Silver Surfer

Moby ID: 18505

Description official descriptions

The Silver Surfer roams throughout space as herald to Galactus, looking for new planets for him to feed on. However his mission is interrupted by a summon from Galactus. Silver Surfer learns that creatures from the Magick Dimension are trying to break through into the universe and their coming will end all life. Vowing to stop them, Silver Surfer must assemble the pieces of a mysterious Cosmic Device and use it to push them back. The pieces of the Device are currently in the hands of some malicious creatures: Reptyl, Mephisto, Skrull Emperor, Possessor and Firelord. Silver Surfer must travel to their domains and defeat them in order to obtain pieces of the device.

Silver Surfer is a shooter game, with some levels taking place vertically and some horizontally. The Surfer's only ability is to move around on the screen and to shoot directly in front of him. Power-ups that can be picked up include: the letter "F" (Firepower) which will increase the number and power of his projectiles, Smart bombs which destroy everything on the screen, the letter "S" (Speedup) which increases the surfer's movement and Orbs which will also fire the Surfer's weapon. Orbs are special in that two can be obtained (only 1 is shown on horizontal scrolling levels) and they can be positioned to fire forwards, backwards or sideways.

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Credits (NES version)

13 People

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  • Software Creations [ROM Developments] Ltd.
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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 52% (based on 10 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.0 out of 5 (based on 22 ratings with 3 reviews)

The Frail Cosmic Surfer

The Good
Silver Surfer features some incredible 8-bit intermission sequences, detailed backgrounds, funky music and a story line that is actually plausible within the Silver Surfer's cosmic cannon.

The cosmic surfer is easy to control, and the game allows you to choose the order that yo complete the initial levels.

The game developers even added in a password feature to help less seasoned players.

The Bad
The Silver Surfer is an incredibly powerful being, in the comic books. Here he will instantly die whenever he gets hit by anything, even if he happens to bump into the pretty scenery.

Granted, the death scenes feature some nice animation, but it is bizarre for such a powerful superhero to be a frail, cosmic wimp.

The levels tend to be VERY fast paced, with lots of enemies, projectiles and scenery. So, suffice to say this is probably one of the hardest NES games on the market.

Adding insult to injury (on a cosmic scale, mind you) it is often very difficult to tell what scenery you can fly over and what scenery you will touch and die.

Granted, I suspect that this may have been due to the technical limitations of the NES hardware, but it underscores just how frustrating the game can be, when your not always sure what will kill you.

True their are weapons upgrades and, yes, passwords to make you totally invincible. However, if you plan on beating the game without any passwords or Easter eggs,you may also want to reserve a room for yourself at the madhouse.

The Bottom Line
Silver Surfer (1990) looks and sounds great, but has reduced the great, and powerful cosmic hero into a frail and fragile wimp. Only a few gamers will dare to take on this challenging game without any passwords. Everyone else, myself included, will just enter the games' power up and invincibility passwords, and enjoy blasting away at the forces of evil.

NES · by Edward TJ Brown (118) · 2014

One of the hardest NES games

The Good
The graphics and sound are both above average with some cool animated cut scenes. The control is responsive with power-ups to increase your firepower. The storyline allows the player to choose the order that they complete the game, and generally shows respect for the comic book source material.

The Bad
Let us not beat around the 8-bit bush. This game is incredibly difficult to the point that it may very well drive people insane or at least to a new level of profanity. The all-powerful, cosmic Silver Surfer dies if he is hit once, by anything, or crashes into the background.

As each level is filled with lots of fast moving enemies, projectiles and background it is safe to say that you will probably die over and over again.

Only the few will probably survive to battle any of the mini-bosses, let alone the comic book super villains awaiting you at the end of each level. Granted, this high level of difficultly is muted by the fact a password exists to make the Silver Surfer totally invincible.
The second complaint is the size of the characters.

It is easy to recognize the Silver Surfer and the small size allows for a more active, fast paced game environment, but if you are lucky enough to make it to any of the super villain bosses, you may find their tiny size and generic use of projectiles and hiding behind barriers to be a far cry from the sort of battles seen in the comics.

Heck, it is anyone’s guess who the final boss is suppose to be and he is a giant purple thing with a gun.


The Bottom Line
Silver Surfer features impressive graphics, sound and a solid storyline. However, it has taken a very powerful super hero and reduced him to a small, cosmic wimp. Only a few die hard comic book fans of fans of insanely difficult shooting games will probably attempt to play the game, even then I suspect most people will use the passwords.

NES · by ETJB (428) · 2010

This game is hard, legendary hard.

The Good
This game is definitely unique. I really like the fact the beginning you can play all the stages. This game is not bad.

The Bad
What I hate about this game is that you can't touch the walls, so no messing around when you play it. The graphics in the days were so bad you couldn't even tell whether you touched any shit or not. You gotta keep tapping that A button through out the damn game. You might as well grab your turbo controller and just press that A turbo button.

Did I say this game was not bad, it's not, but it's so freaking hard, like Halo 2 EPIC EPIC legendary hard. Why only 1 hit, why can't you have a health bar.What else is also cow crap is that it's so easy to die, and what's even worse, you start from the beginning when you die. Why can't we spawn back where we died like Contra!?! Silver Surfer says "SCREW THAT, you gotta be freaken hardcore to play this game"!!!

The Bottom Line
This game is so freaking insane. Due to horrible graphics in the game, some bullets are camouflaged so you can't even know how the hell you died. I dare you to try this game, its hard.

NES · by anton binas (1) · 2007

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Game added by Shoddyan.

Game added July 26, 2005. Last modified September 2, 2023.