It looks good on the outside, with over 40 mini-games to get your mitts on and 3 main modes to enjoy them with – Tournament, Mini-Game Frenzy and Custom. Tournament is the main part of the game, with Custom letting you set up a series of mini-games with your own scoring rules. You can choose between Standard (1 point for the winner of each mini-game), Grand Prix (10 points for 1st, 6 for 2nd etc.) or Point Match (Standard, but with a win level). Although these 3 are adequate, a bit of customisation would've been nice to allow you to change the points and scoring to suit your preferences. Mini-Game Frenzy isn't as exciting as it sounds, as it merely lets you pick a mini-game from the master list and play it, with the game keeping track of how many mini-games each player has won.

 

The Tournament mode is obviously where the majority of the work has gone in making the game, although it's not necessarily where you'll spend the most time playing it. There are 7 themed planets full of similarly themed games to play, with the winner being the person to “dominate” a certain number of the planets. You do this by competing in 3 mini-games per planet, followed by a “rumble” at the end, reminiscent of the Powerstone games, although nowhere near as enjoyable. This uses the aforementioned Grand Prix scoring system, and in addition to this, players can use special power-up cards on any of the mini-games that have different effects such as x2, x4 or x6 multipliers, a steal card or a reverse multiplier card, that changes all score multipliers into score dividers. Their use can be the source of some fun, light-hearted tension between players, although their distribution is all too random, especially considering the power some of the cards have.

 

So let's look at the mini-games, as that's what most people will be buying this game for – some party gaming fun with a few friends. And as far as that is concerned, the game delivers, providing you can put up with the more detracting aspects of the experience. As mentioned, there are over 40 mini-games in Fuzion Frenzy 2, and although a few are all-too similar, some of them are quite a lot of fun, and some of them are not so much fun. In fact, the quality of the mini-games varies from the genius, to the average, to the sort of mind-numbing boredom and frustration that makes you want to launch your pad across the room. The controls are kept reasonably consistent throughout all the games, which helps when there's so many to choose from, although they seem unresponsive in some and far too sensitive in others. The camera is mostly good, although sometimes has a tendency to obscure some of the action and you wonder just what the heck it's doing. The mini-game gems are in there, but you have to wade through the mess to find them. Not just wading through the other mini-games, but fighting through the presentation of the game as a whole.

 

The game definitely falls under the category of “over-presented”. It's stylised with sometimes confusing futuristic menus, an unbelievably annoying “host” and the characters are so unlikable that you just refer to them by colour rather than name. The game is very much style over substance, with the story involving a spaceship full of contestants travelling between planets to take part in contests to see who is superior. This is being broadcast as an entertainment show, although surely nobody in the galaxy would watch such a thing. To be honest, it's completely unnecessary for the story to be at the forefront as much as it is.

 

If you've read this far, you're probably not holding out much hope for the single player game. And you'd be right. There are 3 difficulty levels you can choose for your computer opponents, and they do exactly as they say on the tin – easy, normal and hard. It all works as expected, but the game just wasn't designed as a single player experience, although it is nice to have the option should you feel the desire to put yourself through it. Almost all the fun to be had from the game is with the multiplayer aspect.

 

Overall, there are some great times to be had in Fuzion Frenzy 2, but you'll need a willing group of friends, either in person or on Xbox Live, and the patience of a saint to root out the enjoyable games and to ignore the insufferable presentation.