greensweater's Full Review: SpiderMan for PlayStation 2
My first review. You may wonder what drove me to this, the Epinions(sm) review board, or maybe you don't, but I shall tell you anyway. Yes, I waited until PS2 dropped from $300 to $200 to make the purchase. The pain of parting with such a pretty piece of income would be soothed, if ninety percent of the games for PS2 weren't such uninspired, poorly implemented, underdeveloped pap. And so, I plunk down the "Blockbuster(r) Games Pass(tm)" fee, and drag my feet through the two narrow aisles of empty boxes that is the PS2 section, yearning for one game experience that doesn't utterly disappoint me.
After so many failures, I have lowered my expectations to such depth that I think a virtual chicken playing tic-tac-toe would be TOTALLY SWEET. So, I will play an obviously second-rate 3D-Realms(tm), 3DO(tm), or Electronic Arts(tm) PS2 product for hours, searching for that one moment, that one hint of Gestalt that even an Atari 2600 could produce on a good day -- when the whole became more than the sum of its parts, and, as in a good film or book, disbelief became effortless to suspend; the wide-eyed promise of interactivity was justified and the future brightened. Somehow, that moment eludes me again and again.
So I will complete my rant and state simply: I don't like Spider-Man. Even with my newfound powers of forgiveness for such quibbles as "jaggies" or slow load times, there are still too many gripes for me to allow the once-hallowed name of Activision(tm) to remain unsoiled.
For one thing, the controls are stupid. Two analog joysticks should be a blessing but everyone seems to turn it into a curse. Activision is no exception. If I want the camera (right analog stick) to swing around my character, so I can see what group of ten bad guys I am wandering into the middle of, I don't think that it's too much trouble to aim my character by adjusting the left stick RELATIVE TO THE CAMERA. If I'm watching Spidey from, say the left, and I want him to walk towards me, I don't think pointing the stick to the right is very "intuitive." Do you, Activision? DO YOU?!
Let's make it worse, shall we? In order to redirect your avatar, if you can figure out the directional nonsense, you are punished with an awkward moment of bumbling while Spidey points himself in the (occasionally) correct direction. Meanwhile, you're eating lead or getting kicked in the face. Today's word is: "oof."
Or perhaps you are climbing up the side of a pile of crates, accidentally or possibly on purpose, and there's a shotgun wielding boss coming at you. What do you do? Why, climb to the top of the stack to avoid the gunfire. Great idea! Now press left on the left control stick, to point yourself upwards. After a split second of bumbling, you begin to crawl up the stack. But uh-oh! The box above you in the stack is not exactly above the box you're on. It's a scale inch out of register! Perhaps Tobey is too stoned to get his magical DNA hands an inch below the vertical plane he's on. So he just crawls in place for a second or two, until... boom, you're dead. Feels like justice for being such a PATHETIC MORON.
That's okay, you say, I'll just fight the boss again. Not so fast, Peter Parker! First, you've got to do the entire previous level again. Go make yourself a ham sandwich because you're going to be here a while. That is, if you haven't ripped the controller apart with your hands by this point.
And WHY do I have to reload a level when IT'S ALREADY LOADED? WHY does a simple SAVE SCREEN have to take thirty seconds to come up? Even an unemployed teenager in Alaska with a 9pm curfew has better things to do.
I will admit I wasn't able to make it past the first boss. The problem with this game, and so many others, is that you have to WANT to get past the first boss. I guess dropping $50 on this "game" might help you reach that level of self-delusion, but I'd recommend whacking yourself in the temple with a ball peen hammer instead.
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