Spider-Man 2

"Not nearly as good as the movie!"

Spider-Man 2 was a perfectly decent movie. The Game Cube version of the game was half-decent, but it failed in the story section, with the inclusion of Mysterio, Rhino, Shocker, and Black Cat. The DS version, however, completely failed to deliver fun. Nearly every mission was timed, graphics were ugly and non-exciting, and the game outright flunked.

STORY

The story of this game was the same as the movie. Spidey has to balance meeting Aunt May, seeing MJ, and fighting whatever scientist has been mutated by their life's work gone horribly wrong. This time around, it happens to be Dr. Otto Octavious, a.k.a. Doctor Octopus, a.k.a. a.k.a. Doc Ock. Watch the movie if you want the details. Story-10/10

GRAPHICS

Ick. Like Incredibles: Revenge of the Underminer, the actual people are 2-D, but the background is 3-D. They also got some weird thing where if you turn a corner, the environment turns too. It's creepy, watching the world turn while your character keeps going forward. I think the N64 could have handled the graphics on this game. Graphics-4/10

SOUND

With every "whitz" of your web and every grunt of the thugs as you lay on the hurt, the sound of this game is surprisingly half-decent. There isn't a lot of sound, but it's enough for a good review. Sound-6.99/10

GAMEPLAY

Here's the biggest reason for this game's low score. The gameplay of this game is truly awful. Most missions are timed, most of them are "find so-and-so and do such-and-such to him." these missions are usually finding about 25 thugs and beating them up, or finding somewhere around 10 people in a burning building. Time ranges from about 6 minutes to about 15 minutes. Boss fights are unusual, as I can't figure out what to do. The touch screen is almost never used in this game, except to get an FPS look at the bosses or to activate a "special move." Gameplay-2/10

DIFFICULTY

Extremely hard. I can't figure out the boss fights, the game doesn't give you enough time to find everything, and the people I'm supposed to find are so well hidden, it will take you at least four tries to finish. By the way, the score is about how much fun the difficulty delivers. Difficulty-2/10

BUY OR RENT

If you want to, rent it. If possible, don't buy it. If your stuck with it, try to sell it. If you are a Marvel nut and own everything Spider-Man, you might actually like it, but the rest of you won't.

OVERVIEW

For the overview, I will say my score, as well as last-minute thoughts by my part.

Story-10/10-Top notch. Good job Stan Lee!
Graphics-4/10-Horrible. Will hurt your eyes after...wait...it hurts your eyes the minute you turn the DS on.
Sound-6.99/10-Sort of cool, in a "GET THE FOLEY ARTISTS OVER HERE ON THE DOUBLE!" sort of way.
Gameplay-2/10-Would somebody get waste control out here? I just threw my DS across the room and my battery pack broke open, so now I have chemicals all over me.
Difficulty-2/10-Too hard. Needs easier levels and more time to get stuff.
Buy or Rent-Neither.

The End

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/06