Breaks the mould set from previous Spidey games and ends up being the best addition to the franchise yet.
Friend or Foe was an easy, fairly straight forward beat 'em up.
Spiderman 3 was a decent Spiderman game in itself, but its lack of polish and un-refined nature held it back quite a fair bit.
Spiderman: Web of Shadows I've never played, but it seems to have been met with quite decent reviews, despite some issues here and there.
Well, now we have Shattered Dimensions, the latest addition to Spidey's arsenal of video games, and the good news is that it isn't tied to any existing movie or based on any source material.
Developer Beenox have done a fair amount of ports in the past, but now they have been let loose to make their own game, based on our beloved web head.
And they do an amazing job, which not only ends up being the best Spiderman game in recent memory, but the best Spiderman game yet. Ever.
Beenox successfully breaks the free-roaming mould set by previous games in the franchise, and changes things up a fair bit.
It's clear that they've just chucked most things known about Spidey games out the window and cleared the slate.
This time, instead of a free-roaming environment, we are treated to beautiful, absolutely huge levels, each with their own unique feel and vibe.
The linear based progression means that there are roam for more scripted and memorable moments, and there's more that Beenox can imagine and put into the game easily.
The biggest change though is not in the level design, but instead, we have not one, but four, Spidermen to play as.
But lets get down to the story.
The game starts off with an amazing looking cutscene (narrated by Stan Lee) that shows classic Spidey villain, Mysterio, breaking into a mueseum to steal some sort of tablet.
Spiderman goes into stop him, but accidentally breaks the tablet which shatters the four existing dimensions, and the pieces are scattered across them. If Mysterio gets a hold of these pieces, he can then control every dimension and mould them to his imagine, thus controlling the world.
It feels like pretty classic Spiderman stuff, but once the game kicks off there isn't much to it.
The story basically sets up the game, and then stops, which is a bit of a shame. It would have been cool to have more dynamic between the four spidermen.
Anyway, each level involves you going after a piece of the tablet, which are scattered across the four different dimensions.
As I said, you get to play as four different Spidermen.
There's Amazing, which is the original, classic Spiderman, voiced by none other than Neil Patrick Harris.
There's Ultimate, which is the modern re-imagining of Spiderman, voiced by Josh Keaton.
There's also 2099, the future version of Spiderman, voiced by Dan Gilvezan.
And then there's Noir, a pitch black alternate past for Spiderman, voiced by Christopher Daniel Barnes.
Each actor has voiced Spidey in the past.
So with four different Spidermen, there is a good variety with gameplay.
Amazing has you battling with web combat, while Ultimate utilizes the black symbiote suit. This was to avoid it to feeling to similar to the Amazing dimension. In Ultimate dimension you can go into "Rage mode" which basically has you completely overpowered and able to take on massive swarms of bad guys. This was really, really hectic and fun.
2099 is more of a acrobatic hand to hand combat type deal, with the exception of you having the bullet time ability or in this case "Accelerated Vision." This slows down everything around you while you remain the same speed.
Noir is the most unique and different out of all them, in that there isn't really a whole lot of combat. There are some fighting moments, but mostly it borrows from Batman: Arkham Asylum and has you silenty taking down the armed gunmen. This is really, really satisfying. Spiderman and stealth were made for eachother, with his wall crawling and webbing abilities, Spidey can take thugs out from above with webbing, or from a nearby wall.
It works really well, and Noir also has the best art style, giving it a Sin City sort of look.
I forgot to mention, each dimension has a different artistic design, and this in itself works well. It makes even more variety.
While on the subject of graphics, they are just beautiful. The game really looks like a comic, Beenox have opted not to make things look overly detailed and crazy looking, but instead just like they do in the comics.
I'll get down to the combat which makes up the majority of Shattered Dimensions.
Luckily, instead of past games, the combat is extremely fast and fun. You really feel like Spidey taking down all these thugs in these slick, acrobatic moves in the blink of an eye. Square is light attack, triangle is strong attack.
Circle is used for webbing and and grab attacks.
And then you can also hold down L2 which will automaticaly dodge most incoming attacks. It looks really cool, and is a lot of fun.
There's also a neat upgrade system where you're constantly unlocking new moves and goodies with your earned "spider essence."
Spider essence in itself is earned by taking out bad guys and completing challenges.
Challenges are actually one of the best parts of the whole game.
Each level has a number of challenges (optional) which often require you to pull off a move a certain amount of times or do something in a certain amount of time. These are INSANELY ADDICTIVE and are just so much fun to complete. It's easy because your progression through these challenges automatically pops up on the side of the screen as you're in the progress of doing them, so you can keep track. It is a great addition and I hope to see it in the future Spiderman games, also developed by Beenox.
I will mention though that I did wish there was a little more web swinging and adventuring in Shattered Dimensions. As fun as the combat is, it does get repetitive after a while, and Spiderman was built for web swinging.
Oh well, atleast the mechanics work well, they could have used a bit more polish but they do work.
I do have a slight issue with the wall crawling though, which is especially a problem in noir dimension when you're trying to line up those stealth attacks.
Instead of pushing the circle button to attach to the wall as in previous games you just walk up to it now. This would be fine, except the wall crawling is way to restricitve, and it's never clear when the restricitions are placed.
This also goes for web swinging to a lesser extent.
It's not a huge problem, but it could have been easily addressed, especially when you're wall crawling on a roof. Naturally, if I'm wall crawling on a roof, I'd want to get a look at what's below me, not an angle from behind my back.
This is made more unpleasant as the camera has a habbit of flipping out and going crazy when you're wall crawling.
I will go back to the good points however and say that the boss fights were just awesome. Each level features a boss, and some bosses that are in the game, haven't appeared in the dimension they're in before, so prepare to see some unique takes on well known bosses a Spidey fan like me can appreciate. I'm not spoiling a thing.
As I said earlier though, it does get a bit repetitive and some levels and bosses are less inspired than others.
Just a few more points, the sound was great in this game, the music all fit well, and all the voice acting is quite fantastic, especially from our four protagonists.
There is another small issue though, in some level you here the same quip, or tip, over, and over, and over, and over again. Yeah, it gets annoying.
Wrapping up, Shattered Dimensions is the best Spiderman game ever, and while there is room for improvement, this is a game not Spidey fan will ever want to miss. I'm looking forward to Edge Of Time!