Man 2. Before the dark times…
Not a single pizza to be found here! Just bombs and more Spidey crotch punches!
Yeah, Ultimate Spider-Man on the GBA is pretty dece.
Score
3 Thwips out of 5.
X-Men: The Official Game
Developer: WayForward TechnologiesPublisher: Activision
Year: 2006
Why was the game named like this? Why is the tie-in to the much beloved and remembered third movie in the Fox X-Men trilogy, The Last Stand, only called ‘X-Men’? I get that there’s the three Wolvie claws through the logo on the cover, but why isn’t ‘3’ in the name? Shouldn't they have referenced Last Stand in its name? Why's it called ‘The Official Game’? Is there an unofficial Last Stand game? Anyway, the game’s not very good; what did you expect, it’s based on The Last Stand.
The game is actually a prequel to the movie, and features multiple player characters you can swap between at any time. You can huck some sick ice as Shawn Ashmore Iceman, of course play as Wolverine because it would be impossible to have an X-Men game without him as mandated by the all-powerful Marvel editorial gods, my beloved Colossus makes his first playable appearance yet outside of a Capcom fighting game, and teleport around as everyone’s favourite German demon (specific continuity and writer depending) man, Nightcrawler. The GBA version of this game bucks the trend, and the story is actually very similar to the console versions. You also can’t play as Colossus in the home console versions, so I guess they decided to switch it up in multiple ways.
X2 rizzed Kurt up something fierce, they did him so clean. If only the same could be said of Storm…
Your mission is to tear up the ol’ Alkali Lake military base from the end of the second movie once again, searching for parts that William Stryker stole to make a ‘Dark Cerebro’ to repair yours. Something that was a little strange was the X-Men being convinced the place was deserted, then when they show up and someone starts talking to them through an intercom they have no idea who it could be? I mean, who do you think it is; it’s William Stryker’s base. They've all heard him speak before, you’d think at least Wolverine would be able to identify his voice. You just left him there chained up to a tree at the end of the movie, Logan, he probably got out.
Mhmm, I wonder who this surprise villain could possibly be…
The game is just another 2D platformer, only without any of the stuff that made Ultimate Spider-Man or Flame On stand out; being some quality and love. The controls and general feel are probably the worst offenders. Everything feels kinda slow, and just kinda off in some way. Everyone has the usual special attack done by hitting both your buttons at once, but I never really got them to come like that; instead it was far more consistent by quickly plinking B than A, no idea why. Wolverine and Colossus have throws they can do to enemies, and allegedly you would do them by hitting forward or backward when you're punching, I think. The throws would never come out with any consistency though, either flying out after one punch or sometimes after three attacks or often not at all. Specifically these throw attacks on Wolvie and Colossus made boss fights a frustrating experience as I'd be trying to get just one or two attack in on say, the Juggernaut, before running away but of course Wolverine would then decide to do an overly long throw animation out of nowhere, and I'd get roasted as I’m unable to run away.
You know the line; it’s the Juggernaut, hairy drunk Canadian man!
Each character has some unique little characteristics about them, such as Colossus being able to break some very specific objects and Iceman having the longest ranged attacks; no ice sliding though, that’s home console privilege unfortunately. Wolverine can slowly heal and that's about it, and you can probably guess what Nightcrawler does once he shows up. Each character also has I guess a rage meter essentially that fills with pick-ups and taking out enemies, and when it fills up you can hit the right shoulder button to boost your damage significantly until your meter runs out.
A lot of the basic enemies just take far too long to take down, to be perfectly honest. Combat is usually just a slog, as you just spam your punch against a basic soldier guy for a solid three or four seconds, knock him down, wait for him to get up, spam your Colossus crotch punch again, knock him down again, wait for him to get up again, then spam your attack at him and then they’ll stay down. It’s like that for almost every single human enemy. It’s just a blast.
Holy ****, the throw actually worked.
The bosses are also either frustrating or button mashing affairs; Juggernaut was frustrating due to the previously mentioned control issues, then you fight a wall-torso Sentinel and all I did was get behind it and mash the attack button until victory. Pyro did vex me for a while and I’m not sure what the gimmick really is; he constantly has a fire shield around him, so you’re just constantly taking damage while you’re trying to hit him. Iceman does have a weird ranged attack, but it does so little damage that it may as well be useless. Anyway, I gave up and just activated Colossus’s rage mode and he died in three punches. I don’t know.
It's just all so blaise. It's a shame, as I think WayForward probably could have made a good X-Men game if they wanted to. I'm guessing the game likely had a very short dev time, and it kinda feels like they were putting in just enough effort to get a paycheque; can’t really blame them on this one. Gotta get that dough funding for Contra 4 and Aliens: Infestation somehow.
Well, that was oddly easy.
Just skip this; into the very tall mediocre Marvel GBA pile it goes.
Score
2 X-Genes out of 5.
And so it comes to pass that the third batch is finished, and it was…something. We had the highest score yet with Fantastic 4: Flame On, and nothing yet has gotten below the full point mark at least. Give it time, like maybe the next article.
Because what’s awaiting us next time is…some ****. The finale is probably the article I’ve been dreading the most of this whole GBA segment, to be completely honest as apparently the GBA saved the worst looking **** for last. The first game I think I can predict, using my finely honed middling game sense, that’s telling me it’s going to be some nonsense. I’ve never personally played it, but I know all about it nonetheless and it’s made even worse since the console game it’s a port of is an absolute classic Marvel game; first 0.5 game score incoming? We then have two more goddamn Spider-Man games, as of course we do but at least only one is a tie-in game, even if it is for the worst Raimi movie. The big finale, and the last game? It's something that I am somewhat morbidly curious about at least, even if I know it’s likely going to be bad. It’s another movie tie-in game, and to something that is a classic of the ‘good bad’ superhero movie pile. What is it? All I’ll say; the game definitely isn’t going to pay penance for any of the games we’ve been stare-ing at so far.
Until next time.
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