High: Fun mini games, Great Party Game

Low: Slow moving, Poor presentation


So many of the fans of the original Fuzion Frenzy, including myself, have been anxiously awaiting the release of a sequel. After waiting so long it is finally here and lives up to most of our expectations.

Back from the original game are the characters we have all grown to love Samson, Naomi, Geena, Dub, Jet, and the very annoying Zack. Also in this game is a slew of brand new mini games, as well as some favorites from the original including, Sumo and Twisted System, sadly some of my favorites did not make it to the sequel. That is not to say the new games are not as fun, because they are. One game involves you having to sink your opponent's boat using the water that opponents are trying to sink your boat with. Another one has you trying to stay on a waterfall by pressing random button that appears on screen. So the fun factor of the actual mini games is still there. Well for the most part that is, the Fuzion Frenzy round from the original game has been replaced with a beat the crap out of your opponents round in which you basically do that, using items and powerups from the environment. It's not as fun as the "Fuzion Frenzy", but still pretty fun nonetheless. Instead of different game zones in like in FF1, FF2 games take place on different planets, Earth and several other fictitious ones.

Graphics while not a big issue with a party game like this, are pretty well done, but graphics are not what make a game fun, its the presentation & gameplay, sadly the presentation of this game falls way short of the original.

The problems start when you notice the game moves entirely too slow. Instead of going directly to the action, before each mini game, you have to listen to this corny host with a light tie, lights shooting out of his shoulders, and buttons on his cuff links blab on and on, always talking about the same thing, which is basically nothing. His voice is annoying as well at least to me it is. Ever so often you have to compete in a mini game to get stupid cards, and every time he says "Now you will play a game which I prepared myself on the ship." Luckily you can skip through this annoying babble and get to the game a little faster. But even during game play the announcer is annoying, always babbling along and he can't even say the characters' names, instead he says "How are you doing Player 1?", or "Player 3 lands an attack", YES he says "Player 1", not Samson, Naomi, Zack or ANY of the character names. Why? I have no idea, even the original version said the character names, surely the 360 version could do the same, but I guess not. This separates the player from the game even more. Even the character dialog themselves seem robotic and no emotion what so ever. I miss the annoying dialog from the original, like Zacks "Zack, shalack lack ack ack".

Adding to the frustration, is that there are now annoying cards you can use before each mini game, which allow you to multiply your point values you earn in the mini game, meaning if you lose in the mini game and only get 2 point, if you use your x6 card, it means you would get 12 points, and if the winner didn't use a card, then you will be declared the winner of the mini game, even though you came in dead last. Other cards reverse the effect of cards, so if you use a reversal card and someone else uses a x6 card, that effect will turn into a divided by 6 card instead. Another card allows you to steal the effect of a card from another player. This could be adding to the game but the way its implemented it feels like it was not planned well at all.

And if that's not enough, only player 1 can gain achievements during game play. This may not be a big issue for some if they only play to have fun, but for some people this is a big deal since if Player 2, 3 or 4 wins the whole game, there will be nothing to show for it. For those who play online there can only be one player per 360, so if you have two people at your home hoping you two will get to play online at the same time, forget it, only one player per XBOX online. Not sure if this is a limitation of Xbox Live or the game but it could be annoying. But over all the gameplay on Xbox live is very smooth and fun as heck, so even though only one player per console can play its still a blast.

This game has the potential to be much better than the original, and when it comes to actual game play, it's a pretty close race pretty close, but the main thing that ruined this from being the incredibly fun game, was the poor presentation or implementation of new features, the poor voice acting and the slow movement of the game. Its like Hudson tried way too hard to make this game into an intergalactic game show instead of keeping it simple and focusing on what made the original so fun.

All that said this is still a great game to play with friends or family or even online with strangers, but it really could have been better. If you like to play games at parties though this is a must have game or of you and your family need more games you can all play together.

To take this to an end I just wanted to say this may not be the game of the year but it is one of the best party games I have ever played and though it has shortcomings I am still looking forward to my party this weekend.


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Reviewed By:EG Admin Reviewed On: Sat, 17 February 2007 03:15:24 Read:

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