One of my all-time favorite games. I have probably put close to 150 hours into this game, beating it to near 100% on PS2, Xbox, & the Cube. Where as the first game was a simple beat-em-up, this game expands upon the world design giving the player a huge open city to explore! The web swinging mechanics here are fondly remembered, and for good reason; the more raw physics-based approach to web swinging has a steep learning curve, but it's so rewarding to learn and master that It makes the game endlessly replayable no matter what you are doing.
Considering it's a Movie Tie-in game from the early 2000s they did a fairly excellent job of re-creating the story from the film and it's themes appropriately. Voice acting is solid, and while the movie is for sure trunkcated in parts, the addition of Black Cat fits so well into the narrative and gives Peter a reason to doubt his life as Spider-Man without him fully giving up the mantle like he does in the film (which is understandable because that might make for some pretty boring gameplay). The addition of other classic Spider-Man villains, such as the returning Shocker, Rhino, and the addition of Mysterio add to the world and they don't feel shoe horned in; just another day in the life of Spider-Man while the main focus is on Doc Ock's transaformstion. Overall the pace of the game is brisk and while the story is only about 5-6 hours if you focus on it; the short length makes it such a joy to replay.
Combat is a little simplified from the first game, but the animations are really good and the punch impact sounds are CRUNCHY & satisfying! A precursor to Batman Arkham's Dodge, you can use your spider sense to dodge almost any attack at any point while doing almost any action, which adds to the flowing nature of Spider-Man's movement overall. There are hundreds of acrobatic challenges to complete and hundreds of tokens to collect which keeps the game interesting, and the EDM music provided by KMFDM is PHENOMENAL (a criminally underrated game soundtrack imo). The orchestral score is equally excellent, and played during more serious moments.
Definitely an early entry in the sandbox genre, but it's so much easier for me to get into this than the early GTA's (a game comparison many people at the time pointed out) simply for how consistent the world is designed and I feel there's a lot more interaction here than there were in the first 2 3D GTA's. It has aged, but overall, this is still an excellent game and worth playing for the swing alone, but every other aspect of the game is really well done which too few people comment on imo.
Considering it's a Movie Tie-in game from the early 2000s they did a fairly excellent job of re-creating the story from the film and it's themes appropriately. Voice acting is solid, and while the movie is for sure trunkcated in parts, the addition of Black Cat fits so well into the narrative and gives Peter a reason to doubt his life as Spider-Man without him fully giving up the mantle like he does in the film (which is understandable because that might make for some pretty boring gameplay). The addition of other classic Spider-Man villains, such as the returning Shocker, Rhino, and the addition of Mysterio add to the world and they don't feel shoe horned in; just another day in the life of Spider-Man while the main focus is on Doc Ock's transaformstion. Overall the pace of the game is brisk and while the story is only about 5-6 hours if you focus on it; the short length makes it such a joy to replay.
Combat is a little simplified from the first game, but the animations are really good and the punch impact sounds are CRUNCHY & satisfying! A precursor to Batman Arkham's Dodge, you can use your spider sense to dodge almost any attack at any point while doing almost any action, which adds to the flowing nature of Spider-Man's movement overall. There are hundreds of acrobatic challenges to complete and hundreds of tokens to collect which keeps the game interesting, and the EDM music provided by KMFDM is PHENOMENAL (a criminally underrated game soundtrack imo). The orchestral score is equally excellent, and played during more serious moments.
Definitely an early entry in the sandbox genre, but it's so much easier for me to get into this than the early GTA's (a game comparison many people at the time pointed out) simply for how consistent the world is designed and I feel there's a lot more interaction here than there were in the first 2 3D GTA's. It has aged, but overall, this is still an excellent game and worth playing for the swing alone, but every other aspect of the game is really well done which too few people comment on imo.