Spider-Man 2

Review - Ben is swept up in a most fascinating web...

Think of all the biggest superheroes - Superman, Batman, Spiderman and Bananaman. Though their superpowers and extraordinary stories differ, they all have one thing in common - duality. They live a split existence. Most of the time they live their lives as one of us; going to work, doing the washing up, paying their bills. All very ordinary, very dull activities. However, unlike us they also lead a far more interesting and exciting life. Whether it's flying round the skies of Metropolis, hunting down the goons of Gotham city or perching on flag poles in New York, it all sounds more entertaining than queuing up to buy a cheese and onion quiche in Somerfield. I wonder whether Activision had this duality in mind when they sat down to program Spiderman 2.

Grand Theft Auto 3 has a lot to answer for in many ways. The fantastic, free-roaming structure of the game has created an insatiable thirst for 'freedom' that has swept the gaming world. This is fine when it is appropriate and properly implemented, but there have been several instances when its use has failed to enhance the game in question. Was Jak II, for instance, any better a game than the first, simply because you could roam the city freely between missions? Fortunately, Spiderman 2 is one of the examples where the search for freedom has enhanced the franchise substantially.

In a similar vein to, yes you guessed it, Grand Theft Auto 3, the player is free to either follow the missions that progress the narrative or instead to completely disregard them and enjoy the total freedom to explore New York. You thought stealing cars and clubbing pro's was fun? Try swinging from rooftop to rooftop, scaling the Empire State Building and hanging criminals from lampposts. The exhilaration you get from traversing the accurately mapped city of New York is truly awesome. You may have read it elsewhere but believe it when I say that no superhero game before this has allowed you to feel like a superhero to a greater extent than Spiderman 2.

More likely than not the first few hours of play will be consumed by simply exploring the environment available to you. It's a huge credit to Activision that they've been able to formulate a control setup that allows near complete control of Spidey's actions. Launching webs and swinging from building to building is quickly learnt and easily mastered with a little effort. Unlike the previous Spidey title, your webs actually attach to physical objects within the game rather than simply sticking to the sky above you. The result of this is that you'll always be swinging into a building. At first this means you'll spend your time bouncing off windows and brick work but once you understand how the momentum carries you you'll be jumping and catapulting from swing to swing in one flowing movement.

It's entirely possible to while away several hours simply exploring the abilities open to you. It's likely that during your initial exploration you'll stumble across some of the hidden tokens that litter the city. Whether it's the Skyscraper tokens hidden at the top of the tallest buildings, the Secret tokens tucked in the most elusive crevices or the Hideout tokens that can be found in some of the scattered interiors, the hunt for these trinkets can be enough to amuse you for longer than it takes to complete some other titles completely. I still haven't tired of swinging and crawling my way to the top of the Empire State Building, gazing out over Manhattan and then diving from the very top, only to latch onto a building at the last possible second and swing back up into a flip at what feels like 200mph! It's all thanks to the brilliant controls that are superbly executed.

Graphically things are a little so so. The city uses a texture drawing mechanic that draws textures onto buildings the closer you get. It's a principle employed in several games and when done well it's not noticeable. However, when it's done badly, like it is here, it makes for some quite ugly texture pop-up that really blemishes the otherwise fine landscape that still boasts some awesome draw distances. With so much power being put into the city there obviously weren't many polygons left to shift around and as a result the people you'll encounter throughout the game are very poorly rendered. Bodies and faces are blocky, lip sync non-existent and the cars look as if they're made from Lego. It's fortunate that the controls play so well and the city is so expansive since as a result you'll barely notice these problems, though a little refinement would have gone a long way.

It's inevitable though that eventually the time will come when you'll want to explore what else is available in the game. Unfortunately it's at this point that the game's quite severe limitations become apparent. Aside from the main quest you'll come across random assignments and crimes that need preventing or stopping. These are represented by coloured dots that appear on your map and annoyingly repetitive sound bytes ("My balloon" is a call that you'll very quickly learn to hate) that plead for help. The first few times you indulge the terrified public you may well be quite excited, but soon you'll realise that the missions on offer lack any sort of variety and become repetitive extremely quickly. Most missions have you either beating up criminals, chasing criminals in their car, rescuing folk dangling precariously from the tops of buildings or escorting injured people to hospital against the clock. Whilst there's nothing inherently wrong with the missions themselves, you'll have seen all there is to offer within 30 minutes and as a result they feel incredibly unbalanced in comparison to the near endless joy of exploring the city.