Marvel’s Royal Family of Enablers and Do-Gooders: The Fantastic Four

The stretchy Mr Fantastic ready to pull one off at the Roxy

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.

“Think, Reed, think! Use that big brain of yours! Are you going with a punch-punch-kick combo, or the flying bouncing ball?”

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

 

Nothing is Above the Law—Except Copyright Infringement: Vigilante 8

At least Ms Pac-Man distinguished itself from the original with new mazes, a chick ghost, and a protagonist with an eye and a bow.

Some things are just way better when paired up with its complementary soul mate: macaroni and cheese, tightly-stretched white T-shirts and cold water, alcohol and regret. And then there’s the combination that deserves a game release every year on every video game platform for the rest of time: guns and cars.

Vehicular combat with ranged firearms and explosives isn’t the beginning of a theme, but the end of a discussion in which speed and explosions are your talking points. I suppose there’s always the problem of trying to come up with new premises to explain why you’d need to strap guns to a car and then drive it really fast, but then, you don’t need to be subtle in this particular situation.

Vigilante 8 comes from a long pedigree of vehicular combat games, and none more so than Twisted Metal, a game that had debuted three years before Vigilante 8 and by this point in time had already moved on to its second sequel*. However, the legacy that will forever define Vigilante 8 is that it’s the same game as Twisted Metal.

Games sharing the same genre are bound to share similarities, and even if they don’t distinguish themselves clearly enough, there should be something new brought to the table to make this new release relevant in some game play or context.

Sadly, since they’re the same game in terms of design, gameplay and controls, it comes down to the superficial shell that distinguishes Vigilante 8, and that shell is the 70’s.

Finally, the video game adaptation of “The Sweet Hereafter” we’ve been waiting for.

The 70’s had some great cars to use in this game, and it had some good music that could help provide a mood. However, the decision to go full 70’s never comes off as anything but some marketing gimmick.

Players need more. We want stylistic choices that make a game more fun to play, not to make it easier to sell. If you’re going to pick an era, then pick one that facilitates crazy fun. We want a car combat game styled during the 50’s so we get to race hot rods while hurling Molotov cocktails at our opponents (the way Grease should have ended, really). We want a car combat game styled during the 20’s so we get to race Model T-Ford with Tommy guns strapped to them.

Any choice made towards the development of a video game—whether it makes the game crazier, weirder, or less acceptable to the public—should be for the only reason of making the game more enjoyable for the player, and that means more fun. That might seem very selfish of me as a gamer, and that also begs the question of what “fun” should be, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that gamers are sometimes treated as stupid consumers who are liable to buy anything just because of a glossy exterior.

I still want a 70’s car combat game, except this time it’s a closed-track racing game that pits pink Cadillacs driven by the pimps facing off against the air-brushed vans of the rockers. Although a full armament would eventually be unlocked, a main part of the game would be switchblade duels contested upon the hoods of the racing cars.

With that much funk and rock, it’d be another perfect match. Not to fit my musical tastes, mind you, but to accompany the sight of explosions, therefore making for a better game experience.

 *Twisted Metal III, which judging by its name had also ditched Arabic numerals for Roman

 

How far I got in half an hour: I managed to finish the storyline for the FBI agent

The good: it’s just like Twisted Metal

The bad: it’s just like Twisted Metal

Would I play this game again once this year is over: I would, but there are four Twisted Metal games and a spin-off on this platform

Days so far in the Year of the Play-a-DayStation: 12

Ludonarrative Dissonance – the Best Neo-Punk Name Up for Grabs: Jackie Chan Stuntmaster

Jackie’s VO may be saying “I don’t want to hurt you,” but I’m going to use this fish and beat you until you blink and disappear.

There’s this word, and it exists to describe something that happens in video games. The problem is that this word is way too complex to describe the crappy games it’s used for.

It’s called ludonarrative dissonance. I promise I won’t use it again.

This isn’t to be anti-intellectual or difficult, but we don’t need a word like that, not as a way to simply describe that games aren’t as fun as they could due to poor design.

I’ve always maintained that video games are art, but that they’re really bad art. We don’t need a fancy term like this, not when playing a crappy game like Jackie Chan Stuntmaster. We don’t need to use a term that’s even longer than the title.

What that phrase can be boiled down to is that the video game and the person playing it are telling two different stories, or narratives, as you will. So to analyze a crappy game like Jackie Chan Stuntmaster, we’ll use an equally crappy term that is fitting enough: story-breaking.

Even though the definition of a video may be tough to pin down, it all comes down to the interactivity a player has with a game. Since video games are almost always a contest for the player to compete in, the unspoken narrative of almost all video games is conquest: a princess to rescue, a race to win, all that kind of macho chest-beating kind of stuff.

As video games have become more complex, so have the stories they want to tell. But no matter how far games have evolved, players are still the same as the stories they want to experience for themselves: they want to have fun, they want to be challenged, they want to win.

Here’s a classic example of story-breaking. Besides the licensing of its titular star, Jackie Chan Stuntmaster is a very plain beat ‘em up. You don’t need to be told that punch-punch-kick is your basic combo, or that hidden collectibles are located up in the rafters. However, because this is Jackie’s video game, it’s going to tell his story, as much as he and his two pointing thumbs’ can tell.

While he’s best known now as a crotchety-old loudmouth who’s a lousy dad, Jackie Chan was famous for establishing his own brand of comedy and action into all of his post-70’s films. Almost all of Jackie Chan’s characters, coincidentally also all named Jackie*, are pacifists that would rather run away than be a tough guy and take on an army. However, what’s great for pratfalls and outtake reels is not necessarily good for a video game.

As a player, you want to kick ass; as Jackie Chan, you want to spread your brand of pacifist comedy. Needless to say, they don’t match. As a player, your brutal button pressing is story-breaking what the lovable crowd pleaser is trying to do; by following the plot and tone of the video game, it’s story-breaking the ambitions of a player that wants to succeed.

What results is a bummer of a game with two separate narratives that cancels each other out, and not just in story-telling.

When you get beat up, Jackie’s voice-over laments, “It’s not my lucky day.” However, before you spend your lotto ticket money on beer, the game suddenly tells us something else. Immediately after, upon finding a collectible, Jackie’s voice-over then contradicts himself by saying, “It’s my lucky day!” And then, there’s the part where Jackie uses a muffler to beat a hoodlum to death, something you won’t see in any of his movies or outtakes.

Video games are fascinating, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves by making terminology for aesthetic and mechanical appreciation more complicated than the game itself. There’s a simple formula, and we’d be wise not to stray from it. It’s called: punch-punch-kick

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* The same way porn stars portray characters with their own name in their movies. Because: both Jackie Chan and porn stars perform their own stunts．

How far I got in 40 minutes: made it out of Chinatown, and was enjoying battling French stereotypes along the pier until I stopped

The good: The guy who did the overdub for “Monkey” in Kung-Fu Panda also did this game

The bad: the invisible fourth wall for much of the game made me feel like Jackie was some kind of hamster, or at least some stunt-hamster hybrid; while his movies are “so Chinese”, this game is not Chinese-y in the least, dragon heads be damned

Will I play this game once this year is up: No, and it seems the games get all the (misguided) action from his movies, but none of the overly complicated comedy bits and overacting during the “feels” part

Days so far in the Year of the Play-a-DayStation: 10

Genderswap the Gritty Reboot for Maximum Effect: Duke Nukem: A Time to Kill

Point taken: Since this game came out, pole dancing has become a hot exercise trend for suburban moms.

There may be many reasons to explain why Duke Nukem Forever languished in a development cycle that lasted for 15 years, but there is one that can’t be denied: as a game, it was already hopelessly out-of-date before work on it had even begun.

Duke Nukem Forever (2011) is the sequel to Duke Nukem 3D (1996), but it wasn’t the only Duke Nukem game released in the time between these two games. These other spin-offs are significant because while they enjoyed their release at the apex of the series’ popularity, they also displayed the franchise fatigue that signalled the end of the series, long before the inevitable sequel arrived in 2011.

One of these spin-offs, Duke Nukem: A Time to Kill (1998), was not made by original makers 3D Realms. Instead, this game freshens up the franchise with third-person jumping and dodging that are liberally inspired by Tomb Raider. As kickass as it is to shoot cops dressed as pigs (or the other way around, whichever lesson you learned from Animal Farm), this game is unfortunately still limited by the fact it’s a Duke Nukem game.

That sounds weird since Duke Nukem is a character about excess, but then, part of a life of excess is being self-indulgent.

Duke Nukem is a satire on 80’s action heroes. The reason why Duke Nukem was still relevant up until the late 90’s is because it had taken that long for all these great action movies and their dialog to come out. It was okay to enjoy Duke Nukem since we were still getting over the ridiculousness of the 80s. But as the 90s were running out, so too was the tolerance for the blatant misogyny shown by this game.

That’s not to say there isn’t a place in video to enjoy the female form, especially ever since scientists have perfected the physics required to animate it. However, everything exists in a context, because that’s the way how art (which is what games are, sigh) is appreciated.

“Gritty reboot” is the way old characters and stories get updated for a modern audience because it’s an instant way to make past ideals relevant for right now. If Duke Nukem was given this treatment, he’d be a washed up has-been trying to relive his glory days—just what Duke Nukem Forever turned out to be.

As a sign of uncanny prescience, Duke Nukem: A Time to Kill features a song on its opening cinematic that contains the lyric “I won’t become the thing I hate”.

15 years is a long time to hold onto the angst, kiddo.

 

How far did I get in an half an hour: got stuck after turning off the sewer water. It’s dark down there

Would I play this game once this year is over: Sorry, too busy chewing bubble gum, and I’ve got a lot of bubble gum

Days so far in the Year of the Play-a-DayStation: 8

A Treasure that Should Stay Buried: Crash Bandicoot

Soundgarden, cargo pants, the time Jim Carrey was funny… yep, I’m in the 90s.

I don’t know anything about Crash Bandicoot. Well, that’s not true: this game had some great commercials. And yet, the one thing for certain from playing this game for half an hour is that Crash Bandicoot has not aged well at all.

You can say that all Playstation One-era games look dated by today’s standards, but that’s also not true: Darkstalkers 3 looks like the ink on its animated sprites had just dried yesterday, while Castlevania: Symphony of the Night looks fresh enough to be adapted into the latest teen dystopia movie (I call it: Dracula Teens: The New Class) .

Those games might have a competitive edge by belonging to an older genre, making it easier to be inducted into the hallowed “timeless” category, but Crash Bandicoot had a lot going for it as well: great animation and graphics, deft gameplay and controls. and a sensibility stemming its own self-awareness. This ain’t your daddy’s 2D side-scrolling jumper.

And yet, despite all this and its blast processing (maybe I’m getting the attitudes mixed up), Crash Bandicoot is the quintessential 90s video game, every last “extreme” part of it. This is a franchise of completely its time, and maker Naughty Dog was right to leave this franchise behind; it was the only way to move forward and develop their ground-breaking series about a guy who wears a T-shirt and jeans.

Proof Poochie didn’t die on his way back to his home planet.

If abandoning its own mascot in its logo isn’t proof enough, just look at these graphics. Back when it came out, words like “state of the art” and “cutting edge” were likely used to describe Crash Bandicoot, but that’s all it was: indicative of its time. While this is by no means a way to harangue a great game, Crash Bandicoot still can’t be called awesome*.

While we’re awkwardly jumping over pits blocked by our protagonist’s own knees, the classic Super Mario World had us jumping across vast open worlds. While Crash weirdly appropriates the culture of its island world as a subtext you’re not sure you want to have explained for you, Street Fighter and Punch-Out had embraced international stereotypes to set up great fights (a phenomenon recently witnessed by the hype-himself, Connor McGregor)..

I want to really like Crash Bandicoot, I really do. But I missed its time, and its time was back in the 90s. Playing it now isn’t nostalgic or relevant, it just feels twenty years old.

* “Awesome” > “great” because we’re using 90s terminology here.

 

How far did I get in an hour: the Indiana Jones 5^th level.

Would I play this again once this year is up: Yes, but it’s lower on my list.

Numbers of days so far in the Year of the Play-a-DayStation: 5