Sony
Ultimate Spider-Man
By James Rinehart
Dec 5, 2005, 5 :56 am

I believe it was Goethe who first said “Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must", which is a sound motto for videogame (and non-videogame alike) critics and reviewers everywhere. Thankfully, there is more enjoying than enduring to be had with Treyarch’s latest outing Ultimate Spider-Man, though it would be wrong to say that Ultimate Spider-Man is not without its faults. At first glance this seems like a rehash of Spider-Man 2, Treyarch’s effort from a year ago which was based off the movie of the same name. This statement is true to an extent, though there are enough differences here to warrant a second look.

The most obvious difference is that Ultimate Spider-Man takes place after the Venom storyline in the comic book series of the same name, rather than a movie property, and it looks the part. The visual style is a sublime mixture of comic book realism and black outlines, a very good interpretation of Ultimate Spider-Man artist Mark Bagley’s style, framing the storytelling perfectly. The story, by the way, is penned by the same man who does the comic series: Brian Michael Bendis. The game roughly follows the Venom story arc, wherein the the symbiotic suit is introduced and matched with the man who later becomes Spider-Man’s arch-nemesis, Eddie Brock, a.k.a. Venom. After the somewhat abrupt introduction, things take off in wildly divergent directions, as various characters from the series are brought in to add variety to the game portion of the story. My largest complaint with Spider-Man 2 was that the story was weak and the story-based missions were clichéd. It seems the higher-ups were listening, as the story and gameplay often complementing each other. Rather than racing from one simple plot point to the next so we can watch yet another dull cutscene, action is instead placed in our hands as we’re tasked with fighting and racing through the events as they unfold. Early on in the game, Spidey has to chase a giant mechanized Rhino through the city streets. Civilians in need require the player to stop and perform context-sensitive actions to help them out, such as lifting a burning vehicle under which they’re trapped and then carrying them to the nearest ambulance. These actions are performed by alternately tapping the L2 and R2 buttons while a meter shows an arrow hovering between red, green, and yellow markers. Tap the arrow to the green, and in some instances tap just the right amount to hold it there, and the action is performed. Having these multiple tasks to complete goes a long way towards keeping the player engaged throughout, as these items are a welcome change to the mission design. The game is now constantly in harmony with what is happening in the story, leaving the cheesy arena boss fights to be a thing of past; instead, we now have well-thought out multi-tiered boss battles. Bosses are often fought in stages, such as the Rhino battle, where the first stage involves chasing him through the city as he wreaks havoc and leaves a wake of destruction in his path, after which you’re expected to injure him through clever use of the environment, and then duke it out with him in a parking lot.

The second most noticeable difference here is the sense of scale. In the previous game, the city was huge and wide-open, yet in Ultimate Spider-Man things feel small and enclosed. Leaping off a tall building no longer produces the same rush or sense of free-falling as it did in the previous title, which takes some of the punch out of the webslinging. Still, what is missing in scale is more than made up for with a higher level of detail.  From the overall textures to the discarded boxes and refuse found in your typical back alley, there are much more of the little things to feast one’s eyes upon. Add onto this the fact that there is now greater variety in building types so that things appear unique to their area and less same-y, and it is easy to forgive the drop in scale. Gone are the typical business buildings, and in their place are areas that feel unique. Queens actually looks and feels like a small neighborhood, and the rest of Manhattan’s boroughs are represented accordingly. Times Square is vibrant and colorful, complete with fake in-game advertisements, and the difference between the docks and downtown is almost night and day. There are also a lot more nooks and crannies, making exploration a more fun and worthwhile experience. With free-roaming games like this, the city has always been the star of the show, and it does not disappoint here either. The city is a lot smaller than it was in the previous game, but a greater variety in building types and a higher attention to detail makes it more fun to swing around in, which brings us to my final point…

…The swinging. What comic book nerd who grew up with Marvel Comics couldn’t help but want to experience the joy that it must be to websling like Spider-Man? We have had the privilege of enjoying it since Spider-Man’s first 3D iteration was developed by Neversoft for the PS1, and while it was simple, it has since become more and more complex with the release of each subsequent Spidey game. It reached something of a pinnacle last year in Spider-Man 2, which had a depth and complexity to it unlike any swinging system that came before it. It was fun and rewarding to master, and was the reason many people, myself included, continued to play Spider-Man 2 even after seeing what a poorly developed waste the story portion of the game turned out to be. Ultimate Spider-Man rights things somewhat by bringing in people who already tell the stories for a living and designing that portion of the game around their efforts. For that, I must commend Treyarch, despite the fact that they have tampered with the one aspect that made their game so popular last year. In short, they have simplified the swinging mechanics, and not always for the better. Given, there is nearly the same range of motion as in the last game, but instead of charging up your jump, you must rely solely on double jumping. In order to keep swinging, the swing button must be held down for the duration of the swing.  There is no longer the option to run, and with the diminished scale and size of the environment, web-zipping is the name of the game for getting around in a pinch. Web-zipping and double jumping across rooftops becomes the way of things, rather than mastering the controls of jumping between weblines and swinging between blocks and blocks of skyscrapers. It is still fun for what it is but the difference between this game and its predecessor is drastic. There is also the added ability of being able to climb up the web lines while swinging but this seems to be more a novelty than anything else. With these changes, the swinging system is less about mastery and more about simple playability, a change I can find acceptable given the need to reach wider audiences.  Still, even the combat has been simplified to a degree, though it is now easier to web up enemies and swing them around. Some might say these changes are more of a refinement than anything else but to me, they diminish the overall experience of actually controlling Spider-Man.

Venom is also playable, for whatever that is worth, though he controls a bit differently than Spidey. He does not have a webswing, instead using a Hulk-style super jump to get around, and the sections that give provide you control of his character are great fun. After the game is beaten, players can switch between either character at will, though by that time there will probably not be much left in the way of side missions and such. Speaking of which, the side missions are also a lot better this time around, yet sadly after the story is beaten they all but disappear, leaving only the various collectible tokens which unlock character and design art, and little else that is interesting.

Overall: 7/10

The end result of all this is that the game comes off as a bit more shallow than its predecessor but makes up for it with a more entertaining story, a more engaging and not to mention outright cool art direction, as well as a more varied environment to explore despite the smaller size. The changes, for better or worse, offer up something different within the series, are worth a look. Whether dodging cars being hurtled at you as Spider-Man or throwing the cars yourself as Venom, you don’t have to be a True Believer to find some amount of joy in this little action romp.