SpiderMan: Shattered Dimensions

SpiderMan:
Shattered Dimensions
Marvel/Activision/Beenox

Xbox 360
PS3
PC
Wii
PSP

Ok web slingers here we go with the latest instalment from the folks at Marvel and Activision/Beenox. That’s right, one of comics most exploited characters is back on our screens in this little dimension hopping adventure. So let’s put on the tight latex suit and standard face coverings so we can swing right into it... No, not the Gimp suit! The Spidy suit, all four of em!


Spidy has made a balls of things by mistakenly creating four dimensions, this accident sets off your quadrupole adventure of webbed mayhem. The objective of the game is to search through the four new dimensions and find pieces of a mystic tablet to save reality before it all goes pop, right so no pressure then Spidy! Cross dressing has never been so heroic, you will get to be the Classic Neighborhood Spidy that we all know and love/hate so well, the 'Noir' Spidy of a by gone age who is a bit of a bad ass. There is Ultimate Spidy in his cool black S&M looking spandex and the least popular, Spidy 2099 who is a arrogant cock! All have their own dimension and surroundings to fit their persona's and all in all its an interesting concept. During these various themed levels you will face a heap of spider-mans favorite bosses along the way, which is cool. Throw in the obligatory hidden spiders and collectibles scattered about, and you more or less have a typical spider-man game but be warned, this is not the Spidy game you are used to playing not by a long webbed shot. That’s right, feel the Spidy senses tingling, anyone hoping for a nice big city that's free to run around in is going to be really, really, disappointed! It’s A to B stuff, the sandbox format is gone in the bin. Booooo!! But that doesn't mean its a crap game... or does it?


Game play is fast, you’re thrown into the action straight away, from the moment you start the level you are corralled down a linear path, there is nowhere to go but forward. You meet and chase Spidy's first Nemesis 'Kraven the Hunter' through out the level, eventually ending up in a jungle based thunder dome arena. This begins the first boss battle of the game. After wearing down Kraven's health something new and interesting happens, you go into a first person view for a punch up during the last moment of the final fight. You move the left and right analogue sticks for punching and dodging, a bit like EA's boxing games of late. This was a really nice surprise that is very well executed and is a pretty fresh feature to this type of game and probably one of the games better qualities. That said, all boss battles follow this format, they are rinse and repeat affairs - find the weak spot, hit it, hide, hit it again etc... Next!!


The general formula is also the same all the way through each level, beat up the weak bad guys, beat up the strong bad guys, beat up the stronger bad guys, fight the boss, rescue the civilians, then beat up all the bad guys again, then beat the boss... Again! Arg!
Initially this is fun for each level but eventually it looses its excitement and becomes a routine affair.
The controls in general are straight forward enough, but the overloading on some buttons can cause a bit of finger frustration. The targeting system isn't great and causes issues when trying to quick zip to surfaces but you end up swinging into the enemies target area instead, its just poorly done. What was wrong with the old system Spidy... WHAT!!??

The level design is boring and lazy, the designers need to hung upside down in shame and covered in web-goo I recon, how could they come up with this when they had four strong individual characters and four different versions of New York to play with, all with four different time periods to pour over it all? Tut, tut! Not to mention some past Spidy games as inspiration that were of a high quality. It's a missed opportunity to improve on previous games rather than to reboot it poorly but I guess that was a gamble they were willing to risk... unfortunately!

Visually its not bad, graphics are not ground breaking by any stretch of the imagination but having the four different dimensions with their own “unique style” was a nice touch and a solid idea. However its all a bit overwhelming on the orbs, mixing bright colours in one dimension with cell shading for another then to the dark and dirty style of the next, it’s a bit of a messed up mind fuck. Although it is trying to give contrast between levels it just makes it visually inconsistent and confusing. I felt that it falls short of what the developers were trying to achieve.

The audio just meanders along like some depressed worker looking forward to a day in the mines, it does what it does just enough to get by. Ok, so Spider man himself has been voiced by 4 different actors giving Spidy a “unique” quality each time and our favourite web head has also been armed with all the smart answers you would come to expect but after a while it just blends into monotony and repetition. The only really cool thing is having Stan “The Man” Lee as narrator but even then you’re looking for the skip button.


This game is a fun filler at best, after you complete the game it will sit on the shelf never to be touched again. That’s of course if you could be arsed to even finish it. Personally I like to finish every game I start, but even this is going to push me to my limits, and trust me I have played some doozers in my time... 'Spider-man Shattered dimensions' is a level based platformer that unfortunately offers very little new to the genre. The early novelties soon run out of steam and you just start ploughing through it, perhaps real Spidy heads will enjoy it just because of its brand but not for its merits as a game. I can tell you this, if I had spent my hard earned cash on it, I‘d be very pissed off.


Rent it, play it, forget it.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 – Story Mode - Early Impressions

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Xbox 360
PS3
PC





Ok, the truth is this game doesn’t need a review it’s going to sell like hot cakes at a fatty convention regardless… Already it has sold around five million copies and is only out a few days. So the short review is ’It’s great, get it!’. This is exactly what we all did I recon but for the odd one of you out there still on the fence, here is a our early impression on playing through the story mode…

Visually this game is as beautiful as its predecessor and then-some, it puts all other current FPS games recently released to shame and shows how the life span of the current generation of gaming machines should stay as is, while the game development improves instead. Infinity ward have tried their best to immerse you into the story and have done a fine job. There are many locations to play in and every one of them feels like a scene from a movie or TV show. Production values in general are top of the line, great sound and a talented celebrity list of voice actors drops you even deeper into the pit of war.

The weapons are very realistic and have great weight and feel. Like a NRA meeting at Charlton Heston’s house it seems that everywhere you go there are guns and weapons lying around, and with a wide variety to choose from its difficult to stick with just one type. There is also the big weapons you access at certain point in the game, like the predator drone that you can control fully, it rains a fiery death on mass groups of evil anti western baddies and there’s the numerous fixed gun placements for maximum carnage and the list goes on, each one bringing a nice ‘Holy Shit – that’s cool!’ type of feeling.

The NPC’s in the game are convincing and even humorous at times and you really feel like just another grunt in the big battles and fight alongside your band of brothers as opposed to the lone ranger style of play. Some situations are truly breath taking, don’t worry, no spoilers, but when you’re fighting in a parking lot of fast food joints as baddies drop from the sky and you then have to secure a rooftop while surrounded by enemies, you will see what I mean. Later missions like the snow base combine stealth and vehicle action so perfectly it feels like a bond movie and then there’s the controversial ‘Terrorist’ mission… This you can choose to skip playing but let’s be honest, everyone is going to try it, when you do it is down to your own judgement how to participate and I personally found it all a bit boring after I capped a few civilians, bit like shooting fish in a barrel, so I then began shooting up the shops instead which was a bit more fun. Yeah, sure, the idea of killing innocent people in an airport has shock value and is shocking for the first few seconds but like I have said already, everything in this game is like a scene out of a movie or TV show, it’s not that different to a bank robbery sequence or an episode of ‘24’. Ultimately I can see why it is in the game as it is a primary plot factor to the chaos that follows, it really grabs you by the balls and pulls you into the story… and remember it is a game not reality, an adult rated 18’s title, not for kiddies and the truth of it is that the concept is far more sinister sounding than the actual playing, critics should keep that in mind.
Now with that little rant out of the way I can tell you that the level is not all about putting holes into innocent people, there are cops and Riot teams to tackle and this up’s the excitement and challenge. There are many world locations from a place in the sun to the depths of the sea, blinding storms to the vacuum of space, they are all here and all beautifully to behold, war has never been so pretty.

The single player experience so far is fantastic and a must for any gamer, I recommend ‘Veteran’ difficulty for the experienced player as I personally find this instalment much easier than COD4. We will bring a Multi player and Spec ops breakdown as soon as we have play tested more but I can say that both are of great enjoyment. So far COD MW2 is one of the first games in a long time that deserves the hype, just buy it before all the fatty’s get all the cakes!