#futurama the game

[miloscat]

[Review] Futurama (PS2)

The darker side of licenced games.

Having recently played some Star Wars/Trek games, I thought I’d throw in this sixth-generation game based on an excellent show that pastiches both, released shortly before the first of its many cancellations (ie. when the show was still good). While some aesthetic aspects are authentic, for some reason development was handed off to a Swedish studio mostly known for low-budget racing games and the gameplay suffers.

The strength of Futurama: The Game is in its presentation: the voice actors reprise their roles, the script was written by one of the show’s writers, and the music by its composer. The cel-shaded style also works fairly well in rendering a convincing 3D version of the show’s colourful world (although you’re really not supposed to see Fry and Leela’s hairstyles from certain angles!). Showrunner David X. Cohen even considers the collected cutscenes a sort of “lost episode”, and included an edited version as a bonus feature on one of the movie releases.

The problem is all the stuff between the cutscenes, where you have to play the thing. Levels are split between characters with different playstyles: Fry takes on third-person shooter segments in the streets and sewers of New New York, Bender does some platforming and brawling on a desert asteroid mine (including a Crash Bandicoot-esque chase-towards-the-screen bit), and Leela does fisticuffs and puzzling in an ethnically-ambiguous city on the surface of the Sun. To round things out, Zoidberg pops in for another Crash-style animal-riding autorunner, then everyone gets another turn in Mom’s trap-laden robot base.

Out of all these diverse gameplay styles, the 3D platformer parts are probably the most competent and fun, but they’re still dragged down by some slipperiness into instant death pits at various points (stock up on lives early, you’ll need them!). The combat is only ever fine at best, and doesn’t really suit the setting too much, especially with the sheer volume of it. Special mention must be made of Zoidberg’s awful ride with its dodgy hit detection and frequent slowdown; at least the game seems to know it will take many tries, and writes around suspending the lives system for this sequence.

The real problem is that the game is in these two halves, with the major cutscenes seeming like excerpts from the show and the main gameplay levels feeling like nothing so much as bloated, dull filler. There’s the occasional one-liner aside, and the playable characters have their oft-repeated barks, but the promise of an integrated “interactive episode” that the developers’ website boasted does not ring true from a player’s perspective. Please save yourself the trouble and watch the edited cutscene package “The Lost Adventure” rather than forcing yourself through this!

[imperceiveable]

idk is this anything?

[fryandleelasbigfling]

quids game hit hard. the painfully realistic flaw of parents just doing things for you to make you feel better about yourself because they love you but actually have no faith in you and/or lack the ability to teach you, and they'd rather just lie to you that you're winning than let you learn to accept loss gracefully...

...and then when you get older, you still don't have these skills, and they stop doing things for you because they expect you to "toughen up" already despite also talking you down regularly and convincing you that you're not good enough. especially when you're neurodivergent and life skills come less naturally to you!

even well-meaning parents can fuck you up immensely. probably passing down the toxic mentalities they learned themselves.

[salmonella-destroyer-of-worlds]

[capt-t-leela]

One of the main things I keep thinking about from Quid’s Game is that it is intensely uncomfortable to let your kid fail and to watch them struggle with things, but it is absolutely necessary for them to fail to grow.

And, that your job as a parent it to let them fail safely. Let them fail and try and struggle and make them feel LOVED AND SAFE to fail.

As the parent it’s your job to be their lighthouse in the storm, the place that they come home to no matter how much they mess up or how uncomfortable it is for you. Your job is to love them, not shame or coddle them.

[marlynnofmany]

"You need necromancy to fix a rotten board."

Highlight from a conversation about airship mechanics, and the way you can't just remove rot the same way you'd remove paint or bloodstains. See, rot isn't so much a thing that befouls a surface so much as a sign of what has occurred. Like burn marks.

You gotta regrow the damaged area, and we all know what branch of magic handles regrowing dead material.

("And that's above my pay grade," says the mechanic. "Or above board, if you'll pardon the pun.")

[cyborgsgrl]

This just makes me all the more excited for Quid's Game!

[ladybender]

Jesus oh my god...

Futurama's second episode of this season "Quids Game" was a punch in the guts. In a good way! It goes right on par with episodes like "Cold Warriors" and "Game of Tones": an exploration of Fry's childhood, this time through the lens of mean aliens making him relieve his 8th birthday party games - this time to the death!

I have a lot to say about this episode so buckle up!

Let's start off with some minor complains I have for this one, which are pacing, stakes, and Leela's characterization (in a particular scene).

The episode really flew by so fast, almost at a break-necking pace, and the games felt too short and jam-packed because of that. The emotional weight of the end of each game hits hard because with every one a beloved character dies. There managed to find the time to get the reaction for the major ones (Kif, Leela's parents and grandmother), which is great, but the episode moves so quickly and there is little more time to absorbed it all.

Though, about this issue, I wanna say that I often feel like episodes are either going by too fast or too slow the first time I watch them and it usually doesn't feel the same from a second watch onward. so this is really a minor one that might not even be an problem for me later on, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

moving on to stakes, with this I mean that I originally thought, before the episode aired, that the end goal of the death dame was that the winner would get a prize. A birthday gift for example, and it would have incentivized everyone to go on and even play dirty (which, in retrospect, seems like a really smart thing to put in! compare everyone trying to get an advantage to Fry absolutely refusing to cheat, and pack an even bigger punch with that ending). I suppose playing to survive is motivation enough, but I think it undermines the "wants" of most other characters, and since this was a big coral episode (which is absolutely a strength! I can only imagine how hard it must have been to put together, wow!) I would have loved to see them striving to win, guess what their “birthday wish” would have been, maybe even learn a few of them along the way.

The third iffy thing I want to mention is Leela in the scene in the kitchen. There are seven characters left in the competition and only four baseballs to find to win the round. Leela is panicking trying to find one and she begs fry to cheat and find it for her since he already played when he was a kid and knows the house. Now this conflict was SO good and ALMOST perfect, but whyyyy oh why was Leela so ready to leave Fry behind??? doesn't make sense to me??? I know she was scared and upset bc she had just lost her family and that probably pushed her to act irrationally, but I just can't see her only wanting to keep herself alive and not Fry, especially when an easier and stronger solution is RIGHT THERE.

Have Leela go to Fry already with one of the baseball (that she might have found in some crawled and ridiculous place, to show how desperate she is to win and survive. if you have the wish giving stakes it's even better because you can imagine she'd use her gift to bring her parents back). in the meantime, the other characters find two other balls so there is only one left, and NOW Leela begs Fry to cheat to find the last one and win with her. It's even more emotional, Leela tells him she doesn't want to lose him too but Fry categorically doesn't want to cheat, and in the end tells Leela to win without him, sacrificing himself for her. Bender finds the last ball in the fridge and the episode continues just like we saw (with Bender tossing the ball to someone else right before being pulverized lol. like I said, Bender should be cheating like MAD in these games, really drive home the concept).

I wanna make it clear that these complains don't really turn me off from the whole episode, they are just my free flow of thoughts on stuff that i thought could have been stronger.

But now for the meat. This episode was phenomenal!!! so much good Fry's family characterization and SO much to unpack for Fry as a character. Cody Ziglar has such a spot on take on Fry, it was so validating seeing this episode and putting together all the little pieces of Fry's psyche I’ve picking out for years now, converging into one.

It seems superficial at first glance, but this really runs deeper than it looks. Fry has always been earnest but insecure, proven and proven again in countless episodes. You expect a person goofy and easygoing like Fry to go ham at his birthday and celebrate with all the people he loves, but we find out Fry doesn't like his birthday and feels bad about being put at the center of attention, and it all goes deeper and more upsetting from there.

Adding to all of this and speaking about Fry’s parents, especially his mom, I wanna add that it’s such a realistic conflict it was painful to watch – she wanted to give her son the chance to be a winner, she had no idea how the situation would turn against him. Sometimes a good day of parenting could be the kid’s most terrible experience of his life, and that’s brutal but the parent meant well even if they ruined things for their kid. It’s so sad Fry never got to see how much his mom and dad did for him, and she wanted him to feel like a winner, but this isn’t a story with an easy resolution. It’s bittersweet and it's insane and this last scene ruined me fr, like just look at this what the hell

This exploration of Fry goes hand in hand with everything we know of him. it seamlessly adds another layer of understanding that I’m honestly not even sure I can unpack in a single post, because there is so much to say and draw conclusions from, starting from the very first episode and ending with Meanwhile. From his relationship with his parents and his brother, to his love life and friendships, from his view of himself as a loser to the way he's always striving to better himself while always staying true to himself, trying to achieve his goals the hard way instead of finding an easy way out. Think the why of Fry, Parasite Lost, TKOS, the sting, godfella, my three suns, BBS, cold warriors, and on and on and on. It’s building together a picture of Fry’s character that’s so complex and worth exploring.

With this episode we have a new fundamental facet of him, and for this alone it’s an amazing episode.

I’ll mail my therapy bill to the writers, thank you

And thank you for reading, let me know your thoughts and opinion, I wanna know what y’all thought about this episode

[acquired-stardust]

Futurama Playstation 2 2003

[freelafan4life545]

Neither of them deserved it. They should have been together.

💜🧡

[a-love-that-transcends-all]

LOOK AT THEMMMMMM

*linking arms to their doom, absolutely fucking ✨OBLIVIOUS✨ to what they're getting themselves into. And still adorable AF*

[countesspetofi]

Off-brand products from "Quids Game," Futurama S12E02

[imperceiveable]

hehe

[incorrect-piltover-quotes]

Jinx: Citizens of Zaun! The cruelty of Silco is a thing of the past!

[crowd cheers] 

Jinx: Let a whole new wave of cruelty wash over this lazy land!

[crowd cheers, then is confused]

[best-character-named-x-poll]

have you done your daily click

[femmehysteria]

I'm doing a series of "Best Character Named X" polls where all the characters have the same first name but are from completely different media, feel free to send in name/charcacter suggestions, I'm posting one poll a day, check my pinned post for active polls