- Far cry from the original versionMy friends and I have been big Fuzion Frenzy fans for years. We'd get together and spend hours playing the mini games. They were fun, quick to start and play, and we got a big kick out of the cheesy announcer with his strained, cracked voice screaming out "Fuzion Frenzy!". Yes, we're a silly bunch.
Anyway, my original Xbox died a couple of months ago; the DVD drive stopped reading. I was looking at close to $80 for a replacement (unit + shipping) so I decided to just upgrade to a Xbox 360, and of course buy the sequel to our favorite game, Fuzion Frenzy 2.
I'll say right now, this game, aside from the fact that you're playing mini games, is nothing like the original. The game is non-play animation heavy (lots of long useless segue animations), the structure of the gameplay is different, and there's no Fuzion Frenzy round! To my friends and I, that was the best part of the game! We'd have a blast gathering orbs (from the game field or by stealing them from each other) and avoiding each other and the play field hazards.
Though I expected the mini games to be different in this release, I didn't expect them to be quite so varied in visual and play complexity. Some are very busy visually and require use of both thumbsticks and buttons, where others are visually boring and require button use only. In some ways this parallels the original version, however the levels were never so busy as to detract attention from what you were doing as they are in Fuzion Frenzy 2.
To give an idea of loss of game play in Fuzion Frenzy 2, my friends and I would usually play a 6-stage set of mini games inside a half hour. However, in Fuzion Frenzy 2 we gave up one game into the second round of mini games after 45 minutes. Yes, that much useless animation was added between mini games.
What used to be a fun, mindless party game has now become a more involved, needlessly bloated game that is sure to cause you and your friends to become disinterested in playing it as the game sluggishly moves from one mini game to the next. Aside from better graphics, they really missed the point with this sequel. I definitely did not get my money's worth with this purchase.
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