A wonderful geek friendly spider title that will entertain you for some good 7 to 10 hours
Just keep in mind that you are off to a slow start. The game is broken up into acts, three in total, and each act is composed of four levels, one for each of spidey's personas. You start off as amazing spider-man, then pick up as spider man noir, followed by spidey 2099 and finishing with ultimate spider-man. In each level you must face a different villain from spider-man's universe, sometimes adapted to the persona you are playing as. Add to that a tutorial level and a final level where all the personas play a part, you got yourself 14 levels. The thing is you don't start the game with a blast. The Tutorial level is bland, and the first level against Kraven is somewhat uninteresting. So if you start feeling kind of bored, don't worry, things pick up a little later.
Well, in the Tutorial, what let me down a little in the beginning was the moment I finished climbing the first and only building I climbed in the game. Madame Web, who sent you in a quest to retrieve pieces of a tablet (mystical stone ipad) you shattered throughout the different dimensions while fighting Mysterio, tells you that she enhanced your spider-sense into "detective mode" (she doesn't say that, but she should have anyway). The minute I pushed the d-pad it came flooding to me: Batman AA knock-off.
Yeah. The game borrows a great deal from Arkham Asylum. That's not too bad though. If you are going to borrow ideas for a game based on a comic book, borrow them from the best. No grudge there. However, you can't help but feel a little disappointed.
Let's put that aside for a minute and get to the review already. It looks good. Very good, in fact. The art style respects its comic book roots, all the character models, from spidey to every villain in the game, look amazing (no pun intended). There are levels that look better than the others, but overall they all look good. Special mention to the Noir universe levels, which look so wonderful in spite of the stealth mechanic borrowed from splinter cell: conviction. Whereas in games like conviction and The Saboteur the black and white screen indicating dark areas come at the cost of all the colorful environment around you, in spider-man SD noir levels the color palette is fully composed of dark, noir tones that feel so natural you can't help but wonder why nobody had ever thought of this before. The transition from stealth to light is wonderfully implemented, the mustard colors and brightness of the lamps change slightly as you move farther from or towards the light. Brilliant! As for the colors, the sandman level and the carnage level are just the most beautiful ones, in my opinion, but that doesn't mean the others lag too far behind. The 2099 universe also looks wonderful, but in a completely different way. When reading the comic books, I remember that the cities looked incredible because of the lack of a ground level, everything was sort of suspended, which seemed the perfect environment for spidey. It is translated to perfection here: you never see the ground. The city looks fast, spidey 2099 is lightening fast, and it's all too chaotic and fast. That feeling is further enhanced by the free-fall bits that start suddenly and end abruptly. The fight with the Hobglobin was my favorite one up until the point I got to Carnage. It is fast and intense.
The game play is a touchy subject. It tries to emulate the precision you see in Batman, but overall it's more button mashing than anything else, specially because of the fast movements that you would come to expect from a spider-man title. It takes time to get used to, but once you start to master it, it might get more satisfying. Problem is the game is easy. So if you are a seasoned player, you might want to start on hard. On easy and normal, you can simply button mash your way through the whole game. You can also use currency you get from killing enemies and completing levels to buy upgrades. You can finish the game without ever buying any of them, though. The toughest parts of the game were the point where I was required to escape from an explosion, tsunami and whatnot by web swinging really fast, and it was only difficult because of the controls and because I didn't know I could move faster by holding the a button while swinging (noob!). You get a tingling when someone is about to knock you down, and you can press or hold LT to escape, but if you don't that's not going to hurt your chances too much. The animations are not as varied and the successful defense is not as satisfying as in Batman. Well, this is a spider-man title, so I guess that's ok, after all kids are going to play this game as well, right?
Once you buy upgrades, the combos get more interesting and even though you still won't need to be precise, you will try to be. There are millions of possible combos, and trying to use them gets you more currency. The controls are somewhat intuitive, but not that responsive. Web-crawling is horrible. Whenever you get to the ceiling of a place, you will know what I mean. Web swing is useless, unresponsive and it is much better to web zip, which you can do with the press of a button, much like what you do in Batman. The place you want to web zip to just has to be within reach. The camera is a little crazy though. It reminds me of Iron man 2, and that was a memory I was trying to bury within my skull so deep it would never surface again. Damn you, spider-man!
The Noir levels are the stealth action levels. You move from the shadows and execute a takedown. It's fun, you can wall-crawl and do it, stand behind the guy and do it, be on top of a pole and do it, and so on. The animation is a little too "comic bookey" for me, though. And that's probably an oxymoron, I know. Sue me. I want to feel like I am crushing the guy's skull, not slapping him unconscious.
The amazing spider-man has got no special ability, but ultimate spider-man has got a rage mode going on for him (which really helps in getting the longest combo) and spidey 2099 has got a fast mode which makes him even faster. The levels are timed and there are tokens scattered throughout the level, as well as eight golden spiders which are difficult to find. Depending on how many different types of combos you were able to execute, number of tokens found and time to complete the level, you get a golden, a silver or a copper coin. Getting only golden time coins you might finish the game in five to seven hours. I took me around 10 hours. You also have challenges to complete. They are put in a web and range from executing takedowns in sequence without alerting the guards to causing the bosses to kill their own minion to completing a sequence within a time limit and so on. By completing these challenges (some are automatic, like killing the boss) you unlock the upgrades, and you only get the most desirable alternate suits if you complete all 180 challenges, which means replaying the levels (you might get them all the first time, but I doubt). By the way, you gotta buy the fantastic four alternate suit. It is hilarious and a possible nerdgasmator, since it's based on a 1984 comic book few people might have read (that are not complete geeks, I mean).
The boss fights are easy. You might have a problem figuring out what to do, and madame web usually gives you a tip, but in case she doesn't, it might take a while. I still don't know how I killed hammerhead, I just know it happened. The levels follow a pattern, go after the boss/villain, kill his minions, rescue some people, protect them while they do something for you, get to the next section, fight the boss the first time, move on, repeat, fight the boss the last time. There is also a first person mini game where you are supposed to escape the villains' blows and hit him with different types of punches. It is not very deep, but fun nonetheless. It only doesn't get repetitive (well, it actually does) because you have different spideys to play as and the levels are so beautiful you might excuse that indiscretion. The mechanics also chance a little, so that can keep things fresh. The carnage level will blow your mind. It is that good. And, predictably, the last boss is Mysterio, in a level very similar to scarecrow's, but that's ok. Again, borrowing from the best.
The presentation is maybe the best part. The game is funny. The actors who voice spidey do a terrific job, it is maybe the first time I really paid attention to what a character was saying while playing. I usually ignore or go make a sandwich during the cinematics. My favorite line from any game ever will probably be, from now on, ultimate spider-man to electro: "nobody wants to see your junk". Indeed we don't, spidey. Indeed we don't (that's for you, Watchmen motion picture!).
The fact that the story is so basic and simple helps making the wisecracks pop out during game play. The story is: go fetch, spider-man! And while fetching, he makes countless jokes, some funnier than others. The villains also sound really interesting, more funny than scary, and they often have their share of jokes to make. Deadpool is not so much funny as he is annoying, as well as his level (the only change of pace, instead of rescuing people you have to destroy cameras on his TV reality show "Pain Factor"; sounds fun, but the level is a little annoying in my point of view). Deadpool sounds funny, but his jokes aren't all that good, and I think that was what the developer was going for, annoying, giving spidey some of his own medicine.
Stan Lee plays a part as the narrator, talking directly to spidey and to the player, so that's pretty cool. The cinematics are slick and feel like a comic book, not as an animation, that is also pretty cool and I don't know how they did it. Oh, and at some point in the game Madame web asks herself while browsing through the realities: "Is that a pig?". Yes, there will be a cameo appearance by someone really special. Wink!
Well, let's wrap this up. Game is amazing (again, not intended), looks terrific and, although you may and will find falter, does a pretty good job of translation the spider-man comic book universe to a game. Like the game that preceded it, Batman, developers and publishers learned that respect to the source material and to the fan base will always translate to success. Period. This might be the best spider-man game to date, problems notwithstanding. The many mechanics directly borrowed from Batman, like the spider-sense (not as powerful and distracting in spider-man as in batman), the web pull, the takedown mechanics, the challenges, the combos, spider-sense tingling, web zip, larger-than-life boss battles, well the list goes on, all of this mechanics are well implemented and add to the experience, so I am ok with that (just a little disappointed). There's even a joke about the "inspiration" for the game. In the sandman level, spidey is stuck inside a cave and he sees a bulldozer the moment he was saying "I gotta find something to blast through those rocks. And people say I am not a detective". Well, it's something like that and it's really funny. The game might be a cakewalk at times, but god what a delicious cake walk. If you are a nitpick geek, go ahead and grab it, and if you are not, go ahead and grab it as well. Period.