So, you finally saw the movie (what took you so long?), and now you want to play a game that will let you be as free as Spidey is, swinging joyously around Manhattan saving damsels in distress. Well, you've obviously come to the right place. No, no... ignore that first game, this one is years ahead of that antiquated heap. This is the best super hero game I've ever played, and for good reason. It does an almost unreal job of giving the powers of our favorite webslinging hero. In previous games, you played as Spider-Man; you could shoot webs, beat up bad guys and cling to walls. That was Spidey at his simplest, this game is Spidey at his most complex. I bet when you saw the movie, you wished you could swoop in over a car chase, dodge a hail of bullets in mid-air, run along the side of a building and then dive bomb towards the car. Now you can do that, and it's oh so easy.
So we all now that the struggling college student known as Peter Parker is also Spider-Man. Well, due to being Spider-Man, he's falling behind in class and driving Mary Jane away from him. Not good. To make matters worse, he has a few super villains to manage, like Rhino, Shocker and Mysterio. Of course, the game does follow the second movie, and you'll be duking it out with Dr. Octopus for a good portion of the game. Unlike the movie, this game is not story driven in the least. It is all about becoming Spider-Man, and doing the things that he does.
The physics in this game are absolutely amazing, and very to fun to mess around with. Since the game takes place in a wide open city (ala GTA), you'll have to swing from place to place. Fear not, this isn't boring and it never gets boring. This isn't the swinging you're used to. Now, you'll have to connect your web to something in order to swing, you can't shoot them into the sky anymore. This means that you now have precise control over where you swing. If you get a good rhythm going, you can really get moving fast. You can even shoot out two weblines if you need to slow yourself down, or you can purchase an upgraded move to catapult yourself. Releasing a webline will send you flying out into the air, in which you can shoot out another webline, or perform some awesome looking tricks that only the Webhead could pull off. Webswinging may not seem like a very big deal, but believe me, it's one of the greatest feelings you'll ever get from a videogame. It's such a cool concept, and a fresh idea, that it simply can't be ignored.
Like I said, you'll have to swing to your mission markers, which are located all over the city. The city itself is very large, with different areas to give it a unique feel. On your way to the missions, random crimes will pop up, and you can either bust it or keep on swinging. These missions usually involve beating up a group of thugs or helping out a group of cops. They are extremely repetitive after a while, but you'll need to do them in order to obtain Hero points. These points can be used in shops to buy new moves and health upgrades. You'll need these upgrades, because combat is a major part of this game. They start off fairly simple, but some get very cool, like tying bad guys to lightposts or piledriving them from 10 stories up. You can also use your Spider-sense, which is highly useful for approaching bad guys with guns. Just press circle when you see Spidey's head flash, and he'll dodge whatever attack has been thrown at him. This looks awesome when you're in midair. You can also slow down the time, but I didn't find a whole lot of use for this, and only used it in the very hardest fights in the game. Speaking of difficulty, this isn't a hard game. The only time I really died with great regularity was the final boss, but that's to be expected.
So just like GTA, once the story is completed, you can still play the game. There are hundreds, literally hundreds of secrets hidden all over the city. There isn't much of a reward to getting them all, but it's a lot of fun to explore. There are even sidequests aside from the crimes; you can go on dates with Mary Jane, fight in an arena, take pictures for the Daily Bugle or even deliver pizza. Believe it or not, these are some pretty fun quests, as they all involve webslinging. Maybe it's just me, I could have fun with this game simply swinging around, not doing anything else.
But of course, there's tons of stuff to do, and it all looks great. Climb to the top of the tallest building in the game, and you'll be able to look over the entire city with no real draw. You can see buildings way at the other end of the island, and you can go there. Leaping off the said tallest building will induce a great blur effect as you gain speed as you fall, but remember to shoot a line out, you don't want to end up squished on the sidewalk. Spider-Man himself looks great, twisting, turning and leaping. It's incredibly lifelike, and it looks exactly the movie. The other characters leave a lot to desired. The civilians are all rough around the edges, and most of the movie characters like Mary Jane and Harry look absolutely nothing like the way they did in the movie. It gets a little ugly at times, but you'll get over it. I sure did, after all the swinging I've done in this game. Speaking of the movie, most of the actors lend their voice talent, which is nice. The sounds create a perfect NYC atmosphere, civilians scream at each other, horns honking, tires squealing. A lot of times, the only sound you can hear is the wind as you speed along swinging.
I'm very impressed at what the developers have done with this game. They could've done what most movie games do, and stick to what works. Sure, the old Spider-Man games were decent, but this game is so far ahead of them that it makes me look very, very dated. I'd love to see more developers completely retooling their games with innovative systems like this. This is one of the coolest game engines I've ever had the pleasure of playing. It's so smooth, and so slick, that you can't help but wonder how the hell they managed to pull it off. I guess that's what a good game should do.