Spider Man 2 is a game worth everyone's time and money, if only because the web-swinging mechanic is so damn cool.
Essentially, Spidey 2 gives the wall-crawler the GTA treatment – all of NYC is scaled down, open-ended, and available to you at any given time. You can swing from the Empire State Building to the Statue of Liberty, and from there, you can even go check out Ground Zero, if you are so inclined. The best part? All of this comes without a single load screen.
Until you've tried it, you can't really understand how cool it is to climb to the top of the tallest building in the city, nosedive off it, and swing away just before hitting the ground. It's easy to pick up, it's fun as hell, and it never seems to get old.
Sadly, the free-roaming is more fun than the game itself. Spider Man 2 is chopped up into chapters, each corresponding to a plot point in the movie or comics. The actual plot-based objectives don't take all that much time to complete, so the developers have padded the game with mandatory side missions, during which you'll earn points to upgrade your powers before moving on.
Trouble is, these side missions aren't all that interesting, and repeat way too often. About 200 times each over the course of the game, you'll save someone from falling off a building, rescue an old lady's purse, help the cops out in a shootout, stop a getaway car, or rescue a little kid's balloon. There are also minigames where you deliver pizza and snap photos, as well as little time-trials through the city, but none of this can hide the fact that Spidey needs a bit more meat on his bones. Going back to the awesome web-swinging, one of the more enjoyable ways to earn points is to search out all the hidden tokens atop the city's highest buildings. You know your game is in a spot of trouble when doodad collecting is more intriguing than the missions.
The combat engine, while functional, also comes off as a bit weak. Yes, you can upgrade your moves as you progress through the game; but in practice, you won't have to use many of those moves often, if at all. Most enemies can be defeated with a simple punch/kick flurry, with the occasional uppercut or web blast. There's no real incentive to learn all the movies, and even less to use them.
Let's talk about something more positive – Spider Man 2 looks and sounds great. Yes, the PS2 version and the Gamecube version succumb to the almighty Xbox version, but what's truly impressive about the game is how vibrant and full of life it is – there's so much happening around you at any given time, State of Emergency's riots look like small gatherings by comparison. People will call out to you as you swing by, and not all the comments are positive. The always excellent Bruce Campbell returns for the tutorials, and this time, there's a lot more of him to go around – over 200 help icons are scattered throughout the city. The film's cast returns to provide voice work for the game, though much of it seems to be phoned-in. Kirsten Dunst, I'm looking at you.
Flaws aside – and there are a lot of them – Spider Man 2 is worth checking out by every gamer that ever wanted to be a superhero. Until technology allows us to play in a Matrix-style environment, this is the closest you're going to get to living out your childhood dreams.
-George
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