Review
BY Mike Leonard
Games based on movies generally seem to have lower quality standards than 'original' games, and games based on comic books tend to fare even worse, so if you've got a title licensed from a movie that's based on a comic book, the odds seem pretty slim that you're going to get anything really worthwhile unless you're willing to lower your expectations somewhat.
Like saying, 'Well, at least my console didn't catch on fire when I put the disc in and turned it on'.
Developer Treyarch managed to break those twin curses with their title based on the original Spider-Man film, delivering not only a solid action game, but more importantly, a solid Spider-Man game, one that really gave players a chance to step into Peter Parker's red and black boots for a short time. Created well before director Sam Raimi's vision of how Spider-Man might 'really' sling his way through the concrete canyons of New York came to the silver screen, the original Spider-Man depended heavily on a more traditional approach to Spider-Man, finding ways to incorporate his powers and abilities directly into the gameplay and produce a unique game experience in that respect.
With Spider-Man 2, Treyarch had the hindsight of two things: not only being able to deliver an interactive version of the adrenaline rush of the films' portrayal of Spider-Man zipping his way around New York, but also just how perfect the 'open-ended sandbox' model of game design Grand Theft Auto could be when combined with the right concept. Give you a huge virtual world and turn you lose it - forget 'levels', let part of the fun simply being able to participate in this digital landscape.
Make no mistake - Spider-Man 2 is a superhero version of GTA, to the point where returning tutorial narrator Bruce Campbell even makes note of the fact that while you can go anywhere and do whatever you'd like at your own pace, you can 'only be a good guy'. There's a delicious sort of irony here, in that much of the anti-social behavior that gamers found themselves engaging in while playing GTA III or Vice City, well . . . Spider-Man 2 puts you on the other side of it - stopping carjackings, random acts of aggressive driving and road rage, robberies - I didn't see Spidey foiling any back-alley assaults on certain ladies of the night by customers looking for a refund by way of a baseball bat, but other than that, you're dealing with stopping the same sort of crime you were responsible for elsewhere . . . think of it as an atonement, then, of sorts, but penance was never quite this fun.
Spider-Man 2 does still tie into the blockbuster film - you'll witness the birth of Doctor Octopus and a general progression of the film's plot - but as with the previous game, Spider-Man 2 delves more into the moments between the scenes of the movie, and gives a plausible explanation of what you didn't see Spidey doing during the same time frame as the film's story.
Here's where the game delves into the comics for additional inspiration, and it can be a mixed bag: most of the top-shelf Spidey villains are off-limits, and we've already burnt through a number of them in the first game - Shocker makes a return appearance (and somehow comes off as far more menacing and dangerous than he ever did in the comics), and Mysterio and Rhino get their time in the spotlight here. The idea behind Mysterio's origin works well - an insane Hollywood SFX master out to 'prove' Spider-Man is nothing but an elaborate hoax, but some of the sequences really stretch believability a little. Yes, I know we're talking about a world based around a man who was bitten by a radioactive genetically-engineered spider, but Spidey's always kind of had a grounding in reality, and some of the Mysterio encounters get a little 'out there' in theme - which end up being forgivable, since a couple of the game's best moments occur during the Mysterio plot line.
Spider-Man also gets joined infrequently by a partner of sorts: the voluptuous Black Cat, a female vigilante / thief that walks a fine line between hero and criminal and honestly, should make Pete forget all about his troubled relationship with Mary Jane -- Halle Berry's got nothing on this particular feline femme fatale.
The pre-scripted encounters involving the super-criminals, which tend to take place indoors, are still the weakest part of Spider-Man 2's overall package: that said, they're certainly a step up from the original Spider-Man title. While there's a greater variety of indoor environments, and the design is much improved over the original title's (meaning the camera will go berserk less often and follows the action much more smoothly), they still lack the more intuitive feeling of freedom of battling on the streets of the city.
It's the parts of the game where you're simply earning the "friendly neighborhood" adjectives that Spider-Man 2 makes the most out of the license. Borrowing the 'random objective' concept from another Activision title, True Crime: Streets of L.A., a good chunk of an average day for our Web-Head involves being a hero. Fighting crime and chasing down your average street punk is only a part of that - seems that every armored car in the city gets hijacked at every opportunity - there's also people hanging from ledges who need rescued, injured who need a quick transport to a hospital, even something as simple as returning a helium balloon that's gotten away from a child and is floating slowly but steadily away (and recovering said balloon is a lot more difficult than it sounds). Most of the chances to be a masked good Samaritan are optional and triggered by the player's choice, although a few happen if Spidey comes within physical proximity of the event, and successful attempts are rewarded with Hero Points, which can be traded in for upgrades to Spider-Man's powers and new, more advanced combat maneuvers.
Personally, I loved the idea of simply being the good guy - with the current trend in gaming running toward showcasing the dark, brooding, occasionally sociopathic anti-hero, the novelty of chasing down a purse snatcher, quickly trouncing them, and then returning the purse to a grateful victim was a fresh of breath air. It's good to see the GTA style of open design used for something beyond endless chaos and mayhem.
Controlling Spider-Man is nicely done - it's a bit more complex than just remembering to keep hitting the button to shoot a web to stay aloft. Unlike the original game, which was based around set types of action sequences, getting around the vast metropolis of New York is a game element in and of itself, and the action can take place anywhere from the top of the Statue of Liberty to the streets of Harlem, so web-slinging has changed. Webs will seek out and hit an anchor automatically, but the landscape of the city will often change your strategy - some areas lack tall buildings and will require you to keep lower, closer to the streets, and even others, like Central Park, make any sort of aerial travel a difficult prospect. Height is achieved by charging the jump button in conjunction with shooting a fresh web line - it seems a bit complicated at the beginning, but after a couple of hours, it quickly becomes second nature. Many objectives have a time limit of some sort, so knowing the fastest way to get around obstacles becomes important - sometimes it's better to leap off a web line, stick to a building and scamper up the side and over the top than to try go around it.
Spider-Man 2's extremely responsive controls replicate Spidey's incredible agility well - once you've gotten the hang of using all the various methods of getting around: swinging, catapulting, launching yourself off of walls, and get used to chaining them together to achieve a seamless sense of rapid locomotion, it's a big thrill and the immersion factor goes through the roof - forget a secret identity, if it was really this fun to be Spider-Man, I'd never take the costume off.
Combat is also done well, with plenty of ways to take down enemies, using both fists and feet and webs, or more often than not, a combination of both. More advanced moves become available as you accumulate and then spend Hero Points, so you're never quite overwhelmed by what really is a pretty vast array of attacks.
Defense plays a large part in Spider-Man 2,as well, with the wall-crawler's Spider Sense (indicated by a glowing flash near his head, much the same it it's been done in the comics for decades) allowing for a sort of 'Block Indicator', and a highly intuitive fighting system that allows you to cancel any move, even mid-animation, in order to go into a dodge or block. Spider-Man does have that sort of agility and speed that makes a master ninja green with envy, and incorporating it into the core combat strategy was an excellent choice.
Slo-mo even makes it into Spider-Man 2, available by triggering Spidey's Spider Reflexes, which slows down time and allows our hero to easily spot incoming attacks - which get visually highlighted so you can't miss them - and then react accordingly, and even gives him a few unique attack moves that can only be used during the 'bullet time'-like mode. Amazingly enough, I didn't think the technique - which is getting to be VERY 'been there, done that' thing - was overused here, and it doesn't turn the game into a brightly-colored spandex version of Enter the Matrix. Treyarch really found inventive ways to visualize and work all of Spider-Man's powers into the game - some of which are sort of 'passive' and difficult to translate into tangible elements. Hopefully more developers take their lead in the future when working with superhero licenses - that's the reason fans want to play them, not just so you play, say, Double Dragon where one of the characters looks like Wolverine and your health bar regenerates over time.
Presentation-wise, Spider-Man 2 ends up a bit mixed, with the original game actually having better graphics in some instances. Part of this is due to the original being based around a more static, fixed camera view, with more emphasis placed on the characters than the surroundings, where Spider-Man 2 can go from a panoramic shot of Spidey slinging through the city - a view which looks great - to a closer view as Web-Head dives down to street level to dispatch a group of thugs. The scale of the game world doesn't really change, and as a result, you're just zooming in on character models that weren't really designed for that kind of up-close view. Spider-Man himself looks fine, but most of the other characters suffer from texture issues and a general blocky, stiff look - you can probably chalk some of it up to the game being designed for multiple platforms and not really optimized for any of them, too. It doesn't completely ruin the experience, but it is noticeable. The excellent 3D map screen has to get some commendation - not only can you quickly and easily figure out where you are, but you get a real sense of the topography you'll be facing as you move into new areas, wither you're going to need to adjust to a lower altitude or you can stay high up. On top of that, it just plain looks cool, and loses no sense of functionality due to the eye-pleasing form.
Audio is generally nicely handled, with main characters voiced by the film actors and even secondary roles cast and performed somewhat well - although some of the civilians are pretty cheesy, and not cheesy in a 'so bad it's good' sort of way. Tobey Maguire really sells his role as Peter Parker / Spider-Man, even more than on-screen: the Spider-Man comics always had a lot of internal monologues and thought balloons, and Tobey really nails those perfectly, so it's not just a case of marketing synergy to have him on board the game - hopefully, like Patrick Stewart takes on additional voice-over work as Professor X in X-Men related projects, Tobey stays on as the voice of Spidey between films.
Overall, Spider-Man 2 is definitely a worthwhile experience if you're a fan of the character or the films. There's a few bumps here and there - I mentioned graphics, some of the writing and dialogue could've been done a bit better, and some of the random crimes could've been varied a little - it's a big part of the game and something you'll exclusively spend a couple of hours alone on, and it seems there could've been just a bit more changing things up or surprises tossed in to keep it fresh. It's a very different game than the first one, but while the scope has expanded, play time really hasn't - you can still blow through the 'main' game fairly quickly. There's plenty of mini-game challenges and so forth you'll need to tackle to finish the game at 100% completion for the truly hardcore (think collecting GTA's hidden packages), but a lot of that really seems like busy work that's just there and only really useful if you need to milk every last drop out of the game.
I ended up giving Spider-Man 2 the same score as the original - it is a better, and more fully-realized game on a lot of levels but still not just quite a huge overall improvement in quality - I thought the first game was great, and so is this one. The usual 'sequel' rules are a bit tough to apply here, as in giving this one a higher score - since this is the second installment and it is 'better' and far more ambitious (as well as more 'true' to the character) . . . it's also almost a completely different game than the original, so I don't really feel justified in handing out a higher point value just because there's a number '2' in the game's title.
Anal-retentive score discussions aside, the bottom line is Spider-Man 2 is certainly worth at least a rental for anyone who even remotely considers themselves a Spider-Man fan, and really, that's 'nuff said.
Download Game:
Click Here part 1
Click Here part 2
Click Here part 3
Click Here part 4
Click Here part 5
Click Here part 6
Click Here part 7
Games based on movies generally seem to have lower quality standards than 'original' games, and games based on comic books tend to fare even worse, so if you've got a title licensed from a movie that's based on a comic book, the odds seem pretty slim that you're going to get anything really worthwhile unless you're willing to lower your expectations somewhat.
Like saying, 'Well, at least my console didn't catch on fire when I put the disc in and turned it on'.
Developer Treyarch managed to break those twin curses with their title based on the original Spider-Man film, delivering not only a solid action game, but more importantly, a solid Spider-Man game, one that really gave players a chance to step into Peter Parker's red and black boots for a short time. Created well before director Sam Raimi's vision of how Spider-Man might 'really' sling his way through the concrete canyons of New York came to the silver screen, the original Spider-Man depended heavily on a more traditional approach to Spider-Man, finding ways to incorporate his powers and abilities directly into the gameplay and produce a unique game experience in that respect.
With Spider-Man 2, Treyarch had the hindsight of two things: not only being able to deliver an interactive version of the adrenaline rush of the films' portrayal of Spider-Man zipping his way around New York, but also just how perfect the 'open-ended sandbox' model of game design Grand Theft Auto could be when combined with the right concept. Give you a huge virtual world and turn you lose it - forget 'levels', let part of the fun simply being able to participate in this digital landscape.
Make no mistake - Spider-Man 2 is a superhero version of GTA, to the point where returning tutorial narrator Bruce Campbell even makes note of the fact that while you can go anywhere and do whatever you'd like at your own pace, you can 'only be a good guy'. There's a delicious sort of irony here, in that much of the anti-social behavior that gamers found themselves engaging in while playing GTA III or Vice City, well . . . Spider-Man 2 puts you on the other side of it - stopping carjackings, random acts of aggressive driving and road rage, robberies - I didn't see Spidey foiling any back-alley assaults on certain ladies of the night by customers looking for a refund by way of a baseball bat, but other than that, you're dealing with stopping the same sort of crime you were responsible for elsewhere . . . think of it as an atonement, then, of sorts, but penance was never quite this fun.
Spider-Man 2 does still tie into the blockbuster film - you'll witness the birth of Doctor Octopus and a general progression of the film's plot - but as with the previous game, Spider-Man 2 delves more into the moments between the scenes of the movie, and gives a plausible explanation of what you didn't see Spidey doing during the same time frame as the film's story.
Here's where the game delves into the comics for additional inspiration, and it can be a mixed bag: most of the top-shelf Spidey villains are off-limits, and we've already burnt through a number of them in the first game - Shocker makes a return appearance (and somehow comes off as far more menacing and dangerous than he ever did in the comics), and Mysterio and Rhino get their time in the spotlight here. The idea behind Mysterio's origin works well - an insane Hollywood SFX master out to 'prove' Spider-Man is nothing but an elaborate hoax, but some of the sequences really stretch believability a little. Yes, I know we're talking about a world based around a man who was bitten by a radioactive genetically-engineered spider, but Spidey's always kind of had a grounding in reality, and some of the Mysterio encounters get a little 'out there' in theme - which end up being forgivable, since a couple of the game's best moments occur during the Mysterio plot line.
Spider-Man also gets joined infrequently by a partner of sorts: the voluptuous Black Cat, a female vigilante / thief that walks a fine line between hero and criminal and honestly, should make Pete forget all about his troubled relationship with Mary Jane -- Halle Berry's got nothing on this particular feline femme fatale.
The pre-scripted encounters involving the super-criminals, which tend to take place indoors, are still the weakest part of Spider-Man 2's overall package: that said, they're certainly a step up from the original Spider-Man title. While there's a greater variety of indoor environments, and the design is much improved over the original title's (meaning the camera will go berserk less often and follows the action much more smoothly), they still lack the more intuitive feeling of freedom of battling on the streets of the city.
It's the parts of the game where you're simply earning the "friendly neighborhood" adjectives that Spider-Man 2 makes the most out of the license. Borrowing the 'random objective' concept from another Activision title, True Crime: Streets of L.A., a good chunk of an average day for our Web-Head involves being a hero. Fighting crime and chasing down your average street punk is only a part of that - seems that every armored car in the city gets hijacked at every opportunity - there's also people hanging from ledges who need rescued, injured who need a quick transport to a hospital, even something as simple as returning a helium balloon that's gotten away from a child and is floating slowly but steadily away (and recovering said balloon is a lot more difficult than it sounds). Most of the chances to be a masked good Samaritan are optional and triggered by the player's choice, although a few happen if Spidey comes within physical proximity of the event, and successful attempts are rewarded with Hero Points, which can be traded in for upgrades to Spider-Man's powers and new, more advanced combat maneuvers.
Personally, I loved the idea of simply being the good guy - with the current trend in gaming running toward showcasing the dark, brooding, occasionally sociopathic anti-hero, the novelty of chasing down a purse snatcher, quickly trouncing them, and then returning the purse to a grateful victim was a fresh of breath air. It's good to see the GTA style of open design used for something beyond endless chaos and mayhem.
Controlling Spider-Man is nicely done - it's a bit more complex than just remembering to keep hitting the button to shoot a web to stay aloft. Unlike the original game, which was based around set types of action sequences, getting around the vast metropolis of New York is a game element in and of itself, and the action can take place anywhere from the top of the Statue of Liberty to the streets of Harlem, so web-slinging has changed. Webs will seek out and hit an anchor automatically, but the landscape of the city will often change your strategy - some areas lack tall buildings and will require you to keep lower, closer to the streets, and even others, like Central Park, make any sort of aerial travel a difficult prospect. Height is achieved by charging the jump button in conjunction with shooting a fresh web line - it seems a bit complicated at the beginning, but after a couple of hours, it quickly becomes second nature. Many objectives have a time limit of some sort, so knowing the fastest way to get around obstacles becomes important - sometimes it's better to leap off a web line, stick to a building and scamper up the side and over the top than to try go around it.
Spider-Man 2's extremely responsive controls replicate Spidey's incredible agility well - once you've gotten the hang of using all the various methods of getting around: swinging, catapulting, launching yourself off of walls, and get used to chaining them together to achieve a seamless sense of rapid locomotion, it's a big thrill and the immersion factor goes through the roof - forget a secret identity, if it was really this fun to be Spider-Man, I'd never take the costume off.
Combat is also done well, with plenty of ways to take down enemies, using both fists and feet and webs, or more often than not, a combination of both. More advanced moves become available as you accumulate and then spend Hero Points, so you're never quite overwhelmed by what really is a pretty vast array of attacks.
Defense plays a large part in Spider-Man 2,as well, with the wall-crawler's Spider Sense (indicated by a glowing flash near his head, much the same it it's been done in the comics for decades) allowing for a sort of 'Block Indicator', and a highly intuitive fighting system that allows you to cancel any move, even mid-animation, in order to go into a dodge or block. Spider-Man does have that sort of agility and speed that makes a master ninja green with envy, and incorporating it into the core combat strategy was an excellent choice.
Slo-mo even makes it into Spider-Man 2, available by triggering Spidey's Spider Reflexes, which slows down time and allows our hero to easily spot incoming attacks - which get visually highlighted so you can't miss them - and then react accordingly, and even gives him a few unique attack moves that can only be used during the 'bullet time'-like mode. Amazingly enough, I didn't think the technique - which is getting to be VERY 'been there, done that' thing - was overused here, and it doesn't turn the game into a brightly-colored spandex version of Enter the Matrix. Treyarch really found inventive ways to visualize and work all of Spider-Man's powers into the game - some of which are sort of 'passive' and difficult to translate into tangible elements. Hopefully more developers take their lead in the future when working with superhero licenses - that's the reason fans want to play them, not just so you play, say, Double Dragon where one of the characters looks like Wolverine and your health bar regenerates over time.
Presentation-wise, Spider-Man 2 ends up a bit mixed, with the original game actually having better graphics in some instances. Part of this is due to the original being based around a more static, fixed camera view, with more emphasis placed on the characters than the surroundings, where Spider-Man 2 can go from a panoramic shot of Spidey slinging through the city - a view which looks great - to a closer view as Web-Head dives down to street level to dispatch a group of thugs. The scale of the game world doesn't really change, and as a result, you're just zooming in on character models that weren't really designed for that kind of up-close view. Spider-Man himself looks fine, but most of the other characters suffer from texture issues and a general blocky, stiff look - you can probably chalk some of it up to the game being designed for multiple platforms and not really optimized for any of them, too. It doesn't completely ruin the experience, but it is noticeable. The excellent 3D map screen has to get some commendation - not only can you quickly and easily figure out where you are, but you get a real sense of the topography you'll be facing as you move into new areas, wither you're going to need to adjust to a lower altitude or you can stay high up. On top of that, it just plain looks cool, and loses no sense of functionality due to the eye-pleasing form.
Audio is generally nicely handled, with main characters voiced by the film actors and even secondary roles cast and performed somewhat well - although some of the civilians are pretty cheesy, and not cheesy in a 'so bad it's good' sort of way. Tobey Maguire really sells his role as Peter Parker / Spider-Man, even more than on-screen: the Spider-Man comics always had a lot of internal monologues and thought balloons, and Tobey really nails those perfectly, so it's not just a case of marketing synergy to have him on board the game - hopefully, like Patrick Stewart takes on additional voice-over work as Professor X in X-Men related projects, Tobey stays on as the voice of Spidey between films.
Overall, Spider-Man 2 is definitely a worthwhile experience if you're a fan of the character or the films. There's a few bumps here and there - I mentioned graphics, some of the writing and dialogue could've been done a bit better, and some of the random crimes could've been varied a little - it's a big part of the game and something you'll exclusively spend a couple of hours alone on, and it seems there could've been just a bit more changing things up or surprises tossed in to keep it fresh. It's a very different game than the first one, but while the scope has expanded, play time really hasn't - you can still blow through the 'main' game fairly quickly. There's plenty of mini-game challenges and so forth you'll need to tackle to finish the game at 100% completion for the truly hardcore (think collecting GTA's hidden packages), but a lot of that really seems like busy work that's just there and only really useful if you need to milk every last drop out of the game.
I ended up giving Spider-Man 2 the same score as the original - it is a better, and more fully-realized game on a lot of levels but still not just quite a huge overall improvement in quality - I thought the first game was great, and so is this one. The usual 'sequel' rules are a bit tough to apply here, as in giving this one a higher score - since this is the second installment and it is 'better' and far more ambitious (as well as more 'true' to the character) . . . it's also almost a completely different game than the original, so I don't really feel justified in handing out a higher point value just because there's a number '2' in the game's title.
Anal-retentive score discussions aside, the bottom line is Spider-Man 2 is certainly worth at least a rental for anyone who even remotely considers themselves a Spider-Man fan, and really, that's 'nuff said.
Download Game:
Click Here part 1
Click Here part 2
Click Here part 3
Click Here part 4
Click Here part 5
Click Here part 6
Click Here part 7