Spider-Man 2

"Impressive Spidey, Very Impressive."

Spiderman 2 is a game that I had been having mixed thoughts about for quite some time. After playing the disappointing Spiderman: The Movie and discovering that this game would be made by the same company, I was rather reluctant. However, I read the previews and watched all the gameplay movies that I could, and STILL....I was reluctant. The game looked alright, but then again, I can say the same thing about many previews and videos about games that have soo disappointed in my past.

However, after seeing some poster video's, I decided that I would take the risk and put down the money for the game (heck, at these Canadian prices, I was certainly taking a risk), on the other hand, it wouldn't be the first time I had done something really stupid and wasted money on *cough*True Crime*cough*. So, when the game came out a few days ago and I swallowed my courage (along with a rather expensive price tag *gulp*) and grabbed the game...crossed my fingers coming home and after I put it in my PS2, well, I havn't looked back.

GAMEPLAY: 9/10

All I can say is WOW, what fun! Ok, ok, I guess I should expand upon that a little more then I have. So first of all I guess I should break it down to the most important aspect (at least in my mind), the GTA style free roaming.

I am sure by now that all of you have heard how this game is like GTA, well...yes and no. Yes that you can literally go around the entire city of New York (at least most of it since I have never been there) at your own free will and do missions as you please, which I must say is totally sweet. I have to say no however because you can't do *whatever* you want, because....well....your Spiderman! Your a good guy! I have read questions about people asking if you can beat up random people, steal cars, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda. Anyone with half a brain (hopefully) will realise that these questions are rather silly, but I'm here to say that no, the only real interactions you have with the general populace takes place in a variety (albeit small variety) of hero side missions.

These missions take the form of either save the kids balloon, help the falling/sinking person on the roof/boat or beat up the bad guys (which takes a variety of forms, although they always end up beating the bad guy up no matter how they mask it). Fortunately, unlike some other rather uninspired game *cough*TC*cough* I have yet to find doing any of these missions overly repetitive, and as a matter of fact, most of my gameplay time so far (some 15 hours) has been composed of helping the citizens and sorting out the thugs of the fair city of New York.

"But really...." you're about to say, well, I know, I know, these "vigilante" style missions have been done before and if you are anything like me, they got EXTREMELY boring after only a little bit. Yes, I too remember pulling over my car to a skid and then jumping out and either *true aiming* or *true diving* these crooks to their foul end, and then doing it again...and again....and ugh....shoot ME...please!

Fortunately, Spidermans HUGE variety of moves and combo's gives you (at least me) an unlimited (or at least large) amount of replayability. I find I forget most of the combo's I have gained so I end up trying and retrying each combo just to see the cool moves Spidey can pull off, and yes, they ARE cool. Of course, you could probably just keep hitting the attack button and beating the thugs but really....whats the fun in that!

Now now, I digress! WHAT ABOUT THE SWINGING!! TELL ME!!! TELL ME!! Ok ok ok, hold your horses. Having never swung myself (except for a terrifying 10ft drop off the side of a cliff once when I slipped and left brown stains on my shorts....eerrr...I mean....) I wasn't sure of what to expect. Well, let me tell you, if you think it looks fun, then you sir (or madamn) are indeed correct! If you don't think it looks fun, then I think you need to try it for yourself, because it's TONS of fun!!! FUN I SAY!! Web swinging is as simple as the press of a button and for me, has yet to get old...even after hours, and hours and...yeah yeah, you get the point. If you wish to take your time and swing leisurely around the city, you are free to do so. Wish to do it a little faster, just prime your jumping ability and hit turbo on your downswing and you can speed up greatly, literally ripping around the city, running along the walls of buildings (sweet!!) and even "catapulting" yourself around (which I think is a little false, more like giving yourself a forward boost). All in all, good times...no no no....GREAT times. Yeah, thats it.

As for the upgrades, pretty cool stuff. You have your normal webswinging upgrades such as swing faster, run along walls longer and some nifty acrobatic moves which are indeed cool, but friends, let me tell you, the combo's are where it's at. You can get a huge variety of combo's, more then I can remember off the top of my head to be honest. The early combo's allow you to get off some cool hits, extra hits in midair, web slinging around enemies, etc, but the later combo's are even cooler. What I was REALLY impressed with was being able to sling your enemies against the lightpost, REALLY good, and it looks seamless as her does it too, who knew pressing four buttons could produce such cool effects.

Not only do you have all of that fun, but if you ever get bored or saving people and beating up thugs, you also have various tokens to collect and races to complete. "What do they do?" you might ask? Well, honestly your guess it as good as mine, but they are always something extra to do that never needed to be added, which I think is ALWAYS a nice touch.

Anyways, the gameplay in my opinion is awesome. You might be asking; "If it's awesome, then why not 10/10?" Well, simply because 10/10 means perfection, and although I would hope all games strive towards it, I think it's an unobtainable goal...too bad I'm not witty enough at 1:30am to give a good example of an unobtainable goal for me...hhhmmm. Anyways, INCREDIBLE gameplay none the less.

By the way, for a really good time, climb to the top of the Empire State Building and jump off...WOW.

STORYLINE: 7/10

Ok, first of all, I'm going to be honest. I havn't played through much of the storyline so far (saving myself for the movie this weekend doncha know) but really, the missions and story I find are slightly irritating and at times even frustrating. Obviously there wouldn't have been enough gameplay if it only followed the movie so you get a variety of other baddies (Rhino, Mysterio, Shocker so I have heard) and allies (the INCREDIBLY busty Black Cat....DOWN BOY *smack* ouch... *cough*Where was I?). Anyways, some of the missions are irritating (Mysterio in particular so far, but like I said, I'm not very far) but not enough to make me stop playing the game, they just slightly pale in comparison to the rest of the game.

I'm sure most of you (if not all of you) will be seeing the movie of Spiderman 2, so really, I don't think I need to explain the storyline to you. The addition of other villains is cool and fun, but really, not completely impressive.

GRAPHICS: 9/10, 6/10 and 8/10

Ok, the reason I give two different ratings is because of the few different situations.

First off all, as Spiderman the graphics are pretty good, he looks pretty good with fairly decent textures and animates rather well, same with the other villains as well, they look pretty nice. 9/10

On the other hand, you have Peter Parker, Mary Jane Watson, J. Jonah Jameson, Harry Osborne, the general populace of New York....the list could go on....egad! The textures look rather poor and for the most part, their mouths don't even animate! Peter and Mary Jane look (and animate) especially poorly, so much at times my eyes kind of want to bleed....but they don't...because I still want to play the game. However, I don't find it much of a detractor from the game, so those brief (and YES, I do mean BRIEF) periods of time with those graphics are pretty few and far between...unless you went through the storyline ASAP, then you might find it irritating. 6/10

However, this is where the 9/10 comes into play once again. The pedestrians don't look very good, more like 3D characters from a PSX game or medieval PC game, however, the fact that the city is SOOO expansive and the amount of them on screen at any point in time along with the cars and buildings, etc etc etc WITHOUT ANY loading what so ever, WOW! VERY IMPRESSIVE!!! When I played GTA 3:VC (great game btw) I grew tired but accepted the loading screen between each island, it was just a fact of life, however, now I can go through the WHOLE (or most of) New York with NO loading at all (possibly a brief load between missions and civilian assistance, I call that an incredible feat, especially on the PS2.

Time and time again I play PS2 games *cough*Splinter Cell: PT*cough* where you have these gorgeous graphics and loading points every 1.5 mins or Samurai Warriors with insane popup (enemies appearing out of nowhere) I kind of begin to expect it with every PS2 game. "Sure." I thought, the XBOX would have a huge city with no loading and great graphics where as I (who am stuck with a PS2) would get on par graphics, loading every few mins and terrible popup. Not so my friends! Yes, the graphics are on par (and yes, at times even sub par) but the fact that there is NO LOADING WHATSOEVER and minimal popup (at least if there is I havn't noticed it, nothing in this game had "poped up" and *POWED* me out of nowhere) makes it THAT much better in my eyes, which with everything going on at once makes for an awesome graphical experience and allows me to completely overlook the bland car models and poor pedestrian models. 8/10

AUDIO: 8/10

I keep hearing people complaining about the audio of the game, especially the voices. Really, I don't see what the big deal is. Granted, at most times there is very little music playing, although I find that a benefit when your roaming the city, it's cool to hear the wind *WHOOSH* by as you swing by really quickly and it helps to hear the cries of the city in need of your assistance.

The voices however are a tad uninspired, some of the pedestrians do seem to talk from a can and seem less enthusiastic then they could be...and my oh my...the cries of kids who have lost their balloon....if only I could use some of Spideys webbing on their whiny mouths. Also, some of the character voices are less then great as well, particularly Mary Jane Watson, I find everyone else to be tolerable, or at times pretty darn good (Doc Ock).

And then it comes to my hero (well....not REALLY my *hero*, but you get the picture), Bruce Campbell. He does the voices for the hint tokens (and other things) and if you have read other reviews, yes, he does improvise. He easily has the BEST voice over of the game, even if it is for such a minor role. My hat off to him, and here's hoping for another (and even more fun??) Evil Dead game for the PS2.

When combining the mediocre voices of the city and characters as well as that of Mr. Campbell, it turns out to be a pretty good overall experience...which could only be improved if they turned down the volume a tick on those bratty kids who keeps losing their darned balloons (I think Spiderman should be able to make it so with each balloon sold, you also get free super glue, that would teach them. 8/10

CONTROLS: 9/10

Yet another excellent example of superb controls and having the designers really know just where to put the buttons to maximize efficiency. All the buttons are appropriately placed and respond excellently to everything I press, and I have yet to feel any sort of delay. Also, you can fully control the camera with the right analog stick for some pretty cool angles. No troubles here. If I could, I would give them a 10/10, but like I already said, thats unobtainable....at least for me.

REPLAY VALUE: 8/10

I guess this is also something I would want to break into two parts. The general game play aspect of helping with the random crimes and web slinging is awesome, like I have said many times before, thats what I have spent MOST of my time doing so far. Personally, I don't think I'll ever get tired of doing that but who knows, I might be wrong. For me, thats a 9/10 so far.

As for the storyline aspect of the game, like I also already said, I found some of them irritating and even frustrating at times, so I am not so sure if I would really want to go through with them again, I guess I will have to see once I play through the main storyline a little more. At the moment though 6/10.

However, the overall experience and fun time of Spiderman 2 is right at your fingertips and instantly accessible, something I don't think I will be putting down for a long time, hence the overall replay value of 8/10.

RENT OR BUY: BUY

Honestly, there is just soo much stuff to do in the game that it would NOT be possible to complete it all with a single rental (or perhaps even multiple). If you simply wanted to play through the storyline and then toss the game, sure a single rent would be fine for you.

For the rest of the crowd who wishes to enjoy their experience and swing at their own accord and collect everything they can, it will take a LONG time (at least by my standards, so a purchase might be best for you.

Overall, if the have the cash to spare, I say it's definitely a buy for any action fan out and and a MUST HAVE for any Spiderman fan. You CANNOT call yourself a fan and not like this game...it would be pure insanity!

I must warn however, in Canada at least the game is pretty pricey, so if you can afford it, then yes, definitely spend the money, however, IF you are even a little leery, then I suggest a rental just in case. It sucks spending a lot of money on a game only to realise you don't like it (although almost everyone did) and then only receiving a fraction of the cost back.... *GGGGGRRRRRRRRRR*

OVERALL: 9/10

GAMEPLAY: 9/10
STORYLINE: 7/10
GRAPHICS: 8/10
AUDIO: 8/10
CONTROLS: 9/10
REPLAY: 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/01/04