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Eddie F III
United States
North Catasauqua
Pennsylvania
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This is a review I wrote for a defunct site back in 2003-2004. The site was known as onlyonxbox.net.
Spiderman 2
When you think of movie or superhero representation in games you think up some awful memories. It’s hard to look past the track record these genres hold even for blockbuster movies. What happens when you mix both movie and super powers into one game? Well Activision and Treybach are trying hard to erase the past. Everyone knows Spiderman 2 is cleaning up in the box office this summer. This sequel is even depicted in game form on the major consoles, the same as the first movie a few summers back. Spiderman 2 (the game) builds on a decent game I experienced on the Xbox last year. However, this sequel blows away the past Spiderman in so many ways.
Spiderman 2 is a huge expansion to the original. They’ve added side missions and plenty of extras to keep you playing over and over. Some of the aspects resemble a Grand Theft Auto type of play without the unnecessary violence. The first thing you notice is the huge city that you can explore. Basically they redid Manhattan to scale, and there is no loading when you swing from Soho to the Garment District. This map is flawless. I wonder if people who live in Manhattan have an upper hand in swinging their way around the city. The city also includes buildings that you can enter and explore. For example, you will visit The Daily Bugle throughout the game to get photo assignments from the newspaper staff.
Swinging your way through the city will take more technique than the first movie based game. In the first title, your web just attached to the mid-air and allowed you to swing wherever you wanted. This has been totally redone and really makes the game fun. There is physics involved. Spiderman now has to attach his web to something to swing. This will have you shooting webs from sides of buildings, lampposts, helicopters, and more. At first, it is hard to keep control but you will learn when and where to reshoot your web. You seriously could just waste time swinging around the city. Much kudos to the developers for giving us the true feeling of swinging.
While traveling through the bustling city, you will find heavy traffic of vehicles and humans. The pedestrians will continually need your help from street crime. You will know who needs your help by the green icon that appears over there head. These icons pop up all over the city and they never stop. This gives a real aspect of continuous crime in the big city. However, in this city crime is limited to certain offences. They become repetitious with the scenarios and cut scenes. You will stop purse snatchings, car-jackings, shootouts, muggings, and police shootouts. You won’t need to fight these crimes throughout the game. You can actually skip these and go straight through the story-based missions.
However, you earn ‘hero points’ with every successful crime thwarted. You can also lose points for failing to stop a crime. These points are exchanged at stores located all over the city. These stores sell upgrades to help power-up your amazing super hero. Some of these upgrades include a more powerful swinging action and fighting combos. These points are also earned by completing missions, delivering pizzas, and collecting balloons for kids. Did I say pizza? Yes I did. There is a pizza shop where Peter Parker works to earn some cash, cause crime doesn’t pay nor fighting it. I had the most fun delivering pizzas. This requires a steady hand when swinging with three pizzas in your hand. You don’t want to tussle the cheese to one side when you flip all over the place. Successful deliveries will also earn you points for the upgrades. There are over 100 hidden objects throughout the city that you need to collect. They are called Skyscraper Points and can be found at the top of the concrete giants in this urban jungle.
The fighting system in the game has totally been redone. They added more combos and included your web as a weapon. You can now pull thugs near you similar to Scorpion in Mortal Kombat. Webs are also used to swing thugs in a circle launching them down the street, and can be used to tie them up or just partial disable their limbs. Spidey Sense has been included in the fight engine and can come in use with some of the bosses. There are two different uses of your Spidey Sense. The one sense will flash a halo type image around your head alerting you to duck from an attack. The other is similar to bullet time in Max Payne or The Matrix. This slows everything down giving you the advantage.
Once you look past all these side missions and bonuses, there is a storyline that develops. It is similar to the Spiderman 2 movie without giving away key plots in the movie. They’ve added additional plots to help extend the story. The game isn’t very long if you go straight through the story without stopping and smelling the roses. The game does revolve around Doc Ock but includes other evil forces known in the Spiderman universe. The bosses you fight are difficult compared to the first game. However, it is not impossible. The story could have been longer. That is only one of two complaints I have towards the game.
The biggest problem I have with Spiderman 2 is the cut scenes. They are horrendous if you compare it with the other aspects of the game. The characters don’t look right. I think Harry Osborne is the only worthwhile design. Mary Jane looks nothing like the movie counterpart and Peter Parkers hands looks like rubber gloves that were blown up like balloons. Citizens all over the city are repetitious. I swear the same black woman in a suit and tie appears all over the city getting robbed. She should just stay home. I truly think the cut scenes in the first game were crisper and cleaner.
If you look past the cut scenes, this is an amazing game to play. This does huge justice to super hero games in the industry. Who ever develops the next worthless Batman or Superman game needs to take some pointers from Treybach. They really captured the attitude and feeling of Spiderman. I can see myself finishing this game including all the side missions. I can’t wait for their rendition of Spiderman 3, especially if they take what they have and just improve it slightly. This game is not worthy of just a weekend rental; you really need to own this game.
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