playstation 2

Game Corner: Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII (PlayStation 2)

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Released: 26 January 2006
Developer: Square Enix

The Background:
I think it’s fair to say that most gamers are aware of Final Fantasy VII (Square, 1997). The game won numerous awards and sold over ten million copies on the PlayStation, after all. Square Enix expanded upon Final Fantasy VII’s lore in 2003 with Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, a multimedia venture that included Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (Nomura, 2005), a fantastic computer-generated movie, and multiple spin-off titles. Dirge of Cerberus, a PlayStation 2-exclusive follow-up to Advent Children, was one of these titles. Dirge of Cerberus represented a rare departure from the role-playing mechanics of the franchise, with producer Yoshinori Kitase conceiving an action/shooter revolving around fan favourite optional character, Vincent Valentine. Tetsuya Nomura returned to the franchise to help develop the game’s new villains and characters, with Japanese singer and actor Gackt lending his voice and likeness to the cast. When the game was localised outside of Japan, the developers took the time to address numerous issues with the original release; they focused on the single-player action, removed online functionality, and even omitted the “Easy” mode from the options. Unfortunately, despite selling well, Dirge of Cerberus was met with mixed reviews; critics were unimpressed by the gameplay, narrative, and level design and the game was knocked for being a poor imitation of similar hack-and-slash action/shooter hybrids like Devil May Cry (Capcom Production Studio 4, 2001).

The Plot:
After the events of Advent Children, the mysterious Vincent Valentine is drawn into a plot by terrorist organisation Deepground and their leaders, the Tsviets, to summon the most powerful WEAPON of all, Omega, and annihilate all life on the Planet.

Gameplay and Power-Ups:
Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII is a third-person, action/adventure game with a heavy emphasis on third-person shooting and which includes some very light role-playing mechanics. The game places you in the role of everyone’s favourite melancholy, wannabe vampire, Vincent Valentine. The story is divided into thirteen chapters that can be played on either “Normal” or “Hard” difficulty, with a third, even harder option unlocked after finishing the game on any difficulty. Unlike Final Fantasy VII, Dirge of Cerberus is much more akin to Devil May Cry than a traditional role-playing game and focuses solely on Vincent save for a brief section where you control Cait Sith. Consequently, Vincent’s abilities are very different from those he had in Final Fantasy VII and have been expanded upon almost as much as his backstory, which was largely marginalised since he was an optional character in his debut. You’ll use X to talk to non-playable characters (NPCs) and interact with the environment for some very light puzzle solving (literally just pressing switches to activate lifts or open doors) and also to jump, pressing it twice for a double jump. Unfortunately, Vincent’s movement is often restricted by the environment; rubble and impassable debris will block your path and platforming is basically non-existent, limiting the jump’s usefulness. Circle is for your melee attacks; Vincent attacks with swipes of his gauntlet and some fancy kicks, but is often left attacking the air since you can’t lock-on to enemies with this attack. Circle also lowers your currently equipped weapon, allowing you to move faster depending on your loadout. Square sees Vincent crouch, which is occasionally useful when taking cover and in the handful of instances where you creep through small gaps or vents, and also performs a near useless dash. Triangle opens the main menu, giving you access to a semi-useful map (a mini map would’ve been better), the item menu (where you manually refill Vincent’s health and magic meters), and customisation options for your guns. If you have one of the three elemental Materia equipped to your weapon, you can fire it with L1, though this depletes Magic Points (MP). You use L2 to toggle between your three weapon loadouts, R1 to shoot, and R2 to reload. Finally, you can press the directional pad up to bring up the map, left or right to use your assigned item, and use the left stick in conjunction with Square to roll out of harm’s way.

Vincent’s various firearms and monstrous Limit Break are surprisingly dull to utilise.

While the melee attacks are good for close quarters combat and to conserve ammo, your primary attack is Vincent’s various firearms. As you explore, opening chests and picking up attaché cases, you’ll find different barrels and accessories that you can use to create up to three loadouts. Vincent can fire a standard pistol, a sniper rifle, and a machine gun, with different barrels available to strengthen their stats. One stat to keep in mind is the weight of your gun; I built a sniper rifle for Vincent to pick enemies off from afar, but it was heavy and slowed his movement considerably. You can lighten weapons with other attachments, or increase their power and reload speed, but these slots are far more likely to be taken up by one of the three Materia. Fire impacts with an explosive effect to damage multiple enemies, Thunder fires straight ahead, and Blizzard has a homing element. These Materia can be levelled- and powered-up with other accessories and can be very handy against groups of enemies, enemies using Barrier to resist your shots, or bosses, but it’s weird that there’s no Cure Materia to equip. Instead, you’ll rely on the odd Mako Point to refill some MP and restorative items like Potions, Ethers, and Elixirs to fill some or all your MP and Health Points (HP). One item returning Final Fantasy players will recognise is the Phoenix Down, which resurrects Vincent upon defeat (but only if you manually activate it from the menu first). Vincent also has a powered-up form (or “Limit Break”) like in Final Fantasy VII, but this must also be manually activated. When active, Vincent transforms into a monstrous beast for a short time, firing homing fireballs with R1 and battering enemies with claw swipes with X. This is very handy against bigger, armoured enemies and bosses but leaves Vincent a large, cumbersome target (though activating the Limit Break does fully replenish HP). The Limit Break can be manually deactivated with L1 and R1, but it’s not like you get the Limit Breaker item back for doing this so I can’t see the benefit of ending it early. Finally, Vincent can man various turrets with X or while riding in an attack chopper. These sections don’t happen often, which is a shame as it’s fun mowing down waves of enemies and blasting attack planes out of the sky with a powerful mini gun that never overheats or needs to reload.

Turret sections, side missions, and stealth gameplay briefly breakup the tedious action.

Defeated enemies drop various items or Gil, the currency of the Final Fantasy franchise. Gil is spent at jukeboxes or at the conclusion of each chapter, allowing you to purchase a limited quantity of items, Materia, ammo, and other resources. Completing each chapter (or being defeated mid-chapter) brings up the ranking screen, where you’re awarded points for your accuracy, kill chains, times defeated, and completing various optional missions. These equate to a letter ranking and award points that can be exchanged for Gil or experience Points (EXP). I chose EXP every time as this is the only way to make Vincent stronger and level him up. Each chapter has a primary goal (essentially to get to end and defeat a boss) but also throws secondary, optional objectives at you. Sometimes these carry a time limit or task you with completing them as quickly as possible; other times you’re searching for items with no idea of how many there are to find. Sometimes you’ll be assisting or escorting Vincent’s World Regenesis Organization (WRO) allies, other times you’ll be destroying certain enemies or deactivating mines. The more you do or complete, the better your ranking and the more Gil/EXP you’ll receive. Alongside one section where you’re blasting Guard Hounds from Reeve Tuesti’s attack chopper, you’ll also pick off pursuers on a high-speed train track and use explosive barrels to thin out enemy hordes. As mentioned, there’s one all-too-brief section where you sneak Cait Sith past enemies since his attack and defence are shit. Sadly, though Vincent’s other AVALANCHE allies show up in cutscenes, you won’t be controlling or fighting alongside any of Final Fantasy VII’s recognisable cast beyond this moment. Although things start out simple enough in Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, the game quickly becomes quite challenging. Environments are painfully linear for the most part, rendering the map almost useless for most of the game, but there are times when you’ll be running around in circles trying to figure out where to go.

Vincent’s handicapped by clunky gameplay and is surprisingly weak at times.

The Shinra Manor, desolate trainyard, and Shinra headquarters are great examples of this. Since the map only shows where you’ve come from and not your objective, it can be difficult heading in the right direction sometimes. This is compounded by how claustrophobic and restrictive levels are, so you’re not used to exploring all that much. Not that exploration really leads to much; locked doors and dead ends are plentiful and you rarely get rewarded for looking around. Mostly, you’ll be smashing crates, defeating enemies, and searching for key cards to lower energy barriers, which are often guarded by waves of enemies. Sometimes, WRO agents provide support or offer resources; other times, you’ll be rescuing civilians or exploring Mako Reactors to track down Deepground. Although you can temporarily save the game from the pause menu, your game won’t save until you reach specific points in each chapter. These checkpoints are serviceable but you’re sometimes stuck repeating long stretches because you died before a save point so it’s worth using your potions liberally since you should have enough Gil to buy more. While Vincent controls well for the most part, he seems very “heavy” and clunky. He doesn’t have much versatility in the air, has few defence options, and his melee attacks are more like the wild swings of a drunk boxer than the swift attacks of a super soldier. Vincent is also surprisingly weak; snipers and enemy groups quickly sap HP and it’s very frustrating being juggled by rocket-firing brutes since Vincent’s recovery options aren’t very good. This could’ve easily been solved with a proper lock-on feature (something that’d been around since 1997), restorative and defensive Materia like Cure and Barrier, and expanding Vincent’s melee abilities. It’s also far too easy to run out of ammo at times; some of the later bosses require many hits so you can easily end up running out of bullets, with no way to get more, and there’s no way to improve your shot power beyond levelling-up and attaching different barrels.

Presentation:
Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII is a bit of a mixed bag in this regard. On the one hand, the pre-rendered, CG sequences look amazing and are largely on par with the visual effects of Advent Children. All returning characters sport the same looks and basically all the cast reprise their roles, with Steve Blum bringing his trademark melancholy gruffness to the perpetually sullen Vincent. While the in-game models and graphics obviously aren’t on par with the CG sequences, they are really good. Vincent, especially, looks amazing; his tattered cloak flows nicely and his gothic visage always stands out against the environments. Enemies are, largely, painfully bland, comprised mostly of Deepground soldiers and a handful of beasts and the WRO, though useful when they appear, are poor substitutes for the more recognisable members of AVALANCHE. Environments, while familiar, are painfully bland, muddy, and indistinct at times. Dirge of Cerberus doesn’t offer any brightness or contrast options, so I was left struggling to see in a lot of dull, murky, and repetitive environments. While some are recognisable, including Mako Reactors, the ruins of Midgar, Edge, and wandering around Cid Highwind’s latest Airship, others are just generic locations that don’t inspire the imagination. This means you’ll be wading through sewers, running around the grey corridors of the Shinra headquarters, and stumbling about in the steampunk blandness of Deepground’s lair. One standout location, however, was the Shinra Manor, which includes Vincent’s coffin room and an extensive cave network. It’s just a shame there are few rewards for exploring all these rooms and little to interact with beyond the usual pick-ups.

Despite some fun references and great CG scenes, the game is dark and painful to look at.

Although the in-game music is largely forgettable, comprised mostly of generic rock stylings and few remixes of traditional Final Fantasy jingles, Dirge of Cerberus saves its best for the end by bolstering the finale and the end credits with rockin’ efforts from Japanese rock star Gackt. The game does perform very well; I had no instances of glitching or slowdown during my playthrough, and you can even skip cutscenes by pressing Start and X during them. The action is frequently interrupted with numerous cutscenes as Dirge of Cerberus explores Vincent’s troubled past with the Turks, his relationship with Lucrecia Crescent, and the experiments performed on him by Professor Hojo. These are juxtaposed by the present day events, which see the ridiculously overdesigned members of Deepground slaughtering countless lives to summon Omega, the most powerful of the ancient WEAPON, to destroy the Planet. Vincent makes new allies in this quest, such as the disabled but determined Shalua Rui and her brainwashed, socially maladjusted little sister, Shelke, and all his old friends pop up to aid him in the many cutscenes. Honestly, the story sort of lost me mid-way through. I had trouble recognising this as the same world as Final Fantasy VII and the alterations made to the lore seemed forced. Vincent’s Limit Breaks, for example, are now due to the “Protomateria” within him and his final form, Chaos, is an uncontrollable state that acts as a natural counterbalance to Omega WEAPON. Or…something. There are sacrifices and revelations along the way, mostly involving Shelke and Vincent’s past, and it’s interesting to see that these characters continued fighting to save the Planet past Sephiroth’s threat, but it’s a very convoluted and, dare I say it, “Japanese” plot, with lots of existentialism and long winded exposition. As the first high-definition reimagining of Final Fantasy VII (in videogame form, anyway), Dirge of Cerberus does a decent job when it’s using recognisable environments and landmarks but the new elements are largely disconnected from the established world.

Enemies and Bosses:
Considering Final Fantasy VII was stuffed with bizarre and visually distinct enemies, from various monsters to bog-standard soldiers and ancient beasts, Dirge of Cerberus is painfully generic with its enemy selection. Mostly, you mow down Deepground’s soldiers, who fire machine guns from afar and smack you with their weapons up close. The Commander and Sergeant variants are tougher and a bit smarter, taking cover to avoid your shots, and snipers will occasionally appear on rooftops or in windows. Soldiers are often accompanied by Beast Soldiers, bipedal mutants who attack like dogs; these are similar to the Red XIII-like Guard Hounds that charge at you, jaws snapping. Deepground’s forces are bolstered by larger, brutish enemies wielding rocket launchers, Buster Sword-like blades, or manning rapid-fire turrets. You’ll also encounter various mechanical enemies, such as spider-like bots that stun you with electrical blasts and lumbering Sweepers, and a handful of monsters, such as the skittering Bizarre Bugs and the trident-wielding lizard men known as Sahagin. Some of these enemies act as mini bosses, especially the larger ones, while variants act as actual bosses. Deepgrounds troops swarm around you on hoverbikes at one point, for example, bashing into you and forcing you to pick them off one at a time. The Guard Hounds are bolstered by the larger Crimson Hound, jetpack-using Shrikes dart around in the skies and are as difficult to target as the teleporting, winged Gargoyles, and you’ll also battle SOLDIER troopers and elite operatives of Deepground who shield themselves with Barrier. Your tactic against most of these is simply to fire at them until they die, switching to your sniper rifle to pick them off from afar or mowing them down with the machine gun, but the elemental Materia can be very handy at wiping out large groups at once and I often had better luck with the melee attacks (when I had the targets in view, of course).

Deepground’s mechs as as much a thorn in your side as their operatives are.

Vincent contends with Deepground’s heavily armoured vehicles at the end of each chapter, with the Dragonfly attack plane and Black Widow mech walker cropping up multiple times throughout the game. When you first face the Dragonfly, it fires with a machine gun and unloads with homing missiles, despotising soldiers into the arena and being felled by Fire without much difficulty. It then reappears as the damaged Dragonfly GL, which also charges at you from the sky, though I made short work of it with the Limit Breaker. It reappears a third and final time in Chapter 11 for the most tedious fight of all. Now joined by Gargoyles and little robots, which must be defeated to farm for resources, the Dragonfly PT constantly stays far out of reach and fires homing shots at you, sweeping around the central building to make for a frustrating target. Unfortunately, I had a lot of trouble dealing decent damage in this fight. Mako Points pop up as the fight goes on and you absolutely need them to pepper it with Fire and do better damage, but this was a slog of a fight made all the more annoying by the Gargoyles diving at me and the robots zapping me. The Black Widow first appears at the end of Chapter 5, bursting into the Shinra Manor and scuttling across the walls and ceilings. It charges at you, spits bombs, and fires a big laser that’s tough to avoid and is heavily armoured so it can take a while to put it down. Its second variant cannot climb walls as the encounter takes place outside the ransacked WRO headquarters, but it’s supported by Deepground’s forces and now fires missiles from a distance. Two Black Widow TWs are fought in the Shinra building, with one on the floor and one and the ceiling, though they lack their dash attack and are noticeably weaker this time around. Deepground’s elite squad, the Tsviets, are also fought numerous times during the game. The first you’ll battle is Shelke the Transparent, a young girl who attacks with lightsaber-like laser batons. She’s a fast, nimble fighter fought in a claustrophobic location, meaning it can be tricky landing hits and the Limit Breaker is of minimal use since Vincent loses a lot of speed in this form.

Each of the Tsviets has a secondary, often more monstrous form to contend with.

The hulking Azul the Cerulean is fought three times, with the first encounter coming right after your fight with Shelke and being comparatively easy. Though he wields a gigantic cannon, kicks you up close, and causes shockwaves, Azul is painfully slow, a huge target, and the arena is littered with explosive barrels that can whittle his health bar down. When fought in Chapter 9, “Neo Azul” isn’t much different except you’re fighting on an elevator and can use the central pillar for cover. Fire worked well against him here, though you should avoid taking direct hits from his cannon. Defeating him sees him transform into the far more formidable, Behemoth-like “Arch Azul”, a massive beast that charges you, whips with its tail, attacks with its claws, and fires out crystals. Arch Azul is invulnerable to your bullets, meaning you must trick it into smashing pedestals to reveal Mako Points or carry a healthy supply of MP restoring items to stand a chance. Rosso the Crimson is an overall more challenging boss since she’s far faster, the arena you fight her in is much larger, and she can land devastating combos with her lance-like blade. Luckily, a jukebox is on hand for you to replenish your resources and you’ll need them when she gets powered up into “Bloodburst Rosso” and adds a projectile attack to her arsenal, to say nothing of her annoying melee attacks. Though he cuts an intimidating figure, Nero the Sable was actually a bit easier in his first encounter. He flies about using his mechanical wings and fires dual pistols, chopping at your HP with a twirling blade attack and spawning duplicates. Another jukebox turns the tide in your favour and there’s plenty of cover to use to your advantage, and both Fire and the Limit Breaker made this a long but not too difficult fight. The same can’t be said of his horrific transformation into “Arachnero”; in this spider-like form, he’s shielded and fires devastating lasers from four crystals. These must be destroyed to make his shield vulnerable, but you must watch for flaming meteors and a fireball flurry than can basically one-shot you. There’s also no jukebox or resources here so you must stock up on ammo beforehand as you burn through a lot of it just making him vulnerable.

After besting Deepground’s heads, Vincent embraces his darkness and saves the world once more.

As if that isn’t bad enough, the battles continues right after, with Nero becoming “Gorgonero” and teleporting about the floating rocks of the surreal landscape. You’re stuck in one position, have a small window of opportunity to fire at Nero when he appears, and can only land one hit at a time. Be quick as then you can avoid being shot or being sliced with his spinning blade attack, making for a fight that isn’t as hard as Arachnero but can be troublesome if you’re low on ammo (which you probably will be). Upon reaching the finale, you’ll finally battle Deepground’s head honcho, Weiss the Immaculate (who’s actually Professor Hojo in a super-soldier body…or something…) At first, Weiss is totally invulnerable and the fight must be lost, so don’t bother wasting your resources. In the second, Weiss is fast and sports some powerful sword combos, and he is invulnerable when moving. Luckily, there’s a jukebox nearby and it’s not too hard to avoid him and whittle his health down, just tedious and long-winded. Despite Vincent’s best efforts, Omega WEAPON appears and the Planet is placed in mortal peril, forcing Vincent to combine with Chaos and attack the creature (which fuses with Weiss and Nero) head-on. These final sections see Chaos Vincent floating about a devastated landscape, blasting crystalline drones with his Death Penalty before flying through Omega’s innards, avoiding lasers and taking out more crystals. Eventually, you end up in a serene, surreal, water-like landscape where you must dodge transparent barriers and gun down crystalline drones, attacking the Omega Cocoon, which is simple enough. Finally, you’ll face Omega Weiss, a large, floating mess of stone limbs and appendages. Luckily, this fight is ridiculously easy. Simply fire at Omega Weiss, staying far back and avoiding its fists and gunning down its projectiles. Omega Weiss protects itself with a crystalline barrier that it fires at you, but you can simply dash behind it to continue your assault. Weiss even attacks in a ghostly form, but just ignore him and pour it on. Even Omega’s devastating Omega Meteor can be survived without too much trouble, making this a surprisingly anti-climactic final boss topped only by the abrupt ending.

Additional Features:
There are three “G” reports scattered throughout Dirge of Cerberus’ missions. They’re pretty well hidden, too, as I didn’t find a single one and couldn’t be bothered to follow a guide, mainly because all you get is a slightly extended ending where Genesis Rhapsodos appears for an unresolved cliffhanger. Aside from that, there are additional accessories and barrels for your weapons to be found that can change the way you play, and you’ll also unlock both “Extra Hard” mode after clearing the game and a mission select screen from the main menu. Playing through the game also unlocks the cinematics in the theatre mode, a character viewer, sound test, and art gallery. There’s also a tutorial mode to play through (recommended for first-time players) and additional timed missions to unlock (presumably by getting decent grades in the game’s main missions). These recycle the game’s environments and enemies and stick you with a pre-set loadout, which can make even simple missions tough when you’re used to playing with a more capable Vincent. You also get a final overall grade and the Japanese version includes an online multiplayer component, though I’ve no idea how this worked. Sadly, that’s about it. There aren’t any collectibles to find and there’s little incentive to replay missions unless you want to S-rank everything and earn a grand total of nothing for your efforts.

The Summary:
I’ve played Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII before, back when I had a backwards compatible PlayStation 3, and I remember it taking me a long time to get through it and finding it visually engaging but a bit confusing and frustrating at times. These criticisms still ring true today, and it’s a shame as I am a big fan of Vincent Valentine and this genre of videogame. Unfortunately, the third-person elements aren’t implemented very well; the gunplay is weak and unsatisfying and Vincent’s melee attacks are wild and reckless. The game lacks the polish of a Devil May Cry, which was enjoyable to play largely because the combat was so slick and entertaining to engage with. Vincent is surprisingly ungainly, struggling to navigate his environments and handicapped by barriers and obstacles. The gunplay is subpar, for the most part, and made frustrating by the lack of ammo and reliance upon earning Gil to restock. The RPG elements are poorly implemented, too, with Vincent never really feeling that much stronger and the focus on weighing down weapons reducing your options considerably in stressful situations. While it’s great to see the Final Fantasy VII crew back in action, the story is absolutely bonkers. It seems simple enough but then you look at the Tsviets and hear them talk and every cutscene just gets further and further away from what made Final Fantasy VII so memorable. I enjoyed seeing flashbacks to Vincent’s past, though, and wonder if the game might’ve been better if you’d alternated between controlled Turk-Vincent and present day Vincent, scaling back the Tsviets and Deepground guys to focus on battling more familiar Shinra enemies. The game looks great when you can actually see what’s happening (an old school television may help with this) and Gackt’s offerings are great, but I think it was a mistake not to include more sections where you play as Vincent’s friends. Like, why not control Barret Wallace for the gunship section? I really wanted to enjoy Dirge of Cerberus more than I did but it was a bit of a chore to play. The moment-to-moment gameplay gets repetitive, enemies quickly become frustrating, and the manual nature of the mechanics gets tiresome, resulting in an experience that’s confusing, at best, and forgettable at worst.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Did you enjoy Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII? Is Vincent Valentine one of your favourite Final Fantasy VII characters? How do you think the game compares to the likes of Devil May Cry? Were you able to follow the story and what did you think to the Deepground newcomers? Did you beat the game on Extra Hard mode and unlock all the Extra Missions? Would you have liked to see the other Final Fantasy VII characters be playable here? Which game in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII was your favourite? Whatever you thought to Dirge of Cerberus and Final Fantasy VII in general, comment below and then check out my other Final Fantasy content.

Game Corner [Spidey Month]: Spider-Man 3 (Xbox 360)

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Easily Marvel Comics’ most recognisable and popular superhero, unsuspecting teenage nerd Peter Parker was first bitten by a radioactive spider and learned the true meaning of power and responsibility in Amazing Fantasy #15, which was first published in August 1962. Since then, the Amazing Spider-Man has featured in numerous cartoons, live-action movies, videogames, action figures, and countless comic book titles. To coincide with his debut and his very own day of celebration, I’ve been dedicating every Tuesday of August to talk about everyone’s favourite web-head!

Released: 4 May 2007
Developer: Treyarch
Also Available For: Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable (PSP)

The Background:
It seemed like every single cinema release was accompanied by a videogame adaptation back in the day, regardless of how necessary this was, and Peter Parker/Spider-Man is no exception to this. Considering his popularity, Spider-Man has a long and varied history with videogame adaptations across numerous platforms, but arguably hit an unexpected peak with developer Treyarch’s celebrated adaptation tie-in to Spider-Man 2 (Raimi, 2004). Widely regarded as one of Spider-Man’s greatest videogame outings, Spider-Man 2 (Treyarch, 2004) was followed by Ultimate Spider-Man (ibid, 2005), a cel-shaded reskin of sorts that acted as a companion piece to the Ultimate Spider-Man comics (2000 to 2011). This game expanded upon the web-slinging and combat of its predecessor while also offering two ways to play by including the hulking Eddie Brock/Venom as a playable character. Interestingly, though, this latter approach would not be included in Treyarch’s tie-in to Spider-Man 3 (Raimi, 2007), which instead simply reduced Venom’s inclusion to some new rage-empowered abilities for the titular wall-crawler. This time around, different villains featured in the different console versions of the game, but Spider-Man 3 ended up being almost as polarising as its source material. Reviews criticised the dull combat and repetitive gameplay, though the thrilling web-slinging and impressive size of the game world continued to be praised.

The Plot:
Peter Parker’s superhero life is turned upside down by a turf war in New York City that only escalates when his mentor transforms into a man-lizard, a crazed hunter comes to town, his former friend Harry Osborn seeks revenge, and a common crook is gifted extraordinary sand powers! Pushed to the edge, Peter is tempted by the power and allure of a mysterious black suit from space that greatly augments both his powers and his rage!

Gameplay:
If you’ve played the highly-regarded Spider-Man 2 before, then Spider-Man 3 will be very familiar to you. Having perfected the art of open-world web-slinging, developers Treyarch haven’t strayed too far from their game engine here and once again present an expansive map of New York City filled with skyscrapers to swing from, random crimes to stop, and landmarks to visit. Accordingly, the control scheme and gameplay mechanics aren’t much different from Spider-Man 2, but there are some noticeable differences: you can attack enemies with X and Y, holding each button to charge up for a strike to deal more damage and break their blocks and mixing up these button presses (in conjunction with others) to deliver some fun combos that see Spidey webbing foes to lampposts, pinballing about the place, and kicking the crap out of punks in a whirlwind. B sees you webbing enemies, either pulling them in for a strike or temporarily subduing them if you hold the button, and you can press it at the end of a combo to fire a flurry of web balls. B is also used to stick to walls and ceilings, with the camera continuing to go all janky and mess up your perspective every time you do this, while A lets you jump. You can hold the button to charge a big jump and press it again in mid-air for a double jump, and at the end of a swing to gain extra height and distance when web-slinging. Unfortunately, there’s no way to lock-on to enemies or objects here and the camera can be very erratic, meaning you can easily end up punching thin air or getting turned about during chases and combat. However, you can press in the right stick to activate Spidey’s spider sense for a short time, which puts a greyscale filter over the environment to highlight enemies and points of interest.

Spidey’s web-slinging and combat are augmented by the rage-inducing black suit!

The web-slinging mechanics are similar to those in Spider-Man 2. You can start web-slinging by holding the Right Trigger, but Spider-Man will only comply if there’s a building or other tall structure nearby, so once again you’ll see him snapping off webs in a way that more accurately replicates his web-slinging from the films. You can hold down the Left Trigger to speed up your swing (this also allows Spidey to run and crawl faster) and will eventually unlock upgrades that let you swing from two webs by pressing LT and RT at the same time or quickly zip along flat surfaces by tapping RT. Another upgrade lets you climb up a web by pressing up on the directional pad (D-pad) with a ceiling above you (which is great for avoiding laser tripwires). Holding the Left Bumper activates Spider-Man’s “spider reflexes”, which slows down the game for as long as your blue meter lasts, effectively acting as “bullet time” and allowing you to dodge incoming attacks by wiggling the left stick and unleash a counterattack with X or toss missiles back at helicopters with B. This meter automatically refills over time, just as the red super meter fills as you land attacks. Once full, you can press the Right Button and A, B, X, or Y to unleash a super move, such as webbing up and swinging multiple enemies or performing a ground pound for crowd control. Later in the game, Spider-Man will be consumed by the symbiote, and his speed, defence, and strength will be augmented by his black suit. When wearing the black suit, you can tap RB to build up a rage meter and then rapidly tap it to enter an enraged mode that greatly enhances your regular and super attacks for a short time. As you complete missions, stop random crimes, and defeat enemies, you’ll increase your “crime fighter” rating and unlock upgrades to all of Spidey’s repertoire. These extend his health, add new combos to his arsenal, and upgrade his swinging speed, amongst others, and you can view these at any time from the pause menu.

There are many side missions and challenges, from fighting crime to photographing UFOs!

While the game includes a helpful onscreen compass that highlights points of interest, crimes in progress, and enemy placements, you can also view an overheard map of the city by pressing the ‘Back’ button. This time around, you can filter to see story missions, tasks such as time trials and skydiving challenges, and areas where random crimes will catch your attention, and you can also set waypoints to guide you to specific areas, which is extremely helpful. Side missions in Spider-Man 3 involve stopping runaway cars or fleeing criminals by leaping on top of their vehicles, pounding away with X, and then mashing X and B to disable the vehicle, whereupon you’ll invariably need to beat up any remaining goons. You’ll also be stopping bank robberies, encountering various gangs as they fight each other in the streets, hold up armoured vans, rob cash machines and civilians, and generally cause chaos. Thankfully, there are no balloons to recover or civilians in peril from falls here, though you’re still given time trials to reach destinations or track down hoodlums. Gangs will steal stuff and then make a getaway, and you’ll need to use your handy-dandy radar to track them down and recover the items, and you’ll sometimes need to carry civilians to safety, again while racing a time limit. One of the most prominent times you’ll do this is in the Mary Jane/M. J. “thrill ride” missions, where you need to swing fast, high, or low depending on her instructions to earn hearts. You can also collect hearts dotted along the route and these missions get trickier as the game progresses, with short times between locations and gangs scaring your girl, but you’ll also be charged with scaring her later when you aggressively carry her while in the black suit. Occasionally, some missions will see you joined by allies. Generally, these are just regular cops or inadvertent assistance from other gangs as they injure each other, but you’ll team up with MacDonald “Mac” Gragan/The Scorpion for one mission and boss fight and also tentatively work with Detective Jean DeWolfe to bust crooked cops. These missions, like those handed out at the Daily Bugle, generally require you to stay out of sight and photograph some evidence. You can do this by pressing down on the D-pad and the Daily Bugle assignments will see you snapping photos of man-sized lizards (both real and fake), gang wars, and a fake Spider-Man who you have to save from a fatal fall!

Alongside numerous button-mashing sections, the game is crammed full of QTE sequences!

Perhaps the biggest new addition to the gameplay formula here is the inclusion of quick-time events (QTEs). Stopping a car? QTE! Finishing off a boss? QTE! Escaping a collapsing building? QTE! Disarming a bomb? Oh, you better believe that’s a QTE! For the most part, Spider-Man 3’s QTEs aren’t too bad but they definitely pop up at the worst possible times and the margin for error is basically zero. If you fail even once, you have to restart the entire sequence again. Failure also costs you some health so if you’re near death, the chances are that you’ll have to start an entire mission or boss battle over again since the game can be very stingy with checkpoints. Luckily, the button and stick movements required are the same every time so it’s easy to memorise them, but they get very tricky and much faster by the end of the game. You’ll also be using QTEs to stop a runaway subway chain, catch a crashing helicopter, mashing buttons to lift heavy debris off civilians (and even an enemy at one point), wrench open doors, or slingshoting great distances. One of the most prominent QTE sequences is the abundance of bombs you’ll be disarming throughout the course of the “Mad Bomber” missions. These include a little bit of everything, from rotating the right stick to unscrew panels, to re-routing currents, and even a bit of a rhythm mini game…as well as times when you just need to charge a kick to punt the bomb into the river! Other tasks are a little easier in execution but can still be aggravating, such as rescuing hostages (at one point you need to constantly ferry one to safety and even rescue J. Jonah Jameson from a fatal plunge!), activating levers and consoles, chasing helicopters and frantically webbing up their blades in mid-air with B, destroying generators, and defending antidote dispensers in the sewers. Missions can go awry very quickly, especially when there are lots of enemies about, and there’s no way to alter the game’s difficulty so you just need to keep at it until you succeed. There are a couple of fun moments where you take control of different characters, such as fighting off waves of enemies as the Scorpion or battling Flint Marko/The Sandman’s monstrous form as the New Goblin, which are a nice (if equally frustrating in their own way) change of pace.

Graphics and Sound:  
Beyond a pre-rendered opening cinematic, Spider-Man 3 relies wholesale on its in-game graphics and models for its cutscenes. It doesn’t even include any clips from the movie, which is very surprising for a tie-in videogame, and the game’s story barely even touches upon the events from the film since you’ll be spending more time helping Doctor Curtis “Curt” Connors with his Lizard problem than fighting the likes of the Sandman. This is good and bad in different ways; good in the sense that many sequences and plot threads from the film are actually executed far better here (Peter and M. J.’s argument and break-up, for example, and the complete absence of the Stacys), but bad because every film-related element is swept aside and rushed (Harry disappears from the game completely until the end after the New Goblin fight and Eddie Brock’s issues with Peter are even more rushed than in the film). These issues are compounded by Tobey Maguire’s continued lack of enthusiasm for voicing the titular web-slinger; in fact, all the movie’s returning actors do a lacklustre job and, with the exception of J. K. Simmons as Jonah Jameson, they all sound bored and wooden. This contrasts with how janky the game’s physics can be; while Spider-Man has only basic idle animations until he gets his black suit, he flails around the place like ragdoll and can easily be pummelled and bounced around. Although New York City is fully populated with pedestrians, none of them will react to you. The streets are filled with traffic that obediently follows traffic signals but also crashes into each other (and you!) at various points, and I noticed times when the game suffered from slowdown and odd glitches, like enemies not spawning or clipping through buildings.

As fun as web-slinging is, dull interior levels and atrocious in-game models really let the game down.

Once again, New York City is the focal piece of the game; the game map is vast, including all the peripheral islands and recognisable landmarks both real (like the Statue of Liberty) and fictional (like the Daily Bugle building). Opportunities to go inside are severely limited, which is great for keeping the sense of action and momentum, but it does make things a bit empty and repetitive at times. When you are inside, it’s mainly to explore the subway and sewers under the city, where you’ll have to watch out for speeding trains and wade through the dank sewage water as you investigate the Lizard’s nests. The Scorpion’s missions see you infiltrating the high-tech facilities of MechaBioCon, where the game emulates the first game by trapping you in claustrophobic, futuristic laboratories, hallways, and facilities. Missions see you swinging all over the city, stopping bombs at City Hall and battling psycho schoolgirls in the Natural History Museum and a church, or visiting Peter’s apartment and even a cool sequence where Spider-Man (in a cutscene) stops a helicopter with a giant web. Crimes pop up all over the place as you swing around, with some being more important and worthy of your attention than others. Full scale gang wars can break out, helicopters need to be chased, and day turns to night turns to day as you web around righting wrongs. Unfortunately, Spider-Man 3 still doesn’t include any of the iconic musical cues from the movie and nowhere near the amount of visual variety as the last game. Sure, there’s a mission where you have to photograph a UFO, lizard-men ran rampant in the streets and sewers, and you’ll even have to contend with giant mech suits at one point, but the game’s missing a lot of the bizarre comic book flair, even when the likes of Sergei Kravinoff/Kraven the Hunter and Calypso Ezili/Calypso show up to hunt the Lizard and wield strangely out of place magical abilities. Things do pick up for the final showdown, which includes a monstrous version of the Sandman and a raging sandstorm amidst a construction site, but there’s really nothing we haven’t seen in other Spider-Man videogames, or much to make this one stand-out visually speaking.

Enemies and Bosses:
New York City is in the midst of a turf war between three rival gangs: the Arsenic Candies, the Apocalypse gang, and the Dragon Tails. Each has a couple of different types of goons in them, from standard guys who punch, kick, and block to those with ranged weapons like pistols, machines guns, and grenades, to larger or more skilled variants. The Apocalypse gang are a bunch of punks who are often bolstered by larger guys carrying street signs or decked out like rejects from the Mad Max films (Various, 1979 to present). The Arsenic Candies are annoying schoolgirls who attack and block with umbrellas, and the Dragon Tails are martial artists who fly at you with kicks or swords. Even the standard punks can be an issue, but the elite members can be a real pain in the ass. They inexplicably block and dodge all your attacks, forcing you to use your spider reflexes and more elaborate combos to actually land a hit, and often you’ll be greeted by a sneak attack or an explosive to the face! Sometimes the gangs are bolstered by mech suits courtesy of Luke Carlyle/The Mad Bomber, hovering overhead and rapidly firing at or tagging you with delayed explosives, which is super annoying, and you’ll often have to face large groups of them while rescuing hostage, activating consoles, disarming bombs, or rescuing civilians. Thanks to Dr. Connors, New York’s streets (and, more prominently, its subways and sewers) are also over-run by lizard-men. These reptilian bastards like to leap out from the shadows or water, spit acid, and slash at you and will absolutely have you tearing your hair out when you try to defend the antidote capsules from them. You’ll also have to contend with trigger happy crooked cops, the wasp- and spider-like robotic defences of MechaBioCon, inept security guards dressed in riot vests, burning buildings, rocket-toting gang members, and heavily armed mercenaries who like to set bombs and take hostages.

The game takes a sharp, frustrating difficulty spike whenever you battle the QTE-ladened bosses!

As part of your efforts to quell the three gangs, you’ll inevitably come up against their tougher forces, from explosive-bear-toting Arsenic Candies, to well-armed helicopters, and full-on battles in ornate palaces. The brutish leader of the Apocalypse gang is fought down near the docks, you’ll wade through an unending horde of Arsenic Candies when you break up the shotgun wedding of their leader, Priscilla, and you’ll have to fight off the Dragon Tail’s elite fighters to tackle their samurai-like leader, who favours teleporting and forcing you to engage your spider reflexes to land a hit and avoid his sword swipes. All three of these are fought later in the game, in-between extremely frustrating fist fights with Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin. Unlike other fights in the game, the battles against the Kingpin are not ones you can win simply by mashing buttons and pummelling him with combos. Instead, you need to wait for him to strike and the dodge, counterattack, and get out of harm’s way to avoid him making mincemeat of you with a few ridiculously powerful sumo slaps, headbutts, or slams. Once you’ve built up your rage, you can get to button mashing your best combos, but this fight really is a sudden uphill battle compared to those that came before it, which is saying a lot considering how goddamn frustrating Spider-Man 3’s boss encounters are! Depending on how you tackle the game’s missions, you might not see this right away but I sure as hell did when I chose to engage the New Goblin mission. This boss fight sees Peter attacked in the street like in the film, but it’s made up of two phases: the first is a QTE sequence where you must time button and stick presses to avoid the New Goblin’s attacks, and the second sees you battling him at street level as he hovers about. You absolutely must ace the first phase; if you get hurt here or die in the second phase, do not select “Retry” as this drops you in the second phase of the fight with the New Goblin at full health! As Harry’s sword swipes and pumpkin bombs can decimate your health bar very quickly, it’s far easier to get a slight edge by winning the first phase and then spamming your spider reflexes and combos. However, don’t be too trigger happy as this fight (like all the boss fights in Spider-Man 3) ends in a QTE sequence and you can easily mess it up if you mash X too much!

Some of Spidey’s most recognisable C-list villains show up for some aggravating boss battles!

One boss battle that was a bit different is the showdown with the Mad Bomber’s heavily armed helicopter. You must dart behind cover to avoid the chopper’s missile barrage and gatling gun, then use your spider reflexes to send a missile back at it a few times to bring it down, all while the rooftop disintegrates around you and Jonah cowers nearby. Dr. Connors transforms himself into a lizard and, after tracking him and defeating his minions, you’ll battle him on some treadmills that lead into meatgrinder-like blades! You need to use your spider reflexes to counter the Lizard’s dodge and then mash A to flip him into the grinders a few times; after that, you’ll fight him on equal ground, avoiding his slashes and tail swipe and fleeing to safety when he flies into a rage. Later, Kraven and Calypso come to town to hunt the Lizard; fighting Kraven can be tough as his potions grant him bear-like strength, talon-like flight, and panther-like speed, to say nothing of his duplication, invisibility, and charge attacks. Once you defeat him, you tangle with the Lizard again, this time in a monstrous form; in the first phase, he can’t be harmed so you have to mess about webbing up his hands and swinging him by the tail into four generators like he’s fuckin’ Bowser to lower his shield, then you can go to town on him but watch for his chomping bite and wall leap! Another recurring foe is the Scorpion, who attacks with his hooked tail and claws. After chasing him across the city, you’ll also battle him on a bridge and need to subdue him long enough to forcibly use his tail lasers to destroy a shield array but he ends up becoming an unexpected ally when you fight Alexander O’Hirn/The Rhino. The Rhino is so tough and heavily armoured that he’s completely immune to a frontal assault. Instead, you need to avoid his earth-shattering slams and punches and attack from behind (or distract him so that the Scorpion can do this). The Rhino will charge around, destroying the area and swinging girders at you, but these attacks leave him momentarily dizzy and open to a double team attack from Spider-Man and the Scorpion. You can also hop on him and complete QTE sequences to ram him into walls, though this remains as aggravating as the other boss battles.

Spidey gets some help from the New Goblin to battle the monstrous Sandman and ravenous Venom!

Finally, there are the other two villains from the movie, the Sandman and Venom. The Sandman is fought in the subway and acts as a kind of tutorial for your new black suit abilities. You need to avoid being hit by subway trains and dodge his mace and hammer-like arms to build up your rage meter and deliver a hefty beat down. The Sandman can form shields with his body and blast you with sand streams, and you’ll need to complete QTE sequences to both drop him further down the shaft and disintegrate him with a water jet like in the movie. The Sandman then disappears until the final showdown, where he’s approached by an embittered Eddie Brock; in this version of the story, Eddie is slighted when Spider-Man catches him faking pictures of him and threatens the Sandman’s family if he doesn’t help him kill Spider-Man. This final battle is similar to the one in the movie and involves three phases. The first sees Spider-Man fighting Venom in a partially-constructed skyscraper. Venom uses brute strength and cheap tactics to attack you; you’ll need to mash A when he tries to choke you with his webbing and avoid his web/uppercut combo. When he flies into a rage, smash some of the respawning pipes to stun him with noise and deliver a few combos but try to not be tossed from the site as it takes bloody ages to climb back up! The second phase sees Harry (who doesn’t get scarred or amnesia here) suit up as the New Goblin to help his buddy like in the film. The New Goblin can strafe, boost, attack with fast and heavy sword swipes, and toss pumpkin bombs with B and you’ll need to use these to take out the monstrous Sandman. Simply target his arms or his head and complete a QTE sequence, then douse him with water from a hydrant to actually do some damage. I found the best tactic to avoid being hit is to constantly strafe around him, mashing or holding B and using RB and X, Y, and B to unleash a barrage of bombs. You’ll then need to complete another QTE sequence before the fight switches back to Spidey and Venom, who are now surrounded by a raging sandstorm and at very low health. The strategy is the same, but made more difficult by Venom’s increased aggression, the sandstorm, and how annoying it is having to jump up to where the pipes are. Stun and beat on Venom a few times and you’ll initiate one last QTE sequence, the fastest and toughest of the game, that ends with Venom skewered on some spikes and apparently leaves Harry alive.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Spider-Man 3 is surprisingly light on in-game power-ups. Your health is restored every time you stop a crime or beat up some thugs (assuming you stick around long enough to collect the health that drops) and you’ll occasionally find health scattered throughout the game or hidden in crates, but I found this to be quite rare. You can extend your health and gain upgrades to your abilities by raising your crime fighter status, but this isn’t quite the same as gaining experience points. It simply goes up the more side quests and story missions you complete and that’s it; you don’t spend points and can’t customise your gameplay progression as you might expect. The only real tangible power-up is the black suit, which makes the game far more enjoyable. You’re faster, stronger, hardier, and have access to a rage meter than can make combat much more enjoyable, but you’ll naturally lose this as the story progresses.

Additional Features:
There are forty-three Achievements to snag in Spider-Man 3, eleven of which are awarded simply for beating the game and defeating the bosses. You’ll grab Achievements for swinging great distances, webbing up enemies, completing the different side missions, and one for riding around on a vehicle for five miles. Scattered across the city are gang tokens, time trials, combat tours, and skyscraper tokens. Finding and completing each of these nets you more Achievements, as does completing all the Daily Bugle assignments and random crimes that pop up across the city. Time trials are a test of your swinging skills and see you racing about through rings, combat tours have you webbing about to battle the various gangs against a time limit, there are bomb disarming challenges as well, and you’ll occasionally find collectible tokens on the city’s largest buildings. Unfortunately, there are no other difficulty modes to challenge, no comic book covers, concept art, or movie clips to unlock, and the only skin you get is the black suit. When you finish the game, you can switch to the black suit, which allows you to basically play a new game all the way through in Spidey’s symbiote attire and can switch back to your cleared save file at any time to mop up anything you’ve missed there. Sadly, that’s about it. There was some downloadable content that includes various banners and icons for the Xbox dashboard and the ability to play as the New Goblin and take on additional challenges, but there’s not much replay value to be had here, especially if you completed all the missions in your first play through.

The Summary:
Spider-Man 3 is an interesting beast. On the one hand, much of the gameplay and appeal of Spider-Man 2 has been recreated with some new bells and whistles to keep things fresh but, on the other hand, a lot of the game is a tedious and frustrating, sometimes even broken, mess of repetitive tasks and unfulfilling combat. While the city looks great, there’s some noticeably pop-up, lag, and glitches in the game world; the character models and voice acting are, by and large, atrocious and don’t seem to be much of a step up from the PlayStation 2 graphics. The villain selection is also very lacklustre; was anyone really crying out to see Kraven and the Scorpion again? And how many times have we seen the same old “Lizard builds a nest in the sewers/turns people into lizards” plot in Spider-Man games? I’m actually surprised the developers didn’t do more with the symbiote aspect of the story, such as having civilians be infected and forcing you to battle endless Venom clones. I basically hated every boss battle in the game, especially the ones against the New Goblin, the Kingpin and the Rhino, which were so frustrating that I was almost tearing my goddamn face off! You can power through, but why aren’t these more exciting and fun to play? Why are they such an uphill battle? Even the regular street punks put up quite a fight and Spider-Man just feels so weak and janky for much of the game that it was hard to find much enjoyment in the content. It doesn’t help that everything’s so repetitive; I lost count of how many speeding cars and bombs I disarmed, not to mention the copious and aggravating use of QTEs with no margin for error that just pop up out of nowhere, so you never get a second to rest! Ironically, I actually enjoyed (if not preferred) the few times game actually bothers with the movie’s story, which drops a lot of the worst parts of the film, but it wasn’t enough to save this. I think what’s happened here is the developers got a little lazy; maybe they were resting on their laurels, maybe they had run out of ideas. Either way, Spider-Man 3 just feels like more of them same but with a tedious focus on distracting you with boring side missions and dull villains rather than delivering a solid overall gameplay experience.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Have you ever played Spider-Man 3? What did you think to the open-world gameplay and Spidey’s symbiote abilities? Were you also frustrated by some of its more tedious features and focus on other villains? What did you think to the battles against the New Goblin, the Kingpin, and the Rhino and the inclusion of QTE sequences? Were you disappointed by the presentation, lack of unlockables, and padded gameplay? Which Spider-Man videogame or movie adaptation is your favourite? Head down below or over to my social media to share your thoughts on Spider-Man 3 and be sure to check out my other Spider-Man content.

Game Corner [Bat-Month]: Batman Begins (PlayStation 2)

Dr. K1 Comment

In the decades since his first dramatic appearance in the pages of Detective Comics, Bruce Wayne/Batman has become a mainstream, worldwide, pop culture icon. The brainchild of writer Bob Kane, Batman was brought to life by artist Bill Finger and has been a popular staple of DC Comics and countless movies, videogames, and cartoons over the years. “Batman Day” fell on 16 September this year and I figured this was a perfect excuse to spend every Saturday celebrating comic’s grim and broody vigilante.

Released: 14 June 2005
Developer: Eurocom
Also Available For: Game Boy Advance, GameCube, and Xbox

The Background:
There was a time when it every cinema release had to be accompanied by a videogame adaptation; big-budget movies were generally always accompanied by a hastily created videogame tie-in that often failed to capture the spirit of their source material. A popular staple of DC Comics since his debut, Batman has appeared in numerous videogames, with his first pixelated adventure being an isometric adventure game released in 1986. Over the years, Batman has been in more than a few duds but achieved critical and commercial success with Rocksteady’s Arkham franchise (ibid/Various, 2009 to present). Before that, though, Batman came to numerous platforms in this tie-in to Batman Begins (Nolan, 2005), Christopher Nolan’s dark and gritty exploration of the character’s origin. This version of the game was developed by Eurocom and published by EA Games, featured many of the film’s actors reprising their roles, and had a heavy emphasis on stealth-based gameplay. In a precursor to the Arkham games, Batman could stalk and intimidate his foes to unnerve them, utilise fighting styles and finishing moves pulled directly from the movie, and had access to a wide variety of gadgets to subdue foes and solve puzzles. The game also featured a counter system to its combat, saw Batman to interrogate foes for information, and allowed Batman to blast through the Gotham streets in the tank-like Tumbler. All of these aspects would later be refined in the Arkham games and, perhaps as a result of being rushed to coincide with the release of the film, Batman Begins was met with generally average reviews; critics praised the voice work, combat, and fidelity to the source material while also criticising it for being a short, unsatisfying, and cheap cash grab designed solely to leech off the success of the source material.

The Plot:
After his beloved parents were murdered before his eyes when he was a child, wealthy philanthropist Bruce Wayne travelled the world training to turn fear against the corrupt and unjust as “The Batman”. However, his skills are put to the test when Gotham City is threatened not only by organised crime, but also a biological attack orchestrated by a prominent figure from his training days.

Gameplay:
Batman Begins is a third-person action/adventure game with a primary focus on combat but which also includes rudimentary puzzles and a janky stealth mechanic. You’re placed into the gravelly-voiced cape and cowl of the Batman as presented in the movie, dropped into a variety of often claustrophobic and restrictive environments within Gotham City, and given context-sensitive access to a handful of the Batman’s gadgets to take out a gaggle of nameless, faceless thugs, corrupt cops, and progress through levels. The game has three difficulty settings (Easy, Normal, and “Challenging”) but is pretty tough even on the easiest setting thanks to an unreliable camera and some clunky controls. The Batman has a few combat options available to him: Square allows you to punch and Triangle lets you kick and you can string these together into slow, awkward combos to attack enemies. Unfortunately, the Batman moves and fights like he’s underwater most of the time, making for some sluggish combat; R2 allows you to block (and roll away from, or more often into, attacks when used in conjunction with the left stick) and you will sometimes get a prompt to press Square to counter attacks. Although enemies can block your attacks, you can break their guard with Circle and, when their health has been sufficiently whittled down, you can press Circle for a “Final Attack” to knock them out for good. When surrounded by enemies, you can use Circle to kick them all flying to give yourself room to breathe and you can even hit jumping attacks using X and Square or Triangle.

Pummel foes to take them out as stealthy as a ninja using Batman’s limited repetoire.

Batman can perform a hop and a double jump and will hang from ledges or slink around narrow platforms when against a wall; he can take cover, crouching to avoid enemies, but it can be strangely difficult to avoid snapping to cover when you don’t need to. Tapping R1 tosses his patented Batarangs but these are used to interact with switches, cut cables, drop ladders and other handholds, and general open up new ways to stun enemies or progress through levels rather than being offensively as in later Batman videogames. You’ll also acquire a few limited weapons, like gas bombs and flashbangs, and gadgets to hack into terminals, which you can cycle through with the directional pad and activate with L1, and Batman can also use his grapple in certain situations to zip up out of sight. Pressing L3 drops Batman into a crouch that helps him to sneak up on enemies to take them down, and stealth can often be as important as direct combat as Batman gets absolutely annihilated by gunfire. As such, you’ll want to avoid search lights and make use of your limited, but somewhat useful, radar system to see where enemies are and which direction they’re facing. Often, you’ll need to interact with the environment in some way to scare armed foes into dropping their guns; this might mean dropping pipes, collapsing statues and walkways, and causing explosions but it’s absolutely necessary to take guns out of the equation. As you do this and take enemies out, the remainder will become increasingly terrified, making them easier to beat and take out with Circle. Some enemies need to be interrogated for more information; you can grab them with Square and are prompted to hit Square multiple times to get the information you want, usually a door code or a key, before finishing them off with Circle.

Blast through the streets in the Tumbler or tackle the same puzzles over and over.

Batman can make use of vents to sneak around, climb up chain link walls, and clamber across pipes and wires to reach new areas; eventually, you’ll also be able to make use of his cape to glide short distances and, in many cases, you can simply avoid or go around enemies rather than being forced to take them all out. There are a lot of doors in Batman Begins; you’ll forever be opening doors, activating switches to get into elevators, and finding ways of accessing new doors, sometimes by use of a lockpicking mini game (which never gets any harder or changes in any way) or by entering codes that you must get from enemies (you can’t access the keypad until you interrogate them, so a walkthrough and your memory are no good here). A couple of times, the tedious gameplay is broken up by racing sections where you control the Tumbler and barrel through the city streets smashing enemy vehicles off the road like in the Burnout games (Criterion Games/EA UK, 2001 to 2018). Here, you use Square to brake and reverse, hold X to accelerate, press Circle to jump (something I never actually found a use for…), change your perspective with Triangle and look behind with L1, and hold R1 to boost when the gauge is full. L2 fires the Tumbler’s weapons, but these are only used once to bring down a truck and you have to wait for them to charge up and lock on, but the worst thing about these sections are the time limits and the armour system. As you collide with oncoming traffic, walls, or obstacles, the Tumbler’s armour is depleted; there’s no way to refill it and, once it’s gone, the mission ends and you need to restart from the last checkpoint…with the armour returned to the state it was in at that time, meaning it’s very easy to struggle with the last sections of these parts if you’re in a state where one hit will cause your death!

The game can get quite tedious and aggravating through its repetitive gameplay.

Generally, there’s not a whole hell of a lot to Batman Begins but, while the idea and concept of a good game is here, the execution falls flat in a lot of places. Batman is incredibly fragile, his health being drained through combat, gunfire, and falling into the void, and it can only be replenished by using medical kits found sporadically throughout the environments. Checkpoints are plentiful, thankfully, but you must manually save each one if you want to continue from that point after quitting the game, which is just atrocious programming. Overall, Batman is very stiff and clunky; the camera tries to make combat more dynamic by sweeping into an almost 2.5D perspective and automatically targeting enemies, but it can be difficult to land hits and fighting enemies just isn’t as satisfying as it could be. The general gameplay isn’t much better, with levels dragging on and on and on (you spend so much time in Arkham Asylum!) and looking very bland and lifeless thanks to the game’s muddy visuals, and you’ll be doing the same puzzles over and over. Sure, sometimes you need to sneak around enemies entirely; other times, you need to hack into cranes or magnets to progress; one time, you have to find and use an explosive canister to collapse a water tower and hack into security cameras to highlight laser traps and boobytrapped floor tiles. Sometimes, the room is filled with smoke or toxic gas and you need to break a window to keep from suffocating; other times, you’ll interact with the environment to find hidden passageways and keys, and you can sometimes lure enemies out to separate them and sweep them from a higher vantage point but it’s all very rinse and repeat and the game suffers from a stuttering performance, frustratingly repetitive mechanics, and enemies who will riddle you with bullets if they catch so much as a glimpse at you!

Graphics and Sound:
I mentioned the game’s muddy graphics earlier and it’s true; the game is washed in a coppery, muddy filter that looks especially ugly. Batman isn’t exactly known for his bright colours and such, but this game definitely needed to think a little further outside the box than stale grey and brown aesthetics. It’s hard to really knock that, though, as the game actually does a pretty good job of emulating the visual style of Christopher Nolan’s film, but it makes already drab and boring environments all the more tedious to go through. Environments are largely taken from the movie and include Arkham Asylum (whose exterior takes more inspiration from the gothic trappings of the comics books), sewers, the snow swept mountains where Bruce trained with the League of Shadows, and even a recreation of the burning Wayne Manor. This was probably my favourite level of the game as it expanded this sequence with ninjas for you to fight, robbed you of Batman’s cape and attire, and saw you avoiding the fires to rescue Lucius Fox and Alfred Pennyworth from the blaze. When in Arkham Asylum, you’ll not only sneak past guards and chase after Doctor Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow to rescue Rachel Dawes, but also have to get past the corrupt cops who surround the place, meaning you have to make use of pipes, gantries, and fire escapes to avoid being shot at.

Though muddy and ugly, the game does a good job of recreating the look of the movie.

When Rā’s al Ghūl attacks the city, there’s a pretty good, if all-too-brief, level where you’re gliding and clambering about underneath one of the Gotham bridges and then running along the monorail tracks to intercept his train, and I was actually impressed with the second Tumbler sequence, which sees you blasting through the streets of Gotham and out to the rural areas to get Rachel to safety. Naturally, as it’s a PlayStation 2 title, the in-game graphics are a bit sketchy at times; Batman looks pretty good, though his cape often suffers from clipping issues, but the enemies are all recycled character models that fail to make an impression. Cutscenes not rendered with the in-game graphics are comprised of a series of disjointed clips from the movie (I suspect actually more from the trailers and TV spots) to deliver a truncated version of the film’s plot. This is disappointing, and incredibly lazy, but the game is bolstered by all of the film’s cast (except Gary Oldman) returning to voice their characters. Hearing Christian Bale and Michael Caine converse over the radio as Batman and Alfred is a lot of fun, and the dialogue offers Bale some opportunities to be a little more loquacious, and their presence helps to elevate the game by the tiniest sliver. Sadly, the same can’t be said about the soundtrack, which utilises an uninspired soundalike to Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard’s movie score, though I did enjoy the banter and enemy chatter that litters the game, especially when you’re terrifying your foes.

Enemies and Bosses:
The Batman has a disappointingly limited pool of baddies to pummel in this drab tie-in game; after the first mission, you’ll basically have encountered every enemy in the game as the only thing that really changes is their appearance. You’ve got thugs, cops, and ninjas who attack using their fists, can block your attacks, and wield weapons such as knives, crowbars, and swords, none of which really factor all that much into the combat. You can sometimes face a few enemies at once but never more than about five, really, and some will simply run away or cower in fear at your presence. The most troublesome enemies are those armed with guns as they can cut you to ribbons in seconds; you need to isolate and disarm these enemies using the Fear system, which often involves simply crouching out of sight and sneaking up behind them as much as it does electrifying floors and such. You can make use of Batman’s fibreoptic cable to see through doors and get an idea of the layout of armed foes but be careful as enemies often come through doors and have very itchy trigger fingers!

The lack of bosses and enemy variety really drags the game’s minor appeal right down.

Unlike many videogame tie-ins, Batman Begins opts not to expand on the film’s story with additional comic book villains or act as a prequel, midquel, or sequel and instead adheres strictly to a truncated version of the movie’s plot. The result is a game not only padded by ridiculously long and repetitive levels, but a serious lack of boss battles and the disappointing absence of any villains not featured in the film. While Carmine Falcone and the Scarecrow are primary targets of the Batman’s crusade, you never get to fight them; instead, you have to take out Falcone’s goons and then commandeer a giant magnet to suspend his car in mid-air over the docks and you simply chase down the Scarecrow so that Rachel cane taser him in a cutscene. The first thing you’ll encounter that even resembles a boss is the truck you eventually have to bring down with the Tumbler’s missiles and this is more a timed challenge than a one-on-one fight and you won’t even encounter bigger, tougher enemies or anything like that. Victor Zsasz/Mister Zsasz crops up a few times but, rather than being a boss, he is simply another glorified thug and you never even fight him. You do have to contend with Arkham’s crazed inmates, who have been driven into a frenzy by the Scarecrow’s fear gas, but they’re really not any different from any other enemy besides wearing straightjackets. In the later stages of the game, you’ll have to face off against Rā’s al Ghūl a couple of times; first, he sets fire to Wayne Manor and sends waves of his ninjas at you before you fight him in an unwinnable battle, then you face him again on the pretty fun speeding train section. He escapes the initial fight and then returns with a sword and is accompanied by ninjas but fighting Rā’s is no different to fighting any other foe; he’s even susceptible to your gas bombs and such, so it’s a pretty anticlimactic way to end an already unimpressive game.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
There’s really not the much on offer here. Unlike other Batman games, the Batman’s arsenal is quite limited in Batman Begins; you can toss Batarangs and use his grapnel gun but only when the game says you can and never against enemies or in attack combos. The only way to use his gas bombs and flashbangs and other gadgets is to find and open military crates and these gadgets really don’t add all that much to the combat experience; I mostly relied on Circle to take foes down quickly. Batman can also use his Electro-Hack device to hack certain consoles, requiring you to align four rows of zeros in a short and annoying mini game, and a similar device to hack security cameras by mashing Circle to reveal laser traps and such. I guess it makes sense that Batman isn’t overloaded with gadgets as he wasn’t in the film or at this time in his crimefighting career, but it’s pretty poor to see how few of his toys and abilities you have access to.

Additional Features:
As mentioned, there are two other difficulty settings you can attempt; the game comes with six save slots so you can easily have multiple save files if you want but, after you clear the game, there’s no level select so you have to start all over from the beginning. There’s also a disappointing lack of collectibles in the game…in fact, there aren’t any at all! There are no comic books or statues or gadgets to collect to unlock stuff here; instead, you unlock stuff simply by completing the game and its individual missions and you don’t even have to play on the harder difficulty settings to unlock everything. Once you beat the game, you’ll unlock three additional Batsuits, which is quite cool, and will have unlocked character models and bios to view in the interactable “Gallery of Fear” (of course modelled after Arkham Asylum). There are also interviews, trailers, and movie footage to watch and you can replay the Tumbler sections in full or in a time attack mode if you can stand the weird armour mechanic.

The Summary:
It’s fascinating playing Batman Begins after experiencing the Arkham series; the basic, fundamental mechanics that would be so masterfully refined in the Arkham games are here but nowhere near as enjoyable and very much limited by the hardware and time crunch that no doubt dogged this game’s development. I can see how Batman Begins might have impressed at the time; with the combat and gameplay options available, this was easily the most faithful videogame rendition of Batman seen by that point, but it can’t be denied that your options are painfully limited and the game suffers from all the same pratfalls as the very worst of videogame tie-ins. A terrible camera, clunky controls, and needlessly long and bland levels are only the tip of the iceberg; there are no collectibles, no level-up system, no incentive to play through again and very little motivation to play through at all thanks to the sluggish combat and frankly appalling save system that can cost you an entire level’s worth of progress if you don’t manually save. While the game is bolstered by the voice cast and does a pretty good job of creating the aesthetic of Nolan’s film, it’s hampered by a serious lack of visual variety, too few and too frustrating Tumbler sections, and an inexcusable lack of boss encounters. The Fear system was a lot of fun, and it was interesting finding new ways to use the environment to terrify and disarm enemies, but it also led to some of the game’s more annoying sections as there’s little margin for error if you’re spotted. In the end, this game stumbled so the Arkham series could run and you’re better off skipping this in favour of Rcoksteady’s far more refined videogames which truly captured what it meant to be the Batman.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

What did you think to the videogame tie-in to Batman Begins? Were you a fan of the Fear system and the combat and stealth options available to you or did you find the gameplay mechanics needlessly frustrating? What did you think to its recreation of the movie’s plot and aesthetics? Which of Batman’s gadgets and the game’s missions was your favourite ? Were you put off by the lack of boss battles? What did you think to the Tumbler sections? How did you celebrate Batman Day this year and what is your favourite Batman videogame? Whatever your thoughts on Batman Begins, or Batman in general, please leave a comment below and stick around for more Batman and comic book content in the future!

Game Corner [Spidey Month]: Spider-Man 2 (PlayStation 2)

Dr. K2 Comments

Easily Marvel Comics’ most recognisable and popular superhero, unsuspecting teenage nerd Peter Parker was first bitten by a radioactive spider and learned the true meaning of power and responsibility in Amazing Fantasy #15, which was first published in August 1962. Since then, the Amazing Spider-Man has featured in numerous cartoons, live-action movies, videogames, action figures, and countless comic book titles and, in celebration of his debut and his very own day of celebration, I’ve been dedicating every Saturday of August to talk about everyone’s favourite web-head!

Released: 28 June 2004
Developer: Treyarch
Also Available For: Game Boy Advance, GameCube, Mac-OS X, N-Gage, Nintendo DS, PC, PlayStation Portable, and Xbox

The Background:
Back in the day, it seemed like every single cinema release was accompanied by a videogame adaptation, whether they warranted it or not. Naturally, considering his popularity, Spider-Man has a long and varied history with videogame adaptations across numerous platforms, and developers Treyarch began development of a tie-in to Spider-Man 2 (Raimi, 2004) soon after the success of the first movie. No strangers to the wall-crawler, Treyarch sought to dramatically improve upon their previous efforts by incorporating a large populated recreation of New York City, expanding on the film’s story, and placing a heavy emphasis on Spider-Man’s web-slinging. The new system, which utilised ray casting to automatically map infinite points where players could attach webs to swing from, was developed by designer Jamie Fristrom and has long been the subject of praise amongst fans of the videogame, and the character. Indeed, Spider-Man 2 has been met with a surprising amount of positivity for a videogame tie-in; while some of the more repetitive aspects were criticised, reviews praised the combat and controls, seamless open world and mission variety, presentation, and even the minigames. Even in the face of its bigger, more graphically impressive successors, Spider-Man 2 is often lauded as one of the character’s greatest videogame outings; the praise for this game is so great that I was actually a little intimidated to try it out for this review, which is my first time actually playing it.

The Plot:
Two years after the events of the first game, Peter Parker is struggling with his personal life and his responsibilities as the superhero Spider-Man. Unable to ignore the threat posed by criminals and supervillains alike, Peter’s social life begins to suffer, but his powers are put to the ultimate test when renowned scientist Doctor Otto Octavius becomes a four-limbed madman and threatens the entire city!

Gameplay:
In a change of pace from its predecessor, and basically every Spider-Man title released up until that point, Spider-Man 2 is an open-world adventure in which you’re given free reign to use all of Spider-Man’s amazing abilities throughout one of the largest and most faithful digital recreations of New York City ever seen at that time. Unlike the previous game, which was basically a reskinned version of Neversoft’s fun but limited 2000 adaptation of the web-slinger, Spider-Man is hardly ever trapped in an enclosed environment and thus a primary focus of Spider-Man 2 is on swinging around the city, stopping random crimes and helping non-playable characters (NPCs) with various issues. Thankfully, Spider-Man is more than equipped to handle everything the game has to throw at him, and the controls and combat options have been revised to accommodate this new focus. Spider-Man can attack enemies or interact with objects and NPCs with the Square button; successive presses in conjunction with directional inputs and the Triangle and Circle button will see him pull off combos, often involving webbing and tossing his enemies, and you’ll awkwardly home in on the nearest enemy when in air combat as well. You can stick to walls by pressing Circle, which is also used to evade incoming attacks and bullets whenever Spider-Man’s spider sense goes off (as indicated by his glowing head); this also fills up your “Spider Reflexes” meter and allows you to execute a counter attack but I found evading (and the combat in general) to be a little clunky and haphazard at times, especially as even New York’s most common thugs can take quite a beating and even block against your attacks. Triangle shoots a web; holding the button will temporarily tie enemies up, pressing up and Triangle fires a ball of impact webbing, and you can even use your webs to disarm foes, though it’s next to useless against most bosses and mechanical enemies. Spider-Man jumps with X; pressing it twice performs a double jump and you can hold the button to charge a big jump and executing a jump at the apex of a web sling is crucial to covering vast distances when swinging about. Holding down L2 sees Spidey spring or get a boost to his swing, Triangle (and in conjunction with Circle) will allow you to pick up injured NPCs or grapple thugs, and you can press down to lock-on to nearby targets.

Combat is much improved but the highlight of the game was the ground-breaking web-slinging.

Once the aforementioned meter has a bit of blue in it, you can press L1 to activate your Spider Reflexes, which effectively functions as a form of bullet time, slowing down the action until the meter depletes or you press L1 again and allowing you to better dodge and attack enemies. The meat and potatoes of the game, though, is in the web-slinging; the game offers two options for this, “Easy Swinging” and “Normal Swinging”, with the latter requiring more input from the player to direct Spider-Man’s swings. Either way, R2 sees you throwing a web and swinging through the city but, unlike in every other Spider-Man game before this, you can only web-sling when there are buildings or suitable purchase holds nearby. This means you’ll see Spider-Man veer to the left or right as he shoots webs at the nearest building and allows for the most realistic and innovative web-slinging ever seen. Spider-Man can also eventually web-zip by pressing L2 and R2 together to quickly cover flat distances and you can easily speed through the skyscrapers by attaching to buildings and gaining extra height with your jumps, though you can’t clamber up your web as you swing as in other games, which can make chasing through the city a bit frustrating at times. Equally annoying are the number of dead ends and the various heights of the city’s buildings, which can interrupt your flow; thankfully, the onscreen mini map is a great help for getting around and spotting crimes in progress, side missions, and directing you towards your next story-based objective. You can review these at any time from the pause menu and expand the map out by pressing ‘Select’; this displays the current time and all landmarks and places of note, but sadly doesn’t include the option to place waypoints so you still have to manually read the map and follow the onscreen indicators to get to objectives. Spider-Man 2 is split into chapters, beginning with a simple and in-depth tutorial where Bruce Campbell’s disembodied and snarky voice teaches you the fundamentals of gameplay. To progress through the story, you need to complete story-based objectives; generally, this amounts to following the compass to a certain place in the city to advance the story or confront a boss, but you’ll also need to earn “Hero Points” and acquire new abilities from the various shops dotted across the city.

There’s always someone in peril, or a crime to stop, or a race to be had.

Hero Points are earned from stopping crimes, rescuing civilians, completing time trial races, and other similar distractions; it’s a bit annoying that the game effectively grinds to a halt while you work to obtain the required Hero Points, but you get a fair amount for each side quest you complete and it’s not as if you’re short on things to do. It seems someone’s being mugged or needs help every thirty seconds, and you’ll often stop a burglary only for a child to lose their balloon across the street or an armoured car be attacked a block over. Sometimes, you’ll help an NPC only to be jumped by a gang of thugs in a sneak attack; other times, criminals will hijack vehicles to make a quick getaway and you’ll need to chase them down and land on top of the car, which can be tricky unless you lock-on to it. Once on the roof, you need to pound away with Square and dodge their bullets with Circle until they’re forced out for a fistfight and, as the story progresses, you’ll find burglars and shoot outs often culminating in one of these chase sequences. You’ll also run into Felicia Hardy/Black Cat numerous times throughout the story; each time you do you need to chase after her as she leaps and grapnels around the city, which can be aggravating as she makes erratic turns and it’s difficult to stay on the rooftops. Similarly, you’ll need to chase after Dr. Octopus when he makes an escape in a helicopter and can take on timed challenges where you must race through rings, and the game’s pretty unforgiving, slapping you with failure if you even remotely fall behind or stay too far. More often than not, you’ll face a timer as you race to story-based locations, with the final race to Dr. Ock’s lair being the tightest of them all, or be asked to deliver pizzas and swing over to specific points on the map or skyscrapers to automatically take pictures, or will have to quickly crawl up buildings to rescue civilians in danger or falling, or quickly take injured civilians to the hospital. There’s quite a lot to do in this regard, and it’s fun to pop over to the Daily Bugle and change to Peter Parker in the men’s toilets, but the variety of these side missions soon wears thin as you repeat the same cycle of requests over and over but with more enemies or a tighter time limit.

Graphics and Sound:  
It’s obvious that a lot more time and effort went into Spider-Man 2 compared to its predecessor; most videogame tie-ins suffer from a rushed development schedule, and this is often reflected in their length, variety, and presentation but Spider-Man 2 does pretty well in all three regards. Spider-Man’s character model is much improved compared to the last game, with far more animations when he’s web-slinging and battering crooks on the streets; Spidey even runs along buildings when he swings close, can perform a variety of mid-air tricks with well-timed jumps, and NPCs will even automatically dodge out his way and throw insults at him when he runs or swings through the streets. Sadly, the enemy models and NPCs don’t fare nearly as well; you’ll see the same polygonal faces and voices repeated over and over, but it’s hard to begrudge this as this was symptomatic of the games of this era. What I can’t defend, however, is the soundtrack and voice acting; once again, the game opts for a soundalike to Danny Elfman’s iconic Spider-Man score that just doesn’t work as well and suffers from awkward looping or disappears entirely for no reason. Only a handful of the movie’s actors returned to voice their polygonal counterparts as well; while Alfred Molina continues to shine as Dr. Octopus, both Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst sound bored to death recording their lines, though I did enjoy that Spider-Man throws quips and monologues to himself as you play. When the character models are used for in-game cutscenes, the game also falls apart under close scrutiny, though the higher quality cinematics fare much better, despite the rubbery appearance of the models, and I liked how the film’s events were recreated but also altered and expanded upon here, even if sub-plots like Peter losing his powers were dropped.

It’s lucky for the ropey cutscenes and voices that the digital recreation of New York is so good.

Naturally, the game’s biggest selling point is the sprawling and bustling recreation of New York; all the landmarks you associate with the city are present and accounted for, alongside recreations of locations from the films such as Peter’s apartment, the Daily Bugle building, Dr. Octopus’s pier lair, and the pizza parlour (though relocated and redesigned here). Not only can you web-sling across the city without any noticeable slowdown or load times, the game also includes a day and night cycle and the story is geared towards pushing you to visiting new areas, such as Roosevelt Island, the Statue of Liberty (accessible only by hitching a ride on a helicopter or using Mysterio’s UFO-like drones), Central Park, and Oscorp. 90% of the game takes place outside amidst the city skyscrapers; traffic and pedestrians mingle around down below, crime is rampant, and the enemies you encounter even change as the story progresses. While you can only enter a handful of buildings, those that you can offer some rewards, such as interacting with the Daily Bugle staff for tasks or purchasing upgrades. The handful of other times you’re forced into a warehouse or an open-air stadium, it’s for a close-quarters boss battle or to take on one of Mysterio’s challenges, meaning the only interior of any real note is Mysterio’s madcap “funhouse” that sees you venturing into a hall of mirrors and through upside-down environments. The thrill of swinging through New York is definitely palpable but I’d be lying if it doesn’t lose its appeal pretty soon; with no options for fast travel and only one real collectible on offer, there’s not really much to see beyond the digital recreation of the city or to do beyond stopping the same crimes over and over.

Enemies and Bosses:
As you swing about the city in your colourful underoos, a gaggle of the dregs of society will inevitably crawl out of the woodwork to cause trouble in the streets. New York is rife with purse snatchers, bank robbers, and armed gangs who love to rob armoured cars and get into shoot-outs with the cops or hijack passing cars and you’ll get to beat the ever-loving piss out of them all multiple times. Most enemies you encounter will simply try to bash your head in, but others have crowbars and bats or can guard against your attacks, requiring you to execute a counter after dodging their attacks. The worst are those armed with guns as Spider-Man doesn’t do too well when riddled with bullets, so it’s best to either disarm them, web them up, or try to take them out early, which can be easier said than done when you’re literally surrounded by enemies on all sides. Eventually, New York will also be attacked by Mysterio’s robotic drones, which fly about the place and blast at you with lasers; these can be tricky to hit as mid-air combat is actually less refined than in the previous game in many ways, though that weird homing function comes in handy here. Herman Schutlz/The Shocker’s goons also end up terrorising the citizens as well, firing high velocity blasts to send you flying, and all of the game’s enemies except the robots can take quite a beating before they go down. You’ll also have to contend with three mech-wearing goons in one particular mission that sees Spidey and Black Cat gate-crash an auction. This mission is one of the game’s toughest, on paper, due to the sheer number of bullets, enemies, and explosions happening all around you but an easy way to get past it is to simply swing about back and forth overhead; eventually, the mechs will take each other and most of the other enemies out, leaving you to pick up the scraps.

After tangling with the Rhino, Black Cat lends a hand in two annoying battles with the Shocker.

Disappointingly, though, Spider-Man 2 only contains four actual bosses, but you’ll face some of them more than once, at least. The first one you battle is Aleksei Sytsevich/The Rhino as he’s in the middle of a bit of thievery; the Rhino is too powerful to take on head-first so you need to rapidly tap Circle to avoid his swings or dodge his charge, both of which will leave him dizzy and vulnerable to a good pummelling. Instead of fighting Black Cat, you’ll chase her across the city (so many times that it got legitimately annoying for me) to encounters with the Shocker, who you’ll battle twice alongside Black Cat. The first fight takes place inside a warehouse and sees the Shocker blasting himself about the place, constantly staying on the move and making himself a difficult and annoying target. When you do get close to him, you only have time to rattle off a quick combo before you need to get the hell away from him to avoid his huge concussive blast, which sends you flying. The Shocker’s blasts are also used to keep you at bay, he shrugs off your webbing, and is joined by some goons in this fight, which quickly becomes laborious because of the hit and run tactics. Sadly, you’re forced to repeat these in the second encounter, which takes place in an even smaller, enclosed arena where the Shocker is protected by a shield. You need to head up top, dodging his blasts when your spider sense goes off, and activate whatever console is opposite from the one Black Cat is at to lower his shield. These weird blasts of water (or energy, I couldn’t tell) form platforms in the middle of the arena, giving the Shocker the high ground, but the same strategy as before is needed to whittle his health down. Eventually, Black Cat will shut his shield down for good, meaning you’re on the home stretch, but she doesn’t really seem to actively do damage to him when she’s attacking him.

Mysterio’s “tests” prove to be frustrating test of your patience.

Easily the game’s more persistent enemy is Mysterio; when you first face him as plain old Quentin Beck, he challenges you to a series of “games” in an effort to prove Spidey’s a fraud, which involves you grabbing and tossing goons into green highlighted pits faster than him in a game of human basketball and then clambering about on elevated, moving, and twisting platforms trying not to get hit by his laser cannon. The second time, he swarms New York with his UFO-like drones and takes hostages at a theatre; this was an annoying section as you have to fend off his drones, watch out for a flaming floor, and battle a brief time limit to rescue everyone there but it’s nothing compared to when he encases the Statue of Liberty in an elaborate mechanical construction to resemble an alien attack. I was tearing my hair out at the finnicky controls as I webbed my way over the Lady Liberty and fell countless times into the water to be washed ashore and have to start all over, and near enough lost my rag when tasked with destroying the eight orbs surrounding Mysterio’s machine to expose the “brain”. Eventually, I was somehow able to gain enough height to get up there and take them all out and then get up to where the brain is before the orbs could respawn and dispel the illusion, but it was a pain in my ass, for sure. Afterwards, you track Mysterio to his apartment and hidden funhouse lair, where you have to fend off a swarm of twisted Spider-Man clones to find a hidden exit in his hall of mirrors and shut down his hologram. Finally, Mysterio shows up in the flesh later in the game to rob a deli; this was actually really amusing as the game loads in this ridiculously long and layered health bar and makes it seem like it’s going to be this long and epic showdown but all you have to do is punch him once and Mysterio folds like a paper plane.

Thanks to his thrashing limbs and raging machine, Doc Ock proves an aggravating and formidable foe.

Finally, there’s the main man himself, Dr. Octopus, who you encounter four times throughout the game. The first encounter is during the mishap with his fusion experiment and is one of the most frustrating parts of this or any other game; the reactor is going crazy, sending out intermittent energy bolts that you must dodge the second your spider sense goes off as these pulsating waves of energy that not only do massive damage (three hits is usually enough to kill you) but send you flying across the screen! Through a combination of luck, timing, and the patience of a saint, you need to dodge past all this shit and hit four consoles to power the machine down, but this almost had me rage-quitting right then and there. Next, you’ll fight Dr. Octopus and his grenade launching goons at the bank, which establishes the strategy you’ll need to best him in all encounters; you need to dodge his tentacles and then quickly fire a web to pin each one down and leave him vulnerable to attack, but this is very hard to do and he’s easily able to grab you, slam you about, toss you around, and beat you to death in just a few hits. After chasing his helicopter and rescuing Aunt May from the train tracks, you’ll battle Doc Ock on the roof of a train just like in the film…eventually, because first you need to battle the game’s controls and camera to actually get on the damn train! Here, it’s more of the same and actually a little easier than the last encounter except for the fact that Doc Ock can toss you off the train if he grabs you. Finally, it’s the worst of both worlds at his pier lair as Doc Ock relentlessly chases you, protected by a shield generated from his rampaging machine and able to spam-beat you to death in the blink of an eye if you don’t constantly keep moving, dodging, and webbing him up. You need to deactivate nine consoles scattered about the lair, with one high above and one down below near the instant-death water, all while avoiding the electrical bolts, the thankfully less damaging but no less annoying energy waves, and Doc Ock himself. Once you finally take care of that, you’ll go one-on-one with him again where you’ll need to be super fast on the dodge and webs to stop his relentless thrashing tentacles and avoid being tossed into the aforementioned water, but once you land a good few combos he finally goes down for good.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
In the spirit of the movie upon which it is based, Spider-Man has an infinite supply of webbing in Spider-Man 2 so you never need to worry about collecting extra web cartridges, though the game does lack some of the fancier web-based moves potentially as a result of this. Every time you defeat a wave of enemies in side missions, they’ll drop some health to fully restore your health bar, but these won’t be present in boss encounters, which can make them all the more frustrating. Additionally, while there are “secrets” to be found around the city, they simply grant a few more Hero Points so there’s no pick-ups to boost Spidey’s abilities. Instead, you’ll gain new buffs, tricks, combos, and such by spending Hero Points in the many shops scattered around the city; these increase the speed of your swing, add fancy moves to your jumps, and add a little more flourish to your combos but I found little use for most of them and got along pretty well just mashing Square and peppering in the odd Circle and Triangle here and there.

Additional Features:
As mentioned, there are many secrets dotted around the city; these are pretty hard to find, and I only stumbled upon three or four by chance but they do allow access to a couple of new moves. There are also some races and timed challenges you can take on for more points, and which probably count towards you achieving the list of “Awards” offered by the game (though most of these are story-based). Although there are some options available to you to change the game’s display, sound, and control scheme, there are no difficulty settings here, no costumes to unlock (though you do get to play as Peter and unmasked Spidey in the story), and no additional characters or modes to unlock or play as even using cheats. The best on offer here is a code to award you a bunch of Hero Points and upgrades, making this a significant step down not just from the last game but Neversoft’s previous efforts with their many additional costumes and modes. However, after you clear the game, you’re dropped back into a free roaming mode and are free to stop crimes until the end of time across the city; you can also purchase access to the Battle Arena where you can not only battle the game’s bosses in endurance fights but also face off with a secret additional boss, Calypso Ezili/Calypso, though I’ll leave it up to you to decide if this is actually worth your time.

The Summary:
All I’ve heard since 2004 is how great Spider-Man 2 is; it either tops or is included in so many “best of” lists for videogame tie-ins and superhero videogames that I knew I had to get it once I started building my PlayStation 2 library, even though I am primarily against videogame tie-ins unless I’m trying to increase my Gamer Score. The difference between this and the last game, and other Spider-Man games before it, is immediate and reinforced throughout; the sheer size of New York City and the number of crimes to stop is very impressive for the time and never before has a videogame so perfectly captured the rush of being Marvel’s famous web-slinger. The drama and crime even interrupts the story on numerous occasions, really throwing you into Spidey’s troubled shoes, and the web-swinging mechanics definitely live up to all the hype. The versatility and accessibility of swinging through the city was unparalleled at the time and perfectly recreates the speed and exhilaration of the web-slinging seen in Sam Raimi’s films. Sadly, the combat doesn’t really live up to this, being clunky and oddly unbalanced at times even when you manage to land a dodge and a counter. Naturally, character models and cutscenes haven’t aged too well, but I can forgive that; what I can’t forgive is how empty, repetitive, and frustrating parts of the game can feel. It’s great having all of New York to explore, but there’s not a lot to see and you’ll be stopping the same crimes over and over, which can get very old very quickly. I would’ve liked to see comic book covers and other collectibles scattered about to unlock costumes and concept art, but there’s none of that here, meaning there’s little incentive to explore. The few bosses there are can also be annoying; I got so sick of chasing after Black Cat, being tossed about like a ragdoll by the Shocker and Dr. Octopus’s bloody machine, and being mullered by bullets, to say nothing of that God-awful encounter with Mysterio at the Statue of Liberty. The game was also a lot shorter than I was expecting, with the gameplay padded out by the story forcing you to acquire Hero Points to load in the next chase, battle, or cutscene, and I found myself just feeling relieved when the game was over. Overall, I can certainly see why the game was so beloved at the time and is so highly regarded; it still holds up pretty well, despite some obvious flaws, and was the most immersive Spider-Man game at the time, but it’s obviously been overshadowed by better, more polished Spidey title sin the years since.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Have you ever played this beloved tie-in game? What did you think to the open-world gameplay and web-slinging mechanics back in the day? Do you think Spider-Man 2 still holds up today or were you also frustrated by some of its more tedious features? What did you think to the battles against Mysterio, the chases against Black Cat, and the encounters with the Shocker? Were you disappointed by the lack of unlockables and additional gameplay options? Which Spider-Man videogame or movie adaptation is your favourite? Head down below to share your thoughts and memories of Spider-Man 2.

Game Corner: Terminator 3: The Redemption (PlayStation 2)

Dr. K2 Comments

Released: 9 September 2004
Developer: Paradigm Entertainment
Also Available For: GameCube and Xbox

The Background:
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Terminator franchise (Various, 1984 to 2019) has a long history with videogame adaptations; every film in the franchise has been adapted to at least one videogame over the years and the series even crossed over with RoboCop (Verhoeven, 1987) back in the day. Since producers and movie studios bent over backwards to get a third film made (and since big-budget movies usually always had a videogame tie-in at the time), it’s perhaps also not much of a surprise that Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (Mostow, 2003) was accompanied by not one, but three videogame adaptations courtesy of Atari. Paradigm Entertainment developed Terminator 3: The Redemption at the same time as Black Ops Entertainment was working on Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (ibid, 2003) and used photographs of the film sets to help create their game world. Even after Terminator 3 failed to impress, Atari pushed forward with The Redemption and even gave Paradigm more time to work on the game, which the developers aimed to make as fast-paced and action-packed as they could to differentiate it from its counterparts. Judging from the reviews, this appears to have paid off as critics found the game an overall improvement over its predecessor; however, while reviews praised the game’s action-packed content and graphical appeal, its difficulty and linearity were criticised, and the general consensus was that the game was far more appealing as a rental rather than a purchase.

The Plot:
In the year 2032, humanity has been pushed to the brink of extinction in a war against the malevolent artificial intelligence known as Skynet. After John Connor, the leader of the human Resistance, is killed by a T-850, the Terminator is reprogrammed and sent back in time to protect John’s younger self from an all-new Terminator, the T-X/Terminatrix

Gameplay:
Unlike its predecessor, Terminator 3: The Redemption is a third-person action shooter with a focus on combat, both gun and melee, and chasing and driving sequences. Straight away, the contrast between the two games is thus evident; whereas Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was a middle of the road first-person shooter that was top-heavy with its content, The Redemption has a far more balanced pace to its narrative and gameplay structure, though it still falls into the same traps of repeating gameplay loops over and over. Once again, you’re placed into the role of the reprogrammed T-850 from the film the game is based on and tasked with clearing a number of missions across four chapters, though this time you’re afforded unlimited ammunition by default and there’s no division between the shooting and melee sections. The game’s controls can be configured to your liking and this aspect is nicely weaved into the story; by default, the Terminator can take command of turrets and cannons or leap to other vehicles with Triangle (oddly labelled “acquire”), activate its trademark red-hued vision to identify allies and other targets for a limited time with Circle, grab enemies or put the brakes on its current vehicle with Square, and unleash a limited number of combos with X. Different combinations of X and Square will see you pull off various grabs, punches, and slams to the T-900s that cross your path. While I rarely found myself relying on the hand-to-hand combat, it’s a quick way to take out enemies compared to just blasting them and you’ll be using X to shoot, toss, and kick Terminators off your vehicle or into your line of fire when you’re at a turret. The Terminator can fire its current weapon with R1 and reload with R2 (though I found no practical use for this), L1 fires an alternate shot (usually allowing you to dual-wield or fire a charged plasma shot or missile), and, in an inexplicably confusing addition, L2 allows you to control the quips and one-liners the Terminator’s says by functioning as a dedicated “speak” button. Finally, the Select button switches between camera angles, pressing in the right stick allows you to switch targets, and you won’t need to worry about pressing a button to accelerate when in a vehicle as you simply use the left stick to move about.

Run around blasting Skynet’s forces or give chase on a variety of vehicles in this action-heavy title.

Terminator 3: The Redemption also includes a very rudimentary upgrade system; by destroying enemies and clearing missions, you’re awarded Terabytes (TB), and you’ll receive more TB for clearing missions quickly, something you can track with the game’s heads-up display (HUD). TB allows you to upgrade the Terminator’s recharge time (though I’m not sure what that means…) and the length, damage, and charge of its thermal vision, none of which I found to be particularly useful; TB also unlocks bonuses in the game’s ‘Extras’ menu. By pausing the game, you can review the Terminator’s combos, trade TB for other upgrades, and review your mission objectives, which are provided before the start of each chapter. Within the first few missions, though, you’ll have experienced everything The Redemption has to offer: typically, you’re tasked with following a linear path, gunning down the same mechanical enemies in waves either with your weapons, combos, or turrets. Then, you’ll either jump onto the back of a jeep or a Future Killer/FK Tank and chase down some kind of target, blasting at its engines and other enemies and “acquiring” replacement vehicles when your health is running low. Sometimes, these sections see the vehicle racing towards the screen and you blasting at pursuing enemies and switching lanes with the left stick but, generally, you’re bombing along through wrecked highways and streets. Next, you’ll be prompted to jump to a circling helicopter and blasting at targets with a mini gun or rocket launcher in a kind of auto/rail shooter section, and maybe you’ll be tasked with chasing down the T-X in a ridiculously outclassed vehicle with no indication of how far away it is except for an ever-decreasing reticule and a countdown showing you how close you are to imminent failure. These latter sections are by far the worst parts of the game; the T-X rockets away in a supped-up sports car, leaving you to dodge hazards and pursing police cars, taking shortcuts through dirt roads, fling over trains, and through power plants and scrapyards in a desperate bid to catch up only to be met with failure again and again because you snagged a part of the environment or couldn’t tell where you needed to go. Failure in a mission means restarted all over again from the beginning; there are no checkpoints here and the only way to replenish the Terminator’s health is to find “charge points”, which basically goes against my ingrained gaming experience that tells me to stay away from raging blasts of electrical current.

Some missions are needlessly frustrating and include an aggravating difficulty curve.

I opened this review by saying the game’s pace is improved over its predecessor and that is technically true; some missions are shorter or longer than others but it’s nowhere near as unbalanced as in the last game, but it’s still not great to experience. Often, your objectives are somewhat vague and it’s not clear that you are racing against a time limit or have a limited window of success; you’ll be racing along, taking ramps and desperately trying to stay on higher paths on your slippery FK Tank blasting at a Skynet carrier and then suddenly be met with a mission failure screen because it got “out of range”. Similarly, when John Connor and Kate Brewster drive a plane through aircraft hangers and runways trying to get to Crystal Peak, you need to fend off the T1 tanks and proto-FK drones (and, bizarrely, T-600s) attacking their craft and it can get very chaotic very quickly if you don’t keep an eye on the plane’s health bar. There are two missions where you’re racing around a cemetery in a hearse; one sees you driving around in a circuit shooting the T-X away when it attacks and trying to ram into a Special Weapons and Tactics (S.W.A.T.) van, which you do by taking alternate paths on the circuit. The other mission sees you driving along the freeway as the T-X drops onto the wrecked hearse; you need to shoot it with X and then use the brake, power slide (also Square), and environment to shake it off until the mission just ends. There’s also a couple of missions where you’re flying along on a hijacked FK Hover, frantically dodging pipes, pistons, and fans and shooting at bombs and other targets; you won’t know not to venture down the wrong path until you make a split-second decision to take a lower path only to be met with immediate failure as your temperature gets too high. Overall, the game is far more action-packed than its predecessor, with a lot more variety crammed into its gameplay, but it relies far too much on repeating the same gameplay loops and the difficulty of some missions is absolutely unforgiving; this may explain why The Redemption lacks the traditional difficulty settings as the game is already pretty tough to get through at times.

Graphics and Sound:  
Initially, I was again surprised by how good Terminator 3: The Redemption looks; since it retells the events prior to and during the film in its own way, it again relies on CG cutscenes to relay its story and, for the most part, these look pretty good. The game rarely uses the janky, marionette-like in-game graphics for cutscenes, which is good, and the CG scenes often recreate, recontextualise, or bleed into scenes from the movie, with The Redemption being much smarter about which movie clips it uses and when (it even includes the film’s actual ending this time), though again it does use these to skip over large parts of the story in different ways. For example we see a truncated version of the Terminator’s rescue of John and Kate at the vets, their visit to the cemetery, and Skynet’s rampage through Cyber Research Systems (CRS) but we don’t get to play these moments; instead, we’re dropped in after they’ve occurred, which is fine as the focus is generally on action-oriented gameplay but it again smacks of a rushed production as the game skips over plot points that were pivotal to the movie’s story. Additionally, The Redemption suffers a bit in the music and sound department; the iconic Terminator theme is largely absent, though the game makes a big show of including George Thorogood and the Destroyers’ “Bad to the Bone”, playing not just in the scene where the Terminator takes the stripper’s clothes but also over the end credits. While Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, and Kristanna Loken all provide what can generously be called their likenesses (the CG cutscenes do not do them justice at all), none of them return to voice their characters, with the Terminator’s Arnold soundalike sound particularly awful.

The game looks pretty good and does a better job of recreating, and deviating, from the film than its predecessor.

Otherwise, the in-game graphics are pretty good; once again, the highlights are the Future War sections, which are probably the best seen in the series at that point. You’ll battle and race through destroyed streets, airports, and buildings, passing the remains of the Hollywood sign, wrecked skyscrapers, and war-torn streets as dark (and, at one point, red) clouds loom ominously overheard lit up by lightning flashes. This is starkly contrasted by the mechanical precision of Skynet’s bases, such as the Time Displacement Chamber, which is now a heavily fortified complex full of tunnels, reactors, and sprawling corridors. Once the Terminator is sent back through time, you’ll spend a bit of time racing through the desert highways outside San Francisco, recreate the Terminator’s chase to and away from the T-X’s crane truck through the bustling city streets, battle through the airport to get John and Kate to safety, and again make your final stand at the Crystal Peak outpost. Similar to how the last game included a flashback to the Future War in the middle of the movie’s events, The Redemption briefly derails its story by having the T-X send the Terminator to an alternate future using a particle accelerator; in this even bleaker, more nightmarish timeline, John and Kate are dead and the Terminator must make its way back to the past by commandeering a gigantic FK Titan, rolling over T-900s and blasting towers and buildings with its cannons, before bringing down an equally huge aircraft carrier amidst the tumultuous skies. Sadly, as detailed and impressive as many of the game’s environments are, I did notice a fair amount of graphical pop-up and, of course, you have to deal with the PlayStation 2’s noticeable load times.

Enemies and Bosses:
As ever, you’ll be battling against the marauding forces of Skynet for the majority of The Redemption. T-900 endoskeletons, now redesigned into something a little more familiar to the classic Terminator design, litter the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the future; not only do they fire the iconic phase plasma rifles, but they can also crawl along the floor to grab at your feet after being separated from their torsos, though they’re noticeably much easier to destroy than in the last game. FK Hovers and FK Tanks also crop up, blasting at you incessantly, though you can commandeer the latter and make liberal use of turrets for the former, which is usually essential when Skynet’s forces attack in waves. When you travel to the past, you’ll have to contend with police cars and S.W.A.T. offers chasing and shooting at you, but these are brief distractions that only pop up in a couple of missions; as in the film, the Terminator is forbidden to kill these people but, unlike in the last game, it seems The Redemption is content to throw up a notification that you’ve not taken a human life rather than end your mission if you’ve been too trigger happy. CRS’s proto-Terminator machines also become an obstacle, with drones and those awesome T1 Tanks attacking you and your allies, and you’ll also need to fend off and destroy the vehicles that the T-X sends your way using its nanotechnology.

While the game shines in big, action-packed sequences, the T-X encounters are finnicky and unfulfilling.

As in the last game, however, boss battles are so few and far between in The Redemption that they may as well not even be a thing. Typically, you’ll need to chase after and destroy or disable a large target, be it a Skynet control module, an FK Bomber, or attacking the engines of a massive FK Carrier. Tougher machines more akin to the aerial Hunter Killers (HKs) also pop up here and there, requiring you to target their engines to bring them down, and larger mechs sporting plasma cannons and flamethrowers await on the FK Carrier but these are treated more like harder enemies rather than boss battles. There is a point where you need to take on an indestructible FK Guardian to return to the past, though you’re simply stomping around on your own Guardian and firing proximity beams at the machines to accomplish this. Your most persistent foe is, of course, the T-X, who you encounter multiple times but only face in a one-on-one situation in the finale. The first encounter sees you frantically taking every shortcut possible to try and intercept the T-X before it reaches John and Kate; then you’re fending off its nano-controlled vehicles to blow out the tyres on its crane truck, before desperately trying to blast it and the crane’s controls as it pursues you, which is an extremely finnicky mission. The T-X attacks Kate when she’s in a S.W.A.T. van and repeatedly jumps to your wrecked hearse during the cemetery missions but it’s easily fended off with a few shots and trips into a wall, before it attacks using a Harrier jet as John and Kate are escaping CRS. Here, it fires plasma blasts and a barrage of missiles but it’s not too taxing to shoot these out of the sky and blast away until it’s sent crashing out of the sky. Finally, the T-X endoskeleton and the battle-damaged T-850 square off at Crystal Peak; this time, though, the T-X is completely indestructible and your goal is to destroy the jeeps, helicopters, and tank guns it commands to attack John and Kate as they open blast doors. You can shoot the door panels to slow it down but, if it gets too close to them, it’ll fry them alive and any vehicles you don’t destroy will slow down their progress so you can’t make too many mistakes. Even if you succeed, you then need to blast at the guns it takes over to slow it down so you can slowly hobble over to it and finish it off in a cutscene, which can also be difficult as your only direction is “Acquire T-X”, which could literally mean anything.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Terminator 3: The Redemption is one of the strangest third-person games I’ve ever played. Your weapons have unlimited ammunition, so you never need to pick up ammo or ammo crates, and the only way you can heal is to find electrical charge points, so there are no fuel cells or health kits. Defeated enemies thus don’t drop anything and only award TB, but this also means that you can’t acquire or switch weapons as you play. Instead, the Terminator is given specific weapons for each mission, generally a phase plasma rifle in the Future War and a shotgun or machine gun in the past, though you also get to use a grenade launcher and chain gun. You can “acquire” vehicles and turrets, however, which sport more entertaining weaponry; TK Tanks haver laser cannons that also unleash an energy pulse, the more powerful (but also slipperier) TK Vipers have even more explosive armaments, and you can make liberal use of the gigantic cannons and turrets on the TK Carrier, TK Titan, and TK Bomber to absolutely demolish both enemies and the environment, which is where the game is at its most fun.

Additional Features:
As mentioned, playing through the story and acquiring TB will automatically unlock bonuses in the ‘Extras’ menu; these range from a few movie clips and pieces of concept art to a slow-mode, a useless instant death option and the absolutely game-breaking “deathstare” that destroys anything you target. You can also input some button codes while viewing the credits to unlock all of the game’s missions and chapters, grant yourself invincibility, and give yourself all upgrades; there’s no indication that these codes have worked, however, until you return to the main menu or load up a game and, while invincibility is helpful in the game’s tougher sections, it’s not going to help you if you’re too slow to chase down or destroy your targets. Strangely, The Redemption also includes a co-operative mode that changes the game into a two-player rail shooter, which is probably more fun than the standard gameplay to be honest. Otherwise, there’s nothing else on offer here; you can replay any mission from the main menu to earn extra points to unlock everything, but there are no other difficulty modes, there isn’t much to unlock, and the game can get so repetitive that it’s not really worth playing through again.

The Summary:
The difference between Terminator 3: The Redemption and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is like night and day; it’s clear that the game’s title has a double meaning, referring not just to the reprogrammed cyborg but also Atari’s attempts to make up for their last game and the developers definitely put a lot more effort into The Redemption’s gameplay and variety. I really appreciated the fast-paced, action-packed moments of The Redemption; the Terminator feels like an unstoppable force as it mows down Skynet’s mechanical minions and commandeers vehicles to lay waste to even more, and the game is at its best in big, action-oriented shooting sections. The addition of a melee system was nicely implemented in the rare cases when things get up close and personal, but could easily have been replaced by a one button counter system; similarly, I’m not sure what the purpose of the upgrade system was since it barely affected my gameplay experience. Sadly, it’s not perfect; the chase sequences were awful at times and the game really doesn’t make it clear what you’re supposed to do in a lot of its sections, resulting in unnecessary failure, made all the worse by the lack of checkpoints. In the end, it’s clearly the superior of the two PlayStation 2 Terminator 3 games but not by much; there’s still plenty here to turn you off and, again, there are far better third-person action/shooters out there. Ironically, I feel like a combination of both games could’ve resulted in something a bit more enjoyable; combined first-person sequences with third-person moments and the best parts of each game could’ve been the key but, instead, we’re left with two lacklustre tie-ins to an awful Terminator movie. If you put a gun to my head and made me pick which I prefer, it’d be this one, but I won’t be playing it ever again so that’s not much of a compliment.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Have you ever played Terminator 3: The Redemption? If so, did you prefer it compared to the previous adaptation? Which of the game’s missions was your favourite? Did you enjoy the fast-paced action of the game? Were you disappointed by the lack of weapons and bosses? Did you also struggle in the chase sequences? What did you think to the change in the story part-way through? Which parts of the game frustrated you the most? What’s your favourite Terminator videogame and how are you celebrating Judgement Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on Terminator 3, and the Terminator franchise, feel free to leave a reply down below or drop a comment on my social media.

Game Corner: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (PlayStation 2)

Dr. K2 Comments

Released: 11 November 2003
Developer: Black Ops Entertainment
Also Available For: Game Boy Advance, Mobile, and Xbox

The Background:
The Terminator franchise (Various, 1984 to 2019) has quite a long history with videogame adaptations; every film in the franchise has been adapted to at least one videogame over the years and the franchise even crossed over with RoboCop (Verhoeven, 1987) back in the day. Considering the rigmarole that went into getting a third film off the ground, and the fact that big-budget movies were generally always accompanied by a videogame tie-in during this time, it’s perhaps not surprising that Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (Mostow, 2003) was accompanied by not one, but three videogame adaptations to help push the film towards its $433.4 million box office. After acquiring the licensing rights, Atari set Black Ops Entertainment to work on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions of the game, and worked closely with special effects maestro Stan Winston and star Arnold Schwarzenegger to design the game’s visual aesthetic and narrative aspects. Although Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines garnered generally favourable reviews, critics felt that it was a rushed, bug-ridden, and graphically inferior title that relied too heavily on its license rather than offering a challenging and entertaining gameplay experience.

The Plot:
In the post-apocalyptic future, where humanity wages war against the malicious Skynet and its robotic Terminators, Kate Brewster reprograms one of their infiltrator units to help storm the Time Displacement Chamber. Realising that a new Terminator, the T-X/Terminatrix, has been sent back to kill future leader John Connor, Kate sends the Terminator back to ensure the ultimate victory of the human race.

Gameplay:
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is a first-person shooter (FPS) in which players are placed into the role of the titular Terminator, the T-850 model portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the dire movie of the same name, and tasked with defending and ensuring the future of humanity across twenty-two missions, with the majority of the game’s action taking place in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the Future War. The game’s controls are fully customisable to suit your needs, but the default settings work well enough and same pretty standard for an FPS title: the left stick moves you about, the right is used for aiming and strafing, and the R1 and R2 triggers fire your weapon’s primary and secondary functions, respectively (with most weapon’s secondary function being a melee attack that’s all-but useless until Mission 16, and even then I never used it). L1 allows you to lock onto the nearest target, which greatly aids with the game’s many firefights, while L2 lets you jump, which I also rarely had a use for as the Terminator struggles to clear anything but small debris. Triangle and Circle and left and right on the directional pad (D-pad) allow you to clunkily cycle through your weapons, Square reloads, and X lets you activate switches. You can press in the right stick to display your mission objectives (which are also available from the pause menu), the left stick to centre your view, and perform a 360o turn by double clicking the left stick. Finally, pressing Select switches to the classic red Terminator vision, which lets you see in infrared (useful when smoke clouds the screen), search for ammo, supplies, and targets, and displays your health, ammo, and the weaknesses and status of nearby allies and enemies.

Fend off Skynet’s forces with your weapons and engage with Terminators in clunky one-on-one brawls.

These are the controls you’ll be dealing with for the majority of the game and, for the most part, you’ll be stomping your way through war-torn wastelands and environments from the third film, blasting at Skynet’s forces and activating the odd switch here and there to progress further. However, Terminator 3 has a second gameplay style that’s exclusively used in boss battles; here, the game switches to a 2.5D brawler and has you awkwardly exchanging blows and throws with other Terminators. In these moments, the controls change functions: Triangle sees the Terminator kick at its foe, X throws a punch, Circle will throw them, and you can hold down Square to block. Sequential presses of Triangle and X will unleash limited combo attacks and pressing X or Circle in conjunction with D-pad inputs will allow you to perform stronger strikes or different throws, and you can also perform a dash attack by double tapping towards your opponent. Sadly, these sections aren’t very compelling and simply serve to showcase how awkward Terminator-on-Terminator fights can be, and this is also the extent of the gameplay variety. It seems at a couple of points like you might partake in some driving or chase sequences but that isn’t the case. Instead, you’ll just be wandering about turning Skynet’s forces into junk and exchanging blows with other cyborg foes and the game rarely demands too much from you. Terminator 3 tries to make navigation easier with an onscreen radar that points you in the direction of your current objective, but it doesn’t display anything else (like allies, enemies, or pick-ups); you can view a larger, more useful map from the pause screen, but you can’t move while looking at it, making it functionally useless. While mission objectives aren’t too taxing and generally amount to clearing out all enemies, locating allies, throwing switches, or destroying consoles, it can be difficult to figure out where you’re supposed to go or how you’re meant to progress as the environments are quite bland, confusing, and your objectives aren’t always readily understandable as you’re not given much direction.

Mission objectives don’t get too complex until you’re forced to spare human lives.

By this, I mean you’re occasionally asked to destroy all Skynet forces; this objective pops up when you enter a new area, so you might think you just need to clear out the machines stationed there, but the objective is actually to destroy all machines in the level, meaning you have to backtrack to hunt down any enemies that passed you by prior to getting that objective. Sometimes, you’re given a time limit to complete objectives, such as escaping areas before they explode; this can be tricky as it’s not always clear where your escape route is, and the Terminator’s jump is so janky that it’s easy to get stuck on the subway tracks and fail that particular mission a few times before you figure out how to jump up and throw the switches needed to escape. Other times, you can commandeer a laser turret to mow down waves of Terminators, Future Killer/F/K tanks and flying machines, or Skynet’s transport carriers. In some instances, you need to use heavier weaponry to blast through walls; other times, you need to re-route power to elevators or destroy consoles and tubes to disable security systems and keep Terminators from spawning, activate switches to extend bridges, destroy Skynet’s turrets and refuelling stations, or defend Resistance fighters as they escape to safety or bring down defensive systems. One mission flashes back to prior to the opening mission and has you controlling the T-850 as it mows down Resistance fighters, destroys their cannons, and infiltrates their base alongside other Terminators, though sadly its confrontation with John is relegated to a cutscene. Once you hit Mission 13, you’ll find yourself in the past and actually playing through key moments from the movie; missions become shorter and far less focused on gunfire and destruction as you need to rescue and protect John and Kate from local authorities and the T-X. When in the past, the Terminator has different weapons on hand and will fail its mission if it kills even one person, so you can’t just go in all-guns blazing any more. You’ll also need to keep an eye on John and Kate’s health bars, run around finding the parts necessary to repair a helicopter, find access cards, and battle past rampaging proto-Terminators to acquire access codes and such.

Graphics and Sound:  
I was surprised to find that, for the most part, Terminator 3 doesn’t look too bad; PlayStation 2 games, particularly licensed ones, tend to look a little janky and suffer from long load times but, while the latter is true of Terminator 3, the former isn’t and the game does a decent job of recreating the post-apocalyptic Future War of the Terminator films, locations and characters from the movie, and with its overall presentation. One feature I did like as that the game’s environments suffer damage from bullets, laser blasts, and explosions; it’s nothing ground-breaking and isn’t used all that much, but it’s cool to see blast marks and burns from combat and helps to make the world a little more immersive, though you cannot kill your allies so this kind of dispels those efforts. While you only see the Terminator in cutscenes, it resembles Arnold and has a couple of different looks depending on which time zone you’re in; when you stand idle for a bit, the Terminator will play with its gun, the game has reload animations, and the Terminator offers commentary when picking up items, eliminating targets, or completing objectives. Arnold lends his likeness and his voice to the title, which the game inexplicably tries to sell as the “first time” this has ever happened despite Arnold’s T-800 being playable in all of the Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Cameron, 1991) videogames; while it seems as though Nick Stahl also voices John, it certainly doesn’t sound like Claire Danes came back to voice Kate, and the T-X is rendered completely mute throughout the game.

Although dated, the game doesn’t look too bad, though suffers from graphical repetition.

While Terminator 3 faithfully recreates the dire wreckage of the Future War, this doesn’t necessarily lend itself to a visually enthralling gameplay experience. Everything is suitably dishevelled, destroyed, and bleak, with skyscrapers sporting gaping holes, playgrounds, petrol stations, and buildings reduced to ashen rubble, debris strewn everywhere, and ominous dark clouds broiling overhead. However, it’s very easy to get lost in such a dark and drab environment; even navigating the sewers or the Resistance bases and hovels, which are ripped right out of The Terminator (ibid, 1984) can be a bit of a chore as everything looks the same and it’s no joke when you have to backtrack to hunt down a switch or missed Terminator to destroy. Enemies also leave a lot to be desired, with the Terminators sporting weird colour schemes and appearing quite different to the classic endoskeleton, though Skynet’s headquarters and the Time Displacement Chamber help to break up the dark visuals of the main game. Once you’re in the past, you’ll visit key areas from the movie, such as the vet where Kate works, battling the T-X atop the crane truck, the Cyber Research lab, the cemetery, and Crystal Peak but these missions are so short and end so abruptly that you don’t get too much time to take in their visuals. The game does feature the iconic Terminator theme, more so than the movie it’s based on, and includes clips from the movie as cutscenes, though these rapidly skip over huge chunks of the story, potentially interesting gameplay sections, and cause the game’s last few missions to feel rushed, incomplete, and inconsequential compared to the Future War sections. Other times, CG cutscenes advance the story or recreate the movie’s ending, with elements from the film slightly altered as a result, and these hold up pretty well, certainly much better than the marionette-like in-game graphics of other cutscenes.

Enemies and Bosses:
Since you’re playing as the reprogrammed Terminator, your primary enemies in this game will be the forces of Skynet, which run rampant in the Future War and sport laser armaments. Your most common enemies will be other Terminators, the T-900s, which appear as endoskeletons sporting either a green, yellow, or red colour scheme that indicates their strength and the weapons they’re carrying. Green are the weakest, yellow are a bit tougher and wield two guns, and red are the toughest and carry Skynet Assault Cannons; however, I found all of the T-900s to be surprisingly tough to put down, even with the game’s stronger weapons, and they’re quite resistant to small-arms fire and even explosives. The F/K series is comprised of small, medium, and larger aircrafts and tanks not unlike the more traditional Hunter-Killer/HK machines seen in the first two Terminator movies; while your faster or more powerful weapons are your best bet to destroy these, you might want to make use of nearby turrets for the larger variants. Skynet also employs turrets, both on the ground and on the ceiling, spider-like rovers, and you’ll encounter the larger tanks seen in the movie while in Cyber Research labs. At one point, you’ll be mowing down Resistance forces, who are much easier to kill than their mechanical enemies and, when you initially travel to the past, you’ll also have to fend off local police and Special Weapons and Tactics (S.W.A.T.) officers. These guys wield pistols, shotguns, and machine guns and, if you shoot at them too much and kill even one, the mission is over. Similarly, if they kill either John or Kate, the mission also fails so you need to be sure only to injure them enough for them to surrender or run away and blow up their vehicles to cause them to scatter.

The game’s handful of bosses are limited to this awkward brawling gameplay.

Boss battles are disappointingly limited in Terminator 3; F/K machines are often positioned as mini bosses, of sorts, requiring you to take out Skynet’s larger aircraft, tanks, and transports using heavier machinery or a nearby turret, but you won’t be taking on a gigantic HK tank or aircraft like in other Terminator games. Hell, even the Time Displacement Chamber is protected only by Skynet’s standard forces rather than an actual defensive grid, meaning you generally have to settle for eliminating the same enemies over and over until the mission ends. When you do get to a legitimate boss battle, the game switches to its clunky and unfulfilling 2.5D combat perspective and forces you to engage in an awkward fist fight; the first time you do this, it’s against a fellow infiltrator unit that demonstrates the same limited attacks as you. It’ll block, throw kicks and punches at you, and toss you about with various slams, all while taking on battle damage as you whittle down its health bar. It’s not until about eight missions later that you get to face another boss in a similar fashion, and this is the first of four encounters with the T-X. Each one takes place in a different area and the T-X gains additional attacks in each encounter and is even reduced to its endoskeleton in the final battle at Crystal Peak. The T-X is easily the toughest foe in the game; faster and with more diverse attacks than you, it’s easy to get caught in a combo as she kicks, punches, and slams you through walls. The T-X can perform spinning kicks, slam you off the environment, fire an energy blast, stomp your face into the ground, send a shock through your system by piercing your head, and even blast you in the face with her flamethrower arm. However, as long as you throw your guard up and mash the attack buttons, landing throws when you can, you can triumph without too much effort, though you never get the pleasure of a satisfactory conclusion as all of these encounters end with the two clumsily locked in a grapple while the game loads the next cutscene or oddly placed movie clip.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Terminator 3 is an FPS title, so naturally there’s a fair amount to pick up and use in the game. You can carry multiple weapons at once, though there’s no option to dual-wield any of them and there’s a long and annoying delay when switching weapons. The Terminator can fight with its bare hands, but that’s not really recommended, and has access to a variety of explosive projectiles, including grenades, C4, and even its own hydrogen fuel cell that is often used to open up new paths. There are nineteen weapons on offer here, with different weapons being used in the past and the future (eight in the past and eleven in the future), and you should recognise some of them from the films. You’ve got a pump-action shotgun, a gas powered grenade launcher, and a mini gun, just like in the second film, but also a rocket launcher and .30 cal machine gun as in Terminator 3. The best and flashiest weapons are in the Future War sections, where you wield phase plasma rifles, lightning guns, electromagnetic pulse weapons, mini rocket launchers, and the Skynet Assault Cannon. Unfortunately, none of the weapons really impressed me; there’s a wide variety but none of them have any real “kick” to them. Many feel next to useless, have long reload times, or carry limited ammunition, though it is fun discovering secondary fire functions, such as charged or electrical projectiles. Naturally, you can also find ammo boxes strewn around the environment and enemies will drop weapons and ammo; fuel cells will also replenish your health and you can even find extra continues here and there, though I’m not sure of their use as the game simply forces you to restart a mission upon failure so these seem redundant to me.

Additional Features:
As you complete Terminator 3’s missions, you’ll unlock a number of items in game’s ‘Special Features’ menu; these include concept art, movie scenes, CG cutscenes, movie clips, and behind the scenes videos. None of it is all that interesting, especially if you’ve watched the behind the scenes features of the movie, but it’s nice to see your efforts rewarded at the end of every mission. While exploration generally leads you to ammo or health, there are two classic Atari arcade cabinets to find throughout the game, Missile Command (Atari, 1980) and Centipede (ibid, 1981), which you can then play at any time in the Special Features. Terminator 3 has three difficulty settings (Easy, Normal, and Hard), with the strength and accuracy of the game’s enemies increasing on higher difficulties, but it doesn’t seem as though the game’s unlockables are tied to the harder difficulty modes. Once you finish the game, you can replay any mission, though there’s not much incentive for this unless you missed one of those arcade games or want to beat it on a higher difficulty. There’s no multiplayer component here either, though you can make use of some super helpful cheat codes to grant yourself invincibility, infinite ammo, all weapons, and to unlock all missions, among other bonuses.

The Summary:
Expectations are always low for videogame adaptations of movies, and the Terminator franchise has struggled a little when it comes to being translated into a gaming experience, but Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines ended up being a strictly mediocre time. In some areas, it performs surprisingly well; having Arnold’s voice and likeness ends a level of legitimacy to the game, as does the Terminator theme and some surprisingly detailed recreations of locations and environments from the movie, but all the presentation in the world means nothing if the gameplay isn’t compelling. This is where Terminator 3 falters; it’s little more than a bog-standard FPS title with the Terminator branding slapped onto it; there are certainly better FPS titles on the PlayStation 2, and even on prior console generations, so there’s not much incentive to play Terminator 3 over one of those. The implementation of brawling sections is certainly ambitious, but the execution is clunky and unfulfilling. Similarly, the decision to focus most of the game on Future War sections rather than the events of the film results in a very rushed presentation near the end; missions in the past are ridiculously short, the use of movie clips to skip over the story smacks of laziness, and the lack of interesting machines to fight or bosses to battle really hurts the game’s replayability. In the end, if I’m being fair, it’s certainly not the worst game out there but the ingredients were there for a slightly more enjoyable time and this just ended up phoning it in way too much for me to really recommend it.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Have you ever played Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines? If so, did you enjoy it? Which of the game’s weapons was your favourite? Did you enjoy that most of the game was set in the Future War or were you annoyed that it didn’t more directly adapt the events of the movie? Were you disappointed by the lack of bosses and what did you think to the combat sections? Did Arnold Schwarzenegger’s likeness help sell you on this game and, if not, what is your favourite Terminator videogame? How are you celebrating Judgement Day later this month and which Terminator movie is your favourite? Whatever your thoughts on Terminator 3, and the Terminator franchise, feel free to leave a reply down below or drop a comment on my social media.

Game Corner [JLA Day]: Justice League Heroes (PlayStation 2)

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To celebrate the release of Justice League (Snyder/Whedon, 2017), DC Comics named November 18 “Justice League Day”. Setting aside all the drama surrounding that movie, this provides a perfect excuse to spotlight DC’s premier superhero team, which set the standard for super teams in comics by bringing together DC’s most powerful heroes.

Released: 22 November 2006
Developer: Snowblind Studios
Also Available For: Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, and Xbox

The Background:
After coming together in November 1959, the Justice League of America (JLA) quickly became one of DC Comic’s best-selling titles. This shouldn’t be entirely surprising considering the team came to be comprised of DC’s most popular characters: Clark Kent/Superman, Bruce Wayne/Batman, Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, Arthur Curry/Aquaman, Barry Allan/The Flash, and J’onn J’onzz (also known as “John Jones”)/Martian Manhunter. The team saw many members come and go over the years but was a constant staple of DC’s library of comic books and soon expanded into other media. Interestingly, the Justice League’s success hasn’t always resulted in the best videogames, though, meaning developers Snowblind Studios faced a bit of an uphill battle right from the start when creating Justice League Heroes. Built out of a modified engine of their critically acclaimed title Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance (ibid, 2001), the developers ending up removing features from that game and engine to focus on extending the length of Justice League Heroes, which has more than a few similarities to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Raven Software/Barking Lizards Technologies, 2006), which released about a month earlier. Reviews of the game were mixed across platforms, though, and the game was generally regarded as a bit of a mediocre and mindless beat-‘em-up.

The Plot:
The Earth is under attack from the robot forces of Brainiac, who has coerced many of the world’s most notorious supervillains into helping him consolidate the power afforded to him by a mysterious box from the stars. In response, the world’s greatest heroes, the Justice League, leap into action and team up to oppose Brainiac’s plot in a globe-trotting adventure that requires all of their individual abilities and skills.

Gameplay:
Justice League Heroes is a top-down action brawler in which you (and either another player or a computer-controlled partner) battle through a number of recognisable locations from the DC universe as various members of the Justice League. The game’s story is split into a number of missions that see two members of the Justice League teaming up at any one time; a second, human player can join the game at any point from the pause menu, a solo player can freely switch between the two heroes at will by pressing up on the directional pad (D-pad), and you’ll also be tasked with assembling one or more custom teams of two characters later in the story but you’ll never get the opportunity to switch out characters completely or replay missions with different characters. Gameplay in Justice League Heroes revolves almost entirely around beating up endless hoards of robots and aliens and solving some very light puzzles; characters can jump with a press of the Triangle button (and double jump or fly/glide with subsequent presses depending on who you’re playing as), attack with strong and fast attacks with Circle and X, respectively, and can grab enemies or objects with Square and block incoming attacks by holding R1. By entering different button presses (X, X, O, for example), players can pull off simple combo attacks to take out enemies but there are, sadly, no team up attacks to be found here.

The Justice League’s various superpowers are at your disposal and can be upgraded to be more effective.

While every character controls the same except for their ability to fly or glide, each one is made slightly different from the other through their individual superpowers. By pressing L1 and either Triangle, Square, Circle, or X, players can pull off their character’s signature super moves as long as they have enough energy stored up. This allows you to blast enemies with Superman’s heat vision, for example, or turn them into rabbits with Zatanna Zatara’s magic, or smash them with John Stewart/Green Lantern’s massive sledgehammer. Pressing L1 and R1 will see each character (with some exceptions) pull off a more powerful  super special attack which, again, varies per character; Superman, for example, will become stronger while Batman unleashes a swarm of bats to damage foes and Martian Manhunter briefly becomes intangible and invisible. They’re all pretty useful and different enough in their own way, with most characters having a projectile of some sort, a move to boost their attack or speed, or being able to stun or otherwise incapacitate enemies and you’ll sometimes (very rarely) need to use a specific character’s superpowers to bypass obstacles in order to progress. When playing alone, you can also issue simple commands to your partner using the D-pad; this allows you to increase the aggressiveness of their attack or have them focus on defence, which can be useful when teamed with Zatanna as she’s able to heal all team members.

Rescue civilians, activate consoles, and destroy targets to progress amidst the mindless brawling.

Overall, I found the computer to be surprisingly useful and competent; if your partner gets downed, however, you’ll have to rush in to revive them but the game automatically revives any downed characters when you reach one of its numerous checkpoints and enemies will often drop health-restoring orbs to keep you ticking over. Furthermore, if you’re able to attack enemies without taking damage, you’ll build up your “Heroic Meter”, which will increase your damage output until you get hit, and you can alter the difficulty of the game and its enemies by selecting different difficulty settings from the main menu. Despite the game being extremely linear, the developers included a helpful mini map, which you can expand by pressing in the right analogue stick. This isn’t always necessary but, as many of the environments are rather drab, grey, similar, and somewhat labyrinthine at times, it’s a welcome addition to keep you on track even during the game’s shorter and more straightforward missions. Unfortunately, the top-down view can be rather restrictive at times; many areas are filled with debris or obstructions and it always seems like you can only see just enough of the area, which can lead to enemies catching you off guard or hiding behind parts of the environment with no way to see them as they don’t show up on the map. It’s not all mindless brawling, either; occasionally, you’ll be tasked with rescuing a number of civilians or hostages, faced with a time limit, or directed to activate consoles to lower barriers in order to progress. As alluded to earlier, these very rarely require you to use the Flash’s superspeed or the Martian Manhunter’s intangibility to get past obstacles and stop fans, lower energy barriers, or deactivate Kryptonite hazards so that you can progress further. Sometimes you’ll also need to destroy a wall or use a character’s flight to progress across rooftops and, in the final portion of the game, you’ll not only have to protect Superman as he smashes through Darkseid’s fortress but you’ll also be faced with an extremely frustrating and confusing teleport puzzle that was the only time I had to actively look up a solution online.

Graphics and Sound:
Thanks to its zoomed out, top-down perspective, Justice League Heroes is, largely, able to get away with hiding any inconsistencies and defects in its in-game character models. Since you never really see your characters up close, the developers can have them talk and drop hints and quips without really needing to animate their mouths and the simple beat-‘em-up action of the game means that characters just need to look somewhat decent when they throw punches, grab cars, or blast out energy beams. And, for the most part, they do; there’s some neat little touches here and there (like Martian Manhunter being able to transform into his true, more monstrous form and the Flash being accompanied by a speed force double and lightning) and characters are always talking so you know when you need to drop or combine Boosts or have a vague idea of how the story is progressing.

Sadly, the game’s environments and enemies tend to be quite dark, bland, and boring.

Sadly, enemies and environments don’t always live up to the colourful and eye-catching depiction of the titular Justice League. It takes a long time for you to battle anything other than Brainiac’s generic robots or explore areas beyond the wrecked streets of Metropolis or the cold, grey corridors of Scientific and Technological Advanced Research Laboratories (S.T.A.R. Labs) and the like. Eventually, though, you do venture into more visually unique environments like the subways, a honeycomb and sap-encrusted hive, the ruins of J’onn’s civilisation on Mars, Gorilla City, a Lovecraftian dimension populated by strange rock creatures and living tentacles, and a version of Apokolips created on Earth but there’s very little variety offered in terms of the enemies or puzzles and hazards you face as you progress. No matter where you are, it’s the same thing every time: defeat all enemies, maybe activate a console, and reach the end of the stage.

Even Ron Perlman can’t salvage the blurry, rubbery graphics of the game’s cinematics.

The bulk of the game’s story (which is about as generic as you can get for a Justice League videogame) is conveyed through CG cutscenes featuring the traditional rubbery-looking graphics you’d expect from a PlayStation 2 game. I did notice some slowdown when there was a lot happening onscreen and, in terms of music and sound, the game is very unimpressive; the voice cast isn’t even the same one as in the popular Justice League animated series (2001 to 2006) and, while I love me some Ron Perlman, he just sounds bored whenever his Batman speaks (I’m also not really a fan of how often Batman is shown in broad daylight).

Enemies and Bosses:
As I’ve mentioned a bit already, you’ll wade through numerous disposable enemies in your mission to stop Brainiac and his lieutenants but none of them are particularly interesting. You’ll battle robots of varying sizes, humanoid wasps, White Martians on the surface of Mars, Gorilla Grodd’s gorilla forces, and Parademons but, once you’ve fought one lot of enemies, you’ve fought them all as they all feature regular foot soldiers who shoot at you and both flying and bigger variants that can take a bit more punishment. Honestly, the only enemies I even remotely found interesting were the weird crab and toad-like enemies you face later in the game and the instances where you battle Brainiac’s skull robots and failed clones of Doomsday because they at least looked a little different.

Many of the game’s bosses require you to fend off minions or destroy or activate consoles to attack them.

Before you can defeat Brainiac, you’ll have to battle a number of bosses; some of these are simply bigger, more dangerous versions of enemies you’ve already fought or Brainiac’s more deadly robots and duplicates. You’ll battle a Brainiac duplicate in S.T.A.R. Labs, for example, but this fight isn’t just about throwing punches. Instead, you have to activate consoles to lower barriers and rescue the scientists against a time limit all while “Brainiac” fires lasers and energy blasts at you. You’ll also encounter some of the more obscure villains from DC Comics’ gallery; Queen Bee has established a hive in the Metropolis subway and is transforming civilians into monstrous insect hybrids and, when you confront her in her throne room, she shields herself from your attacks and rains missiles into the arena that make the floor sticky. She’s only vulnerable when she leaves her throne but your window of opportunity to attack her is hampered somewhat by her minions, her energy blasts, and her tendency to dart across the screen like a madwoman. You’ll also butt heads with the Key, of all people. Like with Brainiac’s duplicate, you have to rescue some scientists against a time limit during this battle but the Key proves to be a particularly elusive and versatile enemy as he teleports around the place and causes hazards to blast out from his dimensional portals.

Grodd and Brainiac use their powers, technology, and minions to keep you at bay.

Similarly, when fighting Doctor Louise Lincoln/Killer Frost, you’re given one minute and forty seconds to destroy three missiles (and five seconds to get away from each before they explode) in addition to battling her and her icy minions. Killer Frost can conjure grunts, form ice shields, and blast at you with ice and icicles, all of which can make battling her quite tricky and annoying as your attentions are constantly divided. After reaching the core of a pyramid-like structure on Mars, Superman and the Martian Manhunter have to battle the White Martian leader; this guy is also accompanied by disposable White Martian grunts and you’re tasked with activating four nearby power nodes to defeat him. Things get noticeably more interesting when the Justice League splits into teams; while one team flies through the upper atmosphere destroying generators on invading spacecraft, another destroys power turbines in Gorilla City and gets into a confrontation with Gorilla Grodd. Grodd primarily uses his staff to attack and is joined not only by an inexhaustible supply of gorilla minions but also a series of energy-firing turrets so it’s probably best to try and keep your distance and stay on the move to emerge victorious in this fight. After battling their own security system in their Watchtower space station, the Justice League then faces off with a larger, more powerful Doomsday clone that, unlike pretty much every other boss in the game, boils down to a question of who can attack hardest and fastest rather than distracting you with tricks and puzzles.

Of course Darkseid turns out to be the true final boss of the game!

Eventually, you’ll breach Brainiac’s main base and be forced to battle his three robot guardians before you confront him; Brainiac is completely protected by an energy shield and is only vulnerable when he rises from his throne and only for a brief window of time. He also likes to teleport you to the far end of the arena, where you’re forced to destroy the generators that power his barriers and take out some minions just to get back up to him, so it’s more a question of patience than anything. As you might have guessed, the moment you defeat Brainiac he is immediately usurped by Darkseid, who teleports you away to a hellish dimension and then converts Earth into a new Apokolips. You’ll need to assemble two teams of four to confront Darkseid, who stomps around his throne room creating shockwaves and plumes of fire along the ground and blasting at you with his powerful Omega Beams. Being an all-powerful New God, his health also regenerates over time, meaning you’ll have to keep pummelling him again and again in order to keep him down. This was, honestly, a bit of a confusing fight; you can grab the “Apokolips Hypercube” nearby, which seems to weaken him and make him vulnerable to your attacks but I also found myself running around with it in my hands and not doing any damage to Darkseid at all and then he just suddenly succumbed to my attacks and was defeated.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
In almost every area in the game, you’ll find objects that you can grab and use as weapons; some of these are limited to the specifics of your character, though, meaning that you won’t be lifting cars over your head as, say, Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, for example. Still, you can grab post boxes and parking meters and cars and such to bash over enemy’s heads, which adds a bit of variety to the otherwise relentless combat. You can also pick up temporary power-ups throughout each environment to give yourself and your team mate a bit of a power boost so it can be worth exploring a little bit and smashing destructible objects wherever you see them.

Level-up to increase your stats power-up your attacks with Skill Points and Boosts.

The game also features some light role-playing elements; as you defeat enemies, you’ll gain experience points (EXP) and level-up once you’ve earned enough EXP. This will increase your stats and abilities but you also earn Skill Points that you can spend upgrading your character’s superpowers up to five different ranks to increase their effectiveness and duration. Additionally, enemies will also drop various “Boosts” that you can equip at any time; you can also combine Boosts together to create new, more powerful Boosts and equipping these will also boost your superpowers, increase your damage output or defence, or increase the range and duration of your attacks.

Additional Features:
Although the game is extremely linear, there are often some rewards to be found through exploration; generally, these will just be stockpiles of health, energy, or Boosts but you’ll also find be civilians in danger who need rescuing who will drop “Justice League Shields”. Shields can also be found by destroying parts of the environment and you can spend these on skins and additional characters. While you can select any of the unlockable costumes at any time, they won’t actually load until you reach the next checkpoint/area and you can only select to play as the unlocked characters when the game allows you to pick a team of your own. The skins available are quite impressive, though; while not every character gets a skin, some offer bonus boosts to your stats and there’s some fan favourites available here, like Superman’s black suit, Batman’s traditional blue and grey suit, and the Jay Garrick version of the Flash. You can also unlock the likes of Green Arrow, Aquaman (sporting his water hand), Helena Bertinelli/The Huntress, and what I assume is the Kendra Saunders version of Hawkgirl.

Unlock additional characters, costumes, and modes by finding Shields and completing the game.

You’ll notice, however, that neither Huntress, Aquaman, or Hawkgirl have an L1+R1 special move, though I’m not entirely sure why. You can also unlock Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner but, despite these two being separate characters, they control exactly the same as John Stewart, which is a little disappointing; none of the unlockable characters have alternate costumes either, which is a bit of a missed opportunity in my book. Initially, you can select from Easy, Normal, or Hard difficulties but you’ll unlock two more difficulty levels (Elite and Superhero, on which most enemies will kill you in one hit) and be given the option of starting the game over from the beginning with all of the upgrades and EXP you amassed during your run upon completing the game. Sadly, there’s no option to free play any mission with any character, no versus mode, and no option to play online or with more than one other player but there are a number of cheats that you can activate from the pause menu to give yourself invincibility, infinite energy, all upgrades, and a bunch of Shields to quickly unlock all of the game’s skins and characters.

The Summary:
Justice League Heroes isn’t going to really offer you anything you can’t get from any other mindless beat-‘em-up; the stages and enemy designs can be very bland and boring and there really isn’t much asked of you other than to mash the same buttons over and over and activate a few consoles. Still, as a fan of beat-‘em-ups and brawlers, I found Justice League Heroes to be a pretty decent way of spending an afternoon; there’s a lot of characters available to you and I like that the story mixes the teams up quite often and allows you to put together your own teams, and the game is probably even more enjoyable with a friend to play with. There could have been more options and unlockables available (such as free play mode, maybe some challenges, and a boss rush), the music and graphics can stutter a bit, and the game is awash with dark, boring, grey locations, but, as a repetitive brawler featuring the Justice League, it’s decent enough, though probably not very appealing to those that aren’t fans of the source material and characters.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Have you ever played Justice League Heroes? If so, what did you think to it? Were you disappointed by the game’s presentation, selection of villains, and the inability to freely pick characters on the go? Which of the available characters was your favourite and preferred duo? What genre do you think would work for a future Justice League videogame? What version of the Justice League is your favourite and are there any DC superheroes you’d like to see added to the team someday? How are you celebrating Justice League Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on Justice League Heroes, and the Justice League in general, feel free to drop a comment below.

Game Corner [Spidey Month]: Spider-Man (PlayStation 2)

Dr. K3 Comments

Easily Marvel Comic’s most recognisable and popular superhero, unsuspecting teenage nerd Peter Parker was first bitten by a radioactive spider and learned the true meaning of power and responsibility in Amazing Fantasy #15, which was first published in August 1962. Since then, the Amazing Spider-Man has featured in numerous cartoons, live-action movies, videogames, action figures, and countless comic book titles and, in celebration of his debut and his very own day of celebration, I’ve been dedicating every Friday of August to talk about everyone’s favourite web-head!

Released: 16 April 2002
Developer: Treyarch
Also Available For: Game Boy Advance, GameCube, PC, and Xbox

The Background:
There was a time when it seemed like every single cinema release had to be accompanied by a videogame adaptation; big-budget movies, especially, were often released alongside a hastily created videogame tie-in that often failed to properly capture the spirit of the film they were based on. As the flagship character of Marvel Comics, Spider-Man has a long and varied history with videogame adaptations across a variety of platforms so it was perhaps no surprise that Sam Raimi’s 2002 live-action $825 million blockbuster would be accompanied by a videogame tie-in. To be fair, Spider-Man benefitted from that fact that it was developed by Treyarch, who had previously had success with the character; indeed, much of Spider-Man’s combat and level progression was based on Treyarch’s previous Spider-Man game. This was reflected in the game’s reception as Spider-Man became the fifteen highest-selling videogame of 2002 and enjoyed high scores across all platforms. While some reviews criticised the game’s claustrophobic indoor sections and short length, it was generally regarded as the best Spider-Man videogame at the time of release. I remember buying the game for the GameCube after seeing the movie, having been won over by the game’s trailer and the film itself, but being underwhelmed by it after playing it to completion so I’m curious to see how it holds up today after the success of Spider-Man’s subsequent videogames.

The Plot:
After being bitten by a genetically-enhanced arachnid, high school senior Peter Parker finds himself endowed with the proportional strength and agility of a spider, and, when his beloved Uncle Ben is killed due to his irresponsibility, Peter puts his spider powers to good use as a masked crimefighter. After failing to capture and study this “Spider-Man”, who overcomes a variety of costumed menaces and robots, Doctor Norman Osborn transforms himself into the web-slinger’s most dangerous threat yet: the maniacal Green Goblin!

Gameplay:
Spider-Man is a third-person action game with a primary focus on beat-‘em-up action but which also includes a fair amount of web-slinging and a little bit of awkward stealth and extremely simplistic puzzle solving. As you might expect, players assume command of Peter Parker; the game begins right after Uncle Ben has been shot and at the very beginning of his crimefighting career as Spider-Man, and players are given a number of standard options when it comes to combat: X lets you jump and you can press it again in mid-air for a double jump, while Square throws a punch and Circle unleashes a kick. You can mix and match these button inputs to execute quick combo attacks (which you can review from the pause menu), and pressing either button near certain objects will allow you to pick up and throw them at your enemies. Of course, it’s not all about beating up random thugs across the city; at any time, you can press R2 and Spider-Man will start slinging webs (yes, they just attach to nothing, get over it) and won’t stop until you press X or slam into a wall. You can hold down R2 to speed up your web-slinging, though this does limit your turning ability, and you can press R1 to quickly zip upwards or straight ahead on a web zip-line; you can also press L1 to lock onto enemies, which is super useful when you’re swinging around and asked to attack enemies in mid-air.

Spidey can use his webs to attack his enemies but, unlike in the film, is limited by web fluid.

Spider-Man will automatically save himself with his webs if you fall while traversing the city rooftops and will automatically climb walls when close to them, though you can press the left analogue stick to enter a crawling state and the camera does tend to get very jerky and annoying when you’re clambering around on walls and ceilings as your perspective can get turned around pretty easily. If you’ve played the fantastic Spider-Man (Neversoft, 2000), you’ll be immediately familiar not only with Spider-Man’s combat and web-slinging but also with his web-based attacks. Pressing Triangle sees Spidey shoot out a quick web, but holding it allows him to web enemies up; if you press up, down, left, or right on the left analogue stick (or directional pad, if that’s your preference), Spider-Man will send out a high-impact ball of webbing, yank his foe towards him, wrap his hands in webbing to increase his punching power, or create a web dome to shield himself and send enemies flying with a press of X. You can also switch to different control styles that see you utilise the other face buttons for these commands, but you’ll find that these web attacks consume your web fluid (represented as a blue bar under your life meter), which is very strange considering Spidey had organic webbing in the film. Spider-Man can also dodge incoming attacks by using the left stick in conjunction with X to hop out of danger, though I found this to be awkward at best and unreliable at worst, and you can even press in the right analogue stick to look around and set your target for a zip-line.

Web-slinging sections see you using the compass to chase villains, rescue civilians, and disarm bombs.

All of these controls and gameplay mechanics can be reviewed in an optional tutorial mode, where the legendary Bruce Campbell snarkily talks you through all of Spider-Man’s abilities, and you’ll find question mark hints occasionally dotted around levels to help you out as and when. Like the 2000 game, Spider-Man is basically divided into two distinct gameplay styles: one sees you out in the city, swinging about the place, and the other sees you confined inside buildings. When out in the city, you’ll need to make use of a compass to navigate towards your next objective or keep track of your current target; you need to use this in conjunction with a Height Meter that shows your position compared to that of your objective, which can be a very clunky system as it’s not always clear where you need to go. Basically, just follow the compass direction until it flashes white, and then try to orientate yourself up or down to get to where you need to go, but invariably your compass will be absent when inside buildings. When web-slinging around the city, you’ll be tasked with hunting down thugs and putting a beating on them until you find information on where you need to go, racing after a target as they fly away from you, hunting down bombs or taking out robotic drones (often against a tight time limit), rescuing civilians from harm, and using your webs to secure water towers, bridges, and other objects to stop them from hurting civilians. When trying to keep track of a specific target, you really need to make use of the lock-on feature or else it’s very easy to lose sight of them and thus fail the mission; I also found that spamming Triangle was the fastest way to actually attack enemies in mid-air, but of course this will drain your web fluid. Luckily, the pick-ups that refill your health and web fluid will respawn so you can swing back over and grab them if you need to, but this will cost you time and probably see you fail your objective. Checkpoints in Spider-Man are few and far between; you can only save your progress after completing a level and, if you die or fail your mission, you’ll have to restart from the beginning of the level, which can lead to you repeating frustrating sections again and again.

Spidey must crawl and fight around claustrophobic interiors using a clunky stealth mechanic.

When confined to the interior of buildings, the game introduces a clunky stealth element; when Spider-Man is in certain shadows, the face on his heads-up display will turn dark blue and he’ll be hidden from enemies. This is essential to safely sneaking past cameras and enemies in many levels; though you won’t fail the mission if you’re spotted, an alarm will be raised and mechanical Super Soldiers will relentlessly chase after you, forcing you to quickly zip away and find a shadowy area to wait out the alarm. One of the most common tasks when in these claustrophobic areas will be heading through or acquiring keys to unlock doors; these doors can be difficult to identify as the areas are so bland and boring, and the enemies holding the key tend to be a little tougher than the usual mooks. Other times, you’ll need to use X to activate consoles, sometimes in a certain order, acquire codes from active PCs, web-zip past steam vents or through laser trip wires, and zipping up into vents to awkwardly crawl around and progress further. These levels also have much more focus on grounded beat-‘em-up combat, but the game quickly emphasises that discretion is the better part of valour and you’ll be tasked with deactivating security walls and laser traps in order to progress a little safer. The game comes with a number of different difficulty modes that obviously make enemies tougher and increase the game’s challenge; completing the game on higher difficulties also allows you to unlock additional content, which can be further unlocked by acquiring points for your combat, stealth, and level-completion strategies.

Graphics and Sound:
Obviously, Spider-Man is a videogame tie-in that came out on the PlayStation 2, so you can’t expect super high-quality in-game or cutscene graphics. However, Spider-Man is reasonably impressive and I can see why people would have considered it the best Spider-Man videogame at the time; New York City is rendered as a large map and even subject to rain and lightning storms and rendered in both day and night-time depending on the level you’re playing. However, it’s not a sprawling open world with numerous side quests or non-playable characters to interact with; although you can see traffic moving down below, you can’t go down to street level and the city is basically completely lifeless save for thugs, bosses, and a few civilians in need of rescue.

Environments can be quite bland and lifeless but some shine through weather and lighting effects.

The interiors are where the game really fails to impress, however; you’ll explore such dynamic and exciting areas as…a bland warehouse, the sewers and subway tunnels, and the high-tech Oscorp building. This latter is easily the most visually impressive and interesting of all of the game’s environments, inside or out; while it is a bit confusing as every area looks grey and bland, it’s given some variety with some blinking lights, laser traps, and different rooms containing consoles and power generators. Another interesting area is a bank, though you’re only really in here for one boss battle, and you’ll even be treated to a very mediocre interpretation of the balloon parade from the film, which includes a single inflatable panda bear and a sequence where you crash down through skylights while battling the Green Goblin, and of course conclude the game in a showdown on the Queensboro Bridge.

Cinematics are quite blurry and the awkward in-game cutscenes are quite laughable.

While the game’s thugs and enemies aren’t much to shout about, being largely generic and unimpressive, Spider-Man is rendered quite well despite every character model appearing as a stiff mannequin. Spidey does little hops and flips when climbing over ledges, assumes comic-accurate poses when left idle, and even busts out fancy animations when web-slinging that closely emulate the film. The game uses both pre-rendered and in-game graphics for its cutscenes, with the pre-rendered ones obviously being the more impressive of the two; the in-game models don’t even move their mouths and the voice acting is more miss rather than hit. Tobey Maguire, especially, sounds more wooden and awkward than ever, especially when trying to deliver quips as Spider-Man, and the game is sadly completely lacking Danny Elfman’s awesome and iconic score. The music that does play during levels is generally suitable enough, if a bit generic, but it does clumsily and noticeably loop, which just screams of low production values, and of course you’ll be faced with the long load times symptomatic of that era of videogaming.

Enemies and Bosses:
Spider-Man is faced with a number of nameless, faceless, disposable goons as he swings around the city and tries to use his powers responsibly; at first, he’s tasked with tracking down Uncle Ben’s killer, who here is interpreted as part of the Skulls gang, so you’ll be beating up unscrupulous street thugs in the early going. Some of these have pistols to defend themselves with, and they’ll also put up a block to defend themselves against your attacks. These thugs get a reskin as guards working for Oscorp who must largely be avoided and webbed up to stop them from raising the alarm and bringing in the Super Soldier robots. Wile Osborn’s miniature Spider Slayers are annoying robotic enemies who zip around on claw-like lines and try to roast you alive, these Super Soldiers are a massive pain in the ass. They relentlessly hunt you down, blasting at you with explosive bolts that are near-impossible to avoid, and the levels can be so restrictive that you’re better off just restarting the level rather than trying to desperately find shadows to hide from them.

After tracking down his uncle’s killer, Spidey must avoid the Shocker’s blasts in the city sewers.

Spider-Man’s first mission is to hunt down Uncle Ben’s killer; after beating up a bunch of his fellow gang members, Spidey finally tracks him down and faces off with him, only to be blasted full-force in the face over and over by the murderer’s shotgun! The killer sets a precedent for the game’s boss battles in that he, like all of the other bosses, is spry and tough enough to shrug off, dodge, and no-sell all of your web attacks except for the web-hands, so you’re best bet is to zip up to the ceiling and stay out of his sight, blasting at him with your impact webbing or dropping down to deliver a beatdown when he’s suitably confused. After a quick side quest where you swing around towards red balloons to take snapshots of Spidey for the Daily Bugle, you’ll need to rescue security guards being threatened by Herman Schultz/The Shocker. Once they’re safe, you’ll pursue him into the sewers and subway tunnels, where he’ll send blasts of concussive sound at you that you’ll need to dodge using your web-zip; this isn’t too much of a challenge to overcome and, afterwards, you’ll get to face him in combat. The Shocker launches projectiles of sound at you and can protect himself with a devastating whirlwind of damaging soundwaves, but was actually easier for me to pummel into submission than Uncle Ben’s killer.

After making short work of the Vulture, you must defend and then subdue the maniacal Scorpion.

Spider-Man’s next test comes when Adrian Toomes/The Vulture robs a bank; Spider-Man first chases after the Vulture by progressing vertically up a tower that catches fire and sees you slipping through holes and under stairs to zip your way upwards, then you need to chase after him as he flies away through the city and puts citizens at risk. Finally, the two face off in the skies around the Chrysler Building as rain and lighting fill the arena; Spidey must fire webbing at the Vulture while avoiding his charges and attacks in order to force him to land so he can put a beating on him, making him the easiest boss of the game by far. Afterwards, Spidey crosses paths with MacDonald “Mac” Gargan/The Scorpion, who just randomly appears out of nowhere; at first, you’ll need to protect him from Oscorp’s miniature spider-bots but then he turns against you and forces you to fight him. This is quite a tough fight even on Easy mode as the Scorpion leaps and scrambles all over the place, blasting at you with his tail, and grappling with you whenever you get close to him. It’s best to keep your distance and fire off impact webbing from afar, and then dodge his attacks so you can hit a few combos on him and put him down. Fittingly, the Green Goblin is the game’s most recurring villain and, though you won’t encounter him face-to-face until you’re halfway through the game, he more than makes up for it in his appearances; the first time you face him, you need to avoid his glider attacks and missiles and rescue Mary Jane Watson from the aforementioned panda balloon before battling him head-on.

As annoying as Oscorp’s mech is, the Green Goblins persistence and aggression is even worse!

Whilst on his glider, the Green Goblin is basically a tougher version of the Vulture as he flies around tossing pumpkin bombs and firing bullets and missiles at you, forcing you to fire off your webbing or striking at him when he comes close. Afterwards, you’ll have to chase after him and web up parts of the environment that he damages, before forcing him through a skylight for some ground combat. These fights are easily the toughest of the game as the Green Goblin bombards you with pumpkin bombs, blinds you with flashbangs, and can easily choke the life out of you and snatch you out of the air. Your best bet is to stick near the respawning health power-up, dodge his combos and hit some of your own, and blast him with impact webbing whenever you can. Afterwards, you’ll be forced to swing across the city against a time limit disarming his bombs, which is an annoying mission thanks to the janky compass and drones flying around the city, then destroy fifty of his Razor Bats before taking a detour through Oscorp and battling a giant mech. Before you can attack this directly, you’ll need to desperately swing around the enclosed arena destroying shield generators and being pummelled by missile turrets, constantly spawning drones, and avoiding the mech’s gigantic laser. Thankfully, there’s plenty of pick-ups in the area and the mech goes down pretty easily with a few web shots once the shield is lowered. Afterwards, you’ll have to chase after the Green Goblin as he flies off with Mary Jane and tosses explosive traps in your way, before finally facing off with him on the Queensboro Bridge. After getting Mary Jane to safety, you then need to repeat the same tactics as in the first couple of fights against him but now in the same battle; swing around firing webs at him to ground him and then dodge his melee attacks to land a few combos, but watch out for his big bomb blast attack. By this point, you should know how to dodge and go grab a pick-up when needed, and I know I found finishing the Green Goblin off actually easier than the first fist fight with him. After you end him, Mary Jane awkwardly gives Spider-Man a big ol’ snog on top of his mask while they stand over the lifeless body of Peter’s best friend.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Unlike in pretty much every modern videogame, Spider-Man is not blessed with regenerating health; as a result, you’ll need to pick up red and red-and-blue Spider Icons to restore half or all of your health. Also, like in the 2000 game, Spider-Man can run out of web fluid so you’ll need to grab blue and blue-and-silver Spider Icons to refill this bar. As mentioned, I find this an odd inclusion as Spider-Man had unlimited organic webbing in the movie but I guess it makes sense to keep him from being too overpowered. Luckily, these restorative pick-ups respawn after a while so if you find yourself struggling against a particular boss, you can usually backtrack or swing back around to collect a pick-up and keep yourself from losing a life. If you search around your environments, you’ll also find gold Spider Icons that will unlock additional combos to add to your repertoire, but that’s about it in terms of power-ups; you don’t earn experience points and can’t upgrade any of Spider-Man’s abilities or pick up temporary power-ups, meaning you basically end the game exactly as you started it but with maybe a few additional combos.

Additional Features:
If you visit the game’s ‘Gallery’, you’ll be able to view movies and artwork for the game, and you’ll be able to revisit any level you’ve cleared from the main menu as you progress. As mentioned, you’ll receive points every time you clear a level; these are awarded for your combat variety, stealth, and the amount of damage you take. Once you hit a certain number of points, you’ll automatically unlock some additional content from daft stuff like big hands and feet and exaggerated ragdoll physics to skins for Spider-Man, such as his wrestler outfit and acclaimed artist Alex Ross’s rejected design for the movie suit. You can also unlock a Peter Parker skin and enter cheat codes to play as guys like the Shocker and other enemies, though they all play the same as Spider-Man and don’t change the story in any way.

There are a number of cheats and unlockables, including a fully playable Green Goblin!

However, if you beat the game on the “Hero” difficulty, you’ll unlock the ability to play as Harry Osborn under the guise of the Green Goblin! This eliminates the pre-rendered cutscenes and alters the plot somewhat as this story picks up after the conclusion of the game and sees Harry take up his father’s mantle to research his death, and gives you access to an entirely new set of abilities. The Green Goblin can’t web-sling or climb walls but, with a press of R2, you’ll hop onto his glider and can rocket around the place at will; you can fire bullets, missiles, and bombs while on the glider, but your weapons will overheat in time so you’ll need to wait for them to cool down. On the ground, the Green Goblin’s melee attacks are the same as Spider-Man’s but, in place of webs, you have access to pumpkin bombs and Razor Bats and can race around on rocket boots like a madman to send enemies flying! Honestly, this was an incredible addition to the game and is a great way to encourage a second playthrough that adds an extra layer of challenge to the game as the Green Goblin can’t hide in the shadows, but can jump on his glider to blast enemies with missiles even when inside the most claustrophobic environments!

The Summary:
I remember being so hyped for Spider-Man’s first big-screen adventure, and so won over by the trailer for the videogame that ran before the film, that I went out and bought this for the GameCube that same week (if not that same day). I also remember finishing it pretty quickly, and this second playthrough was no different; as is the case with almost every videogame tie-in to a movie, Spider-Man isn’t an especially long game; levels aren’t built to allow exploration and are incredibly linear, so all you’ll have to worry about is trying to cope with how bland and similar the areas can look in each level. There’s also not a huge amount really asked of you; maybe you need to activate a console here and there, or input a code to open a door, or rescue a civilian, but these instances are few and far between and the game soon falls back into a routine of either web-slinging or clunky stealth sections. “Clunky” is the best way to describe this game; Spider-Man controls like he thinks he should be using tank controls, the camera and mechanics make web-slinging and wall-crawling very cumbersome at times, and your combos and dodging abilities are severely limited, making everything quite basic and monotonous. This may explain the game’s short length, as it’s over before it can become truly mind-numbing, but some levels are more frustrating than others; the stealth system is poorly implemented and it’s disappointing to see Spider-Man restricted to claustrophobic interiors rather than free to swing around the city. Basically, the game is a reskin of the 2000 Spider-Man title but stripped back in terms of bonuses, unlockables, and variety; there’s some fun to be had here, mostly in how cheesy the dialogue and cutscenes are, but you’re not really missing much if you skip this one for one of the many other Spider-Man games available even on the PlayStation 2.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Have you ever played the videogame tie-in to Spider-Man? Which console did you buy it for and were you impressed with it back in the day? What did you think to the web-slinging and combat mechanics? Which of the enemies added to the game was your favourite and would you have liked to see the likes of the Vulture and the Scorpion in Raimi’s films? What did you think to the game’s stealth gameplay and the unlockables on offer? Which Spider-Man videogame or movie adaptation is your favourite? Sign up to leave a reply below or drop a comment on my social media to share your thoughts on Spider-Man.

Game Corner [Punisher Month]: The Punisher (PlayStation 2)

Dr. K2 Comments

Back in February 1974, Spider-Man/Peter Parker faced a new enemy in the form of Frank Castle, the Punisher, a veteran of the Vietnam War turned bloodthirsty vigilante. The Punisher separated himself from other, traditional costumed heroes by his willingness to kill and uncompromising, suicidal one-man war on crime and what better way to celebrate the debut of this nuanced and complex character by dedicating every Tuesday of this month shining a spotlight on Marvel’s most notorious anti-hero?

Released: 16 January 2005
Developer: Volition
Also Available For: Mobile, PC, and Xbox

The Background:
After his impressive debut in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #129, Frank Castle/The Punisher quickly became one of Marvel’s most popular anti-heroes thanks to his tragic backstory and unwavering commitment to the eradication of crime. The Punisher has also seen some success outside of the comic books, featuring in movies, cartoons, and a number of licensed videogames. Released to coincide with the 2004 movie of the same name, The Punisher was developed by Volition, a studio purchased by THQ in 2000 and perhaps best known at the time for their work on the Red Faction (ibid, 2001; 2002). Acting as a quasi-sequel to The Punisher (Hensleigh, 2004), The Punisher saw star Thomas Jane return to voice the role but incorporated its aesthetic presentation, storyline, and characters from the comics and was subjected to numerous edits and cuts to tone down its scene of explicit violence and gore and make it financially viable for release. While the game was met with mixed reviews, it sold around one million copies and was considered a success for Volition, who would go on to develop Saints Row (Volition, 2006).

The Plot:
Having dedicated his life to the eradication of crime after losing his family to mobsters, Frank Castle has been working his way through New York City’s underworld as the Punisher. Having carved his way through the low-level street gangs and the Yakuza, he allows himself to be captured and interrogated in order to get closer to the town’s newest head gangster, the mysterious “Jigsaw”, who has a personal grudge against the Punisher.

Gameplay:
The Punisher is a third-person action shooter in which you’re placed into the iconic trenchcoat, combat trousers, and skull-shirt of Frank Castle, the titular Punisher, as he mows his way through countless thugs, lowlifes, and criminals in a one-man war on crime. Although he can’t jump, the Punisher has a number of combat and movement options available to him: he can pick up and swap weapons with the Circle button (note that, while he can dual-wield weapons, he can only hold two types of weapons at once; a smaller weapon like a pistol and a bigger weapon like a shotgun), select between his weapons by pressing down on the directional pad, fire his weapons with R1, toss grenades and other such explosives with L1, and enter a more accurate aiming mode (which is further expanded when he has a sniper rifles) by pressing in the right analogue stick.

Frank’s methods of interrogation basically amount to brutal and sadistic torture.

The Punisher can also dive ahead with a press of R2, duck and crouch walk with L2, and grab thugs and use them as a human shield with X. In this position, or when up close to enemies, you can execute them with a quick kill by pressing Square. Enemies can also be interrogated by pressing X; in this mode, you’re ask to tilt or move the left analogue stick to keep a meter in the right area long enough to “break” your victim, which will award you with hints and Style Points. As you kill enemies, rack up kill combinations, and pull off successfully interrogations, you’ll earn Style Points that can be used to upgrade the Punisher’s various skills and attributes from the main menu in Frank’s apartment. As you encounter enemies and head into fire fights, you’ll notice glowing white Punisher skulls over the heads of certain enemies; once you’ve cleared the immediate area of all other enemies, these guys will give up and you’re tasked with performing a “Special Interrogation” using various parts of the environment (drills, furnaces, shark tanks, or dangling off a ledge, for example). Once you break them, they’ll often lead you to secret areas with new weapons or cause enemies ahead of you to stand down so you can progress easier. You can kill them, but it will cost you Style Points (which can be a little confusing as you’re otherwise rewarded for killing criminals; indeed, you can kill these guys normally after breaking them and not be penalised). Other times, you’ll see a glowing gold Punisher skull in the environment, which allows you to pull off a “Special Kill” (locking a scumbag in a coffin and tossing in a grenade, for example) for additional Style Points.

Enter Slaughter Mode to make short work of your enemies but watch your fire around friendlies!

Considering how linear the game is, it’s surprisingly easy to get lost as you’re often exploring dark, grey corridors and very bland environments; there’s no map or onscreen indication of where you need to go so it’s easy to get a bit turned around at times. Often, you’re joined by a partner character (Natalia Romanova/Black Widow, Nick Fury, and agents of the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate/S.H.I.E.L.D.) who cannot be harmed by either you or enemies and are, surprisingly, very useful and competent for computer-controlled characters. Occasionally, you’ll be asked with solving some very simple puzzles that amount to finding a key or pulling a lever, rescuing hostages, placing explosive charges, interacting with a hidden switch to open a door, or forcing certain enemies to open doors; it’s nothing massively taxing but, again, it can sometimes be confusing as to where you need to go. The Punisher is quite a durable character whose health is refilled as he breaks thugs through interrogations or talks to rescued innocents but it also regenerates when you press Triangle; this puts you into “Slaughter Mode”, which slows time down to a crawl, turns the screen black and white, and has you tossing throwing knives and performing instant kills as long as the meter lasts. This can be a great way of clearing out rooms filled with perps but, honestly, I generally tended to save it for boss battles as the game is pretty generous with its checkpoints and not especially difficult to get through and I found this mechanic to be quite disorientating. Most of my deaths and mission failures came from accidentally dropping from high ledges or killing innocents; occasionally, enemies will grab hostages and use them as human shields and, if you kill them, you’ll instantly fail the mission so be sure to use your more accurate aiming in this situations.

Graphics and Sound:
For a PlayStation 2 game, The Punisher is pretty decent to look at when you can actually see what’s onscreen. Character models are pretty good, if a bit blocky, but not much to shout about when it comes to enemy variety and aesthetic. Indeed, the character who looks the most dynamic and impressive is, fittingly, the Punisher himself. Decked out in a long trenchcoat, combat trousers, army boots, and skull shirt, the Punisher looks exactly like he stepped right out of the pages of a Garth Ennis comic book. Punisher even dons different outfits for different missions, including ditching the trenchcoat, decking himself out in war paint, and wearing prison clothes and, while he doesn’t have Thomas Jane’s likeness, he looks very much like his comic book counterpart.

Environments can be a bit boring and drab but there are a few that stand out as visually interesting.

Where the game falters, though, is in the level variety and presentation; you’ll skulk around seedy alleyways, dark corridors, and dingy crack houses, which aren’t massively impressive. Even areas like the chop shop, the zoo, and Fisk Industries’ skyscraper aren’t much to shout about as the game’s visuals are dulled with a dark, moody presentation that, while fitting, can make things visually very lifeless and boring. It’s not all bad, though; one mission takes place in a jungle, which helps to spice things up, as does battling through the research and development department of Stark Industries and a nightclub/bar, all of which bring some life and clarity to the action.

While many of its more brutal kills are censored, The Punisher is still a gloriously violent game.

As mentioned, the game’s more brutal and bloodier executions have, sadly, been censored; nevertheless, the game is extremely violent, with enemies spurting blood and being blasted to death as best as the PlayStation 2 can render. The Punisher’s interrogation sequences basically amount to a version of torture and see Frank beating, choking, kicking, or intimidating his victims or threatening this lives using various parts of the environment, which is all very fun to see and take part in and, while these are censored, the implication is still very clear to see.

While the CG cutscenes are a bit fuzzy, the in-game graphics are pretty decent and there’s some fun cameos.

The music isn’t really that interesting or memorable; the game doesn’t seem to pull any tracks or influence from the movie, which is a shame, but the voice acting is top notch. Thomas Jane was always a fantastic Punisher and he continues to narrate events around him, offering wry commentary, dry quips, threats, and conveying just the right amount of dread and anger in the title role. The few amount of CG cutscenes the game uses are decent enough but the icing on the cake were the appearances and cameos from some of Marvel’s more recognisable characters, such as Matt Murdock, Tony Stark/Iron Man, and Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin, which are fun hints at the wider Marvel universe that exists around The Punisher and the cries and screams of the goons you fight are satisfying to hear.

Enemies and Bosses:
As you might expect, the Punisher is confronted by a horde of nameless, faceless goons, thugs, and scumbags in his quest to destroy all crime. Enemies will react with fear and hostility at your presence, shoot at you from behind cover and doors, and throw weapons at you but, for the most part, are quite stupid and easily taken out even when they have the higher ground or the numbers advantage. As the story progresses, though, you’ll come up against more formidable enemies or enemies wielding more powerful weapons, such as shotguns, sniper rifles, and flamethrowers. Enemies will also fire rockets at you from helicopters, commandos don more protective armour to withstand your shots, and Yakuza will dog you at every turn in waves. Thankfully, you always have plenty of options available to take these guys out, from tossing them to giant snakes, smashing their faces into mounted guns, or simply blasting them away with your weapons and, while you’re often asked to hold out against a timer as an endless swarm of enemies rush at you, it’s never like you’re not capable of defending yourself.

Bushwacker gives you the slip more than once before you finally confront him head on.

In terms of bosses, The Punisher has an interesting variety both visually and in terms of how you fight them. The game’s first few missions see you busting up the Gnucci gang; when you get into a shootout with Bobby Gnucci, you need to make use of nearby cover to get a good bead on him to take him out with a headshot. Later, you’ll burst out of a coffin and gun down countless minions of the family and find yourself running around in circles in a confusing attic maze as enemies continuously spawn in and you desperately try to find take out Eddie Gnucci in one of the game’s more confusing and frustrating boss battles. One of the more elusive bosses in the game is Carl Burbank/Bushwacker, a muscle-bound freak with a gun for an arm who constantly dogs your progress and escapes your retribution until you finally confront him in the library at Ma Gnucci’s estate. Goons will continually spawn into this fight and, if you attack Bushwacker head-on, you’ll take massive damage so I found the best tactic was to do a continuous circuit of the library, shooting at Bushwacker as and when, and bust out the Slaughter Mode to bring him down. Afterwards, you are given four minutes to escape the estate as it burns down, shooting sprinklers on the ceiling to get through the flames and performing a Special Kill to make short work of Ma Gnucci.

Though seemingly impervious to pain, environmental hazards and flames will bring the Russian down.

At the end of the docks, you’ll have to grab a nearby rocket launcher to take out the tank that blocks your exit, which is pretty easy to do thanks to all of the handy-dandy containers that offer cover. Afterwards, the game recreates a classic scene from the movie and comics with a battle against the nigh-invulnerable Russian in Frank’s apartment; here, you must stay away from the Russian and stun him with nearby melee weapons, mount his back, and use the Special Interactions to best him. Later, you’ll battle him against around a missile silo; this time, you need to shoot the barrels he grabs before he can throw them at you and, when he comes down to your level, use your grenades, the explosive barrels, and the missile’s flame jet to put him down once and for all while dispatching the endless goons.

Bullseye is a slippery, tricky devil who eludes your attacks and keeps you on the move.

When you infiltrate Fisk Industries, you’ll encounter another elusive and annoying boss, Bullseye. This slippery devil will somersault about the place, tossing knives at you and only really taking damage when you land a headshot thanks to his fancy body armour. You’ll fight him again in an area of the skyscraper that is under construction, which makes it harder for you to get a clean shot thanks to all the walls and obstructions, before you have a finale showdown in Fisk’s penthouse where he pulls a gun out on you. In each of these three areas, you’ll find a weapons cache to keep your ammo topped up and I would recommend returning t it again and again to grab grenades to deal the most damage to Bullseye and knock him down so you can get a cleaner shot at his stupid head.

The finale sees you battling Jigsaw, who is in stolen Iron man tech, on the prison rooftop.

The finale of the game sees you facing off against Jigsaw (who, in a change to the source material, is revealed to be John Saint from the 2004 movie) who has donned stolen Iron Man armour. This is a two-stage boss battle; in the first stage, Jigsaw fires seeking missiles and repulsor blasts at you while hovering in the air and the only way to bring him down and damage him is to run underneath him and fire at his jetpack. Once he’s brought to ground level, he’ll chase after you and blast at you while goons spawn in to back him up. While you can shoot at him, it’s far easier to run to an area of the rooftop where the explosive mines (or “RAMs”) continually respawn; simply position yourself behind parts of the environment and toss these towards Jigsaw and remote detonate them and you’ll blow him away in no time at all.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
The Punisher is afforded a great deal of weaponry for his crusade, most of it he liberates from defeated enemies or picks up from weapon caches in the environment. You’ll get access to a number of pistols (which Frank can dual-wield), revolvers, sub-machine guns, rifles, and shotguns and you can swap these out at any time when you see a weapon on the ground. You can also find and use flamethrowers (but be careful as flaming enemies can harm you as well) and a rocket launcher, which is perfect for bringing down helicopters, and a sniper rifle to take enemies out from a distance and defend your gondola in the jungle. Other time, you can acquire melee weapons to put a beatdown on your enemies.

Choose from a wide selection of weapons and use Skill Points to upgrade Frank’s abilities.

After clearing a mission, you’ll be awarded with both Medals and Style Points. You can spend these points upgrading a number of the Punisher’s skills and attributes from Frank’s apartment. You can upgrade Frank’s body armour to increase your resistance to damage, increase the duration of your Slaughter Mode, increase your clip capacity, and add a scope or grenade function to certain weapons. Thankfully, you don’t have to worry about upgrading every weapon individually so increasing your accuracy or ammo capacity will do this for every weapon by default.

Additional Features:
The Punisher offers three difficulty settings, which will increase the aggressiveness and durability of your enemies and also allow you to obtain different Medals and gameplay modes. You can earn Bronze, Silver, and Gold Medals in every mission, but Gold Medals are only available when playing on Hard Mode; however, every time you finish a mission, you’ll unlock an additional “Challenge Mode” that presents you with a specific objective to fulfil to unlock extra stuff. Sadly, there is no option to don a different skin or outfit when replaying missions but there are cheat codes to unlock alternative outfits, so that ’s something, at least.

Take on challenges and play on Hard Mode (or cheat…) to unlock additional modes, cheats, and costumes.

From Frank’s apartment, you can view all of the Punisher’s weapons (Thomas Jane even narrates what each weapon is capable of), enemy biographies, cutscenes, flashbacks (which are triggered and unlocked when interrogating certain enemies), and comic books covers (unlocked by clearing challenges). When playing on Hard Mode, you’ll also gain access to “Punishment Mode”, which has you holding out against waves of enemies to earn points and medals. Additionally, clearing Hard Mode will unlock cheats for you to use; you can also unlock these manually but, while it’s fun to run around without fear of harm, you won’t actually be able to progress through the story with these activated.

The Summary:
The Punisher is a pretty decent third-person shooter; considering it’s a licensed game, which are generally regarded as being terrible, it’s a pretty solid effort. I think choosing to veer more towards the source material than the movie was a good choice as it made it more appealing and fresh and, rather than going through the beats of the movie step by step, it crafts an entirely new adventure that is appealing to fans of the film, the comics, and this genre of videogame. It’s not perfect by any means; the censoring of the torture scenes is disappointing, environments are bland and dark and confusing, and certain sections can be frustrating at times but there is a lot of variety and mayhem on offer thanks to the wide array of weapons and kill options at your disposal. It’s probably the most accurate Punisher videogame we’re ever likely to get and has quite a lot of replay value thanks to the additional challenges and such. There might be better third-person shooters out there but The Punisher is definitely worth your time for the violence alone, to say nothing of the references to and cameos of other Marvel characters. Team this up with Deadpool (High Moon Studios, 2013) and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Raven Software, 2009) and you have some of the best and most accurate videogame depictions of Marvel’s more violent characters.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

Have you ever played The Punisher? If so, what did you think of it? Were you disappointed that it didn’t follow the movie closer, or have more ties to the movie, or did you enjoy that it was more in line with the source material? What did you think to the game’s violence, executions, and action? Which of the cameos and/or boss battles was your favourite and were there any you felt were missing from the game? Would you like the see the title remastered for modern consoles or do you think it’s best left as a relic of a bygone era? Which Punisher videogame, story, or adaptation is your favourite? Whatever you think about The Punisher, feel free to write a comment below and be sure to check out my other Punisher content.