Spider-man carries quite a bit of weight and ethos that a lay person
simply could not get from any one single source. True, the recent
cinematic success of Spider-man gives mainstream people a taste of what
the franchise is all about but little do people know that Spider-man,
the franchise, spawned a legion of related heroes and heroines, much
like another Marvel comic franchise, the X-Men. The PC edition of
Spider-man is aptly called 'The Movie' because it follows the rise of
the arachnid hero similar to the movie plotline but takes the liberty to
flesh out these ancillary characters and also the battles between
Spider-man and Oscorp spawned Green Goblin.
One of the things that struck me about the Spider-man movie adaptation
was its sense of style. I'm not sure what to call it but it was
certainly a lot different than previous comic book movies although many
shots paid homage to The Matrix (as almost every other film does
nowadays). In the PC game, there's a strong artistic use of light,
especially since a lot of the levels take place during the night or in
dark corners. The best example of use is in Grand Central when
Spider-man faces off against Scorpion. There's also copious use of
reflective lighting off superhero armor and dress during the cinematic
sequences themselves. I loved how it danced off the various characters.
It really looked much different from other games before it and brings
vibrancy even though the palette is uniformly dark in some of the
levels.
To pull these visual tricks off, Spider-man is demanding on your PC.
There's just no other way to put it. You'll want a hefty video card as
well as a hefty CPU to begin tackling the vast spaces directly. While
consoles and past PC games tend to fog up most of the skyline,
Treyarch's rendering on the PC is uncompromising in every sense. The
city sequences that dominate the movie are but a small part in the
game's storyline itself. The fact that I yearned level after level to
swing around in Manhattan is testament to the effects of the graphics
themselves. Many recognizable New York landmarks like the Chrysler
Tower are also visible which makes Spider-man both a sightseeing trip as
well as a novelty.
The levels themselves are heavily scripted and mixed in nature. You
have various amounts of rescue the civilians, defuse or disarm bombs,
duels with villains (and they need not be the Green Goblin) and even
some stealth-like missions. For stealth approaches, luckily like all
comic books, Spider-man can eschew all boundaries and simply assault the
enemy with reckless abandon. What makes the levels interesting is not
necessarily the combat, which is fun in itself. However, some of the
levels are frightfully short, especially in easier difficulty settings.
It is truly the story portrayed and the attachment you develop for the
different characters that make the game special. When I said the game
featured strong visual presentation, it is in every sense backed up by
strong voiceover work particularly for our protagonist. Tobey Maguire
was able to carry Spider-man's role because he had just the right amount
of naiveté and understated presence. The latter was missing from his
Cider House Rules performance. Here, Maguire resumes his role in the
Spider-man game as the titular character, throwing out his cynical
comments and wry sense of humor; the same type we found in the film and
the same attitude we expect from the Spider-man character. Needless to
say, the voiceover work by Maguire is, no pun intended, nothing short of
amazing and adds volumes to the depth of the Spider-man character. The
Green Goblin comes off much differently though. In the movie, it seemed
like Norman Osborn was almost trapped by his forgivable obsession to
keep his dignity and success. The Willem Defoe schzoid talk scene was
classic. In the game though, Osborn comes off completely evil and
totally unforgivable in trying to smite Spider-man.
While the scenes are dramatic, insightful and short, they can easily be
lengthened by the fact that much of the time you'll be struggling with
the controls. By default, Treyarch supports a mouse and keyboard
scheme. The mouse allows you to look around, but curiously, not up or
down. If you move up to the ledge of a building, sometimes you'd like
to look down to see if you really want to jump off. In the PC version
of Spider-man, you simply can't do that with the mouse. The keyboard
layout uses the numeric keypad for webbing and attacks. The WSAD combo
we've come to know from first person shooters moves Spider-man around.
Even on the easiest difficulty setting, I found Spider-man was a real
tough game to play, especially if you don't have the controls down
right. I thought I was just bad at platform games in general but after
grabbing a gamepad controller, things got much easier. Still, there are
a lot of controls to master in Spider-man. With his unique webbing
ability, you can perform dozens of tricks or combos, which makes the
fighting interesting as well as fun. Treyarch even rewards the right
moves with style points, accrued similar to the kudos system of Project
Gotham Racing.
Even with the gamepad controller, the gameplay was still more difficult
than it should be due to camera issues. The camera, whether in active
or passive mode, is simply too loose. Developers usually take control
of the camera to provide some directorial shot but none of that happens
here. The camera's laggardness provides nothing but frustration. Thus,
most of the time, you'll be babysitting the camera as much as the game
itself. Obviously, the developers knew this was going to happen. You
have things like camera locks to help track certain targets (boss
enemies, for example) but the controls are still yet to be desired. I
think intuitive fun controls are the ones I don't have to learn myself
but grow deeper and more sophisticated as you play it. They shouldn't
be deep and sophisticated off the bat and require you to take a course
to master it. That's just not what intuitiveness is all about.
Granted, I'm awful at babysitting cameras since my 3D spatial grasp is
admittedly poor, but Spider-man's gravity-defying stunts really
exasperate the engine's inability to consistently provide an optimal
view for gameplay.
This is quite a shame because Spider-man is a wonderful looking game.
The artwork put into it is highly admirable. Pay close attention to the
save game sequence-it's easily one of the slickest ones I've seen in
some time and reminisces its comic book origins. The use of light, I
have to stress again, is breathtaking and adds artistic style that
simply has not been replicated so far. Look how it dances off the
various characters and shines into windows. Finally, Maguire's speech
is always performed to the tee; completely understated but commanding at
the same time. His traits of honesty and frankness are always
appreciated. I only wished the game was able to sign up all the other
actors/actresses from the movie for the game since the cinematic story
for the game is worthy of that kind of treatment. There's one moment in
the film where Spider-man struggles to do basic web slinging and manages
to barely swing across a chasm only to hit a building straight in the
wall. That kind of frustration with the controls, unfortunately, tames
an otherwise highly involving work of art.