There’s not a worse superhero group than the Fantastic Four. Despite serving at the top of Marvel’s A-listers that doubles as a family, it’s precisely because of their close ties that make the Fantastic Four so despicable.
As a reader, I’ve never been inspired to find out more about the Fantastic Four because any time they appear in crossovers with other comic books, Mr Fantastic would always be giving orders and bossing heroes around as a result of being the world’s smartest man. And if anyone has objections to Reed Richards’ plans for the hyper-dimensional gate, they’ll have to take them through the other members of the Fantastic Four who have all got Reed’s back as his loyal teammates.
But the ties between them go deeper than that. The supporting members of the Fantastic Four don’t just support Mr Fantastic, but enable him to do whatever he wants—just the way they followed him into outer space to get bombarded by cosmic rays in an origin story that the world’s smartest man should have known better than to subject his own family to such a probable danger.
Maybe they’ve built too many trans-dimensional portals in their fight against the greatest villains of the Marvel Universe, but the Fantastic Four have never shaken their image as a bunch of do-gooders.
And perhaps I’m not the only one; despite being one of Marvel’s premier titles, the Fantastic Four have only starred in four of their own video game titles. The games are so widely spread apart that there is about a ten year gap between Fantastic Four games in the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s.
No, it seems like gamers don’t enjoy stepping into the shoes of the Fantastic Four. Although the X-Men have games on multiple platforms, and even the Punisher stars in over a half dozen titles, audiences have shied away from the FF as though playing though each of their superhuman personas reveals a glaring flaw that isn’t conducive to fun.
Mr Fantastic is a guy whose super-power is turning into any shape and wriggling around, making him into a bar of soap with transformative abilities that you’re never be able to pick up off the floor. It’s super-power you’d associate more with a super-villain because after all that wriggling, it’s very satisfying once he finally gets punched in the face.
The Thing is the brawler of the group that gained his super-strength at the expense of losing a bit of his humanity when his skin turned to rock, opening the existential question to gamers about accepting the same conditions.
The Human Torch doesn’t suffer any of the body image issue that the Thing has despite being a guy whose entire body is on fire like a living torture device. And, he’s a jerk about it.
The Invisible Woman is the woman in the group. Her super power is to support her male teammates with protection, and turn herself invisible in case anyone pays attention to her.
Even though the Fantastic Four is getting a reboot this summer, they’re not video game royalty. These characters are so poor that you can’t even make a fun beat’em up with them, and that’s what this game is.
By all accounts, Fantastic Four is a terrible game. The one interesting thing they tried to do with this game is to make the backgrounds as 3D, and render the characters in 2D. It doesn’t make the game better, just notable in its awfulness.
Me, I’m overjoyed to see the Fantastic Four fall so low. The first level has the team being stalked by tiny molemen in the crappy part of town where the Baxter Building isn’t located. And if you get killed during this level by these tiny midgets, don’t feel bad: it’s the shame of the Fantastic Four, not yours.
How far I got in 15 minutes: I got to the end boss of level 1, the Mole-Man, and had Reed Richards die repeatedly by his hand
The good: She-Hulk guest stars! I guess Ben Grimm hadn’t gotten back from Battleworld yet
The bad: If it’s going to be an FF game, stick them on some space station somewhere making impossible machines to solve cosmic mysteries manifested through the use of multiple drawn concentric circles
Will I play this game once this year is up: No. The Fantastic Four is a terrible chore
Days so far in the Year of the Play-a-DayStation: 17
Play-a-Daystation 