There was a time when every cover of the Fantastic Four comic was emblazoned with the phrase “The World’s Greatest Comic.”  More than just an advertising phrase, it was the truth.  Some of comic’s greatest heroes and villains have debuted in the FF, from the Inhumans to the Skrull every month seemed to feature a new and exciting character.  It’s accurate to say I’m a fan of the FF, and though I didn’t really enjoy the first movie, I had a lot of hope for this game based on the second movie:  The Fantastic Four:  Rise of the Silver Surfer.  With up to four people playing cooperatively, special attacks, great villains like the Super Skrull and Terrax, not to mention innovative play with the Wii’s controllers, this is one game that couldn’t miss.  Unfortunately against all odds, it does fail, and it fails spectacularly.  With wretched gameplay and dull graphics this is one game to avoid.

Gameplay:
 
“Those video games we bought at Burger King (for $3 each) are much better than this.”  -My son

That’s the reaction my two boys had after playing this for about an hour.  They then turned it off, and haven’t really played with it since.  After playing through the game I can see their point, and wish that I could have stopped when I first tired of it.

In this adventure players get to take on the role of a member of the Fantastic Four:  Mr. Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, The Human Torch, or The Ever-lovin’ Blue-eyed Thing.  Each character has different powers and abilities and unique power-ups.  Players can switch between characters easily, or up to four players can adventure together.  So far so good.

The game involves going to different exotic locations such as Shanghai or the Himalayas, and bashing hordes of bad guys over, and over, and over, and over, and over.  To say that the game is repetitive is an understatement.

The gameplay is very simple:  walk up to a bad guy and punch him.  Repeat.  There are uncounted multitudes of people to fight and they can all be dispatched with a good hit.  Yeah, there are some cool combos, but in most of the game it isn’t worth the trouble of pressing the buttons needed to obtain the effect.  It takes too long and you can do nearly as much damage by just punching.  Punching over and over, that’s the key to this game.

But what about the Wii’s motion controller?  Isn’t that used? Yeah, it is but not to good effect.  It really feels like the motion control aspect was added as an afterthought rather than an integral part of the game.  Basically after hitting the A button for a sufficient amount of time an icon appears over a character’s head.  Then you simply wave your arm to throw a fire ball or move the controller down to have the Thing punch the floor.  This doesn’t come off very well however.  You spend most of your time mashing the A button and the special attacks aren’t nearly as powerful as they should be.  When you finally pull one off it’s fairly anticlimactic.

To add to the lacking game play are the dull objectives that players have to accomplish to move on.  Most of this involves mashing everyone in a locked room, going to the next room, are repeating.  It’s amazing how quickly a player can grow tired of this.  It’s pretty hard to die too.  If one member runs out of life they get sent back to the Baxter Building to become reenergized.  As long as one character is still standing, the game goes on.  This means that when the more powerful members are out of commission during a boss battle all that you have to do is avoid getting hit until The Thing gets back from his down time.

Graphics:

*yawn*  The graphic on this game are as unimpressive as the gameplay.  What turns out to be the worst thing is the lack of background detail.  They really didn’t put any effort into making the various rooms and levels look different and this can be a royal pain when you’re backtracking or trying to recall if you’ve been in a certain room already.  The renditions of the FF themselves are a blocky and not nearly detailed or impressive enough to save this sorry excuse for a game.  One thing to note:  Jessica Alba didn’t allow her image or voice to be used for this game.  Good going Jessica.

Audio:

The audio isn’t anything to write home about either.  While there’s nothing really wrong with the sound, the battles don’t have the impact that they should.  When the Thing pounds someone it doesn’t sound forceful and powerful, more anemic and weak.  The Torch’s attacks also lack the sonic force that they should have.  The voice actors who are mimicking the voices of the movie’s stars (with the exception of Alba as noted above) do a credible job even if the dialog they are reciting is horrid.

Conclusion:

Here’s my recommendation in a nutshell:  avoid this game.  Seriously, there is nothing vaguely entertaining about The Fantastic Four:  Rise of the Silver Surfer.  If I had paid $50 for this I’d be seriously pissed, and I feel sorry for anyone who did.  Though there are many flaws with the worst aspect is that it is incredibly boring and repetative.  Skip it.