Source: Past To Present Online
Author: Cyberxion
Featuring an in-continuity storyline written by series writer Brian Micheal Bendis, as well as artwork inspired by artist Mark Bagley's work on the comic, Ultimate Spiderman does a good job of capturing the spirit of the book. It all comes together to make a game that does the source material justice in just about every way possible. Well, aside from the ways that really matter, unfortunately.
GAME-PLAY:
Ultimate Spiderman's game-play is pretty drab. The entirety of the game consists of guiding Spiderman through a few forced goals before another story segment comes up. These goals range from going on combat-tours; in which you're tasked with beating up a certain number of thugs positioned throughout the city, to rescuing helpless New Yorkers from certain doom. While this may sound all well and good, it gets boring after a time, as the missions aren't as varied as one might like. You'll find yourself fighting the same thugs and rescuing people from the same perils time and again, with little variety to spice up the proceedings. Only the race missions really break up the monotony, because each one is set in a different location of the city, with markers positioned in different places for each. You'll really have to put your skills to the test in some of the harder races if you want to get Ultimate medals. Still, even these grow tedious after a while, for reasons I'll go into later.
The story missions fare better than the city goal missions, but still aren't anything to write home about in my opinion. They're all pretty much chase missions, sporadically interrupted by timed sequences in which you'll have to save a person or persons from precarious situations caused by the villain you're chasing. Gameplay in these sequences consists of a sort of button-mashing mini-game that, when played successfully, will result in Spiderman doing things such as pulling a fallen TV off of a imperiled store-owner, for example. They're not really all that challenging, but they do spice things up a bit, and it's sort of rewarding to see these heroic events play out.
Now while that may be fun, the rest of the chase sequences really aren't, as the game can be pretty unforgiving. If you fall just a bit behind your target, you'll find yourself starting over from the beginning. This is made all the more frustrating as, despite certain audio cues designed to give you a hint as to where you need to go in order to keep up, the game essentially expects you to be clairvoyant. After the first couple of chase missions, only repetition, rote memorization, and great reflexes will carry you through. You'll likely have reached controller-chucking levels of frustration by then.
The chase levels are sometimes prefaced by a boss-battle, and while these can sometimes be pretty entertaining; as is the case with Venom's battle against Electro, where you fight the boss as a battle-worn Spiderman lay passed out and vulnerable amidst the carnage, they're pretty much just button-mashing fests with a tiny bit of strategy peppered in to give players the illusion that they're actually accomplishing something. Take the Rhino battle, for example. You avoid the bosses attacks until an opening appears, hit triangle to initiate a context-sensitive action, then pound away on the attack buttons until it comes time to do it all over again. I suppose that this can be fun if done well, as games such as God of War have shown us, but here's it's pulled off rather blandly.
You don't spend the entire game playing as the teenage web-slinger. The game also gives you the ability to play as Venom from time to time, with his levels varying a bit from Spiderman's, in that on top of the typical chase missions, you're occasionally set loose to wreak havoc on New-York, tearing up nearly everything in your way with reckless abandon. In these missions, you'll be up against Silver Sable's soldiers in a knock-down, drag-out bid for survival, and can toss both enemies and their vehicles into the stratosphere in a pretty satisfying orgy of destruction. These missions aren't all that frequent, but one in particular drags on a bit too long, dulling any impact they otherwise may have had. This would be fun in bite-sized bits, but the tedium can get to be a bit too much, as not only do you have to fend off the ever-increasing onslaught of soldiers out for your head, but you have to be mindful of your dwindling life-bar as well.
Which brings us to a mechanic that's both interesting and annoying; Venom's ability to drain the life out of unsuspecting civilians. The Venom suit constantly drains the life force of its host, forcing him to feed off that of New York's citizens in able to survive. This would be pretty cool, if not for the fact that the game often throws a lot of crap at you the moment you try and replenish your energy. Sucking up humans isn't instantaneous, so there's alway a moment where you're vulnerable to damage, which incidentally is exactly when the Heavens decide to open up and rain all sorts of pain down on your ass. It's not an insurmountable problem though, but when you're fighting Wolverine and he's sticking his claws in the side of your head as you're trying to suck the sweet nectar of life from an innocent bystander, thus negating that small bit of energy you did manage to salvage, well, it can be frustrating as all hell.
On top of this, you have to manage your life-bar during the chase missions, which, while not impossible, can be slightly annoying, at least until your fifteenth play-through, by which time you'll be familiar enough with what's going on in order to note of an opportunity to feed. Again, not insurmountable, just frustrating.
Graphics/Camera:
As I said earlier, the graphics do an admirable job of recreating the look of the comic-book, at least to a degree. Using a unique "ink-shading" technique, the character models look like near-perfect 3-D representations of Mark Bagley's work. That said, the attention to detail doesn't extend too far beyond the main characters, as the game is constantly streaming, and everything is rendered in lesser detail so as to lighten the load on the processor. At least I hope that's the development team's excuse for the overall bland presentation in relation to the environments. Everything ancillary to the main characters is rendered in lower detail, from the pedestrians to the buildings, and while it's serviceable, there's little that stands out as looking great. It all looks good enough to keep you in the game, as while everything is rendered in a lower level of detail than the primary characters and certain limited environments, the disparity is never so big as to detach the player from the game. The draw-distance however, is another matter entirely, and while not bad, it can obscure things a bit when you're trying to get across town to trigger the next story mission. However, with the handy map available to you, it won't hinder your progress for too long, if at all.
As for the camera, it's the same merely functional camera system that we've been stuck with since the franchise first hit the PSX back in the late 90's. I'm sure that given the nature of Spiderman's powers that this is likely the best we'll ever get, at least until some enterprising young developer comes up with a way to work a camera in game in which the character can stick to any concievable surface, but as it exists in it's current form, the camera is a great source of frustration. It's inclination to randomly burst into spastic fits will lead to many an accidental death, or worse, will cause you to have to restart an entire chase mission.
The spastic camera even makes the game's race missions tedious after awhile, as when you're racing against the clock, it's frustrating to no end to be thrown off your game by the camera of all things. The camera, coupled with the boredom and annoyance presented by the chase missions, nearly broke the game for me.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, whether or not you're a fan of the source material is going to determine whether you'll enjoy Ultimate Spiderman. It's a pedestrian game in every sense, and it's shortcomings, while not game-breakers on their own, come together to create an experience that will grate on the nerves of even the most adept of gamers.
To the fans, I would recommend this a rental at best. You'll get a kick out of seeing your favorite comic character and his supporting cast brought to digital-life. Everyone else need not apply. Ultimate Spiderman is ultimately a bust
Ultimate Spiderman - Playstation 2
When I got this game I spent the first 2 hours of free roaming swinging around the city. To me that was alot of fun but on the other hand I liked just running around in Shadow of the Colossus, taking in the sights.
Also playing as Venom when the first time you feed really made me want to show this to other friends. And it seems every one I show this to also enjoy just roaming the city swinging around. Yeah there aren't alot of good missions in it but I feel it does a great job of making you feel like Spiderman.
Also playing as Venom when the first time you feed really made me want to show this to other friends. And it seems every one I show this to also enjoy just roaming the city swinging around. Yeah there aren't alot of good missions in it but I feel it does a great job of making you feel like Spiderman.
I agree on both counts, guys. One, that it's better than the movie games, something that's not really saying all that much IMO, and two, that despite the fact that the game is broken in quite a few fundamental ways, it does do a decent job letting you feel like Spiderman.
That said, ultimately I play games to enjoy myself, and this one was just too flawed for me to enjoy too much.
That said, ultimately I play games to enjoy myself, and this one was just too flawed for me to enjoy too much.