SPIDER-MAN 2 Game Preview

By: James Stevenson
Date: Monday, June 21, 2004

Sitting on a United Airlines flight on the way back from an Activision event, I'm watching/listening to the new Dashboard Confessional music video, Vidnicated, the big song to come out of the new feature film, SPIDER-MAN 2. The event in San Francisco gave the press a chance to demo the console SPIDER-MAN 2 game, as Activision has been unable to provide preview copies due to strict embargoes by Sony Pictures.

The first thing we noticed in the demo is the large-scale of Manhattan. The team has completely recreated the island from the Empire State Building to the columns of light at the World Trade Center site to the Statue of Liberty. The massive city will remind gamers of GRAND THEFT AUTO. This first glance brings some concern, as with the massive scale on the city, not much time was spent polishing the city -- and there was some noticeable pop-up (particularly on the PlayStation 2 build of the

A screenshot from SPIDER-MAN 2.

game).

These concerns were quickly forgotten though as the new web-slinging system was shown. While in the first game webs didn't attach to anything, they do in this game, and a full physics system as been built around swinging. Spider-Man has a jump meter that allows for different height jumps, and while jumping you can activate a web that will sling you along.

The controls are picked up quickly, with a shoulder trigger controlling the shooting of a web and the A button breaking the web and jumping Spider-Man away from it. It was even possible to shoot a second web while still having one, stabilizing Spider-Man in mid air.

The game's mission structure is similar to GRAND THEFT AUTO. There are also plenty of side quests in the game as well. For instance, help icons adorn the city and each gives the gamer a tidbit. These tidbits are narrated and hammed up by man-God Bruce Campbell, so the game has a huge incentive to go search the city out. Spidey can also take on photo missions for the Daily Bugle, deliver pizza, meet up with Mary Jane, and help random people on the street. All of these objectives are shown on a map that is merely the camera moved up into the sky (a cool effect to see all of Manhattan). There are also random missions that occur during the game, such as a purse snatching or in a more humorous vein, a child losing a balloon that floats up into the sky making Spidey go chase it.

One very cool area in the game is the Statue of Liberty. Only accessible by attaching a web to a helicopter and riding over, Lady Liberty can be scaled by our hero for a cool view of New York City. There are plenty of other incentives to scale buildings as there are skyscraping points that dot the skies. This is easily accomplishable as Spidey can climb up

The webbed wonder takes on street criminals in this screenshot from SPIDER-MAN 2.

walls.

As the gamer completes objectives and finds bonuses, hero points are earned. These are used to get some of Spider-Man's signature moves. Some of these help Spidey get around better, others are combat moves. During the game, we saw enemies being grabbed and whipped around, hung from traffic lines, and thrown up into the air where they can be more effectively dealt with.

Car chases are also going to play a role -- but Spider won't be pulling any GTA-style car-jackings. Instead, web slinging along and then jumping down on top of the car. At this point, disabling the car is key, but the bad guys will be shooting at Spidey, requiring using spidey-sense to get out of the way.

Spidey-sense slows the game down into a bullet-time type effect allowing Spider-man to dodge bullets and enemy attacks as well as kick some serious ass. This is a limited resource that recharges over time and also gets boosted as you earn hero points.

Finally, the

A screenshot from Activision's PlayStation 2 version of SPIDER-MAN 2.

game's story hasn't been shed too much light on (as it follows the movie) -- but expect several other Spider-Man villains such as the Shocker to show up. We were shown this battle and it took place is a big room with a lot of electrical blasts and seemed to be fairly intense.

All-in-all, it seems that SPIDER-MAN 2 has come together quite well. Just watching a developer swinging through the city made us want to play the game even more, and when we finally did, a half-hour of swinging through New York flew by. Just the side-quests and physics engine alone is enough to impress, and we haven't even seen much story mode yet. It seems Activision is about to bat two-for-two this summer with SHREK 2 and now SPIDER-MAN 2. Definitely don't let this game's visual blemishes turn you off -- it's a lot of fun to play, and that's all that matters.

We'll be playing this same final version of the game at greater length sometime this week (hopefully) and will have a review as soon as possible given the situation with Sony Pictures embargoes and secrecy on the film.

Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think at feedback@cinescape.com.

SPIDER-MAN 2 Game Preview

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