It's only when I get to the very top, the top of the lightning conductor at the very peak, that I remember quite how tall the Empire State building is. I've been up here before of course, as I imagine most visitors to the Big Apple have over the years, but I've never really appreciated as much as I'm appreciating it at this very moment. Why? I don't know - it could be any number of things. It's a much clearer day today than the last time I was here, so it could be just be that I can simply see a little farther and have a better view of the expansive city beneath me. The conspicuous absence of the World Trade Center on the Manhattan horizon saddens me deeply, as it does most men, so it could be that which is influencing my melancholy state somewhat. And, of course, the last time I was up here I was looking out from the upper observation deck, as opposed to hanging upside down from a metal mast wearing blue and red spandex.
Wait a minute, is that the time? Damn it, late again.
Launching myself towards the sun, I arc my body into a perfect somersault then roll-over into a classic swan dive. The walls of unfathomably tall buildings are a blur of grey and all I can hear is the deafening winds of thousand yards of air rushing towards me as the concrete sidewalk gets closer and closer. But at the last heartbeat I shoot a web line out, it catches the corner of the brown apartment building across the way and I swing through a perfectly described arc. At the apex of my swing I release, catch a flagpole and swing round it a couple of rotations before launching myself again on a straight vertical. I have a split second to scope out my options before I start to fall to the ground again and, my mind made up, I shoot a line skyward, snag the water tank and I'm off again, swinging downtown. Web line, air vault, swing apex, somersault to barrel roll and web line again. Seconds later I'm sprinting along the outside of a building, 30 floors up, wondering whether Mary Jane will be waiting for me at her place or whether she'll have already left for the theatre. Ten seconds, ten city blocks and ten web swings later, I guess I'll be finding out.
Despite never really excelling, Spiderman has done better than a lot of superheroes in the video gaming stakes. He had a couple of above average side on scrolling beat 'em ups in the 8 and 16-bit days, had a decent debut on PSone in 3D, and had a reasonable tie-in license a couple of years ago with the first movie, but he's never had anything like this. Spiderman 2 is the first time everyone's favourite web slinger has had free reign - you can literally go anywhere in Manhattan now, and initially it's a huge rush to the system. "A massive, free-roaming, do-anything virtual city" said the press release, and at first glance you believe it, at least I did.
When I first loaded Spiderman 2 on my PS2, the phone rang before I even had the chance to hit the start button. As I remember it was my girlfriend calling from town, she was having an unsuccessful shopping spree and was calling up to vent her frustrations on someone; you know how girls are. Thing is, as I listened to her, an obligatory rolling demo kicked in on my TV showing Spidey launch himself from the sidewalk, swing round a lamppost, flip off into the air, zip out a web line and go arching down the street. As my beloved complained that all the high street stores only sold jeans that pre-pubescent teenagers with no hips could squeeze into, I watched Spiderman somersault off a line and wall sprint for a couple of seconds, before launching himself off at a literal right angle. When the camera had caught up, the web crawler shot out another web line and used it to swing onto the flat roof of the block across the sidewalk. While my ears heard tales of how 10s were too baggy yet 8s were always way too tight around the ass, my eyes watched as my favourite superhero casually leapt from rooftop to rooftop. When the rooftops ran out, he launched himself again, somersaulted, pirouetted, dived, launched a web line and he was off again, bounding effortlessly across the skyline. I was blown away. "Um listen, I've got to go," I said, "I'll speak to you later." And with a click of the receiver, it was my turn.
To say that the Spiderman 2 game engine is polished is a massive understatement; it's one of the most technically accomplished movement mechanisms I've ever born witness to. Spiderman's ability to soar from building to building is beguiling and, after purchasing a few power ups from the comics book shops dotted around the map, you too will be gliding from on side of Manhattan to the other in a matter of minutes. At top speed your vision blurs and your speakers fill with the whoosh sound of air rattling past Spidey's ears as he quickly scans his immediate location for the next building to vault past in his journey across town. It works like this: R2 shoots out a web line from your wrist in the direction you're pointing with the analogue stick, and the webbing will neatly attach itself to a building in that direction and allow your swing to begin. As you arc, you instinctively hold X to power your jump. When you pass the low apex of your jump you release X, causing Spiderman to throw himself off the web line and fly through the air a dozen yards or so before it's time to hit R2 and the cycle starts again. Thing is, there's a lot more involved than you initially think. L2 is your generic speed boost button, meaning you can give yourself a wee boost while arcing if you need it. Plus, you have to choose when to let go your line and which direction to throw yourself in when you have - the later you leave the release the higher you'll inevitably be. If you want and the locale permits, it's perfectly possible to perform both vertical and horizontal loop the loops around objects such as flagpoles, lightning conductors, telegraph masts that kind of thing, and this is before you discover the extra incidental touches that are just icing on the cake. Swing too close to that skyscraper? Why not hold circle for a bit to wall sprint a little and give Spidey's arms a rest? Bored with the swan dive? Why not buy the double leg flip pirouette roll thing upgrade from the Spidey store to add gravitas to your aerial maneuvers? And sometimes, you know, it's just nice to swing by famous landmarks just to check out the view, although be warned - to get to Statton Island you need to catch a ride by wrapping a web line off the end of a passing helicopter. No really, it's pretty cool and it's stress free - I guarantee you've never felt this much like Spiderman.
However, now comes the inevitable 'but'. As much as the Spiderman character is amazing to play as, the actual in-game mission tasks get boring fast. Let me explain.
Despite Spiderman 2's open structure premise, the game is actually divided up into 15 or 16 or so levels. Each level is then broken down into tasks, all of which must be completed before the level is done. These tasks invariably come in two flavours - the first involves playing the scripted encounters which are conveniently marked on the map, while the second is usually all about collecting a certain amount of hero points. Now, the scripted encounters are up to the caliber you’d expect from a game of this budget – some are easy, some are hard and some are really very funny, but they’re all well scripted and they push the plot along nicely. And with the exception of the level which pits you against a pair of big green fighting robots for the first time (where the hell did they come from?), there’s nothing that your average Joe Gamer won’t crack after a few attempts. Actually, there’s very little to complaint about with the story missions at all, it’s collecting hero points on the side which can cause headaches. There are three additional ways to earn the required number of hero points you need to progress, and all of them have their problems.
The first and most obvious way of collecting hero points is to pick up side missions in the street, done by running up to any pedestrian with a green question mark above their head and hitting X. This triggers a side quest, and they're pretty exciting at first but the problem is there are very few varieties. Of the top of my head, you have: beat up the thugs, catch that kid's balloon, beat up the thugs in that car, save the person who's gonna fall from that building, beat up the thugs involved in that police shoot out, get that person to the hospital fast, beat up the thug who stole that lady's purse, beat up the thugs pulling an armoured car robbery and - finally - beat up two guys in big giant robot suits. Initially, each of these challenges are a lot of fun but after a few levels, when you're tackling your umpteenth armoured car robbery of the day, your enthusiasm begins to wane. What a missed opportunity.
The second way of earning hero points is by completing Spiderman challenges. These are dotted around the map represented by blue Spidey symbols (with yellow rings around if you have passed them at their basic level). When triggered you are usually required to literally jump through a succession of hoops against a timer. While this is a reasonably pleasant distracton for a short while and a good way to hone those Spidey skills, it's hardly something I'd feel comfortable calling heroic.
The third and final way to score points is by playing one of the mini-games, some of which are only available at certain times (like the odd photo-journalism themed mission). The pizza delivery missions however are always available and they provide a welcome change of pace, even if the concept isn't very original - I seem to remember doing similar stuff in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City nearly two years ago now.
Which brings me on to my next point, the inevitable comparisons between Spiderman 2 and the GTA series. By stripping the linearity out of the map based action adventure in favour of a self-triggering mission lead structure, Grand Theft Auto revolutionised the action genre. Consequently, any other game which follows suit (like Jak 2 and now Spiderman 2) is going to be judged against that ground breaking series. Spiderman 2 does very well, a lot better than I was expecting actually, but it makes a fatal mistake. GTA has a fairly average game engine, but engages you constantly with a mind-bogglingly large set of missions to accomplish. Spiderman 2 has a mind boggling sweet game engine, but only has a fairly average set of missions which (I don’t know whether you noticed from that mission list above) largely involve beating up thugs. In the end, you feel like you’re all dressed up with no place to go (all dressed up in blue tights, that is).
Speaking of beating up thugs, let me say a few words now about combat in this game. Despite what comes across as a meaningful effort to leap all the pitfalls a 3D action title will inevitably face, Spiderman 2 suffers from an extremely troublesome camera which can really wind you up. Whilst swinging through the city the camera behaves beautifully, staying mostly behind Spidey and swinging out gradually just as much as you need when you web-zip around those tight corners. In combat it’s a totally different kettle of fish. I blame the targeting system – Spidey has an irritating habit of locking on to the nearest guy and then stubbornly staying with him until he goes down, no matter how far away he gets. This frustrates regularly, especially since a great deal of Spidey’s moves stun and stun moves are the ones you want to be dishing out quickly in large groups. Stun him, web tie him, sling him over there and then, while the rest of them are recovering, finish one enemy off and start again with one guy less. That’s what you want to be doing, but ultimately you can’t without turning targeting off (at least that option’s available) and then follows a modicum amount of guess work as without targeting punch combos can sometimes miss, especially if the thug knows how to sidestep, which a lot of them do.
While we’re on the subject, the targeting system isn’t my only complaint with combat. Spidey has a lot of moves at his disposal – a ridiculous amount by the end in fact - but the problem is the thugs learn to block most of Spidey’s standard combos from around the middle of the game onwards. Except, that is, for his running uppercut move. They never block that, so you could easily beat most baddies by running around randomly and executing the occasional uppercut. In fact, I’d be lying to you if I said that I hadn’t struggled my way through a couple of encounters with very little life left using that very tactic. Come on, you know we’ve all been there.
Everything else in the game, however, is great. The scripted encounters aren't legendary but they do justice to the plot and the voice acting is exceptional throughout. In fact, some of the coolest Spidey moments are often accompanied by Tobey Maguire's dry voice over as you sail across the New York skyline. The rest of the soundtrack is sparse and punctual but always cinematic, and is another demonstration of this game's obviously high production values - Bruce Campbell's return as your vocal guide through the early levels is also welcome . The feel, look, padding and pretty much everything else in the game works fine too, it's just the dodgy targetting system and the repetitive mission structure that let this baby down. And it's a shame too, since with those things sorted, this could have been the game of the year.
But on a final note, I have to come clean and admit something to you guys. As a true Spidey fan I’ve got to tell you that I can safely put my hand on my heart say that Spiderman 2 has provided me with some of the best gaming thrills and the biggest gaming rushes I've had since I’ve owned a PS2. I am an unashamed Spidey fan and as such I found it quite easy to overlook the game's faults and revel in the game's successes, but I know full well that's just a Spidey fan's take on things. Call me crazy, but I love repeatedly beating up thugs then stringing them up to the nearest lamppost for the cops to collect later. I love hanging between two buildings on separate web lines and swinging back and forth just waiting for a helicopter to come buy and give me a lift out to the Statue of Liberty. I love trying to make my way across central park without touching the floor (not easy – no tall buildings there you know) and I love taking the occasional jaunt through the skyscrapers of the financial district. Christ, I even quite like the jump through hoop challenges business, I’m that into it, but I know not everyone will be.
So, it boils down to this. If you’re not a massive Spiderman fan, this is a very good action caper that’ll keep you going for a week or two – 8/10. But if you are a big fan of our favourite friendly neighbourhood wall-crawler, I’d sell your sister to get hold of a copy.
Uh-oh, gotta go, my Spider-sense is tingling…
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