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A.P.I Review:	FANTASTIC FOUR
Developer:	Taito	OPTIONS:	SCREENSHOTS: No.1   No.2   No.3
Distributor:	Acclaim	1-4 Player
Game Type:	Beat-em-up	Memory Card
Availability:	Out Now

Rapid Review

In this beat 'em up in the same style as the classic 'Double Dragon' and
'Streets of Rage' You get to choose between five different members of
the Fantastic Four, Thing, Mr Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, The Human
Torch or She Hullk. Each character has a unique set of skills and moves,
for example, The Human Torch can produce a 'Ring of Fire' to flame out
his enemies and call flaming hail from the sky to burn all surrounding
opponents.

The game has several play modes where you fight with or against up to
four players to progress through the levels fighting off evil bad guys
such as molemen, eventually getting to the end to fight a big boss. You
can also fight a melee match where you take control of one player each
to just punch and kick the senses out of each other. One feature of this
mode is that you don't have to have 3 other humans to play against, the
other players can be set up ad computer drones for your amusement.

Comment

The backgrounds and character animation in this game are reasonable
good, the music and effects are all pretty standard disco/kung fu music.
The gameplay is what really lets the game down, while this style of game
was popular in the 80's it really hasn't seen a re-emergence despite
several attempts. The main reason for this is that unless the levels are
extremely interesting and varied the whole game deteriorates into a
punching and kicking match, which is pretty much what happens in
Fantastic Four. 

The only redeeming feature of F4 is the multi-player support which can
be fun with a bunch friends who don't really want to put any thought
into what they're doing and want to create some senseless mayhem.