The game based on the sequel to the film based on a comic book character. Sounds like a recipe for a disaster like Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game. But surprisingly this one is the best Spider-Man game for its time. I'm really digging how these games just keep getting better.
This game really captures the fun of being Spider-Man, largely due to the greatly improved web swinging. In the stories, Peter Parker always goes out swinging to clear his head. And there's reason for that. It's awesome. The physics and realism put into swinging around a fully mapped out Manhattan really makes this game worth it. Not to mention that Spidey actually anchors his webs on buildings instead of just shooting them into the sky out of frame. And we FINALLY get to go down to street level, whereas in the previous games the player would die if they swing below a certain altitude (sometimes with no explanation).The menu system is greatly improved, and the dizzying effect that the previous game had is completely gone. The story follows the film pretty closely, with some additional characters from the comics thrown in, Black Cat being my favorite. My favorite actor Bruce Campbell returns to voice the sometimes-helpful narrator.
On the bad side, the main story missions can be too challenging, the mini missions repetitive, and the animation gets really jittery up close. Spider-sense is used more in this game than the previous ones, but often times it doesn't give the player enough time to dodge. The game is set up in a sandbox style ala GTA III (2001), which was so successful I'd bet that Spider-Man 2 was basically saying, "Me too!" While that makes it great for web-slinging around the city and feeling like a hero for retrieving a kids balloon, the rest of the game just doesn't fill in the great empty hole that a sandbox game creates. There aren't that many main quests and there's only so many times I can repeat the same side quest where I have to beat up some thugs. On the positive side, I bet Spidey feels the same way about beating up thugs day in and day out. And lastly, I really appreciated the "Klattu Verata Nikto" line thrown in the Mysterio battle as a referrence to Army of Darkness (a film which the director of Spider-Man also made).
4 comments:
I actually feel that the first one had much more replay value than the 2nd. I played back though the stages in the first one soooo many times! After you beat the 2nd everything does just feel very empty, although it is just fun to swing around and dart through the city!
Yeah I agree, the 2000 game had the 'What If' parallel story mode where everything was kinda different. And the 2002 game let you replay through as the Green Goblin II. But in this game, once you beat Doc Ock you're pretty much just done. Unless you get fun out of collecting tokens.
Thanks for the comments Dan!
Wow! I'm really enjoying reading these. I always wanted to play them when they came out but I didn't have a console. Electro, Mysterio, the Scorpion, yay! Brings back memories from the comics. I didn't like the movies so much--- well, I liked parts of them. Anyway, some of these sound worth a playthrough... not that I'll have any time left at all after Skyrim comes out.
Thanks, I really hope I finish the Spider-Games before Skyrim comes out. I preordered the special edition with the dragon statue and everything.
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