User blog:Hawkeye2701/Review4U: Ultimate Spider Man (Video Game)

Alrighty, this one comes from our own ADour. Unfortunately this one took a while as I had to get a copy of the game in question. Probably shoulda clarified the Ultimate Spider Man I know stuff about was the series. Anywho, on with the Review!

Attack of the Plot
Originally Marvel's own Brian Michael Bendis wrote the story for the game to fit with the comic book canon. As the books progressed however, this unfortunately proved not to be true, thus forcing this reviewer to actually give a hoot about the story.

We open with a recap of the story in which Peter has gone through his black suit phase and then Eddie Brock has gotten his hands on it to become Venom. Beating the bejebus outta Eddie in the Midtown High Football field is very fulfilling, especially when you field goal Spider Man (Please note, this reviewer knows so little about American Football that if that joke in any way made sense it is only by the grace of our lord Stan Lee) Anywho, after cooking Eddie on a live power line, Peter goes back to his life, forgetting that he allowed a childhood friend to be BURNT ALIVE.

As luck would have it, Eddie isn't as dead as some of us would like and is unfortunately taking his unstable Symbiote out on the town to eat people, throw motorcycles through bar walls and fight adamantium laced midgets.

Meanwhile, with our friendly neighbourhood menace (Must, channel, inner Jameson) Peter gets into a tussle with R.H.I.N.O. which stands for Robotism Heuristic Intelligence Navigable Operative, proving once and for all, Marvel doesn't care what it's abbreviations stand for, so long as they spell something. This is where we get our first taste of a pattern as you must chase him down and then beat him up. Sad though it is to say, this is probably the most interesting boss in the game.

On the Venom side of things, Silver Sable, a character I know approximately nothing about has her mercenaries attack Eddie, this fails. Moving on.

The next day, during a field trip, Peter gets a headache from his spider sense and is confronted with Eddie. After a brief battle on the roof, Venom gets the heck outta there before eventually being captured by Sable.

Now in the care of Adrian Toomes and Bolivar Trask (Vulture and the Dumbass who built the Sentinels for those watching at home) Convinced to help them test the suit, Eddie is pitted against Electro. When Peter interferes, Electro goes to kill him, but as with any good psycho, messing with his target sends Eddie off the deep end and he beats Electro Blue and... more blue. He then escapes his handlers, cause they really thought Eddie was coming back...

Then the Beetle shows up. Yeah, talk about unrelated, this guy literally has nothing to do with the main story of the game. He shows up, breaks out the Green Goblin, goes to steal a bit of Sandman, being pursued by Peter along the way, then later tries to take a piece of Venom only to be beaten into the dirt. So yeah, that's Beetle.

Anyway, as a result of Beetle's hijinks, we have Green Goblin, who Peter has to chase... and fight... This is Norman Osborn, right? This is the guy who in 616 murdered Gwen Stacy, right? This is the Green Goblin, and he's essentially a throw away filler boss here... I need to move on before I blow a gasket.

Next thing we know, Peter is confronted by Sable, who is now trying to take him in. (Interesting bit of Trivia, the Sable is a small, sorta ferret like mammal with short dark fur, it's native to Northern Europe and Asia. Its name is also synonymous with dark things and the colour black. Silver Sable is not from Northern Europe or Asia, especially not in the Ultimate Universe where she is American and there is nothing about her that is black... Stupid, stupid code name.) Moving on, Sable ends up fighting Peter on the Queens borough bridge... Is that right? Is that supposed to be one word? Whatever, not important. In the process of pumping Peter with more drugs than a 90s Rave, Venom descends on the pair, looking to take his grudge out on Sable. Pursuing Venom and fighting him for the second time, Peter knocks him out, only for all the drugs to kick in and for him to fall unconscious himself. Sable does what any sensible mercenary does and promptly hands them both over to Trask and Toomes.

With Peter in hand, Toomes comes to the conclusion that Venom's enmity towards him is based on when he wore the suit, and that Venom is after the residual parts of himself left in Peter. This is where Toomes, being the Genius he is, pumped Peter full of more chemicals, transforming young Parker into Carnage.

Eddie wakes up in confinement. Hearing Peter scream, he busts out and follows, only to run into Carnage. The two beat each other up and down until Venom emerges victorious. Absorbing Peter, he takes Carnage and some part of Peter's DNA into himself, he spiders the Arachnid Avenger (Took him 40 years to get there and not even in this universe, but I'll be damned if I'll miss out on that alliteration) With the White Spider Symbol appearing on his chest, Venom finally seems to have stabilized, removing Eddie's need to eat people and giving him control over the suit. He promptly decides to go kill Trask.

In one final epic showdown, Peter saves Trask by wailing on Eddie, mostly while his back was turned, because fighting him head on is not advisable, I'll tell you that for nothin'. The day saved and all that, Peter laments what he had to do to Eddie and the handful of truths he found out about their fathers in return. SHIELD lock up Trask, but couldn't find Venom..

The game ends with Mary Jane comforting Peter and Trask, in prison, being attacked by Venom.

The Review
I'll be handling this much in the same manner of X-Men: Destiny (See my blogs for that one) So I'll be separating this out into certain aspects of the game.


 * Story

The story isn't bad, but since it is being launched from a Comic based narrative, we aren't just getting Peter Parker is Spider Man as our jumping off point, we're getting Peter Parker is Spider Man and all this stuff happened with his dad and the black suit and Eddie, now get playing. This makes the story itself, while decent, feel like it's the middle of a story as opposed to a self contained thing. I mean movies can sometimes get away with this sort of thing if it's a guaranteed sequel coming, like the Hobbit or Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, but games being what they are, it's best to make the story as self contained as possible. This means that while Beetle's actions likely had payoff in the comic with him collecting super human samples, here, he's just some goon who showed up and did random stuff before Venom crushed him. Also, being a game, there's a certain amount to be understood with Bosses. They're going to throw in characters who are there just to fill a gap. Now I do quite like that Shocker shows right at the start pretty much and from then on you can actually find him robbing stuff on the street, same with Boomerang, but this means that the bigger, level boss characters don't feel like they're getting the gravitas they deserve. I mean Rhino bulldozes a bunch of stuff, then this midget guy jumps out, and Peter has no reaction. Osborn escaped and is terrorizing the city and Peter shows virtually nothing in return but the usual quips. It's like with a movie, I understand you can't fit everything in and give it all the attention you could on paper, but sometimes that means not putting it in at all if you can't do it justice. This game was originally intended to match Ultimates canon, and if this is what became of some of these characters in that arc, I am disappointed. I have more to say on the matter of the story, but I'll save that for my wrap up.


 * Gameplay

The free roaming gameplay is much appreciated in Spider Man games. The ability to be web swinging freely across Manhattan when not doing jobs is very entertaining alongside the little events that pop up to keep you busy. Not to mention the actual side jobs of fighting gangs and racing across town, even a particularly difficult one in racing Johnny Storm which is pretty cool.

When it comes to web swinging, unlike several games, swinging is dependent on terrain. If you're around short buildings, you won't get a good swing, but in and around the New York Skyscrapers, you're flying. I always have a difficult relationship with applied physics to swinging in games. Sometimes I wish it would just let me swing from and invisible roof above, but there is something to be said for the skill of being able to quickly and efficiently navigate New York by relying on building height.

The combat system for the two heroes is simple, but effective, you can string together some decently varied moves by combining punches, kicks, grabs and webs with Peter, or claws, tentacles, grabs and just plain eating people as Eddie.

The failings I find are mostly in that you can't use Venom in free roam until the main story is over, and that the boss fights are repetitive. Unfortunately they mostly seem to resort to the same formula of Chase Bad Guy, Beat Up Bad Guy. Each Boss does seem to have some unique way to handle them, but this is usually only encountered when you actually go to fight them, like dealing with Beetle's flying, waiting for Goblin to go out, or jumping on Rhino's back, but I just don't feel there is enough variety in how you approach each boss in order to make up for the repeating of this same annoying pattern of having to run them down first. Sure, other games usually have you chase bosses through levels, but when pretty much every boss is preceded by a proximity based chase through the city, it just gets irritating and tiring.


 * Style

The cel-shaded comic style of the game is pretty good. It doesn't work for every game, but here it's okay and while the actual comic panel transitions don't seem as polished as they could be, they're passable. For the actual character appearances, I get a lot of these are lifted straight from the Ultimate Universe, but I'm gonna comment anyway. I like a lot of the designs. Shocker doesn't look like a cushion which isn't bad, but I'll be honest, I didn't know who he was at first and while I get that Shocker wasn't always the best villain of Spider Man's, I'm grateful I couldn't recognize this guy. Fighting this joke was embarrassing when I compare him to the Shocker in the 2002 Movie Game. Boomerang, Beetle and Rhino all look really cool in my opinion and it suits the style, but Goblin and Vulture just look a bit too simple when compared with everyone else, maybe a shirt on Gobby and something to make Toomes stand out. The only design I really didn't like at all was Venom. His head looks far too round to me, like some sorta weird melon instead of an actual head and while I understand it, I was disappointed by his lack of Spider Insignia for the majority of the game. Electro was also far too orange looking, but other than that, I have no complaints about him.


 * Characters

Having already made my feelings clear on Shocker, let's look at the Major players. Trask and Fury do passable jobs as characters in the peripheral of the game, though Sharon Carter seemed kinda, I dunno, superfluous? Silver Sable was enjoyable despite how little I know of her and Mary Jane for all she appeared was a good balance to Peter. The cameos by Wolverine and Johnny Storm were kinda pathetic to be honest. Not that they were played poorly, but they weren't utilized well. Johnny is just there for a Race Minigame and while he's fun for that, it's literally like two races. Wolverine got even less and I'm pretty sure that was just so they could have Wolverine in this game. Now onto the big two. Peter and Eddie. Peter is fun and the voice actor really captures this as a young Peter Parker, but I'm sorry to say that this game really failed to get me emotionally invested in the character. It went by quickly and the material really didn't give me enough to say anything about this particular portrayal other than "Yeah, that sounds like a fifteen year old Spider Man". Eddie is even worse. As a character who should be mostly sympathetic in this circumstance, he's just sort of there. When you get to play his part in the story, you're not feeling anything for his dilemma of living with a monster or being hunted, you're just lamenting the fact that these A-holes keep shooting you while your trying to eat their buddy's face.

Wrap Up
In conclusion, Ultimate Spider Man is a fun free-roaming adventure, there's plenty to do in it and it really pushes your skill at web slinging. Unfortunately, I think this is ultimately a case of another game doing it better.

A year earlier, Spider Man 2 hit the shelves. it also features free roam in New York, numerous side missions and realistic web swinging. While I will say the web slinging in this was more irritating to control than in Ultimate Spider Man, there was also a greater variety to the boss battles, and while you did have to keep proximity with targets sometimes, it wasn't every boss and there was a nice variety to the missions. It lacks some of the bonuses and polish that ultimate Spider Man has and the voice acting in places is horribly wooden, but I would still take it over this. Ultimate Spider Man had a lot going for it, even just the ability to play as Venom, but it fails in a lot of ways. The repetitive Boss formula, the lack of involvement I felt with it. On top of everything else, it just feels short. Yes there are extra things to do, but none of these added missions have a story and after a while it all feels more of the same. In Spider Man 2, when you weren't following the Doc Ock narrative, there was an entire story with Mysterio, which ended comically bad, but at least it was something as well as the story with Black Cat, who is the source of annoying proximity jobs there, but she's much nicer to look at than the guys in this game.

I won't call it a bad game, cause I've played worse, but it's not as good as it could have been. Now no game will ever live up to what we want as the ideal gaming experience, but when you can realistically say "You could have done this" to answer a problem with a game, it's no longer a question of fantasy vs. reality, its possibility squandered and when it comes to Ultimate Spider Man all I need do is point to a game that came out before it, and that's a bad sign. Honestly, in this case I can list three things they could have done to vastly improve this game even if it ended up making it shorter over all and that's take out Shocker, put in a side mission narrative and stopped having every boss run a god damn marathon before they fight you!

This has been Hawkeye2701 on behalf of ADour, now if you'll excuse me, I have to chase down the animated series of X-Men.