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The fantastic folly.
June 20, 2007 | 8:21 PM PSTThe Fantastic Four just hit theaters with a massive opening weekend. The continued success of comic book movie adaptations, a revival has happening for DC and Marvel superheroes. Box office success comes the slew of merchandising. Toys, cartoons, clothes, underoos, and video games will attempt to piggy back off the success of the summer blockbuster. Just like clock work, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer spun off a video game to coincide with the release of the flick.
As you may have guessed, the game follows approximately the same path as the movie, only you are able to feel like you are moving the story along at your own pace. You start out in a volcano after some fishy business went down. Long story short, the Skrull are doing nefarious work, other anomalies are happening, and that leads to a series of encounters with the Silver Surfer and why he is going around destroying everything.
The gameplay for Fantastic Four is shockingly similar to another superhero title that released a few months back. In fact, the Fantastic Four were in that game as well, come to think of it. Yes, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer takes a page, nay, an entire five chapters from Marvel Ultimate Alliance book and copies it to the core of the gameplay. You are able to switch between any of the heroes on the fly and they all have special moves relating to their powers. Even the control scheme is scarily similar to Marvel Ultimate Alliance. That is where you run into problems – comparisons with another superhero title with the Fantastic Four in it.
Fantastic Folly
Where the Ultimate Alliance won in scope, Fantastic Four loses in limitations. The first being diverse gameplay. You only have four heroes and they all punch and use powers to dispatch enemies. On your adventure, you’ll run into a puzzle but they require no though and, worst case scenario, you try all your heroes’ powers to find what triggers the next event. Here’s a hint: it is usually defeating all the super villains on the screen. As you beat around the bad guys, you see what is destructible in the environment. The things that are breakable are a neat inclusion but the bland corridors and elevators that make up the level design do not compliment this feature very well. Sound falls into the average category with competent voice acting but will not win Oscars at the end of the year.
Secondly, with the disastrous level design, the levels grow old and tired quickly. You’ll find yourself backtracking by accident because that is how much the rooms in each level resemble the last. Hallowed out volcanoes and space stations shouldn’t both be open, cavernous monuments where the Fantastic Four get lost in.
Enemy AI is terrible. Either common grunts will get stuck in door ways or bosses will land thousands of cheap shots. During flying Human Torch levels, the Silver Surfer can be a hassle to catch up to if you make the slightest wrong twist of the SIXAXIS controller. Some of the alien space craft animations look cheesy as they slide on the screen without any menacing presence. That is not to say the characters and graphics look bad, to the contrary, they look quite impressive but the poor animation drags down the visuals. One last thing -- no Jessica Alba character model?
Multiplayer is an option for up to four people simultaneously. This could potentially increase the replayability of the title. If that doesn’t do it for you, then maybe some unlockables will but even that is doubtful. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer fits the stereotype of a movie licensing game rushed to the market. It is unfortunate after Ben, Reid, Sue, and Johnny all had a Marvelous showing in Ultimate Alliance.
Finally
I had hope for the Fantastic Four game. I really did. After Spider-Man showed us it is possible to make a game based on a movie that was fun, then the Ultimate Alliance game proved beat-‘em up action games still have kick left in them. While the graphics were nice and I always enjoy laying down the law on communist space monkeys, there is already a much better game with the famous group of heroes. Fantastic Four fanatics apply only because there isn’t much in this game that will provide endless hours of fun.
As you may have guessed, the game follows approximately the same path as the movie, only you are able to feel like you are moving the story along at your own pace. You start out in a volcano after some fishy business went down. Long story short, the Skrull are doing nefarious work, other anomalies are happening, and that leads to a series of encounters with the Silver Surfer and why he is going around destroying everything.
The gameplay for Fantastic Four is shockingly similar to another superhero title that released a few months back. In fact, the Fantastic Four were in that game as well, come to think of it. Yes, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer takes a page, nay, an entire five chapters from Marvel Ultimate Alliance book and copies it to the core of the gameplay. You are able to switch between any of the heroes on the fly and they all have special moves relating to their powers. Even the control scheme is scarily similar to Marvel Ultimate Alliance. That is where you run into problems – comparisons with another superhero title with the Fantastic Four in it.
Fantastic Folly
Where the Ultimate Alliance won in scope, Fantastic Four loses in limitations. The first being diverse gameplay. You only have four heroes and they all punch and use powers to dispatch enemies. On your adventure, you’ll run into a puzzle but they require no though and, worst case scenario, you try all your heroes’ powers to find what triggers the next event. Here’s a hint: it is usually defeating all the super villains on the screen. As you beat around the bad guys, you see what is destructible in the environment. The things that are breakable are a neat inclusion but the bland corridors and elevators that make up the level design do not compliment this feature very well. Sound falls into the average category with competent voice acting but will not win Oscars at the end of the year.
Secondly, with the disastrous level design, the levels grow old and tired quickly. You’ll find yourself backtracking by accident because that is how much the rooms in each level resemble the last. Hallowed out volcanoes and space stations shouldn’t both be open, cavernous monuments where the Fantastic Four get lost in.
Enemy AI is terrible. Either common grunts will get stuck in door ways or bosses will land thousands of cheap shots. During flying Human Torch levels, the Silver Surfer can be a hassle to catch up to if you make the slightest wrong twist of the SIXAXIS controller. Some of the alien space craft animations look cheesy as they slide on the screen without any menacing presence. That is not to say the characters and graphics look bad, to the contrary, they look quite impressive but the poor animation drags down the visuals. One last thing -- no Jessica Alba character model?
Multiplayer is an option for up to four people simultaneously. This could potentially increase the replayability of the title. If that doesn’t do it for you, then maybe some unlockables will but even that is doubtful. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer fits the stereotype of a movie licensing game rushed to the market. It is unfortunate after Ben, Reid, Sue, and Johnny all had a Marvelous showing in Ultimate Alliance.
Finally
I had hope for the Fantastic Four game. I really did. After Spider-Man showed us it is possible to make a game based on a movie that was fun, then the Ultimate Alliance game proved beat-‘em up action games still have kick left in them. While the graphics were nice and I always enjoy laying down the law on communist space monkeys, there is already a much better game with the famous group of heroes. Fantastic Four fanatics apply only because there isn’t much in this game that will provide endless hours of fun.
November 20, 2009
