After seeing the movie recently, I took my son to the local Best Buy and picked up a copy of Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. He was excited about getting to play the characters from the movie. We had purchased the first Fantastic 4 game and he had a good time with that. According to the reviews I read, this game was supposed to be even better.
The graphics in the game are really good. The colors are vibrant and pop from the screen. There’s plenty of action because there’s always something to do throughout the game. My son and I were kept busy solving simple puzzles to open doors to other rooms and hallways. In between all that, we were constantly under attack from the bad guys.
The game doesn’t progress as the movie did. Although there are many references to Sue and Reed’s wedding coming up, the Silver Surfer doesn’t come into the game until much later. When we first opened up the game and started playing, and found out the first bad guys we faced were the Skrulls, I was really surprised. There were no Skrulls in the movie.
The game evidently had to put more villains and more side treks into the play to boost the game time up. Even though I was expecting game play to be quite repetitive, it became even more repetitive than I would have believed. However, it proved into retaining to my nine year old. He had a blast listening to the barrage of insults between the Thing and the Human Torch. (He played the Thing and I played the Human Torch. Ben Grimm is his favorite character, but that’s fine because when I was his age the Thing was my favorite character too.) My son also added insult to injury by coming up with quips and barbs about me as we played, definitely getting into the role of our onscreen personas.
The game play not only lacks originality, but it also has some very frustrating viewing angles. Sometimes it’s hard to see what you need to see in a room. I missed doors and hallways, but my eagle-eyed kiddo spotted them every time and got us back on track. He also possesses a phenomenal memory because there were times I would have gotten us lost backtracking and he insisted he knew the way. He did. And, of course, that triggered even more insulting commentary.
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