Developer: Vicarious Visions Publisher: Activision Features: Cartridge Save 1 Player Dual Screen Compatible Introduction Being a fan of the Spider-Man movies I was intrigued to see how a game based on the famed webslinger would transfer to Nintendo's new handheld, the DS. I wondered if developer Vicarious Visions would take advantage of the new systems capabilities and if they would make this a 3D adventure worth buying. After some extended gameplay with this title I can say that there is more good then bad and that any gamer who is a fan of the famed wall crawler will be happy to know that they can play a pretty decent Spidey game while on the go. Graphics Developer Vicarious Visions took some time and made the effort to ensure that this was a good looking game on the DS's LCD screens. The colors are bright and vibrant even when playing in levels that take place during the night. Gamers will not find themselves squinting to make out what is on screen. The levels themselves are 3D and although you don't get to freely explore them they are visually incredible considering what has been released on previous Nintendo portable machines. As gamers explore various levels throughout the city what becomes noticeable is how the skyline seems to go on forever in true 3D. This is a testament of the early power of the DS'S hardware. It should also be noted that this game's fluidity took me by surprise too. The animation involved is smooth and without issue. Players are limited to 2D movement (left, right, up or down) but this ‘on rails' scheme, combined with the 3D graphics engine, make for a solid framerate with no hiccups to be seen. Bottom line is that this game looks awesome. Considering that this game is a launch title Vicarious Visions should be complemented on the look of it especially since there was not much time from the conception of the DS till the machine hit gamer's hands. Sound If anyone is expecting a booming soundtrack to accompany the adventures of Spidey then they are climbing up the wrong web. Although the audio involved in this game does put the stereo capabilities of the DS to good use the music has been spliced up into short clips and begins to repeat quite a bit. There are some digitized speech clips and a few screams of agony as various baddies fall off buildings (hey it's a spider-man game) but this is about it for special sounds. There are the obligatory sounds of punching, jumping and webslinging to compliment Spidey's movement too but overall there is nothing special to give this game some oomph. In terms of any utilization of the DS's stereo speakers the gamer is able to have some idea of where people (e.g. hostages) are located as they yell for help offscreen from various directions. Overall the sound is useful and gets the job done but it does not add anything special to the game. Gameplay As I mentioned earlier, control of Spidey is limited to 2D movement. This is very similar to Crystal Dynamics game Pandemonium on the PSone. Spidey does have a good compliment of movements including running, jumping, sticking to walls/ceilings and webslinging to get him around town. Of course no Spider-Man game would be complete without fighting and this game has it, however it is not extremely deep. Gamers have punch and kick buttons that can be linked into various combos. During these fights one can trigger slow-motion when Spidey's spider sense is alerted. This is similar to bullet time found in the Max Payne games as the enemies slow down and Spider-Man can then jump in to attack. It should be noted that only the onscreen action slows down and not the timer and this is an important fact as time is important in the game (see next paragraph). To assist in the fighting duties there are also several special moves that Spider-Man can use. These are unlocked during gameplay and are accessed on the fly using the touch screen. These moves allow Spidey to throw enemies using his webbing, shoot projectiles, grab in special ways and more. All together there are a total of 15 chapters in Spider-Man 2. Vicarious Visions decided that the game should be linear with each chapter taking the player through the story of the each of the games characters. This forces the gamer to follow what the developer wants. The levels themselves are quite large in this game but in many ways they are not as well developed as they could be. Many of the missions are limited to defeating the baddies, rescuing hostages or both. During the missions there is no way to know where you are as there is no map to access and this is a bad thing. I don't know about anyone else but memorizing a game's level where there are rewards for quick time completion is quite fruitless as there is no time to do such. Many of the missions become a wild and long (upwards of 15 minutes) exploration to hunt down every bad guy or hostage but the very limited time cushion that has to be completed to get various rewards seems to hamper the overall enjoyablity. The difficulty level of the game is by no means easy either and can get overwhelming at times. This is further compounded by the fact that some of the environments can be quite hard to navigate (e.g. burning buildings) only to have the gamer end up facing an untimely death with one bad guy or hostage left to find. This can become frustrating at times as you have to start the whole process over again from the start. Rest assured that although there is good to be found in this game, it is this aforementioned bad that can take a little wind out of Spider-Man 2's sails. As should be expected in a game like this, there are various boss battles to be fought. Each of these are a nice change of pace as there is some ingenuity found in them. The various super villians will attack in various patterns that have to be figured out and add to the mix their ability to throw various items. Here the action then moves to the DS's touch screen. Gamers will have to tap on the incoming objects and destroy them. Although simplistic and not particularly challenging it is nice to see some originality of a boss fight utizling the touch screen. Conclusion Spider-Man 2 is a game that looks incredible and controls fairly well. However poor level design, limited tasks and a sometimes frustrating difficulty level manage to hamper to overall feel. Regardless even with some shortcomings this first generation title is definitely not bad.