He Stole That Guy's Pizza

Here we go again,

In honor of Spiderman 3's imminent release, I thought I would talk a bit about Spiderman 2. The game, not the movie.

SM2 has basically one thing going for it: mobility. It is a ton of fun to swing around the recreation of Manhattan, jumping between buildings and taking flying leaps off of skyscrapers. The sense of aerial freedom is unmatched in anything I have ever played. Figuring out how to work around Spidey's limits and playing around is almost worth the price of admission alone. Unfortunately, this range of movement is not integrated into the rest of the experience very well. It is almost as if there are two different games, one really entertaining and the other aggressively mediocre.

Combat is mostly limited to canned combos, without any room for interesting variation. There is some air juggling and some countering, but it all feels pretty half-hearted. A couple of moves, like stringing an enemy up by a lamppost, are fun, but they get old after a while. You can only throw a thug off the top of a building so many times, especially without a satisfying sense of impact. Oh T ratings...

Spiderman 2 loads the entire city environment at once, which does its part to create a seamless experience. The downside comes in the form of some pretty bad graphics. Climb to the top of the tallest building and look down; all you will see is rectangles. While a necessary tradeoff, it is nonetheless disappointing. Also disappointing: New York doesn't feel alive. There aren't enough pedestrians, cars, pedestrian models, or car models to make it believable.

I have no recollection of the soundtrack....

Why does every Spiderman game have to have indoor environments? It serves no point other than to confine the player and remove the hero's greatest strength. It could be interesting if done well, but it never is.

If you have seen the movie, you know the story, except to make things interesting (read: extend play time) the developer threw in a bunch more villains for Spidey to tangle with. This feels pretty tacked on and is largely forgettable, especially since none of the boss fights are that noteworthy. It is worth mentioning that the voice actors from the film reprise their roles, which is nice.

The story progresses at your leisure. Going to various locations in the city will start story objectives and once you have completed these you are free to explore the city until you want to continue. While ripped straight out of Grand Theft Auto III, this structure fits the game well for the most part.

While swinging around between missions you will encounter random people in need of assistance. Helping them will earn you Hero Points which can be used to upgrade skills and moves, which is a cool concept. However, there are about nine different scenarios, some of which are very similar, and they happen all the time. It grows tiresome almost immediately, quickly turning you into the Apathetic Neighborhood Spiderman.

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy Spiderman 2, I just think it was a bit ahead of the technology and shipped without much polish. Hopefully all these complaints will be addressed in the third game, but as it is being rushed to release with the movie, I'm not getting my hopes up.

Does whatever a spider can,
Doc Ock