Spider-Man: Web of Shadows(2008).
© Activision
SDCC: WEB OF SHADOWS Spotlight at Activision Party
By: Edward GoodsmithDate: Monday, July 28, 2008
It seems that with every movie there’s a shovelware game following close behind, even if there have been good games based on the characters. Such is the case with Iron Man, and Hulk. Fortunately there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that light is Activision’s Spider-Man: Web of Shadows game, which I was fortunate enough to get some hands on time with.
Web of Shadows has you playing the good, red suited, Spider-Man, and the bad, Venom like Spider-Man. The cool thing about this is you can change on the fly with a simple one-button push. For instance, red Spider-Man is light on his feet, agile, but does less damage per hit, While black Spider-Man is a bit slower and less agile, but much stronger. You can even switch between the two mid-combo to rack up even more points. You will also be able to customize Spider-Man’s moves, but I only got to see a few seconds of this before the pre-alpha game crashed. The game also features the beloved, but often poorly implemented, bullet time. The key difference between this and other similar games is that you don’t control the bullet time it controls you. When you’re about to execute a move on a purse mugger, the game will go bullet time for 3 seconds, and then launch you back in to the fast paced fight.
The combos were also something to (pun intended) Marvel at. Our hero can bounce from baddy to baddy without skipping a beat. After about 5 minutes of playing I was able to develop a rhythm to the hits. The designers also took some queues from the infamous GTA series, and made Web of Shadows completely open-ended. While there’s a distinct story line to follow, there are also side missions that pop up on your mini-map. The side missions, from what I saw, were the typical superhero fair, grandma needs saving, bank robbers have to be stopped, yadda, yadda. These missions could definitely add some replay value to the game, but it all depends on how many side missions exist and how much they add to the story.
Web of Shadows is still in the pre-alpha stage, not all of the cut scenes are finished, and we experienced a few hiccups during the game play, but that will all change before launch. Unfortunately, the voice acting we heard was final, and from what I can tell the guy they have playing Spidey is a bit to enthusiastic and high pitched. But, if the game play can live up to what I saw for the full length of the story then the high pitched hero won’t bother me a bit. We’ll find out when the game launches this October.
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