Futurama (video game)

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Futurama

Developer(s) Unique Development Studios
Publisher(s) VU Games / Fox Interactive
Platform(s) PlayStation 2
Xbox
Release date August 12, 2003
Genre(s) Platform
Mode(s) Single player
Rating(s) ESRB: T
OFLC: G8+
PEGI: 12+
Media DVD
Input methods Gamepad

Futurama is a 3D platform game based on the science fiction cartoon series Futurama. Versions are available for the PS2 and Xbox, both of which use cel-shading technology. A version for the Nintendo GameCube was planned but later cancelled.

Contents

[edit] Storyline

Mom buys Planet Express for sinister reasons and the team of Fry, Bender, Leela, and Zoidberg must thwart her evil plot to take over the universe.

After realizing the Planet Express delivery company has been losing money for blatantly obvious reasons (such as using a giant spaceship to hand-deliver single packages and the crew never actually collecting money for deliveries), Professor Hubert Farnsworth sells the company to Mom. With her purchase of Planet Express, Mom now owns over 50% of the planet Earth, and becomes its supreme ruler, taking all humans for slaves and instituting a curfew with 'hoverbot death troopers' patrolling the streets. Fry, Leela, Bender and Farnsworth attempt to escape Earth but the ship is inexplicably (for now) broken and scorched so whilst the others repair the ship, Fry is sent to find a hammer. However, he is killed when the two-ton pile of steel and junk (the professor set this up to test an invention) the hammer was supporting falls on him. He is brought back to life by the Professor's "Re-Animator" and finds all the Professor's tools to fix the ship. Alas, the Professor couldn't fix the dark matter engine so Fry must go to the pawn shop and reclaim the back-up engine. Once he does so they escape Earth with the Re-Animator and the gun the professor pawned the back-up engine for.

Mom's plan is bigger than the mere conquest of Earth; she plans to turn the planet Earth into a gigantic Warship to conquer the universe. However, in order to move the entire planet off its orbit, she requires a large Dark Matter engine, that only Professor Hubert Farnsworth knows how to build. She captures the Planet Express Ship in a tractor beam from a scrapyard on a desert asteroid. Bender escapes with the Re-Animator and shuts down the tractor beam. Mom's ship (in the shape of Mom's head) captures the Planet Express Ship in its mouth and Mom and her sons board the Planet Express ship. They cut off the Professor's head and put it in a jar before hurling the Planet Express Ship into the sun.

In a bizarre twist, the sun actually has a habitable surface, where the Sun People live in fear of the Mighty Sun God that has killed much of the star's population and created an undead army out of their bones. Leela defeats him, in exchange for Dark Matter to fuel up the ship, and the crew heads to the planet Bogad (Dagobah spelled backwards minus two letters), home of Professor Farnsworth's mentor Adoy (Yoda spelled backwards), presumed to be the only person capable of hatching a plan to solve the situation. As the crew journeys to Bogad, Mom succeeds in powering up the Earth's Dark Matter engine and proceeds to destroy nearby planets.

On Bogad, the crew meets Adoy, who reveals he's invented a time machine capable of sending them back in time and stop Mom before she became unstoppable. The ship and crew travel into the past but arrive completely out of control, crashing the broken, scorched ship inside the Planet Express hangar with not much time left to prevent the original sale of Planet Express. They then leave in their original ship, thus explaining how the broken ship got broken in the first place.

The crew arrives at Mom's Company just in time to prevent the sale, however Mom forces them to fight the robot Destructor from "Raging Bender". The crew manages to defeat him, but then they are crushed and killed by Mom's sons. Professor Hubert Farnsworth has a face-off with Mom and then returns to Planet Express to give his employees some good news. The cutscene shown at the end is actually the first cutscene from the beginning. The game ends the way it began, returning to Level 1 and completing the circle in the timeline (creating an infinite loop).

[edit] Characters

While the game remains generally faithful to the series, many characters are omitted altogether. Here is a list of the characters that appear.

Philip J. Fry: Playable character, appears in a number of cutscenes.

Turanga Leela: Playable character, appears in a number of cutscenes

Bender Rodriguez: Playable character, appears in a number of cutscenes

Professor Hubert J Farnsworth: Non-playable character, appears in a number of cutscenes

Dr John Zoidberg: Playable character, appears in three cutscenes

Nibbler: Serves as a collectable.

Hermes Conrad: Non-playable character, seen in his office during the first level with a brain slug feasting on his brains, a reference to Raging Bender but has no lines. His locker can also be seen.

Amy Wong: Doesn't appear, locker can be seen in the first level.

Zapp Brannigan: Doesn't technically appear but can be seen advertising the army on posters.

Mom: Non-playable character, main antagonist. Appears in a number of cutscenes.

Walt, Larry and Ignar: Appear in many cutscenes, serve as bosses throughout the Bender missions.

Sal: Appears in a cutscene in which he assists Mom in taking over the universe.

[edit] Game development

Development on the game started before the series' cancellation,[1] but the game wasn't released until after the last episode had already been shown. Thus, the game has been known as a "lost episode" of sorts since it includes around half an hour of completely new material.[2]

Many of the crew from the Futurama series worked on the game. Matt Groening served as Executive game developer and David X. Cohen directed the voice actors. These voice actors were the original actors from the series: Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, and David Herman. Also adding to the authenticity of the game was the original music composition provided by Christopher Tyng who also composed the music in the series and Futurama scriptwriter and producer J. Stewart Burns who scripted an original storyline for the plot. Indeed, the music used in the end credits was later used in the intro for the straight-to-DVD film Futurama: Bender's Big Score.

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[edit] Reception

Gameplay was generally considered lackluster, though cutscenes were described in Wired as "side-splitting".[3] The cutscenes, which some consider to be the 73rd episode of Futurama,[3] will be included as a bonus feature on the upcoming Futurama direct-to-DVD movie, The Beast with a Billion Backs.[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Vivendi interview with UGO.com Accessed February 6, 2007
  2. ^ Lead designer Mark McGinlay interview with computerandvideogames.com Accessed February 6, 2007
  3. ^ a b Baker, Chris (2007-12-20). Videogames & Futurama, Part 4: The Lost Episode is on a PS2 Disc. Wired. Retrieved on 2008-03-28.
  4. ^ TV Shows on DVD

[edit] External links

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Futurama
Media
Episodes · Comic books · Video game · DVD movies
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Recurring characters
Themes
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Cast