Review: Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer (360)
Ok before I even begin to review this game I need to make a few statements. 1. I am a huge Silver Surfer fan. 2. I have seen the movie that this game is based on and they severely nerfed him in the movie, and the disappointment began, and that is after high hopes that I had coming in. 3. Jessica Alba is nice to look at, but couldn't act her way out of a paper bag and Julian McMahon was completely miscast as Dr Doom, now they may actually be a nice people in real life, but I don't know them so I can not make any other judgments than what I have seen of them from all of the performances, and public appearances on TV I have seen them in. Having made these statements can anyone really be surprised that I would come in with low expectations for this game? But could I be wrong, could this game rise above my low expectations and prove to be worth while?
Story:
The earth is being attacked by a silver skinned alien entity riding what appears to be a surfboard. It is now up to the world's greatest super hero team The Fantastic Four to try and stop him from completing his task. Meet The Fantastic Four: Mr. Fantastic (aka Reed Richards) the brains of the group, a scientist extraordinaire whose abilities include being able to stretch himself to amazing lengths! The Invisible Woman (aka Susan Storm soon to be Susan Richards) Sister of Johnny Storm, and a brilliant scientist in her own right, with the powers to turn invisible, fly, and create force shields to defend her team mates. The Human Torch (aka Johnny Storm) Brother of Susan Storm, a hot shot pilot and daredevil, the second man to carry the title The Human Torch can Fly, and catch his body aflame, super heating himself to over 2000 degrees Kelvin, and last but not least The Thing (aka Ben Grimm) Reed Richards best friend, and personal pilot, lost most of that made him human in the accident that gave the group their powers, he has amazing strength, rock hard skin but has lost his human appearance, and feels outcast from society because of it.
Graphics:
Well what can I say it looks like the development team took Marvel Ultimate Alliance engine for the original Xbox and gave it a glossy over coating in a weak attempt to make it appear to fit into the next generation console that it was placed on. Is it the worst looking game that I have played on the 360? No, but it definitely is up there. You know what? Look all you really need to know is that it looks like a really good last generation game not the next generation game it is supposed to be.
Music & Sound:
Bland and lifeless are the words that I think sum up the music and sound effects, and that will be all I have to say about that. To be honest after hearing the completely forgettable music and sound effects I was actually surprised to find that the voice acting for this game is actually pretty good, and actually brings in many of the actors from the movie to reprise their roles for this game, something most movie tie in movies don't do.
Control & Game play:
On the Bright side the game play is not all too bad, but could have used a lot of tweaking. To be honest if the development team had spend another 2 or 3 months, maybe even waiting to release the game when the move was released on DVD, than the clunky and sometimes hokey game play like having many dumb puzzles that really could be solved by any member of the team, but because of hoe the game play is set up only a certain member of the team can solve it like Mr. Fantastic's stretching to a certain height puzzles... wait can't The Human Torch, and The Invisible Woman fly? So what would I compare this game to control wise? The answer is simple, X-men Legends with all of the worst flaws that the X-Men Legends and Marvel Ultimate Alliance games, without the ability switch characters or any of the leveling up options of any real consequence.
Design & Fun Factor:
Like I said earlier this game really could have used a few more months of polish, but as it stands this game is playable, which is more that I can say for some of the games I have played in 2007, it isn't the worst looking game on the 360, but they are well below average as a 360 game, the voice acting is actually decent, but the music sucks. Over all the game has clipping and collision detection problems galore, some times comically so, as well as camera angle problems like you wouldn't believe. That leave Fantastic Four 2 Rise of the Silver Surfer feeling like an over all sloppily put together game.
What can I say? If you are a fan of either the Fantastic Four, or the Silver Surfer, go out and buy Marvel Ultimate Alliance on your 360 since it is a finer polished game and feature all of the characters in this game as playable characters (either by unlocking them or download them), you know that is if you didn't get a free copy of it when you bought your 360.
Graphics
6/10
Game play
4/10
Sound
5/10
Fun factor
5/10
Tilt
2/10
Average score
5.0
Fantastic Four 2 Rise of the Silver Surfer:
Pros:
This game is the bomb.. after 6 or 7 beers if you really need a laugh.
Cons:
This game feels like a cheap underdeveloped Marvel Ultimate Alliance clone
Too many to name really