Reviewed: July 12, 2007
Reviewed by: Brian Wylie
Publisher
2K Games
Developer
7 Studios
Released: June 15, 2007
Genre: Action
Players: 1-4
5
7
4
5
5.1
Supported Features:
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
The time has come to save the world but not with the typical heroes that first come to mind. It was only a matter of time before our favorite foursome made it from the big screen to video game immortality. The power of the Fantastic Four is in our grasp literally in Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer. You get to choose which character, and with that their power, you want to control on your conquest to save the planet!
I have to admit that I was really excited to get starting in playing this game after watching the movie but quickly became disappointed when I found out that it seemed the creators spent a lot of time with certain characters and areas of the game and just threw the other things together to get this game out on time and didn’t completely think the game through dealing with storylines and so forth.
The game leads you to an alien hideout in the mountains and in no way do they resemble the Silver Surfer or do you have any idea why they are there. Yes, it is your goal to find out why they are here but it takes way too long to find that information out.
The controls require the use of the Wii remote and the nunchuk, just most other Wii games, which allows you to really become physically engaged with the game. Before you get into any real action you start out with a tutorial, which allows you to play around with each character and see how you use the remote and nunchuk differently for each hero.
Some of the best parts of the game are how you use the remote to complete several interactive combos. The Thing has a smash move in which you whip the controls in a downward motion allowing you to smash the ground with any other enemies close by. With Mr. Fantastic you have to crisscross your nunchuk with the remote and make his power smash clap deadly to anything in between his arms. With Johnny and Sue the controls are the same and you do a drum roll to throw fireballs or a force beam at your enemies.
As you go through the game you fight aliens in your quest to figure out why things on your planet are occurring. To help yourself navigate throughout the levels you are able to hit the 1 button and a map will pop up and show you where you are as well as the location of your enemies. One of the differences in this game is you are able to move and still see what is happening while you have this map up.
When you encounter enemies you do the same thing over and over again: just repeatedly hit the A button until your “Cue” comes up on the top of the screen in which you move your remote in the matching motion. As you go through the game and gain points to upgrade your powers and life, your controls require different sequences with the A, B, and Z buttons.
Now if you want to change characters because your life is low during a fight or you just want to play with a different character you press the UP, DOWN, LEFT, or RIGHT arrow on the remote for the designated character, or you can destroy any of the mechanical blocks in which you run through the green dot to retain more life. Now if you are to die in a fight your character simply disappears for a brief time to rejuvenate and then will return ready for action.
Going through the levels, you quickly find out where the action will be due to the fact that it is very repetitive. You will get bored of walking down a huge hallway and then making your way into a big box room in which...SURPRISE...you have to fight all sorts of alien creatures. Not a big difference between the levels either; it’s the same hallways and boxes but different backgrounds. When you do finally get to the first boss you will be annoyed with the fact that he takes forever to beat and not only that, you have to watch him run away and then you chase him just so you can fight him two more times. With beating him comes no satisfaction because he gives you barely any information at all about the happenings of our planet.
The graphics in Fantastic Four, I will have to admit, really caught me off guard. With the Wii, you only get 480i graphics, but this was still the best part of the game. The characters really do look great. Johnny is what really impressed me though. He continuously looks like he is burning and not just red the whole time. The movements are very smooth and look very well done.
The special effects really add to the fight scenes as well. The ground stays broken when the Thing pulverizes it; Mr. Fantastic has a big sound wave showing how hard his hands clap enemies. Johnny and Sue seem like they weren’t really worked on as hard as the other two dealing with attack graphics. The effects end with the enemies and nothing really big happens when you attack them.
There are some blind spots in the game in which you may lose an enemy and cause frustration because you will not be able to move on to the next part of the level until all the enemies have been defeated.
After seeing the graphics and somewhat getting into the game, I quickly became turned off after hearing the constant babbling and bickering of the characters. I quickly became tired of hearing about how Sue was mad that she has to spend the rest of the day fighting instead of planning her wedding. They took this way too far and it really makes this an average game.
If you are planning on playing alone I would quickly tell you that the game will be more appealing if you played with as many other people as possible. This will allow you to interact and work as a team throughout the game. You do lose a lot of sight because you will all have to fight in the same screen and the enemies come from outside of your view and will be able to get in blind attacks, but overall you will have more fun with more people.
I am not going to lie to you, I got so bored playing this game by myself that I didn’t finish it. I was constantly finding myself wanting to do other things. When I did finally play with other people I was already excited to play other games that had come out. If you are a die-hard fan you will find this game fun in the aspect that you get to play as your favorite member(s) of the Fantastic Four and really interact with the game. But for the average gamer who wants to try something new, wait until the price drops to about twenty dollars.