It is a safe bet to say that Peter Parker is one of the biggest names of this summer. With both a critically acclaimed blockbuster movie and a number of companies capitalizing on his success with advertising, it’s hard to look anywhere and not see America’s favorite web-head. To top off his fame, Spidey’s got a new game, which is definitely the best Spiderman game ever and could probably arguably be called the best superhero game of all time.
Spiderman 2: The Movie is obviously based on the larger than large Spiderman 2 movie that has taken the title of the definitive action movie. Even with the movie’s incredible scope, Treyarch decided to add more, inserting more villains and even a love triangle involving the Black Cat from the comics. However, the most phenomenal addition to the Spiderman formula is unequivocally the GTA-inspired, go-anywhere freedom coupled with the incredible feel of web slinging. Yes, perhaps for the first time in the history of the wall-crawler, players can come as close to actually web slinging across New York as they ever will without Spider-powers.
The web slinging controls beautifully, and has a number of features that truly make players feel like the webbed one. First and logically, there must be a surface for the web to attach to, unlike the previous Spiderman where to webs latched to an invisible ceiling regardless of Spidey’s position. This adds a feeling of realism that was never present before because of the aforementioned unbelievable "ceiling". Secondly, Spiderman has a number of things he can do while swinging that make the experience fun. He can purchase upgrades (more on that later) that allow him to flip and twist in the air, he can utilize the double web slingshot, he can run along walls while holding a web, and even latch onto helicopters! In between swings, Spidey can leap the length of city-blocks, grab and swing on lampposts, crawl and run up the sides of buildings, web-zip, and even catch rides on the roofs of cars! Unfortunately, the fighting engine isn’t quite as polished as the web slinging. While it is functional, the combat just doesn’t seem as complete as the web-swinging as the punches and tosses just don’t have the feeling of impact that they should. If Spiderman uses his web to pull a foe towards him, they flop bonelessly around, bouncing off walls and the ground without a truly satisfying sense of collision.
The storyline follows the movie fairly closely, so gamers who haven’t seen the movie may want to watch before playing as there are a few spoilers, though nothing major. As mentioned before, in addition to Doctor Octopus, Spiderman will find himself battlingcomic book villians the Shocker, the Rhino, and Mysterio, and fighting alongside the Black Cat. Gamers who only know Spidey from his movies may scratch their heads at Black Cat’s lack of backstory, but chasing her across rooftops is an undeniably fun experience.
The game is set up in chapters, each of which provides the player with one or more major objective to proceed to the next chapter. These can range from meeting with Peter Parker’s friends at certain locations to advance the storyline, to taking photos for the Daily Bugle where Parker works, to obtaining a certain amount of hero points, which are earned by completing missions and doing good deeds. These good deeds range from rescuing a child’s balloon to foiling an armored car robbery. The hero points can then be used to buy enhancements to Spiderman’s abilities including a faster swing, new fighting moves, and tricks between web swings.
The graphics are great, especially for Spiderman and the city. It is amazing to see the city from the top of a skyscraper, and even more amazing to watch it whoosh by as you plunge toward the ground, then launch a webline and swing away. However, the character models for the cars and the pedestrians seem rushed and indistinct.
The sounds are fairly good as well, doing a decent job of re-creating the sounds of a bustling city. There are the sounds of car engines, horns blowing, and citizens calling out to congratulate, heckle, or summon Spiderman as he passes. The pedestrian comments get repetitive quickly, however, and the game could have easily benefited from more lines of dialogue. There are also a number of times, especially when Spidey’s not on a mission, that there is no background music at all, although the game is never too quiet with all of the background noise going on. The voice acting is also pretty good, with Tobey Maguire delivering an especially good voiceover for Peter Parker. All of the movie’s actors reprise their roles for the game.
