Spider-Man 2 Review

I've been a big comic book fan ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper. I was into comics even before I was into gaming - I would read of the accomplishments of the JLA more than playing Mario on my cousin's Nintendo. I was always big on Batman (that love has gone away), The X-Men (which have stuck with me) and especially Spiderman (whose game I am reviewing). Something every comic book fan as always wanted to be is their favorite super hero (and have prayed to the Gods of Marvel to release a Playboy-esque issue called: "The Girls of the X-Men Nude"). Spiderman 2 gives the player free range of New York as Spiderman, allowing Spidey to help people for hero points in order to advance his character and the story as well as trying to tie-in with the recent film.

This gameplay revolves around simply being Spiderman and having all of his abilities while also having to stop crimes that you either run into while they are in progress or with people on the street that ask you to stop. The spontaneous crimes range from beating the shit out of a bunch of thugs to saving an annoying little brat's balloon to beating the shit out of a bunch of thugs. The one you are given range from getting people to the hospital to beating the shit out of a bunch of thugs to stopping cars with thugs in them and beating the shit out of them. Suffice it to say, you're going to be beating the shit out of a lot of thugs. Unless of course you do anyone of the other missions (Delivering Pizzas, taking photos for the Daily Bugle or "Challenges", which are all really races against the clock. You'll be racing or beating the shit out of people in nearly every mission except one, trying to get people off of a sinking boat. That takes the cake as the worst mission of all because Spidey can't swim. I must have missed the issue in which he took swimming lessons at the Y, because I always thought that he could. In the game, he can't and falling in the water is a real bitch because swimming would be really useful to get people off of a boat.

The gameplay is incredibly repetitive, much like the combat - unless you really try to spice it up (and sometimes that sucks because you can't swim). Most of the game is spent swinging around the city beating the shit out of people. Sometimes you'll save people, or have to get from one place to another quickly, but more times than not, you'll be beating people silly.

Fortunately, they included some interesting moves for Spidey to perform, straight from the comic books. Unfortunately, you've got to really try in order to perform these, and you really don't need to ever perform any attacks apart from the spinning counterattack of death which you perform if you press dodge and then attack. You'll spin around kicking everyone in the face, and unless you really want to grab someone and tie them to a lamp post to use them as a punching bag, you'll pretty much be able to defeat all thugs with the one move. After a certain point, the most common street thugs carry guns and can dodge your webbing and block your attacks, so forget about doing most of your fancy moves; for example, in Spidey vs. Bullet, Bullet wins unless you're jumping around like you're listening to the classic House of Pain song, Jump Around. (Cause when I shoot ta give, I shoot ta kill! - Six) You can do some neat things, but most of the time, it is really impractical and can result in the most common of simple street thug beating the living shit out of you, especially when they block the majority of your highly advanced moves. And all moves, apart from the most basic one button ones must be purchased (More on this later). You're pretty much screwed unless you use what is called, "Spider Reflex Juice" which tries for the effect of slowing down time and allowing you to dodge most attacks while beating the shit out of everyone, but really is a lot like doing speed. You only think that you're going fast, and while it can look cool, people can still kick your ass.

Movement is interesting because you have a whole city to play around in so you get to try a lot of neat things. This doesn't really get old as it is very interesting to get to play around in all of New York, but you are essentially doing the same thing most of the time. You get to swing on a webline, run along the sides of buildings, sprint across the roof tops and swan dive into the street, jump a hundred feet into the air or do a series of interesting tricks that you have to buy (Although they serve no purpose and unless you're using that "Spider Reflex Juice" you can't see much at all, and even with "Spidey-Speed" you still can't see much). Movement is interesting, and with practice you get to do a lot of very cool things with it. I have personally dived off of the very top of The Empire State Building three dozen times, many of which ended abruptly with my death because my sister wanted to see it. (Fess up, Smap - you did it because YOU wanted to see it! - Six)

The game does have a half-assed sort of RPG element into it. You get to buy all sorts of things that give you more moves and abilities for Combat and Movement, and even things that make your other abilities better. You buy them with the hero points you earn doing missions for the little guy, and many of them are very cool. Of course, I never used most of mine, but I had them anyways. Spidey never gets stronger or tougher or anything, he just gets more moves and a faster swing speed, it is sort of silly as having more health towards the end would really take advantage of what is a good idea and it would make them game a lot less frustrating. Especially if you could buy some bloody water wings and swim.

Speaking of frustrating, I guess I should finally start on the story and plot apart from beating random thugs. The story mode attempts to follow the movie's story in a few missions, but most of which has to do with you fighting other villains and hanging out with another super lady that has enormous tits. (Ahem...the Black Cat - Six) The non-story part is a lot better, and more fun, partly because the missions involving the story suck compared to the movie and they're not nearly as fun as the game's original missions. As a tie-in, they did a pretty crappy job mixing and matching the story, I'd much rather they avoid all of that and give me some more super villains to fight or let me see the one other friendly character without her tight black leather jump suit on. The story mode also has a ton of timed missions for no reason what-so-ever. Quick! You only have two minutes to get to the coffee shop to see Mary Jane, and if you fail, they let you try again! Things like this serve no point, and I really wish they wouldn't have put them in there.

The voice acting is pretty amateurish with the people on the street and just plain bad with any of the main characters. You can ask 2Lions what he thinks of Tobey McGuire because it stands true here. The graphics are impressive that you can see the entire city, but at the same time, all people and cars look ugly as hell and blocky and there are clipping errors galore with people in cars.