Now Playing: Spider-man 2(PC)

 You didn't think we were quite done with Spider-man 2, now did you?

 Yep, there was yet another version of Spider-man 2 released, and I'm not talking about the NGage's beefed up GBA port. While Home Consoles got a then-fantastic, innovative and, quite frankly, a landmark title in the world of movie-tie-in videogames, with Spider-man 2, the PC got a kid-friendly, toned down, crappy and entirely different Spider-man 2.

 There're a few highlights, for instance, taking into account that this is supposed to be a kid's game, a no thrills, no frills kind-of-deal, they manage to craft a very simple and effective control scheme. Swinging, punching, jumping, shoot web and web-zipping is all done with WASD and a mouse. Impressive. This also means that your options are pretty limited, which is true, but for a kids' game? It's commendable! Then there's the fact that this game is old, so it should have no problems running like butter on any modern PC.

 As for the bad... the game is too simple, heck, Rhyno came with a guide as to how to defeat him. You can only swing from specific markers on buildings too, which is all kinds of lame. And that's the game in a nutshell: All kinds of lame.

Review #437: Spider-man 2(PSP)

 The PSP gets some love.

 I think that we can safely say that Spider-man 1 on the PS2 was a mess, regardless, Vicarious Visions went with that vision for the PSP version of Spider-man 2. What this means, essentially, is that Spider-man 2 on the PSP trades the free-roaming gameplay from the PS2 version for a more linear, stage-based design, not unlike previous Spider-man games, and, unlike what the previous game of its ilk would lead you to believe, is actually pretty decent.

 I'm tired of having written the same damn thing over 30 times already, but here it goes: Spider-man 2 on the PSP follows the plot from the movie of the same name, in which Doctor Octopus becomes somewhat of a tragic figure, but Spider-man must stop him from doing more evil. This game probably has the most accurate translation of said plot, it has the most similar train scene anyways! There're also a few new baddies added to make for a more fun game, like Shocker, Rhyno and the Vulture. The game has about 20 different stages, and it should last you about 3 hours total.

 Square is punch, circle is kick, triangle shoots web, R swings from web and L is your targeting reticule, y'know, if you've played the PS1 games or even Spider-man on the PS2, you'll be right at home. It might take a while before you get a hang of how to swing, y'see, this time around you tap R once and Spider-man will swing until he hits a wall. Holding R will make him go faster, holding up or down on the analog stick will raise or lower Spidey's altitude, and don't worry, Spidey's web sticks to thin air. The controls work well, but it's the camera that'll wrestle with you. There's no way to snap the camera back behind the webhead's back, and while you can turn it around with the directional pad, even if you use the claw grip, the game won't let you turn the camera as Spider-man moves, which is rather annoying.

 Stages are varied, and quite short which serves a handheld well. While the brunt of the game has you defeating all manners of thugs, there's the occasional mission that sees Spidey saving hostages or policemen. Clearing stages, defeating enemies and finding the elusive Golden Spiders will grant you points that can be spent to enhance Spider-man: Turn his 3 hit punch or kick strings into 4 hit strings, more health, more webbing or more strength. It works well, although they could've added a few more upgrades, since you'll be maxed out 3/4ths into the game.

 Spider-man 2 on the PSP is a game not to be underestimated! While the camera issues can sometimes get in the way of your enjoyment, it's a competent game that makes good use of the license.
 6.5 out of 10

Now Playing: The Amazing Spider-man 2(Playstation 3)

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 Alright, so I heard that the game had horrid loading times, but boy, I wasn't expecting them to be THIS bad. Well, the rest of the game is pretty much exactly the same as Amazing Spider-man 1, not that I played all that much.

 They did something different, and interesting, with the swinging mechanics... now R2 governs the right hand and L2 the left hand, which is something I've thought about, and it's an interesting, but unnecessary, change. I was about to complain that it was still slow, but I just unlocked the boost mechanics, so crisis averted.

 The combat has been refined too, now you get to avoid multiple enemies on one dodge, disarming mechanics and the Spider-Sense signs are a bright red, which makes it easier to spot. It's not a HUGE improvement, but the added variety and polish is welcome.

 Yeah, Amazing Spider-man 2 is shaping up to be another good, but unimpressive, Spider-man game. It's a bit disappointing to end Spider-man's run on the PS3 with such a tame game, but I guess it's what it deserves. And boy, was it interesting to go all the way from the very first 3-D Spider-man game on the PS1 to the very last, at the moment, 3-D Spider-man game on the PS3. It was filled with very low lows, a ton of decent games and few highs every now and then. Few franchises can say that they had horrible, mediocre, good and the occasional great game! Although whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is better left for another day.

Review #436: The Amazing Spider-man(Playstation 3)

 The not so Amazing Spider-man

 With 2 Spider-man games under their belt, Beenox finally felt confident to develop what fans wanted: Another open world Spider-man game, and thus The Amazing Spider-man was released.

 While it's a movie tie-in, instead of retelling the movie's plot, this game acts as a pseudo-sequel of sorts. After Dr. Connors' fiasco, Alistair Smith takes over his research to 'fix' what Connors did... but it soon goes awry, with the entire Oscorp building turning into an infected zone, filled with contagious cross-species mutants. Spider-man breaks out Connors out of the mental instituted in order to help him create a cure and save Manhattan. It's an alright story for a movie tie-in game, and probably a better idea than tackling the movie's plot. This game also features very new takes on popular villains like Alistaire Smith, Rhyno and the Scorpion.

 There's two different elements to the game: Outdoors and indoors. Most of the game takes place in-doors, which is were missions take place. Basically, during these parts the game plays like a Batman: Arkham clone, with one-button, free flowing combat, and once signs appear over Spidey's head you must press a different button to dodge. It's fun and fast, but it lacks some of Batman's grace. But hand-to-hand combat isn't always the best road to take, y'see, even when fully upgraded Spider-man can't take much punishment, so it's in your best interest to crawl on walls and ceilings, finding vantage points to stealthily do away with enemies. It's very easy to exploit the stealth system, once found just web-rush from corner to corner until they forget about you, then take out a few more enemies, rinse and repeat.

 Web-Rush is the game's main gimmick, by holding R1 time will slow down to a crawl, shifting to a first person camera. From here you can pick a surface to web-zip to, an enemy to web-strike or an object to interact with. It works fine, and seeing how the automatic lock on for tapping R1 kinda sucks, this'll be the safest way to interact with an object in the midst of a battle. They finally had the bright idea to change how web-swinging works outdoors and indoors, in these indoor segments R2 will make Spider-man swing automatically from web to web, and holding L2 will make him increase his altitude as he swings.

 But when not undertaking missions you'll be exploring the sandbox city of Manhattan. While you can go towards your next mission at any time, there's a substantial, but needlessly repetitive, amount of side-missions to undertake. Secret Labs to take down, muggings to stop, car chases and a few others. While these are not random, unlike previous games, there's a large amount of each, so you'll be quite busy... if you do engage in them. I did a few, but quickly grew bored. You can also find hidden comic book pages that unlock entire high quality Spider-man comics. Pretty neat! There're also a fair amount of costumes to unlock, including my favorite Marvel character's costume: Kaine's Scarlet Spider.

 But as filled to the brim with excess fat as the overworld is, there's one big, fatal flaw: They messed up the swinging. Previous Spider-man games had a fantastic timing based system that felt rewarding and gratifying to swing around. In here you just hold R2 until Spider-man lets go of the web and then tap R2 again. No way to do it any faster. And you'll want to be faster, since the swinging is VERY slow. It takes away a lot from the overall game. Web-zip was removed, and while you can use quick taps of Web Rush for an extra boost, it doesn't feel any faster... or any useful for traversing the city. Among all open-world Spider-man games, this one's easily got the worst swinging mechanics of them all.

 The Underwhelming Spider-man would've been a better title. While there's nothing particularly bad about it, except maybe how uninspired the side-activities are, the game doesn't do anything that other games do better. The indoor missions? Batman's got them covered. The open world segments? Pick any other open world Spider-man game. So, yeah, it's not a bad game, but there's a lot of other options to exhaust before you'd feel compelled to give it a go.
 6.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Spider-man 2(PSP)

 At least it's better than Spider-man 1 on the PS2, right?

 Alright, so the PS1 formula of Spider-man games wasn't abandoned quite after Spider-man 1, you see, there was yet another version of Spider-man 2, the one on PSP, the one that didn't arrive on time so I had to skip for the Spider-manathon but since I'm out of handheld Spider-man games, it's right on time.

 Well, it's quite alright. Seems like a slightly, and only slightly more polished take on the Spider-man 1(PS2) game. I spent way more time than I'd like to admit trying to catch up to the helicopter on the first stage, and the second stage was a very mundane beat'em up thingie that was just, well, mediocre. So... we'll see, maybe, as a whole, the game ends up being good.

Review #435: The Amazing Spider-man 2(Nintendo 3DS)

 Swings into action... if time doesn't run out.

 I haven't covered Spider-man on the 3DS for this Spider-manathon because those games were pretty similar to the home console counterparts, but The Amazing Spider-man 2 is its own beast. This is a 2-D sidescroller action game, the same as most previous Nintendo Handheld Spider-man games, and it's a pretty decent game if you're willing to entertain the fact that the game does little to flex the 3DS' muscle.

 Do I really have to say the same thing for the umpteenth time? This game follows a truncated version of the already truncated version of the plot from the movie of the same name. While Spider-man will deal with Electro and Green Goblin, like in the movie, Gwen Stacy and the rest of the plot is gone, exchanged for new subplots with Uncle Ben's killer, Kraven and Carnage... at least no Venom, right?! It's a poor telling of a rather bland plot.

 Spider-man can do everything you should expect him to do by this point in time: Punch, shoot web, climb and crawl on walls and ceilings as well as swing on web, everything is accounted for. Most of the game is a simple 'go from one end of the stage to the other', hassle free. Along the way you'll run across a few different types of enemies, each must be taken down in different ways. Some will counterattack your every move, so you must bind them with web first and then perform two web-takedowns(Special attack), others won't go down with punches so you must knock'em down with web-takedowns, and most enemies must be webbed once they hit the ground unless you want them to get back up. The combat is pretty simple and bland, but it's alright.

 You'll earn experience points, either peppered throughout every stage or by defeating enemies, and by leveling up you'll be allowed to learn new special moves or enhancements to Spidey's strength or stamina. This made exploring levels feel rather rewarding, plus every level has three costume pieces, collect all three and earn a new costume, which means that there're as many costumes as there're levels, which is a lot. It makes for a fun game to simply just search for stuff, because it's worth it.

 There's a few rather annoying design choices that keep the game from being as decent as it could've, for instance, before every single stage you have to partake in a poorly explained and poorly designed timed swinging section in which you must avoid obstacles and grab clock-items in order to receive more time, run out of time and it's back to the start. Midway through these you'll be forced to play a generic and recycled 'Save the 6 hostages', 'find the 13 bombs', 'defeat the 13 enemies'. They all play out the same way, with things in pretty much the same exact location as before and only exist to waste your time. And secondly, while the touchscreen mini-games aren't pervasive, some boss battles incorporate the touchscreen into the affair, which is rather annoying. Kraven's boss battle is particularly bad, since you must avoid bullets on the top-screen as you watch the lower screen to learn where you have to touch for a few seconds on the touchscreen. Bad boss design.

 The Amazing Spider-man 2 on the 3DS is a very mediocre game. It has a simple premise that works decently enough on its own, making everything so rewarding was a very smart move, but the horrible swinging pre-stages really take a toll on the overall experience.
 5.5 out of 10

Now Playing: The Amazing Spider-man 2(3DS)

 Welcome to the 3DS' only original Spider-man game.

 While this is not the first Spider-man game on the 3DS, it was the only one that made it to the Spider-manathon for the simple fact that it's the only original game it got. Shattered Dimensions and Edge of Time are identical ports of the home console games and Amazing Spider-man 1 was the same game as the PS3 but without free roaming.

 But Amazing Spider-man 2 is an entirely different beast, a game that not many talked about and what little was said about it wasn't very good. But I just played a few levels and it's pretty alright. It's a 2-D sidescroller, not unlike Amazing Spider-man on the DS, but much more polished. I love that you can unlock costumes and if there's one costume per stage, man, it's gonna be a doozy. The combat is serviceable, and so is the level design.

 What isn't very good however are the swinging stages. I hope to god that there's not one per stage, because these are bad, very, very bad. The game did a poor job of explaining how it worked, and even then, it's hard to get a grasp of it. Don't like them.