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It's
time to go for a spin with Spidey
By Tom Fahey
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The graphics
stay faithful to the movie
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Everybody's favourite friendly
neighbourhood Spider-dude can now be seen web slinging, wall crawling,
and bad guy bashing on PS2.
That's right -- Spider-Man is making a return with never before
seen acrobatics, and all new smart arse comments to boot.
For all those people who have been deprived of the best standard
in MARVEL comics, that which is The Amazing Spider-Man, here is
some background information on our friendly arachnid.
Peter Parker was a shy and often bullied child, and for as long
as he could remember, he had loved Mary Jane Watson, the girl next
door. But one day in his last year of schooling, he was on an excursion
at a laboratory, which housed several radioactive, genetically modified
spiders.
In a twist of fate, one of these spiders had escaped and crept
its way onto Peter's hand. Biting him, in the process injecting
its venom, Peter underwent genetic changes, and soon spawned spider-like
abilities.
Thus, the greatest superhero to walk the halls of unreality was
born... The amazing Spider-Man!! And, in another not-so-bizarre
twist, it opened the doors of opportunity for a video game, and
what a game it is.
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Spider-Man
has more tricks up his sleeve...
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As P. Parker became a superhero, he couldn't just get around by
beating up helpless back-ally thugs. I mean, they didn't have any
special abilities to make it interesting. There had to be a super
villain!
Enter the Green Goblin. Spidy's arch rival. He wreaks havoc throughout
New York and in Spider-Man's personal life, so basically you swing
around, bash up baddies, and put the Green Goblin in his place.
Simple yet effective.
You may be familiar with the two Spider-Man titles on the PSone,
but I can assure you that this latest breed is of a different standard.
For starters, Spider-Man on PS2 is modelled on the newly released
Spider-Man movie, and starts at the beginning of the filmic chronicle.
And, of course, with the improved graphics, great sound and all-round
better game play that the PS2 provides, you almost start thinking
you're the web-slinger himself.
The great graphics of Spider-Man brings the game world to life.
When swinging through New York, alongside the sky-scrapers at break
neck speeds, one could almost get giddy - it looks that good! The
graphics of the characters are fairly simple, yet effective. They
have a slight comical look to them, but it adds to the atmosphere.
But the real effort has been put into the buildings, inside and
out. Offices are full of furnishings, most of which can be hurled
at your enemies! It's always good fun picking up a car on the Manhattan
Bridge and throwing it towards the Green Goblin's head.
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The motion
capture is the icing on the cake
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There has been a big improvement with the sound effects since the
last two games as well, with the webbing sounds kinda hard to explain,
but rest assured everything fits in well.
Naturally there is the good old "WAK" and "POW"
when you throw punches at your enemies. The bliss of being a super
hero...
Spider-Man can not only cling to walls, and make a rope from his
web reserves to swing around on. He can manipulate the webbing around
his fists, giving him super strength and later on you can get a
second level of fist webbing which gives you, well, super, super
strength I guess.
He can also spin a web dome, providing short term protection, of
which there is also a second level. And for those of you who know
the web-slinger well, you'd know about the cool up-side-down rappelling
thing that he does so gracefully. Well, you can do that too.
It's weird - you're almost spoilt for choice such is the many ways
to render your foes unconscious. But my personal favourite is still
just the good old swinging around between buildings like the spider
he half is.
Well by now I'm sure you're all dying to stop reading this review,
so you can go to your nearest store to buy Spider-Man. So I'll stop
using up precious game play time, and let you go for a spin. But
just so you know, Spider-Man is a really entertaining new release,
with many different bad guy bashing techniques to master. It's hours
of fun and I recommend it to all PS2 gamers out there.
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