Ultimate Spider-Man first sprang up in 2000 under Brian Michael Bendis, an established noir fiction writer, and Mark Bagley, a long serving artist at Marvel. Ultimate Spider-Man is an alternate re-telling of the Spider-Man universe, with many aspects of Peter Parker, Spider-Man and the other characters’ back stories either modernised or significantly changed. Peter Parker is only 15 at the start of the comic, and works as the webmaster at the Daily Bugle, as well as attending school at Midtown High School, with his (on again, off again) girlfriend Mary Jane Watson. He is bitten by a genetically altered spider on a field trip to Osborne Industries, and subsequently begins to take on certain characteristics of a spider, becoming Spider-Man. After the death of Uncle Ben due largely to Peter’s selfishness, he dedicates his life to fighting crime.
If Spider-Man does everything a spider can, how come you don't see him getting stuck in the bath?
The plot for the Ultimate Spider-Man game, while following everything that happened previously in the comic, is an original story written exclusively for the videogame. Peter Parker and his childhood friend Eddie Brock, Jr. discover that their fathers were working on an experimental power increasing protoplasmic suit. Peter’s father wished for the suit to be used for medical purposes, while Eddie, Sr. wished to use it for military application. As a result, two prototypes were made. Peter wanted to take one of the suits for himself – the protoplasm blended with him, but the enhanced power of the suit came at a price – an increased will to cause harm to others. After the suit is forcibly removed when Spider-Man runs into a power line, Peter warns Eddie about the dangers of the suit. Eddie, angry at Peter over trying destroying their inheritance, takes the other suit for himself and becomes Venom. It’s up to Peter to stop Eddie from killing innocent people (as the Venom suit needs to feed to keep him from going insane), while Eddie needs to find a way to stabilise the suit. At the same time, a group of mercenaries is becoming increasingly interested in Venom’s work, and is attempting to capture him. To learn more, you’re just going to have to play through the game.
Ultimate Spider-Man shares a lot in common with last year’s Spider-Man 2 – many of the same moves, the free roaming nature of the game, and the little challenges around the city all return. Both games differ in a number of areas too. Ultimate Spider-Man sticks very closely to its comic book roots, especially in the presentation of the game’s story, which are done via splitting the screen up into comic panels, with the action taking place within these windows. The story itself is much better than the Frankenstein mix of comic and movie seen in Spider-Man 2. Unfortunately, some of the moves have been toned down, especially when it comes to Spider-Man’s abilities with his webbing, with his offensive arsenal being halved. Web swinging options have also been toned down – no more slingshotting and dual web swings, just the standard web and the zip line. Web swinging physics have been toned down also. Fighting is a much simpler affair, with fewer, but more cohesive combinations, though having to web an enemy to completely defeat them is a little annoying. Control seems to be about on the same level as the previous Spider-Man game, with the noted omissions and simplifications. The game’s camera is a touch better than the previous game, but can still be a cause for concern in some of the more frantic missions.
Some of the game's best missions involve playing as Venom
Ultimate Spider-Man’s mission structure is much the same as its predecessor – there’s a distinct set of story missions, as well as a number of side missions. It uses the same method of game padding in between missions – you’ll be forced to compete in checkpoint races and gang smashing missions ad nauseum before you can move onto the story missions. City Events replace the random crimes from the second game, and these will also be used as filler between story mission – sadly, they’re pretty much identical to the random crimes, in that they’re simple and limited in variety. Having to complete these annoying little side missions before you can move onto the story missions is a real pain – the story missions are actually pretty good, since they provide some incentive for what would be an otherwise mundane task. The game’s boss fights are also especially good, testing the player’s abilities as Spider-Man, as well as introducing some slightly unconventional methods of defeating one’s opponents.
The best parts of Ultimate Spider-Man come in the form of Venom’s missions. Venom is far more brutal than Spider-Man, and doesn’t really care about people, meaning you can dish out a lot of death and destruction. As Venom, you’ll get to destroy heaps of stuff, as well as kicking a lot of ass – everyone from wussy pedestrians to more celebrated opponents such as Wolverine. Venom actually controls a lot like the Hulk did in the recent Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction; while being quite large, he’s much more agile then you’d expect. There are a few annoying bits with Venom – having to feed all the time (though that’s part of the character) and the ever present risk of damaging yourself with the objects you’re throwing around, but these are only minor complaints.
The main adventure in Ultimate Spider-Man is short lived; expect to take 10 hours tops to knock the entire game over. There are a bunch of unlockables in the form of comic covers and secret tokens that the game expects you to collect throughout the story mode, which will result in a bunch of new costumes and such, but nothing really worth going out of your way to get.
The comic book style presentation of Ultimate Spider-Man is quite unique
As mentioned earlier, Ultimate Spider-Man’s comic book style presentation is arguably its greatest asset. Cel shading is used to give characters a colourful and sharp look, while comic panel picture in picture is used liberally throughout cutscenes, which gives the game a great atmosphere. Animation is about on par with the previous Spider-Man game which is okay, but could have been better. Manhattan seems to have been streamlined a little more for Ultimate Spider-Man, which is okay, but the sheer amount of pop up in the game is really inexcusable. Texturing is actually quite good, keeping up the same comic book style seen in the rest of the game. Framerate is fairly consistent for the most part, but can get a little hazardous at times. Ultimate Spider-Man’s soundtrack seems to take a back seat for most of the game, with music playing only in the most important and most intense parts of the game. No famous voice actors feature in the game, but this seems to have worked out better in the end – especially after the lazy, phoned-in performances of Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst in the last game. The new actors seem quite enthusiastic and do a great job of delivering their lines – especially when it comes to Peter Parker/Spider-Man’s bad jokes.
Ultimate Spider-Man almost seems like a living comic book – it’s got a great style, and a solid story, but the quality of the game’s action doesn’t match up to the rest of the product. Treyarch need to keep in mind that forcing us to do mindless random tasks and silly checkpoint races isn’t going to win them any favours. With a little bit more variety, tighter controls and less streamlining, Ultimate Spider-Man could have been the best of the comic book games released this year. It’s worth a rental, though we doubt we’ll be able to stop the dedicated web-heads from plonking down the 70 notes.
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