Spider-Man 2 Hands-On

Spider-Man DS has been one of the upcoming DS titles to watch since its debut at Nintendo's Gamer's Summit last month. The side-scrolling action game, developed by Vicarious Visions, was singled out at the summit as one of the standout titles during the event's opening presentation. We were pleased by what we saw when we tried the game out at Nintendo's Gamer's Summit last month and have been anxious to see more of it. Fortunately, Activision stopped by our offices and gave us an exclusive look at a work-in-progress version of the upcoming action offering that's slated to hit gaming audiences at the DS's launch.

The original game will offer a fleshed-out story that's based on the film plot, but it's been beefed up to include other villains from the Spider-Man universe. Doctor Octopus will, of course, be your main nemesis, but you'll also tangle with the Vulture and Mysterio. You'll face off against these villains and a variety of other foes throughout the course of the storyline's 14 chapters. The rather straightforward experience is enhanced in several different ways thanks to midbosses, minigames, and the ability to earn new supermoves.

The core of Spider-Man 2 will play out on essentially a 2D plane in a 3D space, in the tradition of such offerings as Klonoa 2. You'll have a set of primary and secondary objectives for each level, which are helpfully split up so that one appears on each screen. Primary objectives will display on the DS's top screen, while secondary ones will appear on the bottom screen. Your standard tasks in the game will revolve around exploring and beating up thugs, which is standard Spidey fare. However, to keep the action from getting too repetitive, you'll undergo rescue missions that will implore you to find civilians or focus on exploring your surroundings. You'll also encounter midbosses that range from beefed-up thugs to Doc Ock and other name villains, in addition to solving puzzlelike minigames. The experience is enhanced by the ability to evolve Spidey's combat skills by earning eight supermoves. The lightning punch unleashes a brief volley of punches on a foe. The slide kick lets you zip along the ground at an enemy so that you can hit him or her with a devastating kick. The hop-back move, while not an offensive maneuver, is very useful, because it lets you quickly somersault away from danger. The superjump lets you leap higher than your normal jump. The webnet fires a net of webbing to hold enemies in place. The webpull uses your webbing to quickly bring your target in close so you can pummel him or her. The impact web fires off a projectile that lets you stun your foes temporarily. Finally, the split kick lets you put the hurt on foes around you with Spidey's mighty legs.

The control is solid and relies mostly on the standard inputs on the DS. The D pad moves Spidey, A punches, Y kicks, B lets you jump and trigger a webswing, X fires a zip line that lets you quickly shoot to new areas, the R button lets you trigger whichever of the eight special moves you've selected, and the L button lets you trigger Spidey's patented "spider sense," which, in this case, is represented by a bullet-time effect.

The touch screen is used in a few different ways as you play. Its main function lets you both keep track of your objectives and select which supermove to assign to the R button. However, during the course of the game, you'll also use it to solve puzzles and engage in boss fights. The puzzles we saw involved guiding a ball through a simple electrified maze. The timed game required us to avoid arcs of electricity while trying to get the ball to the other end of the maze. The touch screens, which are used during boss fights, let you actively bat objects away with the stylus. In our boss fight, for instance, Doc Ock threw everything but the kitchen sink at us in a quest to stamp out Spidey.

The graphics continue to look good thanks to the game's solid 3D engine. The characters are modestly detailed but are well animated. Spidey and the trio of villains he'll face fare the best, while the assorted thugs you'll encounter are a hair below in terms of overall appearance. The environments, both indoor and outdoor, are nicely done and mix expansive areas with bitmaps to good effect. You may be tied to a 2D plane, but there's a nice, open feeling to many areas. The 3D look of the game is enhanced by a number of special effects that add some nice touches to the fire and electricity that you'll see. As we noted before, the frame rate is good and speedy, thus putting a nice bow on all the action.

The audio is surprisingly robust thanks to the DS's dual speakers, although it ranges in quality at the moment. The soundtrack is represented by a punchy collection of rock tunes that suit the game's pacing. The sound effects are a little underwhelming, but they get the job done. The voice samples for Spidey and company are lent an extra bit of authenticity from sound samples that include the vocal stylings of Tobey Maguire and Alfred Molina.

Based on what we've played, Spider-Man 2 DS should indeed be one of the highlights of the DS's launch software. The accessible gameplay, solid graphics, and hearty audio are strong, and the touch-screen functionality is cool without being overwhelming. While the game doesn't offer the totally unique experience of Feel the Magic: XY/XX, it does show that it's possible to enhance a tried-and-true style of play. Spider-Man 2 DS's release is slated to coincide with next month's launch of the Nintendo DS hardware.