Who said only Wii families had fun?
For such a long time, casual “party” games like the original Fuzion Frenzy stayed well under the radar—everyone was only out for the latest RPG, FPS or racing title, but all that changed with the Wii. Regular people realised that it’s possible to have fun even if you’re not a gam3r, and game publishers realised that there are a lot of regular people out there—with a lot of regular money. Casual Gamer, your time has come. But I digress.
Fusion Frenzy 2 for the Xbox 360 is loaded with mini-games that you can—rather, must—play with other humans, preferably ones in your home. The background story—obviously written just because it could be written—is rubbish, and boils down to the fact that you have to complete challenges on seven different worlds to take them over; this encourages the human race to emigrate to outer space, so you’re doing them a favour. Don’t read that again—I told you the story was rubbish.
The mini-games don’t require you to have any experience with the X360 controller—at most, you’ll have to memorise two buttons to use, not including the analog stick. Battle it out with flamethrowers and tanks, run around a moving turbine collecting gold coins and trying not to fall off, or just punch out a button-sequence faster than your opponents—the games are varied, and fun for the most part. They’re really boring if you’re playing against the CPU, though—this game wants many players, either in your house or over Xbox Live.
What’s not to like? The announcer, that’s what. I thought I’d seen (heard, rather) the worst with the announcer in the Ridge Racer series, but this idiot goes far beyond. During a game, he insists on chiming in with asinine quips like “How did that feel, Player 1?” and “Player 2 has just landed an attack!”. I’d chuck the controller at the TV, but that would just be silly.
Rating : 6/10
Platform : Xbox360
Developer : Microsoft Game Studios
Publisher : Microsoft
Distributor : Redington
Contact : xbox360@redington.co.in
Price : Rs 2510
Fuzion Frenzy 2 is a good game to have if you just want to have a bit of relaxed fun with friends and family, but once you’ve finished with all 40-odd mini-games, there’s no real motivation to go back to it. Especially with the prospect of facing that damned announcer again. And especially not at this ridiculous price.