Zak Penn, who co-wrote the story for the second X-Men movie, X2, was tapped to write the Fantastic 4 game's storyline, which expands the original film's adventures by letting players encounter more super villains in new environments and familiar comic book locales.

Players are challenged to master the individual powers of each super hero and combine them to defeat some of the Marvel comic book series' most notorious super villains - including Doctor Doom - and save the human race from disaster.

The Beenox Studios-developed game allows a player to harness the Marvel super heroes' unique powers through single-player or two-player setups in high-level action sequences from the movie and exclusive new scenarios.

Every super power combination and attacks made accumulate points during game play.

There are 10 exciting missions, but a player can expect to fight five or more enemies at a time.

In some levels, you need to play with all four heroes. At other times, you focus on just one or two characters.

Switching between the characters should not be difficult if you can remember which key represents which hero.

The mini-games within the missions include puzzles. Mr Fantastic, for instance, uses his stretching power with his ability to hack into computers.

Comic book fans can unlock comic art and character biographies. There are also several behind-the-scenes interviews from the movie.

Players are also given the opportunity to tackle some bonus stages after successfully completing the game's medium and hard stages.

The game's cinematic graphics and character rendering are sharp; the sound effects are crisp and clear.

This may be a fine example of modern PC game play, but there are no breakthroughs here.

This game is meant for true fans of the Fantastic 4 - those who have read the comic books, seen the movie and now want to play the video game.

Activision's Fantastic 4

Specifications

Price: $220

Pros: The five lead actors from the film lend their voices to the game

Cons: Complex keyboard controls