Fuzion Frenzy: Вечеринка на Xbox

2001 party video game

Fuzion Frenzy is a party video game developed by Blitz Games and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox. The game is a four player party game featuring 45 different minigames. Developed as a launch title for the Xbox in the United States, Fuzion Frenzy was the first game mastered for the console and developed to fill the niche for a party game in its launch strategy. The game was released to mixed to average reviews, with critics praising the game's accessibility and visual presentation as an early showcase of the capabilities of the Xbox, whilst faulting the game's repetition and limited variety of minigames. Fuzion Frenzy was a moderate commercial success, although slow initial sales led Microsoft Game Studios to discontinue work by Blitz Games on a sequel for the Xbox. A sequel for the Xbox 360, Fuzion Frenzy 2, was later released in 2007 by Hudson Soft.

Fuzion Frenzy is an action based party game in which up to four players can compete in one of two game modes, 'Tournament', in which players complete a series of minigames across several stages, and 'Mini Game Frenzy' modes, in which players can play specific minigames. In the core Tournament game mode, players select a character and compete to earn the most points by participating in three minigames across two, four or six stages. In contrast to other party games, Fuzion Frenzy does not contain a persistent game board, with players participating in a succession of minigames. Each stage is assigned a randomly selected Zone, which determines the type of minigame to be played. Minigames pit players against each other or in teams, and allocate orbs to players based on the outcome. Each stage ends with a Fuzion Frenzy Round, in which players grab orbs of their color and rush them to a goal to score the most points in a time limit. Players are able to use the orbs accumulated throughout a stage to either convert to points at the end of a stage or wager in a Fuzion Frenzy round, providing them with more opportunities to score points in the round. During a Fuzion Frenzy Round, players can steal orbs from other players by attacking when they are carried. At the end of the Fuzion Frenzy Round, the player with the most points from banked orbs or orbs collected during the round wins the stage, with the player that wins the most stages or earns the most points winning the game.

Fuzion Frenzy was developed by British studio Blitz Games, founded by developers Andrew and Philip Oliver. In 2000, Microsoft invited the studio to pitch a game for the upcoming Xbox, seeking to fill a niche for a party title aimed at a more mature audience in the American market. Blitz Games completed work on the game, originally titled Blitz Party, with a team of 35 staff in ten months to coincide with the release of the Xbox. The studio took an open ended and collaborative approach to the game's design, splitting the development into small teams to prototype minigames and working with Microsoft to identify the best concepts.

Fuzion Frenzy received "mixed or average reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic, with an average score of 70%. Andrew Oliver remarked that the game had a slow sales performance, estimating the game sold "around half a million" units in its first quarter, but "over a million" in total, As sales of Fuzion Frenzy increased in later years, Microsoft put the concept of a sequel to tender, awarding the project to another company, Hudson Soft. The sequel, Fuzion Frenzy 2, was released for the Xbox 360 in 2007.