X06: Fuzion Frenzy 2 Hands-On

BARCELONA, Spain--The first Fuzion Frenzy was an admirable attempt at packaging a series of eclectic party games onto one disc. However, as it was released near the beginning of the original Xbox's life cycle, the game was perhaps a little ahead of its time. With the Xbox Live service already so well integrated into the 360 experience, it seems like the perfect time to release an update to the formula. While Fuzion Frenzy 2 will have nearly 50 minigames in the final release, the X06 demo (which is available to download on the Xbox Live Marketplace) let us get a three-level taster in both single- and multiplayer mode.

All of the games in our hands-on play supported four players, and any gaps were filled by artificial intelligence players. The first game we played was called Ice Treasure Hunt, which was a fiendishly simple concept that encouraged some particularly competitive play. With a flamethrower equipped, your aim here is to use fire to melt down ice blocks of different sizes to access coins, with gold, silver, or bronze coins resulting in a different amount of points. The twist comes when you use the flamethrower as a weapon, so while your opponents melt the ice, you can sneakily attack them and steal the coin inside. The player with the most points at the end of the round wins the game.

The second game was called Sumo Pain, which played in a similar vein to the Monkey Punch minigame in Super Monkey Ball. All four characters are placed into a steel ball and dropped down onto a platform that's suspended in the air. The idea is to roll your ball around and use momentum to knock players off the edge. If you miss the player or end up slowly trying to push them over, then you are likely to end up going off the edge yourself, for which you lose points. If you can knock your opponents off without falling over too often, you stand to earn the most points and win the game.

The last game, called Conveyor Belt Chaos, was a lot slower in pace, but it offered opportunities to be particularly fiendish to other players. You are equipped with a pick-up truck in which you have to collect crates that are dotted around the platform to deposit in your corner. The level itself features a number of conveyor belts that push you around, and you can steal other players' crates to diminish their total. This game was more down to skill than the other two, but it was particularly fun in multiplayer, as it encouraged evil tactics to beat the other competitors.

Play any of these games online, and they are sure to offer a welcome break from the likes of Project Gotham Racing 3 and Call of Duty 2. Microsoft hasn't revealed much more about the game at this stage, but with a November 2006 release date, we can expect the trickle of information to steadily increase in the run-up to launch. With that in mind, we should be able bring you more on Fuzion Frenzy 2 very shortly.