Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer Review:

In the gaming world, the summer time is usually known for bringing very few games, however this year we have had a plethora of summer blockbuster movies turned video games of which some have been entertaining.

Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer is the game based on the recently released movie of the same name to hit cinemas worldwide. Is Rise of the Silver Surfer as fantastic as it could be?

Gameplay:

In this latest of movie/game transitions, as the title suggests you get to control the family of the Fantastic 4, these being Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, Human Torch and the Thing. You are able to switch between each of the four superheroes at any time during the course of gameplay and this is vital to progress as certain areas require the abilities of a specific superhero i.e. move a platform with Sue's telekinesis power or fly to areas as Johnny Storm with his flaming attributes to progress further. Double team moves are also introduced here, and while they are simple to perform they can be some what clumsy to get the desired effect.

After the completion of a level you are rewarded with points and are then able to use these to increase each hero's special abilities. The use of these points does not enable you to unlock different powers but it more just improves the basics of your current powers over time as you progress and enhance their powers, making them that more fantastic.

One other thing of note is that the game often takes a different direction in its missions and foes with not a lot of things relating to the movie or making a great deal of sense, this also seems to be the cause of the story's progression dragging along so slowly.

While each character has their own special powers, they are not as unique or as fantastic as we would assume. Johnny Storm and Sue can both fire rapid attacks, those being fireballs from Johnny and energy beams from Sue, which do exactly the same thing. Ben can run and Johnny can fly on fire (literally) and charge through enemies and cause them damage in a similar way. Where as Reed can stretch to hit switches and deliver higher attacks but perhaps the most exciting of them all is that the great scientist can, throw a grenade.

Graphics:

While the games cut scenes appear more visually bearable, it's a shame then that the overall look of the in-game visuals just appear so bland in their presentation, character models and level design - many areas of which just look identical to the last area with very subtle differences. Rise of the Silver Surfer was clearly designed with last generation consoles in mind and taking priority over the new systems, which to be fair does seem to be the case with many multi-format titles but as of late more of these games have shown a significant bump in their visuals over their last-generation counterparts. We think as gamers, it is the general vibe that we expect that developers should push that little bit further and get some extra visual eye-candy for the consumer especially as in most cases you're paying more for a next-generation version of the game, which is not so fantastic as is the case with Rise of the Silver Surfer as what you're getting appears to be a typical port with very little improvement and you're paying extra for it.

Audio:

The general sound effects and music in a game help to define it within its genre and while the sound effects, voice-overs and music go a step further to blend with the on-screen action as everything else is just so flat though and bland visually with very little exciting action going on. In this regard then I guess the sound does fit its purpose of pushing this incredibly dull game slowly from start to finish.

Longevity:

The one good thing this game had going for it (or so I thought) was co-op local play where upto 4-players can obviously each control one of the superhero family members and work together to complete the game. While I was disappointed to learn that this was not available over Xbox Live, I have come to the conclusion that it's probably just as well. The camera just does not cope well at all with more than one player, unless you constantly follow each other but generally people like to spread out a little bit and finish off some bad guys on their own. The co-operative play isn't good enough to rescue this game from the category of bad movie tie-in game. Recently the movie-to-videogame transitions have been good over the past few months (Pirates of the Caribbean and Spider-man 3 spring to mind), hopefully Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer is not a sign of things to come for future movie based videogames.

Overall:

Rise of the Silver Surfer offers very little enjoyment, if there is any fun to be drained from this fantastically mediocre game then perhaps the hardcore fans of the Marvel comic books, series or movies may be able to harness their special powers to find some form of fun out of this not so fantastic game.