GENRE
	Action
	DEVELOPER
	Digital Eclipse
	PUBLISHER
	Activision
	NUMBER OF PLAYERS
	1
	CONNECTIVITY
	No
	BUY NOW AT

After the anticipation of the current generation home console version of Spider-Man 2, many simply ignored the GBA incarnation of the film and comic-based franchise. It actually is a shame since Digital Eclipse, with their vast knowledge of GBA development, has done a terrific job of bringing it onto the handheld unit. While it isn’t as deep and certainly not as long as the console counterpart, it’s still a worthwhile side-scrolling action title featuring your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. If you’re going in expecting something as great as Maximum Carnage or Separation Anxiety back in the day, don’t be surprised if you’re a little disappointed. However, it’s definitely a treat for fans looking for the web crawler on the Game Boy Advance.

visuals

Digital Eclipse has turned things around since their last outing in the franchise, which was Spider-Man: The Movie. They’ve taken the technology used in that engine and tweaked it just a bit to deliver more responsive controls, but above all, a better looking game overall. The animations make this game come to life more than anything. They’re nicely drawn and wake up the action, even when there’s not a whole lot going on. Another thing about the game is the colors. The amount of color here is surprising and makes it seem more like it would be based on the comic book rather than the film. Environments seem to fit into separate panels of the popular comic book. Another feature found in the original was the free-roaming 3D environment or over-world of New York City. While not a complete, proper representation as found in the console version, it’s fun to sling around and the textures are fairly nice to look at, if not a little muddy at times. Spider-Man 2 is a good looking game overall, but certainly doesn’t have enough muscle to stand up against the outstanding visual giants like Castlevania on the GBA.

audio

This is easily the most disappointing aspect of the title. While Digital Eclipse know what their doing, it’s still fairly bland when it comes to the audible stylings of Spider-Man 2. It starts off with a fairly well produced clip of the film trailer which is very impressive for the GBA’s standards. As it stands, though, the music is repetitive and forgettable and the sound effects are average at best. It’s not necessarily bad, but it still holds untapped promise.

gameplay

For the most part, Spider-Man 2 sticks to the basic side-scrolling action elements of the franchise’s past installments on the GBA, but with a few differences thrown in here and there. The dev team sells their passion for the game in the form of the many improvements that have been made since their first attempt. In this game, you’ll swing around, running and crawling up to baddies and punch them as many times as you can before they topple over. Around the beginning of the game, you’ll spend most of your time using the hit-and-run pattern of attacks. Otherwise, Spidey will be bludgeoned to death quickly. It can be frustrating at times, but once you learn some new abilities, things start to get interesting. In order to learn new abilities, Spidey must spend the points he earns defeating bad guys and collecting tokens. At the end of any mission, he’ll be able to upgrade his combos, health meter, damage payout, and more. It’s an interesting move for a game like this and adds some nice customization ideas. Once you get to the end, though, you’ll have easily produced enough points to learn every skill available.

Aside from the main missions that take place in the 2D realm of side-scrolling, the player can find themselves deep inside New York City in a fully 3D hub map. This part of the game can be fun; simply swinging around and grabbing the dozens and dozens of tokens available will keep the player captivated and soon realize that they have real work to do. In order to progress, Spidey must find green or yellow arrows to progress to the next mission. Green arrows launch story-based missions whereas the yellow launch side quests, leaving a bit of depth and non-linearity to the game. Nevertheless, this part of the game has its problems. Besides getting a little dizzy from time to time with the murky textures, the chase battle with Doc Ock can be so extraordinarily frustrating, it’s not even funny. It’s hard to catch up with a fast moving villain much less determine where in Shocker’s name you are.

multiplayer

N/A

overall

After scooping up nearly 200 million dollars in the opening week at the box office, the film obviously puts anything even mentioning its own name to shame. However, Digital Eclipse has created quite the advantageous handheld platformer in the form of Spider-Man 2. While it may have been swallowed up in the hype surrounding its console counterpart, fans of web-head should definitely pick this one up if they’ve already become bored of his last two incarnations. If you’re expecting anything like what you’ve played (or not played, shame on you) on the GameCube or other platform, you’ll find yourself quickly disappointed. However, even with a quick lifespan of a handful of hours, the game is fun and capitalizes on Spider-Man’s success in a good way. Check it out if you want, otherwise you may want to spend your time and money on something else for right now.

8.0/10