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October 3, 2005 | 6:59 PM PST
by: Chad Mullikin
Treyarch is at it again, but this time no movie tie-ins. Ultimate Spider-Man is the first Spidey game in a long time based on the web slingers comics, in this case the popular Ultimate Spider-Man series. The series is a retelling of the classic story of a boy and a radioactive spider; all of the characters have a new, more modern look and the series as a whole is more modernized. Peter is a high school student, Rhino runs around in a huge mechanical suit, and Electro is a metrosexual. Ultimate Spider-Man continues Treyarchs amazing web of Spidey titles and does it in style.
Story
Activision and Treyarch made plenty of great decisions over the course of this game's development, and approaching Brian Micheal Bendis to write the narrative for the game ranks as one of the best. High on just about every comic fan's favorite-writer list, after a short but spectacular stint writing for the DareDevil comic, Bendis was handed the reigns to Ultimate Spiderman at issue one and hasn't looked back since. All the major elements of Bendis' style can be found in the game's story, from the witty self-aware dialog (Bendis is notorious for poking fun at past Spidey lore and the comicbook medium in general), to the incredible driving pace of events building up toward the conclusion. Speaking of which, conclusions have long been considered Bendis' weakness – while almost always emotionally satisfying, they typically felt rushed. Simply put, nothing wraps up a blood feud like a good fight, and typically the final battles in the Ultimate Spiderman were typcically over too quickly to be completely effective. In the game, Bendis merely sets up the context for the battles, and lets players and the AI do battle, negating this weakness and making the game narrative one of the strongest Spiderman tales he's ever created.
The storyline takes place shortly after the origin story of Venom in the Ultimate line of comics – the final battle of that story-arch, between an unmasked Peter Parker and an out-of-control Eddie Brock on the high-school soccer field, serves as the first stage and combat tutorial level. From there, the timeline jumps past several of the recent events in the comic franchise, and players find Eddie Brock barely conscious in Central park with a strange new hunger. One of the biggest shocks while playing the game was the number of significant events that transpire over the course of the game, events that will have an affect on the comic-book's future. By the end of the game, Venom has undergone an important shift (Ed Note: one which fans of his, including myself, have been waiting for since he was reintroduced in the Ultimate universe), a powerful foe is resurrected, and two fixtures of the Marvel universe are introduced in Ultimate form. The fact that all these significant events happen in a game, and will be carried over into the comics, rather than the other way around, is a fairly significant lead for the cultural connection between the two mediums and a very exciting prospect for future endeavors.
Gameplay
Ultimate Spider-Man plays very much like its predecessor, Spider-Man 2. The only real difference is the fact that everything has been simplified a little, especially the web slinging; now you can only use one web at a time and the super jump is no more. Players can now double-jump mid swing however, which was something most fans of Spider-Man 2 were begging for within minutes of web slinging. Additionally, Treyarch has added a mid-swing webline-climbing maneuver that allows Spidey to change altitudes quickly, rather than having to time the momentum boost and release of each swing to throw the web-head higher into the air. While these are useful additions, the simplification of the fundamentals has hurt the sense of fluidity that was once inherent to web-slinging across the city. Considering how unanimously acclaimed the web-slinging was in the first game, its hard to imagine why Treyarch felt they needed to streamline it.
While its unfortunate the web-slinging mechanics have been weakened from the last title, zipping around town still provides an uncanny feeling of freedom, one which no other open-ended game, from GTA to Mercenaries, has been able to match. The trade-off for the more simplified web slinging is the fact that you can now maneuver around New York a lot more quickly and easily, as turning hair-pin corners is now much easier and the aforementioned swinging double-jump makes negotiating through areas where tall buildings are a little sparse far less annoying. If only we could have had the additions without the subtractions.
I wonder why they call him 'Electro'?
Sound:
Both Spidey and Venom play like you would imagine they would. Spider-Man is quick, agile, and strong; Venom on the other hand is slower, super strong, and a walking tank that destroys everything in his path, animate or not. That strength comes with a price however, as the symbiote is constantly feeding on Eddie Brock's energy to fuel its power – that is, unless it gets is tendrils on another source of energy. Players must frequently find nourishment in the form of either non-boss enemies or innocent bystanders to keep their health bar topped off, but thankfully the streets are always crowded, and the life bar doesn't deplete at such a speed that it merely staying alive becomes a pain (cough*Shinobi*cough).
Both Spiderman and Venom have a variety of attacks at their disposal, although the combat system is still disappointingly rudimentary. Over the course of the game, the player will be able to sting more and more hits together in longer combos, put together through various combinations of the X and Y buttons. This would be fine were it not for the fact that the combos are effectively interchangeable – a combo created with an input of XYXYX, has no benefit over a combo of XXYYY other than a different animation appearing on screen. Forcing players to choose the right attacks for the right situation is the key to an engrossing combat engine, and Ultimate Spiderman fails to give players reason to care which attack buttons they're pushing at any given time. Its typically far more effective for players to jump into the fray, make a few quick hits, bounce of a few walls, connect with another few hits, then jump back out and repeat the process. This is actually quite faithful to Spidey's tactics in the comics, as Spider-man is typically far less physically imposing than his enemies and requires great use of his speed, agility and spider sense to make it through battle. Whether or not recreating the essence of the source material was the intention or not, the battle system is still somewhat shallow, and battles typically only become difficult against bosses, or a large number of average thugs with projectile weapons.
Story
Activision and Treyarch made plenty of great decisions over the course of this game's development, and approaching Brian Micheal Bendis to write the narrative for the game ranks as one of the best. High on just about every comic fan's favorite-writer list, after a short but spectacular stint writing for the DareDevil comic, Bendis was handed the reigns to Ultimate Spiderman at issue one and hasn't looked back since. All the major elements of Bendis' style can be found in the game's story, from the witty self-aware dialog (Bendis is notorious for poking fun at past Spidey lore and the comicbook medium in general), to the incredible driving pace of events building up toward the conclusion. Speaking of which, conclusions have long been considered Bendis' weakness – while almost always emotionally satisfying, they typically felt rushed. Simply put, nothing wraps up a blood feud like a good fight, and typically the final battles in the Ultimate Spiderman were typcically over too quickly to be completely effective. In the game, Bendis merely sets up the context for the battles, and lets players and the AI do battle, negating this weakness and making the game narrative one of the strongest Spiderman tales he's ever created.
The storyline takes place shortly after the origin story of Venom in the Ultimate line of comics – the final battle of that story-arch, between an unmasked Peter Parker and an out-of-control Eddie Brock on the high-school soccer field, serves as the first stage and combat tutorial level. From there, the timeline jumps past several of the recent events in the comic franchise, and players find Eddie Brock barely conscious in Central park with a strange new hunger. One of the biggest shocks while playing the game was the number of significant events that transpire over the course of the game, events that will have an affect on the comic-book's future. By the end of the game, Venom has undergone an important shift (Ed Note: one which fans of his, including myself, have been waiting for since he was reintroduced in the Ultimate universe), a powerful foe is resurrected, and two fixtures of the Marvel universe are introduced in Ultimate form. The fact that all these significant events happen in a game, and will be carried over into the comics, rather than the other way around, is a fairly significant lead for the cultural connection between the two mediums and a very exciting prospect for future endeavors.
Gameplay
Ultimate Spider-Man plays very much like its predecessor, Spider-Man 2. The only real difference is the fact that everything has been simplified a little, especially the web slinging; now you can only use one web at a time and the super jump is no more. Players can now double-jump mid swing however, which was something most fans of Spider-Man 2 were begging for within minutes of web slinging. Additionally, Treyarch has added a mid-swing webline-climbing maneuver that allows Spidey to change altitudes quickly, rather than having to time the momentum boost and release of each swing to throw the web-head higher into the air. While these are useful additions, the simplification of the fundamentals has hurt the sense of fluidity that was once inherent to web-slinging across the city. Considering how unanimously acclaimed the web-slinging was in the first game, its hard to imagine why Treyarch felt they needed to streamline it.
While its unfortunate the web-slinging mechanics have been weakened from the last title, zipping around town still provides an uncanny feeling of freedom, one which no other open-ended game, from GTA to Mercenaries, has been able to match. The trade-off for the more simplified web slinging is the fact that you can now maneuver around New York a lot more quickly and easily, as turning hair-pin corners is now much easier and the aforementioned swinging double-jump makes negotiating through areas where tall buildings are a little sparse far less annoying. If only we could have had the additions without the subtractions.
I wonder why they call him 'Electro'?
Sound:
Both Spidey and Venom play like you would imagine they would. Spider-Man is quick, agile, and strong; Venom on the other hand is slower, super strong, and a walking tank that destroys everything in his path, animate or not. That strength comes with a price however, as the symbiote is constantly feeding on Eddie Brock's energy to fuel its power – that is, unless it gets is tendrils on another source of energy. Players must frequently find nourishment in the form of either non-boss enemies or innocent bystanders to keep their health bar topped off, but thankfully the streets are always crowded, and the life bar doesn't deplete at such a speed that it merely staying alive becomes a pain (cough*Shinobi*cough).
Both Spiderman and Venom have a variety of attacks at their disposal, although the combat system is still disappointingly rudimentary. Over the course of the game, the player will be able to sting more and more hits together in longer combos, put together through various combinations of the X and Y buttons. This would be fine were it not for the fact that the combos are effectively interchangeable – a combo created with an input of XYXYX, has no benefit over a combo of XXYYY other than a different animation appearing on screen. Forcing players to choose the right attacks for the right situation is the key to an engrossing combat engine, and Ultimate Spiderman fails to give players reason to care which attack buttons they're pushing at any given time. Its typically far more effective for players to jump into the fray, make a few quick hits, bounce of a few walls, connect with another few hits, then jump back out and repeat the process. This is actually quite faithful to Spidey's tactics in the comics, as Spider-man is typically far less physically imposing than his enemies and requires great use of his speed, agility and spider sense to make it through battle. Whether or not recreating the essence of the source material was the intention or not, the battle system is still somewhat shallow, and battles typically only become difficult against bosses, or a large number of average thugs with projectile weapons.
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February 8, 2010
