It’s strange that I would come by a game like Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions with a fresh perspective. It combines two of my favorite hobbies – videogames and comic books. In fact, Spider-Man is my all-time favorite comic book character, so I really was interested to see what Activision and Beenox could do with the wallcrawler in his various incarnations. Did the game meet my expectations, or were they, in fact, shattered.
Vitals
Game: Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
Developer: Beenox
Publisher: Activision
Consoles: XBox 360, PS3, Wii, DS
Available: Now
Shattered Dimensions doesn’t muck around with an elaborate set up, and that’s fine by me. During an altercation between Spidey and Mysterio, the magical Tablet of Order and Chaos is shattered, resulting in the splitting of reality into four parallel universes/timelines. The parallel universes are those of four different Marvel Comics continuities, each with their own version of Spider-Man; they include the current Amazing Spider-Man Marvel Universe, the futuristic Marvel 2099, the reboot Ultimate Marvel Universe and the 1930’s style universe of Spider-Man: Noir. The tablet pieces, which have the ability to magically empower its wielder, are spread across each of the realities and held by an appropriate suped-up villain. With the character Madame Web guiding them, each of the Spider-Men must reclaim the tablet pieces from their timeline and reassemble the tablet to restore order to the cosmos. Straight forward indeed.
Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions promises a lot from these four universes, ie that are supposed to be unique in both design and gameplay. Considering that the selling point of the game is that there are four settings and four main characters, one would think that this should have been of the utmost importance. Shattered Dimensions, though succeeding in some ways, comes up short in others.
First, the art/level design. The game on the whole is very pretty with the Noir levels standing out the most, in particular the Norman Osborn level at the abandoned carnival – the developers captured the 1930’s film noir feel wonderfully, and the lighting effects and Fun House areas are beautiful. While the 2099 levels may not be the most original, they are at the very least artistically different from the other worlds. The Hobgoblin 2099 area had the most variety of settings in a single level, with each sub-section played differently: free-falling, web-swinging, and regular hand-to-hand combat areas – they’re all there in rapid succession.
To reiterate a point from earlier: variety in level design is critical to a game where the selling point is four unique worlds. The Amazing and Ultimate worlds, however, are almost interchangeable. That’s not to say that the levels aren’t pretty, but if you popped Ultimate Spidey into the Amazing’s Kraven The Hunter level you wouldn’t have blinked twice. That being said, the best of the Amazing levels is certainly the Sandman’s; web-zipping around on pieces of flying debris during sandstorms is visually (and gameplay-wise) very cool and doesn’t happen anywhere else in the game. As for the Ultimate levels, the Deadpool’s base on an oil rig is the one that I was most impressed with, being the closest to a sandbox level as Shattered Dimensions gets, even if it is a condensed one. There are plenty of nooks and crannies to explore and space in the air to refine web-swinging. It’s a refreshing change from series after series of corridors in most levels.
Shattered Dimensions is a not an open-world game like its predecessors. It is completely linear, which means it’s a lot of “clear a room, travel down a hallway/corridor/narrow chasm, clear another room, repeat that a few times, fight the boss”. It’s not necessarily a bad thing; many games from Uncharted to God of War are just like that. Removing the sandbox element should have allowed the developers to focus on setting the player up for set pieces with the biggest bang possible. Unfortunately, it was really the four levels mentioned above that really stood out to me, while the rest felt like a bit of rinse-repeat.
Shattered Dimensions does a good job of making you feel like Spider-Man as you pummel room after room of baddies. Punching and kicking from all angles and directions, upgradeable combos and attacks (using the in-game currency), Spider Essence, completing challenges and collecting hidden Spider Emblems capitalize well on the feeling of being the hero. Web “zipping” is far more useful than web swinging, but for a Spider-man game you oddly don’t really need to do that very often. Spider-Sense gives a warning that an enemy will strike, giving you the chance to dodge attacks and at times even bullets. The animations and flow of combat are pretty slick once you get the hang of things. The number of available attacks isn’t too imposing for more casual players, but deep enough for Spidey veterans. It’s nothing that we haven’t really seen before in a Spider-Man game but gets the job done.
Like other Spider-Man games, boss battles are the centerpieces of each stage and are usually very unique. A few, like those against the Juggernaut and Norman Osborn, felt a bit similar but, on the whole, you do get some variety. One interesting new combat feature is first person brawling events using the dual thumbsticks, which serve to mix things up a bit and let you get an up close look at the boss designs. It’s not a very deep mechanic, but it’s fun.
A nagging issue with the combat is that the promise of four unique experiences doesn’t ever really materialize. Each of the Spider-Men plays just about the same. As a Spider-Man fan there are other small things I would have liked to see from the comics – Spider-Man 2099 had fangs with poisonous venom and had claws on his finger tips, neither of which is touched on. Spider-Man Noir used a gun. In the game, Madame Web gives each Spidey equal powers, so they all end up controlling and battling the same.
It’s a little disappointing that there isn’t more variety but again, that doesn’t mean there isn’t enjoyment to be had.
The stealth aspect of Noir is the biggest exception to the repetitive gameplay and while it’s fun, it plays a LOT like the Predator stealth sections of Batman: Arkham Asylum. Though I really liked the stealth sections, unlike with Batman the wall crawling controls became a hindrance, at least in the 3rd person/free camera view and leading to issues with getting caught/stuck behind enemies. Again, very odd choice for a Spider-Man game. Speaking of Arkham Asylum, the Spider Sense mode in the game is very similar to the Detective Mode in Arkham or the Feral Sense in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Similarly to those games, the Spider Sense allows you to see enemies and items through walls, an enemy’s health status, etc proving to be almost too useful. It ends up being left on all the time, blanching out the colors of what are otherwise rather pretty environments.
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions promises a lot by way of its premise. I get the feeling that a very good idea was too big to contain in one game and had to be reined in for various reasons. Perhaps fully exploring the idea of four different main characters and worlds would mean having to make four different games, a daunting prospect when you only wanted to make one. This leads to a definite dichotomy of design: though all the Spider-Men play very similarly, at least the combat is good, and though all of the environments aren’t unique, they are at least pretty. The game does gets some bonus points for its voice actors — Stan Lee and Neil Patrick Harris, among others, provide some excellent banter to keep things light and snappy.
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions is an acceptable action game experience that may not live up to all of its promises, but is definitely worth taking a swing on.
This review was based on a copy of the game provided by Activision. The game was completed on Normal difficulty. All images provided by Activision.
No Comments