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RATING: (weak) 1 2 3 4 5 (awesome) (No Rating Assigned)
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IN BRIEF
Pros: Great lighting effects. Cons: Simple, maybe too simple. In a nutshell: A decent strategy game that does a good job demonstrating PS2's ability to handle graphics. *ESRB rating: E |
FACTS
Game Title: Fantavision Platform: Playstation 2 Developer: Sony Electronics Publisher: Sony Electronics Accessories supported: GamePad Release Date: 10/26/2000 Price: 44.95 |
THE REVIEW by Steven Kent for Gamers Today
Sky Rockets in Flight!
If there is one thing PlayStation 2 does right, it's lighting effects. If you have any doubts about the new console's ability to handle lighting effects, just play Fantavision, an oddly amusing though somewhat redundant puzzle game in which players detonate sky rockets.
For all of its simplicity, Fantavision has become somewhat of a sensation among gamers who have visited Japan in search of PlayStation 2 software. Its simple point and click, and click, and click, and click interface is easy enough that most players can learn it without having to translate the instruction book to English.
The idea behind the game is down-to-earth, so to speak. You scour the night skies over various panoramas looking for sky rockets. As you see them, you group them with a cursor then detonate them. If you take too long grouping or detonating, the rockets fly off the screen, which is bad. You lose when too many rockets go ungrouped or undetonated.
There is a rhythm to Fantavision once you get the hang of the game. To last, you have to develop a feel for how to group and when to detonate, otherwise rockets will vanish off the screen. The payoff for learning this rhythm, making the game last longer, seeing new levels and some seeing amazingly dorky video clips that seem to have nothing to do with anything else in the game, is beautiful nighttime explosions. (You also get paid back with some mighty wrists. This game has more prolonged button mashing than Final Fight and Mortal Kombat combined.)
My overall response to Fantavision is that it is a pretty decent strategy game, in an autonomic, non-strategic sort of way. Filled with soft music, spectacular fireworks, and dramatic skies, the game is restful yet tiring. You begin, for instance, in the skies over what appears to be Seattle. (I say "appears" because the sights include the famous Space Needle, only the elevators in this version of the Space Needle run up the outside of the building.)
In some ways, Fantavision is more a demonstration of PlayStation 2's ability to handle graphics than it is a game. It's a valuable demonstration, however. It shows that even a simple demonstration of graphics technology can become a mesmerizing game.
*For a complete explanation of ESRB ratings, check out the official ESRB Web site.
