E3 2001 Hands-on: Spider-Man 2

A short demo version of Spider-Man: Enter Electro was available for play on the E3 show floor, and we logged some game time with it in order to bring back new details.

If the demo is any indication of the direction that the game is going, Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro looks like it will have much more of a focus on puzzle-solving. That is to say, you'll need to figure out how to interact with objects in the game environment in order to solve problem situations. In the beginning of the demo, you come across some thugs causing trouble on the street. After beating them up, a car that they've tampered with explodes. You need to target the fire with your web-shooters and blast it with enough webbing to put the fire out. Later, you arrive on the scene of a bank robbery in progress. You stop the thieves, who are fleeing from the bank. The bank explodes into flames, and you must spray a nearby fire hydrant with your webbing and yank it free from the ground in the direction of the bank to put out the blaze. The demo also showed a scripted event where a group of robbers ambush you at once. This is where our spidey-sense stopped working for us, and our game came to an end.

It's too early to say if any major changes have been made to the game. The control and camera system seem to be largely the same as in the original Spider-Man game for the PlayStation. Current retail listings mark this sequel as arriving next October, so there's plenty of time for tweaks and upgrades (although very few improvements to either the camera or control are needed over the first game). We'll have much more on the game as its release draws nearer.