Month Overview: July 2017

 Tally:
Spider-man 2(PS2) 7.0
Shadow Hearts - From the New World 8.0
Ultimate Spider-man(GBA) 8.0
Ultimate Spider-man(DS) 5.5
Ultimate Spider-man(PS2) 8.0
Spider-man - Battle for New York(GBA) 5.5
Tekken 4 8.0
Spider-man - Battle for New York(DS) 2.0
Spider-man 3(GBA) 8.0
Spider-man 3(DS) 3.0
Spider-man 3(PS2) 6.0
Spider-man 3(PS3) 5.0
Spider-man Friend or Foe(DS) 4.5
Spider-man Friend or Foe(PS2) 6.0
Spider-man Web of Shadows Amazing Allies Edition(PS2) 6.0
Spider-man Web of Shadows(PS3) 8.5
Spider-man Web of Shadows(DS) 7.0
Spider-man Shattered Dimensions(PS3) 7.0
Spider-man Shattered Dimensions(DS) 7.5
Spider-man Edge of Time(DS) 2.0
Spider-man Edge of Time(PS3) 6.0
The Amazing Spider-man(DS) 4.5
The Amazing Spider-man 2(3DS) 5.5
The Amazing Spider-man(PS3) 6.0
Spider-man 2(PSP) 6.5
Spider-man 3(PC) 3.5
The Amazing Spider-man 2(PS3) 5.0
Spider-man Web of Shadows(Wii) 7.0
Ed, Edd n Eddy - The Mis-Edventures 5.0

 That's a LOT of Spider-man games! Sadly, the Spider-man videogame franchise has a lot of terrible, terrible games. But I got through the bad, the mediocre, the good and the great. I can't understand how I played SO many games in one month, but it's probably due to the fact that these were pretty short games, most of them anyways.

 Game of July:

 The best Spider-man game of the bunch. It's so good it's not even funny. It's a shame that it had so many QTEs which really put a dent into how much I enjoyed the game. With Web of Shadows, Treyarch finally perfected both swinging and combat mechanics and thanks to that, it just doesn't get old. This is the golden standard for Spider-man games, forget about Spider-man 2.

 Runner-up:

 Outdated? Completely. But I've still got a soft spot for the black ship of the series, the Tekken that dared to be different. I still enjoy the character and level designs from this game, although the now-shortened movesets do hurt my muscle memory from future games a bit.

Review #441: Ed, Edd n Eddy - The Mis-Edventures

 Fell short of Edspectations.

 Ed, Edd n Eddy was one of Cartoon Network's final great cartoons before falling into its dark age. It had an original wavy hand-drawn look that made it stand out from the rest. Lo and behold, Midway went ahead and published a game based on the franchise.

 True to the series itself, what the Eds want are jawbreakers, and thus they set out on six different chapters(Called scams in the game) to get them. Each Scam features two animated scenes, one before you start it and another one after finishing it. These are true to the series' artstyle, but are crudely animated in what looks to be Flash, which is a bit disappointing. I'm pretty sure every voice actor from the series is in the game, but I can't confirm since I've only watched the Latin American dub. That said, every primary and secondary character from the show made it into the game, which is rather neat, and the graphics do a good job of bringing these characters into the 3-D realm. There're six short levels, as well as 2 unlockable bonus stages, but you'll be done with the game in a few hours.

 The game plays like an adventure-puzzle hybrid, you control one Ed at a time, but the other will follow close behind, and can swap Eds at will. Each Ed has unique abilities and a formation: Ed can lift and throw stuff and his formation makes all Eds frantically run forwards in order to break obstacles, Edd can shoot from afar with his slingshot and activate switches, his formation makes the other Eds give him a boost in order to jump higher. As for Eddy, he can shoot stink bombs(Pretty much useless) and has the Tower of Ed formation, in which all Eds climb atop each other, allowing you to grab stuff above you or cross through thin bridges.

 Puzzles are pretty easy to figure out, assuming the game doesn't tell you exactly what to do. Movement is pretty loose, but it works for the game. Each level has plenty of stuff to find: Easter Eggs(That allows for three mods(Big heads, Small heads or Astronaut costumes) and three unlockable short shorts.), Jawbreakers(Collect them all to earn cheats!) and costume pieces(Which doesn't actually grant you costumes but rather the two extra levels). Still, the game feels rather bland, there's the occasional stand-out segment, like a race against one of the kids, but the rest of the time you'll be repeating the same exact puzzles, albeit slightly reskinned. The thin-bridge being the worse, since the Tower of Ed collision detection is terrible.

 While I applauded the graphical presentation, the music is hideous to the ears, it gets really old, really fast. And a rather minor gripe, there's an overworld, the Cul-de-sac, but you can't tell which entrance leads to which level, so hopefully you can remember where you've been.

 Ed, Edd n Eddy - The Mis-Edventure is strictly for fans only. It's not horrible, but it's rather bland and somewhat uninspired. I can tell that there were good ideas implemented into the game, but they didn't make the most of them, instead resorting to the same puzzles over and over again. A few more polishing could've been appreciated, things like Edd's trampoline jump not always working quite right. Still, for what it is, it's passable.
 5.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Ed, Edd n Eddy - The Mis-Edventures

 And now, for something completely different...

 I didn't know about this game 'till recently when I somehow came across a 3-second gameplay clip, and I thought it looked kinda neat, so I bought it on impulse. I'm not the biggest Ed, Edd n Eddy fan, but something about the game's artstyle caught my eye, and here I am, two levels into the game.

 It's a mediocre puzzle-adventure game. It doesn't do anything particularly well, but it's not terrible either... well, except the music, that kinda stinks. I enjoy collecting actual Easter eggs though!

Review #440: Spider-man - Web of Shadows(Wii)

 Wii of Shadows. 'Cause this version falls beneath the PS3 version's shadow!

 First of all, this game is almost exactly the same as the PS3 version I wrote about a few weeks ago, so here I'll focus mostly on what is different, what is better and what is worse about the Wii version. Web of Shadows was the best Spider-man game in the entire Spider-manathon, and as great as it was, it had a few flaws that kept it from excellence. The Wii version, naturally, adds tacked-on motion controls(No Classic Controller alternative!) and, obviously, has downgraded graphics. It also adds costumes.

 First things first, the controls are a step down from the PS3 version. I understand that the Wii remote+Nunchuck combo can be a bit awkward, and you end up missing a few buttons, so having to resort to motion controls is understandable, and to be frank, it works pretty well: You flick the nunchuck side-ways to switch between red and black Spider-man, or you flick it upwards to target enemies. As for the Wii remote, you flick it sideways to perform the web-strike or upwards to swing. Web zipping is done by holding C and shaking the Wii Remote upwards. Most of the time the controls work well, but there's a ton of button combos to remember, so it'll take a bit of time for you to really get comfortable with Spider-man's entire moveset. The nunchuck is a bit too sensitive, so expect to be accidentally switching costumes all the time, either when trying to toggle targeting or simply because you had to scratch your head. This also extends to swinging, sometimes Spider-man will throw kicks in the air because the game thinks you want the web-strike. Basically, I think they did the best they could, but it's still a huge downgrade from the PS3 version, you simply can't trust the game to read all your inputs correctly, but it's quite tolerable because the game is so much fun, the combat is still really good, and the swinging, when you get it going right, is still a dream.

 The ally system is gone entirely, while moral choices are still there to be made, and the Black/Red points system still exists, you won't be calling in assistance from other characters. Instead, there're 6 unlockable costumes, 5 for Spider-man(Iron Spider, Spider-Armor, Ben Reily Spider-man, Spider-man 2099 and Captain Universe Spider-man) while Black Spider-man gets Spider-Carnage. You can't mix and match, so you can only equip one costume and one costume only, so it's either Red Spider-man/Spider-Carnage or (Other costume)/Black suit. It's a bit disappointing, having extra outfits for Spider-man shouldn't be too hard since most of them are simply different textures, and not being able to have Spider-Carnage and another suit on Red Spider-man seems like a missed opportunity. Look, I wasn't the biggest fan of the Ally system, and I'll always enjoy bonus content, but the tradeoff is.. meh, I don't think we lost something of value, but what we gained doesn't have much value either.

 The thing I hated the most about Web of Shadows were its QTEs, and boy, is the problem exacerbated when they require motion input! They were bad before, they are slightly worse now. And the framerate will suffer, a lot. It's not unplayable by any means, and luckily it's not much of an issue when battling, but rather when you reach high speeds while swinging. I also had the game freeze on me a couple of times, and I did some research and it seems I was not the only one. There were also a few silly glitches, like Spider-man crawling a wall on his back, which were quite common but don't really ruin the game.

 If for whatever reason you don't have access to the X360 or PS3 version of the game, the Wii version is just fine as a substitute, but do know that it's a gimped game. Most of the game's problems stem from the fact that its running on weaker hardware, and this port's main gimmick, the alternate outfits, are little more than an afterthought. Still, I don't need to play the other Wii ports of Spider-man games to know that this is the best Spider-man game available on the system, just as it is on the other consoles.
 7.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Spider-man - Web of Shadows(Wii)

 To conclude the Spider-manathon, we've got...

 It's been over 30 games already, and we're not done, not until Web of Shadows on the Wii. I was gonna play it right after going through the PS3 version, but I figured that it would burn me out to play almost the same exact game twice in a row, so, seeing how I liked it SO much, I decided to close the Spider-manathon with it. And it's true, I did leave out most downgraded ports because I figured they weren't worth the time, but, but this one has something the PS3 version doesn't have: Costumes, and I love me some costumes.

 I just played about 2 hours, collecting Spider-symbols(Up to 450 already!) and... for a downgraded port, it's pretty good. The motion controls  are decent, but I'm finding that every now and then it won't correctly register my swing inputs, or even my web-zip inputs. Also, controls are rather awkward, there're a lot of functions and different button combinations

 The good news is that the game is still Web of Shadows, and that's always a good thing.

Review #439: The Amazing Spider-man 2(PS3)

 The Mediocre Spider-man returns.

 The Amazing Spider-man was a pretty average game, it had flaws, but it also had a bunch o' good stuff going for it. Surely, Beenox would improve upon it, in order to deliver an even better product, right? Right?
...Not.

 Well, at least this is the last time I get to say this when it comes to Spider-man, so here it goes: The Amazing Spider-man 2 follows the plot from the movie of the same name. Kinda. A lot of changes were made, more than any other previous Spider-man movie tie-in games, to the point that Gwen Stacy was removed altogether. In her place we get new takes on popular villains: Cletus Cassidy, Kraven and Fisk join the movie versions of Green Goblin and Electro. As for the resulting quality of the script... it's pretty bad. Some things happen out of thin air, like Max Dillon turning into Electro, and the story as a whole is pretty underwhelming, with plenty of loose threads never to be resolved.

 This core gameplay remains the same, which is to say, a Batman Arkham City clone. The game features a sand-box style Manhattan for Spidey to explore before tackling his next objective. Petty crime missions will pop up at every single second, these come in various forms: Rescuing hostages, rescuing people from burning buildings, stopping criminals or stopping gun fights. But they have been made extra annoying this time around. There's a new Hero/Menace gauge, and if you ignore crime for too long the Hero gauge will fall into 'Menace', which means that police will eventually start hunting you down because you're doing nothing. How does that make any sense? This makes collecting stuff in the overworld a pain in the rear, since the gauge will be decreasing at an almost constant rate, unless you engage in side-activities. And not only are they repetitive, every time you decide to tackle on of these, you will have to go through time-wasting cut-scenes before and after you clear it. Why they did it this way is beyond me, since previous Spider-man games integrated these missions seamlessly into the game. And just for kicks, after certain missions the game will automatically put you in Menace level, because why not screw with the player and have him work some more through repetitive missions and have him sit through inane cut-scenes?

 It's not all bad though. Swinging has been tweaked, and while it's still not as good as Treyarch's offerings, they brought a new interesting idea to the table: L2 shoots web with the left arm, and R2 with the right one, which makes swinging fun in a new way. It's still a bit slow for my taste, but I like the ingenuity. On the other hand, stealth has been gimped a bit, you can no longer simply stealth-takedown an enemy from the roof, you have to press L3 in order to perch down through a web-line and get close enough. Double stealth-takedowns are gone as well. But while Stealth is not as useful as before, Spider-man has gotten more durable and can heal at any time by holding down on the D-Pad. It takes a while, but if you can get an opening you're good to go.

 Combat offers more possibilities now as well. Just like before, it takes after Batman Arkham series, so you just mash square to land blows, and triangle to dodge when signs light up over Spider-man's head. New abilities include the Seismic shot, after Spider-man steals Shocker's technology, which is used to tumble heavy foes and allow them to be hit, or to knock down common enemies for a quick take-down. Sometimes two enemies will attack at once, requiring a double tap on the dodge button two, there're new nimble enemies that must be brought down by pulling them towards you, and enemies on gliders that require a similar strategy. All these new enemies and tools make for much more exciting combat, there're new combat challenges if you enjoy it, and clearing all 12 unlocks Superior Spider-man's suit!

 Suits are more prominent in these game, and plentiful. Each suit can be leveled up independently from the others, and each one has different perks. For instance, Spider-man 2099 is better suited for combat thanks to the bonuses on combat damage and resistance, while Scarlet Spider is better suited for side activities, thanks to resistance to blades and fire, as well as increased Hero point rewards.

 Look, The Amazing Spider-man's loading times could get pretty long, but if you're playing the sequel on the Playstation 3, oh boy, get ready to wait. A lot. Loading times can get pretty terrible. So add up to the total waiting time, the game sure loves making the player wait, eh!

 I wish I could say that The Amazing Spider-man 2 is better than the previous game, but I can't. While the combat and the swinging are way better than before, the rest of the design choices are so... poor. The Hero/Menace system is a way to annoy the player and waste his time, as well as having the player endure the 'presentation' and 'result' cut-scenes before and after each side activity, breaking the overall flow of the game. As much as I love having a Superior Spider-man costume, as well as finally having tear and wear reflect on Scarlet Spider's costume.... I'd go with the previous game if I needed an Amazing Spider-man fix.
 5.0 out of 10

Review #438: Spider-man 2(PC)

 Where's your PC master race now?

 I don't know what possessed Activision at the time, but they decided that yet another version of Spider-man 2 was needed, but this time around, one for the kiddies. Yes, Spider-man 2 on the PC is a game for the little ones and as such, is probably one you'll want to avoid.

 You know the drill already, movie tie-in games equals a game that follows the plot from the movie of the same game, and, once again, you should know the drill by now, since it's a Spider-man movie tie-in game, new villains made it into the plot, villains like Rhyno, Puma(So this is where the 3D model used in the GBA version originated from!) and Mysterio. This version's probably the one that took the most liberties with the plot, while other games kept the Doc Ock storyline separate from the other new subplots, this Doc Ock is conspiring with the other villains nearly from the get go. It's also got new scenes, like Puma stealing Mary Jane's car(What?) or Spidey actually failing to stop the train(The movie's best scene ruined!). The presentation is pretty horrible, by the end of the game the developers stopped caring and character models stopped walking during cutscenes, instead being thrusted to and fro one place to the next. And defeated enemies? They disappear in a digitized blue hologram-like fade out. What the f... 

 Spider-man 2 on the PSP was a throwback to previous, linear Spider-man games, while Spider-man 2 on home consoles gave us an open world. On PC, it's a sad mix of both. Some missions let you explore a tiny version of New York, and beating the game lets you explore at will. But you don't have nearly as much freedom as you do on the home console version. There're invisible walls galore, a ton of buildings you can't climb to the very top and you can only swing from a few, designated markers on certain buildings. It's pretty constricting, so the freedom to explore is pretty much an illusion. And why would you want to explore? Hidden goodies that grant you more points that do absolutely nothing! After I cleared a mission I was granted an upgraded life bar, but I don't even know why that happened.

 I will grant it that they came up with a very ingenious(For a kids' game) control scheme. Left click shoots web, attacks, swings or web-zips towards a surface depending on where you aim. It's not perfect, mind you, you need to be precise if you want to shoot web towards turrets instead of zipping in front of them, but it works most of the time. WASD moves you around and right click jumps, while the space bar is used to dodge moves. It's a very simple, easy to grasp set-up that works really well most of the time, and kids will be able to handle it very easily. That said, the game is a bit boring. Combat is dull and repetitive, while the swinging is anything but satisfying, a sin on any Spider-man game.

 There's an 'adrenaline meter' that fills as you hit enemies, and once filled you'll automatically start shining blue and be able to defeat enemies(any of the massive three different types!) in one blow, but it only lasts a little while. Bosses have to be defeated in various different ways... that are detailed before each fight, alongside images illustrating exactly what to do. Lame! They also managed to fit QTEs in here. QTEs are never fun, away with them!

 Spider-man 2 on the PC is very, very boring. It can be a bit clunky, but nothing is broken and the game works as intended, plus, on modern PCs it should run pretty smoothly. The thing is, as boring and plain as it is... I'm pretty sure that, as a game for children, it's probably pretty good. But yeah, anyone older than 5 is better off with the PSP or PS2 versions, because there's nothing for them here.

 3.5 out of 10