Ultimate Spiderman (PS2)

(Treyarch/ Activision)

Spiderman 2, based on the movie, set the scene for good open Spiderman adventures and Ultimate Spiderman follows up just as impressively while changing the gameplay and look for a different but better game. Taking on an excellent comic book style that not only make the cut scenes really cool but carries on while playing the game. The comic style makes everything clearer, slicker and more true to Spidey’s roots.

Set in New York as always, the city is huge, and the inhabitants are plenty. Spidey does tasks by helping people, getting hem to hospital and beating up thugs. This in turn opens the story mode where he encounters many of his old foes and continues the story of Venom.Venom is a new playable character and he is truly great. Firstly he can jump massive distances and crash to the ground with a pavement shattering thud. He can grab the sides of buildings and catapult himself great distances also. The Venom suit needs to be fed so munching down on the cities people is the way to go, adding an interesting aspect to character health. Venom can also wall run and is quite dextrous so he can keep up with Spidey no trouble.

One improvement to the way the game unfolds compared to Spiderman 2 is that you can’t just run through all the story aspects of the game and end up with a city of small tasks to finish the game. You must complete certain mini games like races and battle tours as well as collect tokens to open each stage of the story mode. After you have completed each story chapter you must return to the city and complete more tasks to open the next. It paces the game out which adds to the diversity.

When you are fighting as either Spiderman or Venom there is a return to the ‘wham’ and ‘pow’ type fight scenes found in the old comic’s. The fighting is a little less ‘move’ based than previous releases but most of the cool actions are still there like being able to tie people to light poles. Jump is used to dodge attacks when your spidey sense warns so combos are simple by using attacks from the air and by using walls. Venom can do the same but with more devastating ferocity, Venom is also a little more hands on and throttling enemies isn’t a rare occurrence.

The sound is as per any other Spiderman game, pretty good, nothing special, web squirts and jumping noises. It does the job. The voice overs are helpful usually. The characters say things that help you to understand what to do next. And during the cut scenes they let you know what’s happening in the story. The character voices are well done though so you don’t really notice them and just listen to what they tell you.

Graphically, as said above, this game is slick, it looks cool and flows well while swinging about. I didn’t notice to many glitches, even in small corners and the camera follows the player well. The thing I liked most about this game is it’s not too hard but it is challenging enough to keep you from finishing too quick. And the way it’s paced really helps. There is loads of variety and it’s god fun to play.

If you already own a Spiderman game then you’re in for the same sort of thing but it’s still a good ride. The addition of Venom is great, he’s fun to play and makes the story interesting.

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