Spider-Man 2

Amazing!

By MarkD  Jun 30, 2004 | 3 out of 3 found this Spider-Man 2 review helpful

Pros: Everything not written in the cons

Cons: forced accumulation of hero points

It's an amazingly great game indeed. You'll actually be swinging, zipping, and moving like Spider-man should. The enhanced battle system really gives the gamer the edge in both fun and reflex enhancement. The gameplay is astonishing and the d...ifferent kinds of missions will keep you on the edge of your seat. Sure, some people may say that the battles can be won by just button mashing but really good players can make a simple fight with a thug look like an art. When the creators mentioned the battle system, they meant that you can combine pieces of spidey's attacks and add a bit of your style to form one unique and amazing combo that could possibly rock the house.The greatest part of the game is when you travel around the large virtual Manhattan mainly the part about web-swinging. You'll actually have to stick your webs to something solid instead of thin-air. Where you stick your web, which direction and how fast you move will determine the way you swing. It's all about angles, physics, a lot of common sense, and your unique style as Spider-man. How you move will determine the amount of excitement you'll get and dull players will just look like some Tarzan wanna-be (if you know what I mean). The graphics are both great and dull at the same time but it is mostly great. You can easily tell how good the graphics are when you see the city for the first time. Everything you see is completely smooth and the looks of the surroundings are magnificent especially at night-time courtesy of the in-game clock.spider-man moves in a very fluid motion when swinging and doing other things a spider can but the city's details won't suffer at all. It all moves smoothly and doesn't fade away during all the fast-paced action. The camera is very faithful and will mostly stay in a useful angle when you do your stuff especially during web-swings. There are plenty of missions to accomplish, mostly side-missions, but you might get sick of it after playing for a few hours since it has a high chance of getting pretty repetitive. This IS the life of Spider-man so you'll actually live the life of a superhero. Excitement won't always happen everyday even for our hero. This is also the most disappointing part for a few people. Even though the graphics are incredible, all things have their limits and this game is not an exception. The appearance of the city's pedestrians is quite disappointing. They suffer from the lack of detail since most of the work have been focused on the city and the leading characters so this thing is actually small sacrifice for the sake of the whole gaming experience.The thing I mentioned about "forced accumulation of hero points" meant that you'll have to acumulate a certain amount of hero points before you can go to the next chapter. They can also be used to buy more abilities for spidey but it's really bothersome when you're required to actually collect these. It should've been an optional side-mission rather than a major requirement.Overall, it's truly an amazing game with its own pieces of disappointment but the whole gaming experience easily overshadows these trivial things. Read more Less