SpiderMan 2
Take one part summer blockbuster, 1 part Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and throw in a splash of Crazy Taxi and you get Spider-Man 2 for the GameCube, PS2 and the Xbox. I should also mention that Spider-Man 2 can be purchased for the PC, but it is wholly a different game, aimed at young children with sub par graphics and gameplay. So bad, in fact that we opted not to review it based on recommendations from those who had. Instead, I opted to play the GameCube copy, and I can easily say I made the right decision.
Activision’s follow up to 2002’s Spider-Man video game, largely based on the FX-fest of the same name easily fills your game playing hours. Most unusual about the game is that you aren’t necessarily bound by story, at least the entire time. You start out, appropriately enough as the web slinger, at the top of a New York skyscraper, looking down over your domain. Within seconds, before you can even sling your first web, a mysterious and sarcastic, but probably familiar voice begins to lecture you on how to climb, jump, swing, etc. Bruce Campbell of Army of Darkness fame has been charged with walking you through the tips and tricks on getting through the game, in his own special way. Therein lies one of the strongest reason to buy the game. Bruce’s witty comments can be found throughout the game, not only at the start of each chapter but at 213 seperate hint icons found throughout the city. Finding them and listening to each and every one causes them to all say something different. Which brings us to the second reason to get this game.
There’s a LOT of stuff to find. As with the first game there is a base story in which you fight against various petty criminals in order to make it to fight the bigger super villians. Rhino, Shocker, Mysterio, not to mention the big baddy from the movie, Doctor Octopus, make major appearances. Eventually, you’ll play through the major plot points of the summer movie, but youll also take minor missions as you come across them while swigning between the buildings of Times Square or Manhattan. Citizens of New York will do their best to flag you down to help them. Everything from small children losing their balloons to full blown store robberies and armored car heists. There are a limited number of crime types to foil, and you’ll most likely run into all of them before you’re halfway through the game, but except for the whiney butterfingers with the balloon, they don’t get redundant. You can’t always tell what time of crime is involved. Sometimes its simply an ambush, but you can choose to ignore their cries for help and go after the bigger crimes that pop up every few minutes. Each time you complete a mission, take out a bad guy, or meet Mary Jane at the movie theatre, you gain Hero points. Hero points can be used to purchase new combos, fight moves and general get-around-town updates, like speeding up your swing or jumping farther. Additionally tokens are scattered throughout the city, 75 Hideout tokens, 30 Exploration tokens, 180 Skyscraper Tokens, not to mention the numerous timed challenges that await you. Completing the game 100% will take a considerable amount of hours.
Sound and music comes from the movie. Kirsten Dunst, Tobey McGuire and Alfred Molina all reprise their characters via voice overs specifically recorded for the game and give it a genuine touch of cinematic flow. Every sound is here too, from the familiar web sling to the thump Spidey makes when he hits a building, George of the Jungle style and all in glorious 5.1 surround. The music can be killed but its worth it to keep it on, at least during the story portion of the game.
Completing the cinematic feel of the game are the fully rendered animated sequences at the beginning and end of the story mode. These are absolutely beautiful rendered sequences that almost put the quality of the Final Fantasy sequences to shame. From the introduction to Doctor Octavius at the beginning, to his final redemption at the end. They clearly put a lot of time and effort into the icing for this digital cake.
Unfortunately, there a few things to bring the score down. Camera angles, the bane of most third person games, is a problem here too. At times you’ll be jumping from rooftop to rooftop and building will get in the way, easily causing you to fall on your face. Developers may have chosen to make up for this by allowing Spidey to fall over one thousand feet to the pavement and still live to sling another web. Granted now Peter Parker has quite a bit more strength since the arachnid bite, but I’m thinkin….no way he could survive THAT kind of plummet. The AI has a few little piccadillos too. Most of the time, the general criminals in the city are ruthless in trying to find you around corners, behind cars and start throwing things at you or firing guns if you get just out of their reach onto an awning or on a lamppost. Several times during my play though I would be standing directly in front of a guy with a giant wrench in his hands, while he cursed me out, staring at him as he just stared back. Maybe the freakishly large eyes of the costume bewildered him into a hypnotic state, who knows? Lastly, although it was great to hear the actual celebrity voices matching their characters video game personas, but missing were the voices of actors James Franco, to do Harry Osborn, Rosemary Harris as Aunt May, J.K. Simmons as J.Jonas Jameson and Bill Nunn as Robbie Robertson. It would seem to me to be easier sustaining the supporting actors than for the leading roles, even for only a few lines in the game.
Overall, Spider-Man 2 for either of the consoles is an excellent game that will keep you entertained LONG after you’ve seen the end credits. Theres just something simply gratifying about swigning around the Statue of Libert or the Empire State building from a web line and overlooking a virtual New York City.
