Reviewed by Megan Parker
Spider-Man has been my favorite comic hero for a long time, ever since I bought a Spidey comic way back in the early 90s. This is pretty ironic, considering the hero and I share the same last name. Though, at the time I didn’t know it when fate pulled me toward that comic book rack in the winter of ’92. Fate or boredom, but it was probably boredom. Anyway, is it any surprise that I have picked it as my first game review?
This obviously isn’t the first game featuring our intrepid wall crawling hero, but it does add enough to the game to separate itself from previous titles. It has all the classic themes: web slinging, wall crawling and wisecracking. It also adds one new thing: Venom. Actually, it adds more than just Venom, but he’s the biggest addition… literally.
The game takes place not in the Spider-Man movie universe, or even in the mainstream Spider-Man universe, but in the hugely popular Ultimate universe. The Ultimate universe is a modern retelling of Spider-Man and other Marvel heroes. To aid in this retelling in video game format, the writer of the comic Brian Michael Bendis and the artist Mark Bagley help in the storytelling of the game. Between the writing and the visuals, it literally feels like you’re playing the comic book and Bagley’s artwork has turned 3D. The story itself takes place within the existing timeline and it helps clear up a few things for those who have read the comics.
That’s not to say you have to read the comic books to get a feel for the story. The beginning of the game fills in the history leading up to the game. The storyline of the game isn’t particularly original, but the way the story is told is, and it is very fun to watch. The screen shifts and pauses, capturing bits of the action in panels, sometimes the characters move from panel to panel grabbing your attention and keeping you watching. Don’t look away or you’ll miss something!
The voice work for the characters is almost spot on, with a little bit of “cheese” here and there. Sometimes during the game it can get a little repetitive. For example, if Spidey needs to go to home or to school or someplace else, he’ll keep telling you over and over until you do what he wants. During fights, his and the bad guy’s banter can be interesting, but it can also get repetitive. When you play as Venom, you get to hear the enemies repeat their silly posturing a lot. I guess it does help when you get a bit of visceral pleasure slamming their faces into the concrete to get them to shut up.
The gameplay for the most part is really fun. Since the game is split up between Spider-Man’s and Venom’s story, you get a game that is pretty diverse in how you approach your enemies. Spider-Man is quick and agile and the game makes it fairly easy to learn how to look good playing him. You can bounce around, attacking multiple enemies from almost every angle, use your webs to sling them around, pull them at you, or drape the enemy over a lamp post. Travel is just as acrobatic as you web swing and wall-crawl around the city. Web slinging itself is entertaining enough to swing around New York just for the hell of it. It does depend on where you are. There are no more webs attached to somewhere in the sky; you must be near a building to shoot out a web, so watching where you’re going becomes important… unless you enjoy falling. The webs won’t just disappear either; they’ll stick around and be blown by wind or just settle down for a good while. A sizable portion of New York is available to explore, however you are kept in Queens and Manhattan. Being that it’s New York, though, you do have quite a bit to explore.
Venom is much more direct and brutal and can take more damage than Spider-Man. He has tentacles he uses to whip at enemies from afar, or he can grab them and do several really brutal things to those he doesn’t like much. Cars also become weapons and you can toss them whenever you like. Because of the suit, your health will drain, so to help with that, you can “eat” enemies and pedestrians to rejuvenate your health. This makes it even more difficult to be killed as Venom since you can just absorb people for healing purposes. Traveling the city is different as well, Venom doesn’t swing on webs, rather he jumps around, and he jumps high. A nice little detail is when he lands, he creates a little crater below him.
Throughout the game, gameplay can go from fun to frustrating, as the game can be unforgiving at times. There are several times as Spidey where you have to chase one bad guy or another through the city. One wrong turn and you can be starting the chase all over. Sometimes I could stay close to the bad guy because I knew exactly where he was going and got there before he did; all because I had done the chase so much.
Boss fights can be incredibly easy once you find the pattern that the boss attacks with. For most of them, as Spidey anyway, you can just keep at a distance and dodge the attacks, only getting close when the bad guy yells. Seriously. At times, such as the Osborn fight, it can be difficult to find the right pattern. When he tosses fireballs at you, they home in on you. Finding the right way to jump to avoid that those painful things can take more than a few deaths before you get the hang of it.
There’s also the rescuing part. It’s not a Spider-Man game without rescuing New Yorkers who are unlucky enough to get in the way of Rhino or the Green Goblin. Rescuing people can be a bit of a pain, so hope your fingers are fast enough to save them. A meter appears and you have to keep the arrow within the green area, which won’t always be in the same spot or even the same size. If you’re not fast enough or can’t hold it there, you end up letting the person die. Like the rest of the game, it can sometimes be really easy and other times aggravatingly difficult.
The game itself is actually pretty short, likely not taking the player more than 6-8 hours to complete. The map shows little icons all over, most of them being races and combat tours you can do. Occasionally, a red dot will pop up on your little map and show you were a crime in progress or emergency is. The story will keep you from finding all of the tokens and being able to complete most of the side tasks. Or rather, Spider-Man will be repeatedly saying he needs to go some place or another. Fortunately, after the game is over you can go back and finish what you weren’t able to before, with a little added bonus: since the game is over, you now have Venom unlocked as well as his side quests and races. You can also decide to just wreak havoc in New York by tossing cars and eating people, all the while gaining “points” and increasing your threat level. In turn, you’ll have cops and mercenaries attacking you the more you increase your threat bar. The more havoc you create, the more they send at you to stop you. When you complete certain amounts of the side quests, you can unlock certain things, from costumes to comic book covers. However, you’ll need a lot of free time and patience to get all of the unlockables.
Ultimate Spider-Man is probably one of the few comic book games that really manages to capture just about everything in the comic that makes it fun and enjoyable. While the game can be frustrating and unforgiving at times, it still manages to keep your attention with a driving story, visuals and easy to learn gameplay. Besides, throwing cars into billboards in the middle of Times Square is fun!