When I was in elementary school (many,
many years ago), there was a kid who spoke of his comic book collection. One
Saturday he showed me. No, I wasn’t allowed to touch it – he only touched each
copy once, carefully read it and then placed it in a clear plastic sleeve,
sealed it and stored it away with the rest. “They are going to be worth
something some day,” he proudly said. It seems his parents had gotten him a
subscription to the original Spider-man comic books, and he had the first 200.
But from that moment on, I was one of Spidey’s fans.
Remember the old television theme
song?
“Spider-man, Spider-man,
He can do anything a spider can…”
Activision (along with Neversoft,
Treyarch and Gray Matter) have incorporated a slightly updated version of that
theme into the introduction of Spider-man, billed as a super hero
action-adventure game. The game is, essentially, a third-person RPG featuring
plenty of bad guys to fight.
Players take on the persona of the
web-slinger, zipping through the skyline of New York in pursuit of …
Let’s backtrack a moment. Peter Parker
(also known as Spider-man) is attending a press conference by Dr. Otto Octavius
(you may know him better as Dr. Octopus), who is about to unveil an incredible
breakthrough in technology, when suddenly who should appear at the conference
but another Spider-man, who makes off with the machine. Obviously it was a bogus
Spider-man, and Eddie Brock – Parker’s journalistic rival – witnessed the theft.
It is enough to awaken the symbiotic alien inside Brock who transforms the
erstwhile reporter into Venom.
Cut to a laboratory where Octavius
releases some sort of gas that shrouds the streets of New York, leaving the
skyline the only place to operate. That’s just fine with our superhero. The game
actually opens with Spidey receiving a visit from Felicia Hardy in her slinky
Black Cat costume. There is a bank robbery going down, hostages have been taken
and it’s up to Spider-man to save the day.
That’s when the game takes off. Other
superheroes (like DareDevil and The Torch) make appearances, all in the role of
pushing Spidey along. Spider-man co-creator Stan Lee narrates the story with a
cyber twinkle in his eye. This is supposed to be fun stuff and Lee gives it that
feel.
The vocal characterizations are light
and entertaining. Venom, who momentarily teams with Spider-man, goes into
lap-dog mode when Spidey suggests visiting the Bugle to look up some files.
Venom, jumping up and down, tongue wagging, wants to know if they can “surf the
Net.”
The audio track does have a few flaws,
most notably some breakup as the game progresses.
The controls are rather complicated,
but can be reconfigured to make it easier on game players. And the game has
several modes of play, including a kids’ mode, which keeps everything very
simple.
Where this game scores is in the
visual department. The animation is well done. The environmental graphics have a
tendency to look similar, whether it’s the tunnels under New York, the floors of
the multi-story bank or the Bugle. There are obstacles to jump over, walls to
climb and ceilings to cling to. Fortunately, if Spidey is on the ceiling, and in
the right spots, the ceiling goes opaque. It certainly is a joy to crawl along
the ceiling until you are directly over a pair of thugs, then drop down and
clobber ‘em using “fists of fury” and martial arts-style kicks.
This game could have used a ‘look’
command so the web-head could peer around poles. They can cause visual
obstruction. Spider-man is also not set up for a player who only has a few
minutes to spare. You have to complete levels to get to the save area. This can
be time consuming. And the game segues between levels with cutscene after
cutscene.
The game does have a few arcade-style
elements – you can find power-ups and other goodies scattered throughout the
game. Don’t understand the purpose of collecting comic book covers, other than
to add them to the gallery for later viewing, but they are there nonetheless.
The long and short of it is this: if
you are a Spider-man fan, you will enjoy this program. If you aren’t, you will
probably enjoy the camp elements of the program, the tongue-in-cheek dialogue
and the superhero animation and graphics.
Install: Easy
Spider-man only seeks a minimum of 200
megs of hard-drive space, and a maximum of 500 megs. It installs quickly.
Gameplay: 7
The control elements take some
reconfiguring before they are comfortable, but an in-game, anytime save function
would have been nice. The game is filled with numerous cutscenes that slow
progress through the levels.
Graphics: 8
The animation is very good. The
Web-crawler moves well going up walls and across ceilings. The character seems a
little stiff and jerky when peering around, but the supporting cast is well
rendered.
Sound: 6.5
There were some problems in the later
portions of the game with audio breakup, but these were seldom. This program is
scripted with a very tongue-in-cheek flair.
Difficulty: 7
This game features the standard three
difficulty levels, plus a Kid mode, which will allow younger players to advance
easily through the levels.
Concept: 7
Spidey has been available on other
platforms, so the superhero thing with this particular character has been done.
Multiplayer: N/A
Overall: 7
If personal bias had been heeded, this
score would have been higher. However, in looking at the game, there are some
snags in the webbing that keep the score down. But to vent a little personal
bias, this is a well-animated and entertaining game.
