Silver Surfer (video game)

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Silver Surfer

Developer(s)	Software Creations
Publisher(s)	Arcadia Systems
Platform(s)	NES
Release date	1990
Genre(s)	Shoot 'em up
Mode(s)	Single-player

Silver Surfer is a video game released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, developed by Software Creations and released by Arcadia Systems in November 1990 in the United States. There have been no known releases in other regions. The game is widely known for its extreme difficulty as a shoot 'em up game, so difficult it has been said to be one of the hardest game ever made. In the Angry Video Game Nerd review of it, he emphasized the extreme difficulty and the low level graphics level, which makes it hard for the player to see what they can and can't touch.

1 Gameplay
2 Reception
3 Weapons
4 External links

[edit] Gameplay

In Silver Surfer, the player controls the Marvel Comics comic book hero Silver Surfer through various levels that rotate between a side-scrolling and an overhead perspective.

Each stage is divided into sections. At the end of each section, a mini-boss appears, and the Silver Surfer must shoot the main enemy while there are other enemies attack as well. This is the only place where the screen stops scrolling forward. The third and final section contains a super-villain from the comic book series who will take more hits to defeat.

After the first set of levels is complete, Galactus appears and sends Silver Surfer on a final mission into the Magik Domain to collect a Cosmic Device from a villain whose identity is less than clear. Despite previous claims, the final boss is actually a purple being that does not appear to have been in the comics, although the image near the bosses health bar suggests that the final boss is Mister Sinister. Once Silver Surfer defeats him, the rest of the Cosmic Device is his, and he tells Galactus that no one one must have access to the "Cosmic Device" and hides it for safe keeping so it may not fall into the wrong hands.

The game has a password feature that allows a number of upgrades, such as invincibility. The game has cut-scenes between the levels to move the story line ahead, and allows the player to pick the levels in any order, similar to the Mega Man games.

[edit] Reception

The game is renowned for its extreme difficulty; the Angry Video Game Nerd said after playing the game that he had verified its "legendary" status amongst gamers as a needlessly difficult game, calling it it "the grand champion of hard motherfucking games." The Nerd expressed his belief that the programmers took their desire to make a difficult game too far, and instead of making a game that was simply challenging, made a game that was virtually impossible to beat, and thereby unenjoyable. The Nerd demonstrated how, in certain levels, the player can only move around roughly 20% of the screen, the other 80% being taken up by walls which will cause the player to lose a life if touched. Other levels involve the player being shot at with "camoflagued" bullets that are almost identical in shade to the level's background, rendering it almost impossible for the player to tell if they are in danger. Rolfe also cited the game's life-bar, which only permits the player to take a single hit before dying, as contributing to the game's difficulty. His primary complaint was the game's loading literally dozens of enemies into each screen, which move faster than the player, have multiple hit-points, and have no discernable pattern. The Nerd demonstrated that it was almost literally impossible to progress through a single level of the game without being hit, and therefore, because the player only has one hit-point, impossible to beat the game; he compared the concept to attempting to complete a maze drawn on a piece of paper without changing direction or lifting one's pen, while at the same time someone slowly dragged the paper away.

[edit] Weapons

Silver Surfer is armed only with laser beams that shoot out of his hands to destroy enemies and their projectiles, and the player can collect tiny sphere icons that allow him to shoot up to three laser beams at once. The third can only be used on an overhead perspective, shooting two diagonally. Collecting squares with an "F" can make shots gradually stronger to make the shots look like fire pellets. Up to five can be collected before they give bonus points instead. Collecting "B"'s allow Silver Surfer to instantly destroy anything on the screen when the select button is pressed.

Silver Surfer's two additional beams can move by pressing B so the pellets can either shoot forward, sideways or backward. The pellets from Silver Surfer cannot change direction. When a life is lost, all extra beams, power-ups and B's are lost, thus the player must collect his weapons all over again to maintain the same power and number of beams at once.