For some game shows, making a video game adaptation is a slam dunk of an idea. Sure, the actual quality of something like, I dunno, Who Wants to be a Millionaire or Deal or No Deal might vary heavily, but they conceptually work as a video game. And that goes double for today’s game of choice, the mid 2000s disgust-o-fest that featured ordinary Joes competing through no small amount of disgusting, horrifying tasks for cash. Kind… Kind of dystopic, don’t ya’ think? In any case, despite some fun little additions that make the game *feel* like you’re playing an episode of Fear Factor, the game’s overall lack of complexity, challenge, or even content stops it from being nothing more than just another bad game show game.

I remember Fear Factor being on Fox 8 when I was a kid/teenager, but I never really watched it. Maybe it was the gross ads, maybe it was just on during anime or something, but I never really watched it. I was always more of a Scare Tactics guy. The lengths they would go to create the most bizarre, utterly insane scenarios just to scare the shit out of someone was genuinely hysterical to me. Not Fear Factor though - I really, really didn’t, nor currently, need to see someone chowing down on maggots or almost falling to their death. I’m good. I’d rather sit back and engage in the immersive experience of Fear Factor Unleashed… *sigh*... minigame collection.

Yeah, it’s *that* kind of shovelware. But did we really expect anything else?

As Exciting as the Show!

The game’s main mode, where you play through an ‘episode’ of Fear Factor, is exactly what it says on a tin. Just like an average episode of the series, you’ll have to complete three stunts - i.e, minigames - that each test the strength, stomach, and daring of the contestants, to win the Fear Factor championship title and a good ‘ol 50,000 bucks. The way it emulates the style of Fear Factor is very, very cute, but that’s pretty much where the entertainment factor grinds to a screeching halt. Now, being a minigame collection, it’s clear that the overall quality of the game is tied to the quality of said minigames. The minigames in Fear Factor aren’t… awful, but the issue is that they have a level of complexity that is similar to one of the more archaic Game and Watch experiences.

Simply put, each minigame is insanely simplistic. A typical one is the Cockcroach eating minigame; you need to hold Down and mash A to put a ton of the little beasties in your mouth, let go of down and mash A to chew, and then hit B to swallow, repeating until you’ve eaten enough of them. Few minigames present anything more complex; a basic helicopter segment that’s just timing A presses with a bit of going back and forward with the D-Pad. Riveting, riveting stuff. Simply fulfilling the goal of the minigame will pass you through to the next round on the first and second minigames, but to take the win home, you’ll need to complete whatever your third minigame is faster than your opponents to actually win the title - normally not a hard task, as you’ll have the opportunity to watch *them* do it first, so you’ll already know what kind of ‘strategy’ to employ to get a better time.

Despite Fear Factor’s core conceit being its pulse-pounding, disgusting, or thrilling challenges, the game is far too simplistic in both game design and visuals to translate that from the show to the GBA. You’re just hitting buttons and very little is actually happening on the screen, creating something that is the antithesis of what the show wants - pure, unadulterated boredom. Watching someone struggle on a motionless train-track or writhe in a poorly rendered fish-tank doesn't make me fear for my contestants life - it’s how much longer I have to spend playing this shlock.

Even the way the game actively conveys and engages you in the show’s more foundational concept - of fear - does little to raise one’s pulse. No matter what you’re doing, you need to keep an eye on your Fear Meter, located at the bottom of your screen. The fear meter is a bar that is constantly tilting one way or another; if it hits either end, your character panics and gives up, so you need to keep tapping L and R to push it away from the panic zone. The further slides one direction or the other, the more you’ll need to tap the opposite direction. It’s the sole piece of complexity in a very, very basic game since you need to be dealing with the minigame in question whilst managing the Fear meter, and screwing up certain actions in a minigame, like attracting piranhas in the underwater straightjacket minigame will cause the Fear Meter to spike one way. But it’s too little, too late; even with the Fear Meter thrown in, Fear Factor: Unleashed’s content is ridiculously easy to deal with.

Surviving the Desert of Nothing!

And… that’s it. No, I’m not kidding. No matter what set of minigames you’re presented with, Fear Factor: Unleashed is an insanely fast game to complete. Minigames don’t extend beyond two minutes in length, and unless you’re sticking around to see exactly how each AI opponent performs, you’ll easily win the Fear Factor mode in a solid ten minutes. Completing Fear Factor mode will unlock a slightly higher difficulty, but the complexity of even its more convoluted minigames (read: ones where you have to press more than two buttons in quick sequence) are so low that making it more challenging is just an exercise in frustration for the developers, not the players. If you’re really wanting to make however much you’ve spent on the game stretch a little bit more, there are different ways to play the Fear Factor mode, like basing success around points rather than elimination, but adds so little that you might as well be doing the exact same things.

I also think it’s really funny that you get the option to leave and save your progress before each different contestant performs; does the game really expect you to sit there, watch up to a two minute video of what you’re literally about to do up to FIVE TIMES, so just in case they make sure you can save at any point? It’s not a bad addition, it’s just one of those accidentally funny inclusions because this is fucking Fear Factor we’re talking about. It’s an insane comparison, but watching all six contestants in Fear Factor reminds me of simulating matches in a wrestling game - is this kind of a Fear Factor simulator? Insanity.

I suppose the option you can watch all the contestants is *technically* due to the inclusion of multiplayer in the game. No, no, this isn’t one of the few coveted games to use the Link Cable or Wireless Adapter. It’s a simple ‘pass the GBA’ kind of setup. Since you can have AI or other players Look, if you’re able to find one to five people willing to play a round of Fear Factor with you, all the more power to you, but I think we can all find a use for our time a little, a teensy, infinitesimally more worthy than Fear Factor Unleashed… but I’m not one to judge. Probably. Mostly. Well…

Conceptually Entertaining

Which leads to another entertaining facet of this game. Upon booting up the game for the first time, you’ll need to make a character profile who’ll represent you in the Fear Factor challenges. More importantly, you’ll need to dole out various stats in a number of categories that I assume affect how much your Fear Meter is modified by various fears - you might opt to have a strong Stomach stat, making the more disgusting minigames a bit easier to deal with, but it’ll make the more pulse-pounding, exciting minigames a little harder to manage. It… doesn’t change much, as far as I could tell. Back to multiplayer. You’ll need to make custom profiles for each friend you’ll be having to play Fear Factor with you - again, kudos if you manage it - but the inclusion of stats and character profiles is so inherently entertaining to me I can’t help but kind of love it. You can even customize your character, which really comes down to picking the gender, skin colour, and hair colour of your underwear-clad character. Oh, boy, what variety.

Still better than Pokemon before the better part of twenty years…

Visually, considering the rest of the package, I expected something a lot worse. Not that I’d really be able to call how Fear Factor: Unleashed looks ‘good’, but it’s not a sea of blurry slime like American Idol or something of it’s ilk. I can tell what is *usually* going on, and I can tell it’s a Fear Factor game. That’s literally all I can say, it’s such a basic visual design that the only thing I found really entertaining was everyone was just a palette swap of a man or a woman in their underwear. Good stuff. Plus, despite the focus on disgusting stunts, like eating maggots or whatnot, the visuals are so simple you can’t even tell anything gross is happening without further context. This does not apply to the FMVs, which as with the vast majority of GBA games that feature FMV cutscenes, look atrocious. Though, even as I said you can’t tell when gross stuff is happening in-game, you aren’t so lucky with FMVs. If you don’t like bugs or insects or stuff like that, unless you want to experience blurry, FMV masses of cockroaches, maybe give ‘em a skip, no?

I mean, if you’re actually playing Fear Factor, I suppose you’re in this for the long haul, so I digress.

Look, no matter how I dress it up, Fear Factor Unleashed is not a good time. It’s simplistic to a ridiculous degree, with the only time I failed minigames was when I was too bored to read the damn rules. Even if you try and master the game’s suite of a dozen minigames, you’ll maybe get an hour out of this - maybe. If anything, Fear Factor: Unleashed is a fairly functional piece of shovelware; perfectly functional in its aim to replicate the inane, stupid experience of watching Fear Factor, but it doesn’t stop it from feeling like nothing. There’s nothing I can point to and say ‘this is cool!’ or ‘This made me feel something!’. But, perhaps I’m being a bit unfair; the fact there are ways to play with your friends, and use the stat system to better ‘put’ yourself in the ‘world’ of Fear Factor is a rather cute addition. But it doesn’t help that Unleashed really has no value as a game - and with the PS2 and Xbox ports being cancelled, likely in the wake of Unleashed’s poor quality - it remains the best way to ‘play’ Fear Factor.

Just… just go watch the show, I guess.

Thanks so much for reading my review of Fear Factor: Unleashed! Little to report this week, nothing too crazy going on in my life. Oddly enough, it seems I’m just having a stint on playing some not-so-good titles in the GBA’s library, but at the very least they don’t take that long to play, and that’ll go double for next week’s game! As always, you can find me under GameBoyAbyss on BlueSky and around the internet, or email me at mgeorge7003@hotmail.com if you have any questions or requests! Thanks again for reading, and I’ll see you next time!