Ultimate Spider-Man

"Ultimate Spider-Man. A great start for a new franchis."

Ultimate Spider-Man is a new telling of the one of the most loved comic book characters of all time. This is a different universe from the one we all know and love, and is told as it's own entity. There is no connection to any of the previous Spider-Man titles, and uses the same basic characters but with a fresh new spin on origins, relationships, the general telling of the tales. They have tried to update the characters to a more modern starting point and kick it all off with a young 15 year old Peter Parker just getting his powers.

The game has utilized the same team that does the comic of Bendis, Bagley, and Hanna, to write the story and create the same visual style for the game. The story in the game starts out by covering the events that transpire from Issue 33 (the first appearance of Ultimate Eddie Brock) to Issue 37. And you actually start the game by playing the entirety of Issue 38 ( the conclusion of the Ultimate Venom first appearance). If you are planning on reading these issues then the game will definitely spoil them for you.

on to the goods;

GAMEPLAY: 9/10

Treyarch has once again done a great job at placing you into the tights of Spider-Man without the rash of actually having to wear them. The swing mechanics are great once again. They have just about completely redone the control configuration, and tweeked the control to remove a lot of the downfalls of the previous game.

You no longer need to be constantly holding the jump button while swinging, letting the jump button be used to jump and not to gain swing momentum and height. The false start has been fixed. Now when you start from the ground you only need to press the R web swing button, and you will automatically gain the necessary height to attain lift off, again no need to hold the jump button. The Jump button (A) has been given a handy double jump function. Now you have the ability to jump after any jump, swing release, Web-zip (R + L), wallcrawl, etc.

The Jump and the double jump are also duration sensitive, so the longer you hold each jump, the higher and farther you go. The X button is now the momentum boost button which when used at the bottom to end of your swing arc will speed you up. The new addition to the control is the Y climb button. When you hold this down you will climb your web to gain height. When used in conjunction with the X button you can gain significant speed and height is a very short period of time.

They have done away with the speed warp from the last game so initially the sense of speed seems diminished. Once you max out your swing speed though, they are the same.They did a great job to significantly add to the web swinging portion of the game once you learn the intricacies of the control.

The Combat has been changed as well. They have gotten rid of the ability to purchase combat upgrades and gotten rid of a lot of the extra combat options from the last game. This can be viewed as both a good and a bad thing. You really need to bounce around from bad guy to bad guy to dish out the most effective whooping. You can swap targets rapidly, quelling a group of guys and keeping them away from you. You are also able to attack from the air and swap targets this way as well. The spider-sense is now linked to the jump button and takes some getting used to. It's not bad, but it's not great. Hopefully they somehow utilize a Jump and a dodge button for the next game. This is a young and inexperienced Spider-Man so he doesn't have all the cool moves from the last game. From a continuity point of view I can get this, but I think they need to give us more combat options for the next game.

The wall crawling is an issue in this game. The orientation is just plain out to lunch and can get rather frustrating later on it the game. This isn't a huge issue for the most part until you start doing Insane level challenge races. I noticed it was a bit funky early on but nothing major until you are required to do things very quickly, and every 1/10 of a second matters. For whatever reason you will continue along the same direction on some objects even after you stop and try pushing a different way. This happened on the spires and water towers the most noticeably. Again not a major issue but frustrating none the less when going for the tougher race medals.

They may have used the engine from Spider-Man 2, but these are two totally different games control wise. You will need to relearn what you thought you knew. This is it's own game, and will need to be mastered all over again.
You also get to be Venom in this game. He is controlled a bit different from Spidey. You cannot webswing with him but you are given a kind of Hulk like super leap with the R button. You can also use a tentacle zip the same way Spider-Man can web zip, but you do not get the double jump function with Venom. He is the destructive, smash stuff and be a bad guy portion of the game. He becomes unlockable to freely swap to at the end of the game, and takes up about 2/3 of the story.

STORY: 9/10 7/10

If you enjoy the Ultimate Spider-Man comic book series, then you will enjoy the story. The story clips along pretty fast and if you rush it, it is pretty short. The average gamer doing nothing but the required elements will finish in about 4-5 hours. If you take your time and explore the city, webswinging and doing random city events, races, and combat tours You should likely swing around 8-10 hours (as I did). As with most free roaming games, there is a lot to keep one busy if they so choose, but no one is going to force you to do it. The Comic book style of story telling for the game suits Spider-Man perfectly, and it is a joy to watch it unfold before you. It is a story of boss chases and fights that perhaps relies to much on the gamer to be Spider-Man in the city, and do more than just the required events to push the story on. I liked it but I know some definitely did not.. The game is about the same length as Spiderman 2, giving you token hunts, races/challenges, City events, and combat tours to fill out the remainder. I give the story a 9/10 but i give the length a 7/10.

GRAPHICS / SOUND: 7/10 6/10

The Comic book style looks great. It is crisp, clean and beachwood aged (no wait, scrap that last part). There is pop up when looking out that is hard to miss and the graphics can look pretty shoddy when you are on the top of a tall building looking out at the city. Has a great close up look to it, but suffers at a distance. They did a good job of re-creating Manhattan Island and the addition of queens is also nice. They have scaled down the city bit though. It is not tiny by any means, but it is definitely smaller, and lets you cross the city a lot quicker than before. This isn't a totally bad thing.

The sound is good, but for me it suffers from the annoying soundtrack that plays in the background. Just not my bag of tea, others may like it. I just turn the music sound down and deal. Would it kill them to have a user soundtrack option. Everyone's taste can greatly differ when it comes to music, let us choose or have something decent.

PLAYTIME / REPLAY: 6/10 + 9/10

Your initial play time can be pretty short if you do nothing but the required story elements and are done with it. But then again if that's all you want then why are you buying a free-roaming game? If you are into all the other goodies as I am, you can rack up a lot of hours playing the game. I have clocked 50+ so there is a lot to do if you so choose. The addition of unlockable costumes 6 including the regular Spider-Man get up is certainly a plus. and they are not ridiculous and out in left field hard to attain. You are able to switch to Venom at will and cause havoc throughout the city once the story has been completed. So go on and smash it up.

RECOMMEND: yes, but...

Again I will use Spider-Man 2 as a comparison in this regard, If you didn't like that game in it's entirety then this game isn't for you. Always rent a game first is the rule of thumb. I don't often follow this rule, so when I get burnt by over-hyping a game or deluding myself as to what I'm getting into, then I have only myself to blame. I will recommend this game because I love playing the game, and at 50 hours it has kept me interested in completing it all with a lot less stress from control issues. This game is just a lot of fun to me.

OVERALL 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/10/05