Spiderman Faces His Greatest Foe Yet: Camera Angles

So last week I picked up a copy of Spiderman Shattered Dimensions with a little bit of trepidation. You see, the last few installments for everyone favorite web spinner have all been, shall we say, less than stellar. In fact some might even go as far as to say that they were craptastic.  I’m glad to say that this game turns a corner for the franchise.  

The basic story is that Mysterio, a fish bowl headed amateur magician/villain, has attempted to steal an artifact. Spidey turns up and in the ensuing fight the artifact is broken and bits sent flying into other dimensions.  Now Spidey needs to team up with three other Spidermen from different dimensions.  

This adds a depth of game play, as each of the different Spidermen have different play styles and abilities.  Ultimate Spiderman wears the symbiote suit and uses a special attack called rage which sends tendrils flying out in all directions.  2099 Spiderman fights villains in a neon future using a special spider sense ability that slows time down. Noir Spiderman is probably the most different in style, and in my opinion the most fun. Noir Spidey creeps around in the shadows and focus on silent take downs and webbing unsuspecting bad guys while avoiding being seen.

Overall this game is fun. Lots of web slinging fun.  The different Spidermen all add a different dimension (no pun intended) to the game play, and help the game from becoming too repetitive.  There are some downsides, which while are not deal breakers, they do make the game somewhat frustrating.  Wall crawling is massively annoying.  It’s almost impossible to control the camera making wall crawling an almost vomit inducing experience.  Luckily there are only a few times when you need to use it, so the blow is lessened.  There are also some button mashing moments, such as guarding civilians from wave after wave of henchmen, which can be just plain annoying. I mean how long could it possibly take two guys to open a door? Surely at a console the size of the one they’re bashing away at there must be an open door button. 

All that aside, Spiderman is still fun. A little short, but a hell of a lot of fun.

Next Week: Enslaved. A futuristic retelling of an old Chinese fable.