Fantastic Four

Every once in a while a game comes along that redefines exactly what ‘bad’ is. It establishes a new low point for the industry as a whole, a marker that other companies can look at and say, “Well, now we know what not to do.” Fantastic Four is such a game. Based on the Marvel Comics publication of the same name, Fantastic Four is unique in the sense that it could very well be the worst game ever made.

The game begins innocuously enough: choose to play as one of the Fantastic Four (Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, The Thing, Human Torch) or as She Hulk. Subterraneans and creatures from Monster Island have taken over the city, and it’s your job as a super hero to walk to the right and punch as many of them as you can. Heard this one before?

After the side-splittingly funny intro featuring a semi sliding into about ten of the little men, the game quickly spirals downhill. The game tries to look 3D, with items in the foreground and polygon environments. It’s still 2D though - you can only move left or right, or jump between flat planes in and out of the screen. It’s somewhat cleverly done, but nobody is ever fooled by these shoddy programmer shenanigans, are they?

Then it gets really bad. The control is, well, abysmal. The response is tediously slow, turning what should be standard punches and kicks into lethargic geriatric exercises. Add in jerky animation and rough sprite characters, and you’ve got one laughable game. We even went into the Options menu, hoping that maybe the 'Fun' option had been turned off. No such luck.

Aside from the mildly entertaining load screen game, Fantastic Four is just plain horrible. It’s insulting that Acclaim would still try to foist this on us after claiming it had changed its ways. Apparently old habits are hard to break.