Gamestock 2001: Hands-onFuzion Frenzy

Fuzion Frenzy is Blitz Games' Xbox-based entry into the world of party games. Rather than simply lift Nintendo's Mario Party style of board games and minigames, Fuzion Frenzy wraps a more action-oriented game around its 48 minigames.

Fuzion Frenzy will sport 12 or 13 base styles of minigames, with variants bringing the total up to 48. At Gamestock, only three of the minigames were playable, and they had a feel similar to Sony's recent entry into the party game field, Crash Bash. One put you in circular boats, and the object was to simply complete three laps around a simple course. Another put your characters inside rolling spheres, and the object was to roll your sphere into a scoring area while bumping your opponents to keep them from doing the same. The most entertaining of the three put you in four circular vehicles on a small, round platform. In true king of the hill fashion, the object is to knock your foes off of the disc. At the moment, the game doesn't have any team games, though that may change before the game's release.

The game's main world, shown only on video, puts the four characters into an arena. The goal is to collect several objects, forming a ball, and then shooting that ball into a scoring hole. Scoring five times starts a minigame. There are a few different arenas in the game, such as a military zone, harbor, construction zone, and a night club area.

Fuzion Frenzy is scheduled to launch alongside the Xbox later this year.