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Marvel's first family of super heroes faces its greatest challenge
yet as the enigmatic, intergalactic herald, the Silver Surfer,
comes to Earth to prepare it for destruction. As the Silver
Surfer races around the globe wreaking havoc, the team must
unravel the mystery of his origins and confront the surprising
return of their mortal enemy, Dr. Doom, before all hope is
lost...
Based
on the film release of the same name, Fantastic Four: Rise
of the Silver Surfer is pretty much what you'd expect
from a movie tie-in - a little to rushed and not very impressive.
In fact, I'm left wondering how many hours were devoted to
ironing out the bugs.
For
those who bought and enjoyed the Marvel:
Ultimate Alliance,
Rise of the Silver Surfer is in a very similar vein.
The basic controls and idea is almost identical. However this
time around you can only play as four characters (who, incidentally,
were also amongst the many characters you could choose in
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance), and you'll spend a little
too much time just running around opening doors and getting
in lifts. Not only that, but the graphics are extremely poor
for an Xbox 360 game - it looks more like a PS2 game.
Rise
of the Silver Surfer allows you to take on the role of
any member of the Fantastic Four team and switch characters
at any time, or you can play with up to three other friends
who can each play as one of the four team members. Each member
has unique special abilities that will help the team get through
different situations.
As
you race around the levels you are confronted by various nasties
to beat up (by far the easiest way is to use the Thing to
pick them up and throw them over the side of buildings, or
into the lava flows that race below you on certain levels.
Every now and then you'll hit an obstacle which can only be
solved by one of the four characters. It could be that you
need the Thing to smash through a wall; the Invisible Girl
to sneak past something unseen; Mr Fantastic to stretch to
an area unreachable by the other characters; or the Human
Torch may be needed to fly over a powerful forcefield. Whatever
the obstacle, once you learn which character is useful for
what type of problem, you'll soon be able to make your way
through the levels easily.
This
undoubtedly works best when you are playing with three other
gamers - each taking control of a different member of the
team. As a solo game it gets incredibly frustrating very quickly
and, as most of the time you are battling against hoards of
bad guys, you'll be playing as the Thing - who is by far the
coolest character anyway.
Every
now and then one of the characters is chosen to perform a
level on their own (the Human Torch flying through a tunnel
above lava; Mr Fantastic squeezing into an area that is too
small for the rest to follow etc). While these are entertaining
enough, they are a little old school - the Human Torch levels
are so slow and dull that they make the main game look good
in comparison.
What
is surprising is how un-super your super hero abilities are.
As the Human Torch, or the Invisible Woman, you can only use
your main power for a laughably short amount of time. And,
as the Thing, your main attack is limited to only a handful
of goes before your energy runs out. Then you are, more often
than not, quickly knocked out by even the weakest of foes.
When
this happens, you automatically switch to one of the other
characters... but if you wait for a few seconds, your original
character comes back to life, fully charged up. Er... this
actually makes all that power rubbish a total waste of time.
It's simply a matter of playing as the Thing, smashing your
way through everything and, when you get knocked out, waiting
to be rejuvenated and starting the whole process all over
again. This does not make for very enjoyable gaming (in the
single player mode anyway).
At
the end of the day this game won't surprise anyone who is
used to poor movie tie-in games. I wouldn't spend £40
on this rushed game, but I'm sure fans of the movie will find
it briefly entertaining.
Nick
Smithson
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£24.98
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£39.99
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£24.99
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£34.99
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£29.89
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All prices correct at time of going to press.
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