Spider-Man 2
Every month we celebrate the most important, innovative, or just plain great games from PlayStation’s past. This issue, we sling and swing around a sandbox New York with one of the most heroic movie tie-ins of all time
On rare occasions, licensed games don’t suck. And when we say ‘rare’, we’re talking the equivalent of a singing dodo performing Les Misérables on Broadway. Yet against all odds, and years before Rocksteady’s Batman trilogy, Treyarch served up a sensational Spidey title that’s never been topped, even 14 years on.
Released the same week as Sam Raimi’s excellent superhero sequel, Spider-Man 2 was PS2’s best licensed game. Why? Because it introduced a pioneering traversal system that used physics-based algorithms and a techy term called ‘raycasting’ to infuse every web swing with a joyous sense of empowering momentum. We’re now two console generations removed from Treyarch’s heroic effort, and there’s arguably never been a more effective use of in-game physics.
The lion’s share of the credit belongs to designer Jamie Fristrom. Unhappy with the PS2 tie-in of the original Spider-Man movie, Fristrom set out to develop a system where the Wall Crawler’s webbing physically attached to a multitude of specific points on buildings. Previous games had cheated by giving Peter Parker magic webs that connected to random points in the sky, rather than physically sticking to objects in the world. It meant every Spidey outing before this 2004 classic felt floaty and fake, with the hero never truly connecting to his surroundings.
Even at the prototype stage, when shown internally at Treyarch, producers were astounded by the new physicsbased swinging system. Everyone who saw it in action, even without missions to match, would stare in giddy awe and simply revel in the act of swinging through and around New York City. Early in development, Activision knew it had a hit in the making.
It’s easy to see why the publisher was so excited: in the decade-and-abit since Spidey 2 launched, few other games have come close to replicating its effortless joy of movement. Even gliding above rooftops in Batman: Arkham City or working yourself into a free-running frenzy in Mirror’s Edge can’t quite match the empowering elegance that comes from catapulting Spidey between skyscrapers. In motion,
IN MOTION, THE FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOOD WEBSLINGER IS A JOY.
the friendly neighbourhood web-slinger is a joy to watch, a series of beautifully blended animations combining to create a contorting, pirouetting hero you can’t take your eyes off.
What your peepers will want to shun are the Citizens In Distress missions. Thank the Stan Lee above swinging is such a hoot, because many of the objectives Spidey has to sully with himself with are far from heroic. Saving precariously hanging construction workers; stopping stolen cars; thwarting purse snatchers; saving little girls’ balloons; pizza delivery. And no, that last one isn’t a typo. There really is a subset of missions that ask Spidey to get margheritas from stuffed-crust point A to marinara-sauce-slathered point B. Um, Pete… why is our dinner covered in sticky, translucent goo?
SWING STAR
Even when missions grate or boss fights against the likes of Rhino and The Shocker frustrate, the core pleasure of swinging between New York’s skyscrapers never dulls. Subsequent Spidey games fiddled with the webslinging formula, diluting the purity of what was close to a perfect mechanic. It’s only now, with Insomniac’s wallcrawling reboot, that Marvel’s most famous hero is fully hitting his swinging stride again.
PS4’s Spidey may have finally dethroned Treyarch’s classic – Insomniac’s effort isn’t bogged down by Tobey Maguire’s catatonic voiceover or Citizens In Distress missions. Still, dodgy VO aside, we’ll forever be stuck on 2004’s awesome arachnid.