Futurama (video game)

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Futurama
Developer(s)	VU Games / Fox Interactive
Publisher(s)	Unique Development Studios
Release date(s)	August 12, 2003
Genre(s)	Action
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: Teen (T) PEGI: 12+
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2, Xbox

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 due to a belief that the GameCube's popularity was too limited.

The team from Planet Express (playable: Fry, Bender, Leela, and Zoidberg) must defeat Mom in her evil plot to take over the universe.

Each character has different abilities, and each level is designed for one character only. Most levels include a combination of fighting, jumping, and some puzzle-solving. For example, Fry is the only character to use weapons, i.e., a hammer and a railgun. Bender's attacks include a spinning punch and a jumping "butt slam", and Leela has various kung fu style moves.

A major part of the appeal lies in the humor of the game. The cut scenes are full of jokes, and the characters and enemies make various quips during gameplay (e.g. Fry has an accident at the start of the game and wakes believing he almost died, and is then told that he did die and that he is just a clone). Futurama scriptwriter and producer J. Stewart Burns helped write the plot, and Futurama voice actors provide the voices.

[edit] Story

As the game begins, Professor Hubert Farnsworth has sold the company Planet Express to Mom, after realizing the company has been losing money. 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 broken and scorched so whilst the others repair the ship, Fry finds a hammer. He is killed, however, when the two-tonne pile of steel and junk 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 railgun 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 the mouth and Mom and her sons board. They cut off the Professor's head and put it in a jar before hurling the Planet Express Ship into the sun.

In a 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 Habogad (Dagobah spelled backwards), home of Professor Farnsworth's mentor Adoy (obvious parody of Yoda), presumed to be the only person capable of hatching a plan to solve the situation. As the crew journeys to Habogad, Mom succeeds in powering up the Earth's Dark Matter engine and proceeds to destroy nearby planets.

In Bogad, the crew meets Adoy, (Adoy seems to be Yoda backwards) 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 leave in their original ship, the broken ship becoming a time paradox.

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. 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 (thus creating an infinite loop).

[edit] External links

• IGN: PS-2 and Xbox version
• Futurama the game
• Metacritic Review Aggregation
• Futurama at MobyGames
• Sound clips from the game at Futurama Madhouse
• Futurama at Gamespot.com

Futurama
Characters
Philip J. Fry | Turanga Leela | Bender | Professor Hubert Farnsworth | Dr. John Zoidberg | Hermes Conrad | Amy Wong Zapp Brannigan | Kif Kroker | Nibbler | Cubert Farnsworth | Calculon | Mom Others: Recurring non-robot characters | Recurring robot characters | Secondary characters
Media
Episodes | Comic Books | Video Game
Futurama Universe
Planets: Eternium | Omicron Persei VIII
Aliens: Cygnoid | Decapodian | Nibblonian | Neptunian
Politics and Religion: Earth Government | Robotology | D.O.O.P.
Technology: Gadgets | Suicide booth | Planet Express Ship | Nimbus
Other
Timeline | Blernsball | All My Circuits | The Scary Door | Slurm | Products | Locations | Animals
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