Spider-Man 2

"Thugs, they wanna have fu-un. Oh thugs just wanna have..."

Okay, let me have a moment, get it out of my system. If I don't, this review will be falling faster than a lot of things that fall really fast. Like heavy objects (or like mechs). Just one moment, and then keep reading.

Spider pig, spider pig, does whatever a spider pig does.

Okay, thanks. I feel better about myself.

Movie game...huh, it's going to suck. Hey, let's slow down, now, I don't want to jump to any conclusions. Just because it's a movie game doesn't mean...oh, it's a launch title, too. Oh, God. No, you know what that smell is? It's Spider-Man 2 for the DS. Or maybe we rolled over a skunk, I'm not sure. Well, it's a 2D platformer, if that makes you feel better. Spider-Man, thy name is pain!

When you tell me that a game is a mediocre movie game, Spider-Man 2 is the blueprint of that very image. Sure, the graphics are decent, and the sound is good...and it's a few hours long, and the plot is kind of boring, and the combat is broken, and the controls are useless, and it's just Not Fun. Hey, when you say that the game is just Not Fun then it's time to just jump off the I'm-too-cool-for-a-good-game subway and find some other medium to relish in your spandex fetishes. So where do I get off?

I'll be the first to admit it, however reluctantly; the presentation of this game is hands-down amazing and well made. The graphics are clean and smooth, especially Spider-Man himself; the animation is excellent and it all holds up extremely well for being a launch title from three years ago. The Viewtiful Joe-like 3D backgrounds are well detailed and fun to look at, and it's all colorful and perfect for the DS.

Not only this, but the sound is decent as well. The voice-overs sound like real idiotic thigs trying to kill you with a baseball bat, the music is alright and the sound effects actually have context. Might as well crank your speakers up at that point; you aren't going to be doing much else with your mind other than concentrating on what Thug #34 has to say when you hit him for the tenth time.

So then when does the game get Not Fun? Well, it starts with the story, which is a disgrace. Now, I have embarked into the Spider-Man movies without much context and enjoyed them, but I can't stand that "With great power comes great responsibility" stuff. The problem is the game seems to want to use the line every ten feet that Spider-Man walks, which just makes me want to turn it off exclusively for that, not that I'd be missing much. I mean, I understand when a character has emotional baggage, but don't use it to shove our face in the yellow snow. I've got better things to do with my life than watch a poorly animated FMV sequence of a movie I already saw (which is only used in the game once, to the developer's great shame).

In fact you'd be better off getting mad at the failing moral teachings so that you won't get to the rest of it all. The actual plot is portrayed through boring text bubbles and shots of Spider-Man in some odd pose as he ponders his words. The real issue is the movie this game is based on has a GREAT story, but it's just not made for video games. So they decided to add three movie evil supervillians to the whole mess, and then Spider-Man turns green and huge and starts tearing down San Fransisco (Well, I wish, anyway; don't deny me my comic-book-based-movie fantasies).

So then the plot sucks, but you can skip that with enough presses of a button and looking away in futile censorship. What else adds to the level of "Not Fun" does this game contain? There are a few issues with the gameplay, these being: poor controls, awkward and too-big level design, stupid but tough thugs, and putting all that on a timer. WHO WANTS NEXT?

The controls are made for people with four thumbs. I'll come out and say this: Spider-Man runs much too slow, and his button combos and layout is just simply crap. Unlike most games where it feels intuitive after a level or two, Spider-Man just doesn't...want...to...get...off...the...ceiling...no matter how many times I press the buttons. What normally happens when I press the punch button: Spider-Man spazzes out and uses his zip cord web to jump away, or he does some sort of jig or dance I can't understand, because my mind isn't spider-ish enough. That's fine and dandy, except that I'm usually going right into some sort of fire or it's slowing me down.

Now, when there is a fire in a building, I expect to see people flailing and trying to get out. I expect to see fire and smoke and broken pathways. I do NOT expect to see a gang of thugs who just decided that they want to sacrifice themselves to the fire in some odd thuggish ritual, so they will attack you if you happen to want to save somebody. When I do see about ten thugs--who happen to be annoyingly hard to beat down--in the middle of a burning down building, I just stop understanding and try and cope with something a little more reasonable, like why peanut butter takes so good with jelly.

And those thugs are not at all fun to fight, because they simply will not die. Considering that the game is on a timer and if I don't go fast enough I will explode spontaneously (pizza delivery is intense work), the thugs take a little too much kicking and punching time to take down, especially when they fall over. It feels uproariously unbalanced and unfair, and, yes, Not Fun. With the ease that he dispatches his foes in the movie, Spider-Man sure has difficulty with a few pieces of trailer trash.

Besides this, the level design is boring and dull, mostly being large pathways of various levels that Spider-Man can climb. But more often than not, you have to find a gang of thugs and beat them down, and they are scattered across the level in seemingly random spots. You'll be searching frantically for that last thug for a while, with all the surfaces and corner-backs and shoddy layout of the cities. I'd like to meet these thugs and their bosses in a nice dark alley. With a baseball bat. In my hand, of course.

And of course, half the game is on a timer. You know, timers can make 2D games tense and exciting; we saw that in Metroid Fusion a few times where it was done with skill. But Spider-Man 2 likes to taunt us and give us a measly five minutes to navigate all the problems I've mentioned above. This makes the game itself Not Fun at all, even further down the rabbit hole. Besides, the game is like four hours, if you can hold your bubbling and frothing boredom for that long.

Take everything said so far and make a game based on torturing the buyer into submission? It's like a nail on a chalkboard, where every enemy is a new bee-sting. And so, the game is Not Fun, and when a game is Not Fun then it's a bad game and not worth your money. Movie games, oh how do you pain me so. I think I will hold out for the Spider Pig game (oh, God, I did it again, so close).

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 08/10/07