Previewed: September 2, 2005
Previewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Activision

Developer
Treyarch
Beenox (PC Version)

Release Date: September, 2005
Genre: Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen

Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)

Picture if you will, last year’s Spider-Man 2 game, completely re-imagined and redesigned to create the most authentic interactive graphic novel of all time. Yes, I know, it’s hard to imagine and even screenshots don’t do this game justice, so check out the game trailer to actually comprehend the overwhelming goodness of this game.

Ultimate Spider-Man oozes with presentation value. The game slips between panel-style cutscenes and gameplay so seamlessly it’s uncanny, with characters actually leaving the game environments and passing through a virtual panel onto the comic page to start a cinematic. Conversely, you might be watching a movie only to have one of the panels zoom in to the actual game.

Character design is outstanding with fluid animation and a unique cel-shaded look for both characters and the environment that takes the entire cel-shaded art form to a new plateau of excellence. This isn’t Zelda or Jet Grind Radio. This is a comic book come to life, and with technology trying so hard to mirror reality and create “realistic” imagery it’s a look that is refreshingly original and much appreciated.

Great news for fans of last year’s web-slinging and wall-crawling adventure; the gameplay is nearly identical to what you already know with a few significant improvements. First and foremost, you can now “climb the web” while swinging. I can’t say I ever noticed that I couldn’t do that last year, but now with this added ability, plus the inclusion of obstacles courses and unique acrobatic tricks that require this new move, I can’t imagine having ever played without it.

Much of Manhattan has returned for this latest adventure, although the city is a bit smaller in overall size to allow for the inclusion of Queens. You still have all the important landmarks like Times Square, but this historic borough of NYC adds a whole new flavor to the game’s environment and story not to mention unexplored territory. And yes, you can still climb to the top of the radio tower on the tallest building and practice your freefalling techiques.

Speaking of story, Ultimate Spider-Man picks up somewhere after Issue #39 and the game story is being written by Brian Michael Bendis, the writer of the Ultimate series. While I only got bits and pieces of the narrative from the scattered levels I got to play, the voice acting and presentation is topnotch. Don’t expect any big name voice-actors either, but that doesn't mean the acting is anything short of perfection. Spidey is actually voiced by a 15-year old kid who wowed casting directors during auditions.

This is “old school Spider-Man” and not the DNA genetically enhanced version from the movies. Peter Parker actually uses “web shooters” in this game, and while you have unlimited web fluid there are parts of the game where you don’t have your shooters and your movement is astonishingly restricted by your inability to swing. Even the rendering of the web is intricately detailed with the primary strand and all of the other tendrils that weave around it to form something much like a braided cable.

The game plays out much like Spider-Man 2 with specific missions mixed in with the free-roaming exploration of the Big Apple. At any point in time the next mission to progress the story is indicated on the map, but until you trigger that mission you are free to swing around town and help the citizens with their various problems.

Ultimate Spider-Man also introduces Venom, as a playable character that allows you to unleash your “dark side”. Venom has an entirely unique set of moves and abilities. While he can crawl up walls like Spidey he uses his tentacles to catapult himself across long distances. He also has grab attacks that can be combo’d into devastating finishing moves like the face plant or he can just slap around multiple enemies with his flailing tentacles.

The most interesting element of Venom is his ability to heal by feeding on the inhabitants of New York, and even more disturbing is that the game rewards you with more health for feeding on innocent bystanders. Sure, you get a bit of health when you scarf down a thug and they are dead when you spit out their lifeless corpse, but the real power (and guilty pleasure) is chasing down that screaming housewife and munching down.

Venom's missions are inserted into the main storyline of Ultimate Spider-Man, so at pre-determined times you will break away from the "goody two-shoes" exploits of Peter and dabble in the dark side of villainy. There’s nothing more wickedly fun that hurling a Hummer into an advancing army of soldiers.

All of your favorite villains are back to put Spidey to the “ultimate” test such as Electro, Rhino, and even Nick Fury makes an appearance. There are several other “unannounced” villains the designers are still keeping secret. Venom even gets to go a few rounds with X-Men’s, Wolverine in a classic barroom brawl early on in the game. Ultimate Spider-Man has the largest collection of heroes and villains ever assembled for a single video game, and for the first time ever we see a fully realized and redesigned “ultimate” version of Beetle, who just so happens to have one of the most engaging chase sequences in the game.

As I was chasing Ultimate Beetle around the skyline of NYC I was reminded of the chase events with Black Cat in Spider-Man 2, only in this game Beetle is causing these mini-disasters along the way and you have to rescue civilians before resuming the chase. Not to mention all the force fields and other diversions he throws at you. It’s a very exciting sequence and quite long, so I was thankful they included checkpoints at major milestones along the way.

There is a bit of logical reasoning and puzzle solving with portions of the game. Often, you will have multiple targets in need of rescue. Their imminent danger is indicated with a circular health meter that slowly ticks away over their heads. It’s up to you to gauge the speed of these meters and save the people in the correct order.

Ultimate Spider-Man is swinging into stores later this month for Xbox, PS2, GameCube, PC, and even the NDS. While the PS2 and PC versions weren’t being shown I did get a chance to play a couple of levels on the GameCube, and was rather surprised that this version didn’t stack up with the Xbox. Typically, the GameCube excels in cel-shaded graphics; just look at Zelda and more recently, Killer 7.

While I will withhold "ultimate" judgment of the GameCube version until the final release, the build I did play had unimpressive textures, noticeable pop-up, and a reduced color pallet that was causing banding in large areas of color like the sky. Gameplay was identical with fluid animation although after almost two hours on the Xbox it was hard to adjust to the GameCube controller.

And in all fairness, the Xbox wasn’t as crisp and pretty as it should have been, but again, this wasn’t the final build and I was sitting 24” from a 32” Sony TV, so every jaggy and imperfection was right in my face. I’m sure some final tweaks, anti-aliasing, and progressive scan will make this a game for the visual record books.

I was hooked after playing the first of three levels in my demo for Ultimate Spider-Man. Everything I loved about the open-ended nature of Spider-Man 2 was back, but with a complete overhaul of graphics and panel-style presentation to truly immerse me in a living breathing graphic novel. This is the perfect marriage of comics and video games and with so many comic-inspired games already out and more on the way, I can say without reservation that Ultimate Spider-Man will rule them all with ultimate gameplay and ultimate style.

While you're counting the days until you can strap on your own web-shooters, check out our collection of screenshots in our Preview Gallery and make sure to see Spidey in action in our gameplay trailer.