A free roaming Spider-Man game is bound to be alot of
fun, even if it has horrible voice acting and repetitive missions it must be FUN
right?
Yeah, don't get me wrong, swinging from buliding to building and
beating bad guys as Spider-Man is probably the most fun I've had in a
game since doing it in Spider-Man 1.
The game is set in a big New York where you can roam freely
with few strings attached (pun intended). Activision really did look
at the big picture when they produced this game... Sadly though, they
forgot about the little picture.
Spider-Man 2's selling point is the free roaming of course. And believe
me it works out great. The web swinging is different this time as you
are more in control of spidey's web swinging.
In the previous games you would just push R2 and you'd swing, it didnt
make much sense seeing spidey attach his web to thin air. But now you
need to aim towards a bulding or something else solid to be able to
swing. You must also cut your web and continue on the next one, as this
is not done "automatically" like in the previous spidey games.
The game follows the story of the movie, but it's rather loose and many
parts are altered for the worse. Luckily the presence of other villans
like Mysterio and Shocker sort of balance it out. The appearance of
Black Cat makes the game a whole lot better story-wise.
The game is split into "chapters", in each chapter you get a "to do" list.
Such a list consists of certain tasks or goals you need to achieve to
get to the next chapter. The game has a total of 15 chapter's before
it's beat. Which is about 7-8 hours of gameplay. When not following the
story and doing it's related missions, you can complete various
missions you get by the citizens of New York. These missions vary from
small things like retrieving a lost balloon or stopping a bank heist. (ironically retrieving the balloon can be pretty hard, due to dodgy camera handling)
Even though the citizens can be pretty shabby looking and have dreadful voice acting, they really contribute to giving New York alot
of life as they point and wave while you swing by.
Sadly there arent many of these missions and the variation between them
can be pretty small. And after a while they get pretty boring.
By completing missions you get hero points, if you get enough you can
buy combat or web swing upgrades which may and will come in handy later
on.
The game's sound in general is actually not bad. The music is very
spider-man-esque and different tracks are played to set different moods
depending on the current situation.
The voice acting is very varied. The voices of spidey, octavious and
mary-jane sound just like in the movie. Listening to spidey monologing
after a mission as you swing to your next destination is a great part
of the game and helps make spidey more life and more of a person.
Voices of the citizens of New York are what vary. Some of it sounds
absolutely horrible and you cant help but wonder if they had a "bring
your kid to work day" and let a 5 year old direct the voice acting. A
citizen who is in great pain and needs to get to the hospital "screams"
in a monotonous voice. It's just laughable.
Many parts of the game are something that should have been worked on.
It is probably one of the most varied games i've ever played quality
wise. It's like two different teams worked on it. A good team and an
utterly bad team. I guess you can say that the higher up in the city
you get the better it looks.
The games graphics look good on spidey and other important characters.
When you swing fast you get a kind of tunnel vision as seen on games
such as NFSU.
Spidey can swing and fall pretty fast without the framerate suffering.
Pedestrians and citizens look pretty bad though and could compare to such as a good N64 game. Luckily they are varied in looks.
The game is utmost enjoyable but there are some notable glitches that
arent easy to ignore. Some of the boss fights are also very difficult
and i've never been so frustrated since Stuntman.
If you wanna do whatever a spidey can. Get the game, it's ALOT of fun,
throwing ragdolled thugs off buliding just might be my new hobby.
If you want a technically good game, you might want to reconsider unless you're a fan.
