Futurama – Completed

This game has been sitting on the shelf for probably two years. This is mostly because I got half way through it and was frustrated and quit. In a push to finish games I started but never completed this was on of the first few titles that came to mind.

The game is a plat former that centers on a typical Futurama plot. Through out the game you play as four characters Fry, Bender, Leela, and very briefly Zoidberg. Each character sports here own type of moves and give a real sense to who they are in the show. The voice acting was great and I would not be surprised if the voices were done by the original people in the show. During load times they splash up advertisements from past episodes, which I found to be a nice addition to the feel of the game. Characters were cell shaded and the environments looked straight out of the Futurama world. I could probably go on and on about how I liked the look and feel of this game, being such a Futurama fan but I will spare you.

The game play was a little tough through the first half of the game and then I got to Leela. All of her attacks are melee based with out a targeting option. This made combat difficult and awkward. Fry had a guy that let you auto target and Benders moves allowed him to attack enemies some distance away. After passing the first few levels with Leela it came to light that there was some half baked idiot they let program a few sequences. These sequences require you jump from pillar to pillar and in some cases you are not even able to see where to jump thanks to the some what shoddy camera. Of course if you fall of its into lava which instantly kills you. At some point I slammed my PS2 controller into the coffee table and quit playing. I would much rather take on 1000 enemies then have to jump from tiny ledge to tiny ledge, it is not they way to increase the difficulty of the game and I wish some of these programmers would figure that out. After a good nights rest I tried again and was able to pass the lava pit and move on. At this point I felt as though recommending the game to anyone would only do them harm.

The game itself had some rather crappy features. The camera could actually get stuck behind a wall and not allow you to see where you were going. Often the camera would not give you the angle needed in order to progress. This was another source of my frustration with the game. Also the save system and lives was terrible. You can only save in between levels, and have extra lives if you die. If you run out of lives you are returned to the title screen and have to reload your save. They didn’t even make a short cut to allow you to continue from the starting point, and with PS2 load times the could take up to three minutes to reload your game. The game just has small little quarks that make the game overly difficult and frustrating.

I give this game 6 out of 10. If you’re a fan of the show then I would suggest getting it and pushing through the crappy game play and save system. Being immersed into this world was great fun and made me laugh. If you’re looking for a plat former game then stay away, it’s not worth your time.