Futurama, Electronic Games

A surprise hit from developer UDS, Xbox's Futurama, based on the TV series of the same name, is the latest addition to the library of third-person adventures. And in spite of the fact that most TV series turned video game projects result in disaster, Futurama looks to be an exception. In this particular episode, evil businesswoman Mom has bought Planet Express Deliveries from Professor Farnsworth, affording her the majority share of the planet Earth and making her ruler of the human race, which she now plans to enslave. What's worse, she's bent on converting Earth itself into an over-sized warship capable of galactic conquest. Your goal, assuming control of the Futurama cast, is to travel back in time and prevent the deal from going ahead, thus, saving the entire human race from a life of misery. In all fairness, it's actually quite an intriguing story, and typical of what you would expect from an episode of Matt Groening's surreal creation. Futurama has players controlling cast members Fry, Bender, Leela and Dr Zoidberg across several diverse scenarios before combining their efforts to thwart Mom's plans of galactic domination. Each of the playable characters boasts a set of unique moves and attacks. Where one character is good with weapons, the other excels in hand-to-hand combat. But despite these different playing styles, the control method remains the same throughout, featuring a series of comfortable attack, jump and action moves. The game world itself, although not as advanced as say, Gran Turismo 3 or Splinter Cell, makes admirable use of cell-shading techniques that help make it look as faithful to the TV series as possible. And in that respect it looks fantastic. Gameplay is largely played in the third-person and character movement is fluid, as is most of the on-screen action. Certain elements of play do offer a welcome change in perspective though. For example, when wielding a rather large robotic chicken, the camera changes to first-person mode and a cross hair appears, a la Doom... but for kids, of course. It's refreshing to see a game like Futurama demonstrate how capable lesser-known developers are of producing a class A game. Great stuff.

Buy Futurama for 12.99 GBP

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