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Intro As if High school wasn’t tough enough, poor Peter Parker has to go and get himself bitten by a genetically altered spider. Now in addition to all the usual self-esteem, acne and popularity issues most uber-geek science club presidents have, poor Pete has a secret identity to protect as well. Unfortunately, Spider-Man doesn’t seem to be any more popular with most folk than Peter Parker. Throw in a half dozen bad-guys that really have issues with wall crawling meddlers and some serious anti-social tendencies, and you have the makings for one heck of a rough life. Or a pretty good Gameboy Advance title. Gameplay: 8/10 Spider-Man isn’t what you’d call a ground breaking title. But it is an evolutionary step in the right direction when compared to previous handheld titles in this genre. Digital Eclipse has managed to take the simple action platform style and apply liberal doses of Spider goodness to it. They did however try a little too hard in a few areas. Namely the 3-D web-swinging bonus stages. This is after all a GBA title. You’re simply not going to get great looking, easy to play 3-D gaming out of it. Unlike the console and PC versions of the game, you'll get no back story here. No sweatshirt and jeans costume. You start off right away as Spider-Man; on patrol and looking for action. For the most part you’ll find yourself performing simple tasks such as locating keys, rescuing innocent bystanders, disarming barrels of lethal poison gas, or on occasion just moving from point A to point B to complete levels in traditional 2-D side scrolling style. Usually you’ll be hindered by an assortment of goons armed with everything from their fists to machine guns and flame throwers. Getting through a level is going to take more than your traditional platform hoping skills however. Remember, you're Spider-Man. That means you can cling to any flat surface in the game. It also means you can use your webs to zip from point to point, swing across wide areas of a level safely out of gunshot range, or fire off balls of sticky webbing at your enemies to disable them or bind them up long enough for you to get past them, or more likely, pound them senseless. How well you mix these elements together will determine your eventual fate. You simply aren't going to survive with your old-school Mario tactics. The levels are fairly large and well detailed; Though some are overly detailed resulting in confusion. For example, on one level you are confronted with a wide array of girders to cling to, swing from and crawl over. The trouble is; there are almost as many that you can't cling to, climb on, or touch in any other way. Pick the wrong girder at the wrong time and it's a long way down pal. The Gameboy's tiny screen doesn't exactly help matters either. Occasionally you'll find yourself near the edge of the screen and forced to take a leap of faith. Web swinging is usually a safe option at that point but you'll still be unable to see what is below you. You could be by passing a 1Up just as easily as a sure death. Worse, you might actually miss a level goal or power up. Not that missing a power up is such a bad thing. They're scattered liberally though out most levels (with the exception of boss battles where you get the clothes on your back and nothing else). In fact, you'll often find you can't pick up some items because you're already maxed out. The one exception is health. There's plenty to be had, but it’s usually tucked away in corners or out of the way areas of the level. If you're hurting, you're going to have to hunt for it. Which can be frustrating given that most bad guys are pretty good shots and normally get in at least one or two good hits before going down. The small screen can sometimes hinder you in that department too. It's not unusual to walk face first into a flame thrower without ever having seen it until it’s too late. My one greatest disappointment with Spider-Man is the boss battles. You're confronted with all of the classic Spidey villains - Vulture, Shocker, Scorpion, Green Goblin, and Kraven the Hunter (Who only appears here and in the Xbox version) - but they never really provide much of a challenge. For the most part you'll figure out their patterns in less than twenty seconds. Again the GBA’s small screen may be partly to fault. After all, there's only so far they can go and so much they can do in that little rectangle. Even the final battle with the Green Goblin feels a bit easier than it should be. Still, once you sort out Spidey's little quirks and learn to deal with them (especially his fly-paper like adhesion to everything in the game that will result in a good many deaths until you learn to cope with it) you'll quickly find that that while not ground breaking; Spider-Man is an entirely playable and enjoyable time waster. If you've played the last Spider-Man title to grace the GBA (Vicarious Vision's September 2001 title) you'll quickly see that this adaptation not only looks better, but is a definite improvement in terms of game play and enjoyment as well. Graphics: 8.5/10 Sound:
7/10 Control:
8/10 Overall:
7.5/10 [ top ] | |||
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