Movie to video game, video game to movie, and here we are again with Spiderman 2. Well the movie was great but here at MyGamer.com we write reviews on games. So I’m not going to waste your time telling you go to see the movie when you can imagine you are Spiderman in the new game on the PS2. The game is being developed by Activision but were they able to break the bad movie to game curse?
The big pull with this release is that you have the ability to go anywhere and if you feel like it stop crimes along the way. While playing this game you will find yourself addicted to running around in your tights in the huge city that has been provided for you. The city is alive with traffic, pedestrians, trains, and even helicopters flying around in the sky which you can stick your web to and just go for a ride. My favorite thing to do is find the tallest building in the city and jump off of it, then use my web swing right before I hit the ground. There are a few little touches like the motion blur when you get going fast or jump from a really high building that really make you feel like you are Spiderman jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Beating up villains and running around town are the best part’s of this game. After you defeat all of the villains for a mission you can sit there and continue to beat them up for hours. This is a little sadistic but I can’t help but attempt to get them as high into the air as possible. When your done pummeling them you can gift wrap them for the police and hang them from a light pole. There are even interior locations which were added to the game. You can go into stores and buy upgrades, go to the pizza parlor and deliver pizzas, or go the the arcade and play some games. The controls are a little bit complex, but only because of the massive number of things your character can do. In order to hang a villain from a light pole you have to press square, square, triangle, and X. That’s just one example and there is an entire list in the game of unlockable moves like that one. It is cool that you have so much you can do but you actually need to know how to do all of these moves to defeat the bosses. I found myself mashing buttons a lot because I didn’t want to memorize the button combinations, well that is except the one that lets you hang people from poles because it is so fun to do.
Ok this is going out to all of the graphic programmers and the ever money hungry motion picture industry. Stop, I repeat stop rushing games out the door before everyone is allowed to finish their respective projects involved with the game. You will sell more copies of the game if it is a awesome game, and less if you just tell your people to get it done in a short period of time. The point that I’m getting to is that the graphics on this game could have been on the Playstation 1. The in game cut scenes are pathetic. When you go up to characters on the street and talk to them their lips don’t move, and they stand there like a cardboard cutout. Some of the bigger battles weren’t even polished off to look good. There is a scene in the game when some robbers are taking expensive art. During the intro a man is standing there who should be holding something and while he is talking a gun magically appears in his hands halfway through his speech. Although the in game scenes are atrocious I will give the designers credit on their 3d cut scenes. There are some in this game that are fully done in 3d and are almost exact replicas of scenes in the movie. These all look great and they are a nice break every few chapters.
Throughout the game you are swinging around town a lot and there is no music at all, it is just silent and you can listen to your web shooters shooting web from rooftop to rooftop. I think that the game could have benefited from adding a soundtrack to it. They have the soundtrack available from the movie and I don’t understand why they didn’t use it. However they did have some excellent voice acting from Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and Alfred Molina. When you actually hear their voices it sounds like they attempted to act while doing their various parts. Not all of the actors from the movie are in here and the characters who don’t have a high profile voice talent behind them and sometimes they fall short. Fortunately the really bad voice acting is few and far between. There are some great references to old tv shows and games when you fight Mysterio. For example during one fight he quotes Outer Limits saying “we control the horizontal, we control the vertical” and he always adds something really dumb at the end. I think it is great that they put the time into writing and actually had a sense of humor. Bruce Campbell will be your narrator aiding you throughout your missions with brief tutorials and tips which are laid Throughout the city.
The time put into the game and the amount of levels is impressive. With all of the different locations that you can go to and a fairly long and difficult normal setting this game has a lot to offer. It is trying to give you the benefits of a game like Grand Theft Auto except you can only do good. No stealing cars or beating up random people for you. You will be able to go to random street crimes and beat up all the villains you want. When you have gotten all of the way through the game you will always have that option and you can perfect your spidey skills while doing it. If that sounds like it isn’t fun to you then there are also tips or races laid throughout the city.
To answer the question I posed at the beginning of this article, will Activision break the curse? The answer in my opinion is still no. They did have an opportunity here to do it but with the graphic problems and lack of soundtrack they just fell short. The game is however still a lot of fun but nothing spectacular. I do however find myself wanting to get back to the web slinging so in the words of Stan Lee, “Until next time true believers.”