Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (Nintendo DS) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

Regardless of what Ninendo and other third party developers release during the summer period you can bet on one thing: there's going to be movie tie-in games. Another thing, for certain, is the fact that they are also likely to be average to poor which apparently doesn't matter. You see marketing is so powerful now that you'll now only go and see movies you have very little interest in but you'll also buy games because you enjoyed the movie and not because it's gained positive reviews. I do realise in putting this piece together I'm writing myself out of a job but at least there'll still be a handful of original titles. Back to the review then, so Rise of the Silver Surfer: Good, average or instant trade in whilst wearing a wig and dark glasses?

Gameplay

Having not seen the movie I can't tell you if the game closely follows the plot although there is a leaning these days to produce titles which are prequels to the current big screen outing. What I can tell you is that you will get to play all the characters over the duration of the game in order to complete it. Things start off with you playing The Thing in a very simplistic platformer with your only real objective to reach the end. You can explore, the current level, in order to collect crystals and power ups but this does little to further your progress. The Invisible Girl and Mr Fantastic follow similar paths with the latter able to simply float over the various platforms and not, as you'd expect, turn invisible.

The Human Torch levels are slightly different and here the action transforms into a vertical scrolling shooter with the object being to have enough health at the levels end. The same is true of the Fantasticar sections but by the time you encounter these you will get the feeling you've seen it all before. Finally there's the boss sections, of which there are a handful, but even this with it's touch screen mechanic does little to liven the game up. To make matters worse (or better depending on your point of view) the whole thing is over in a matter of hours and with no replay value, it's unlikely to spend much longer on your shelf.

Controls

While all the various characters you control have different powers. That's not the problem, what is is the fact that all the characters just aren't responsive enough for an action based titles and at the very moment you need to jump in order to catch a moving platform your character will hesitate and so fall to their death. The shooting sections are better but they are also far simpler.

Graphics

The game looks like a poorly designed GBA title from the word go and some of the environmets are truely awful. One of The Thing's levels, for example has hit climbing up buildings in ordered to reach the levels exit and the problems here are multiple. Firstly the designers have decided to not only create some of the blandedst looking buildings ever seen in a video game but they've also set on the colour grey. In addition to this there's the fire escapes which where clearly installed by Salvidor Dahli as they don't appear to fit any know perspective. The main character animation is little better regardless of who you play and the shoot 'em up sections make the platforming areas look good. The only saviour are the excellent cmic book style cut screens which probably should have been put to use throughout the game

Sound

The rousing score is undoutably the best feature of this cart and the full orchestrated track plays throughout the game. The sound effects are all present and correct but don't expect ant speech.

Dual screen

Outside of the menu systems the developers have also had a stab at using the touch screen for something else and here it's combat with the bosses. This is simply a case of following the on-screen instructions and pressing the screen in the correct areas and so deflecting the bosses attacks back at him. When he throw's small objects, for example, you simply tap on them with larger objects requiring multiple taps. More powerful attack can also be set back by waving the stylus in front of the four. This all provides little challenge and as long as you follow the instruction you'll be back to one of those platforming levels before you know it.

Final comments

Ultimately, Rise of the Silver Surfer falls in to the same pitfalls as the majority of movie tie-in's and to make things worse the whole thing feels like it's been a bit of a rush job in order to get it on the shelves the same time as the movie is at the cinema. We could probably forgive that, if that where it's biggest crime, but with bland, repetetive gameplay and tempromental controls the whole exercise is still a great deal more unenjoyable than it need be. One for fans of the Fantastic Four only and even they may have it at the back of their collection.

Pro: Comic Book Cut Scenes.
Con: Too Repetetive and Easy, Awful Animation and Graphics.
Final score: 4.2

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