After having beaten last week’s game, I found another PlayStation Spider-man game that I hadn’t heard much of, but observed enough to see it was indeed a direct sequel. I quickly snatched it up and took it home to play, excited to get a similar experience. Were my prayers answered by god, or was this one of those ironic gifts from the devil? Well let’s take a look at Spider-man 2: Enter Electro for the PlayStation.
The first thing I noticed was that the graphics were improved. Though it’s not a giant difference (the games were only a year apart), it really becomes noticeable in the remakes of scenes from the previous game. Spider-man’s web pattern on his costume was even added (it bothered me that it was missing in the last game). There’s more detail added into everyone (especially their facial features) and the polygons are less blocky. However, like I said, it’s not a giant leap: it would still look like crap today, there’s still a fair bit a body talking since the mouths can’t move and some stuff just didn’t turn out right.
But again, that can be forgiven for the game’s audio and voice acting. Returning as the wall-crawler and narrator is Rino Romano and Stan Lee respectively. Jenifer Hale also returns, but voices Rogue and Dr. Watts. Darren Norris, which I forgot to mention played Venom in the last game and would later play J. Jonah Jameson in the Spectacular Spider-man series, returns to do a bunch of voices. And finally Dee Bradley Baker (who I also didn’t have time to mention previously) plays a variety of roles, among them Dr. Kurt Connors, who he would later do again in the Spectacular Spider-man. Again, it’s just a cast you know you can count on to bring the Spider-man feel out of the game.
The controls and game play mechanics haven’t changed enough worth mentioning, but that means that being on the ground is still a pain. I mention this because the levels are now more focused on walking. Early on, you’ll find yourself having to navigate through a town on foot to find some enemies, and another stage has you hunting down bad-guys in the streets to get key cards and shut off a bomb. Spider-man’s walking speed is a brisk jog at best and web swinging is likely to make you stick onto a wall. With the less than intuitive camera (not a big issues last time around since the gameplay compensated for it), some of the levels are just not fun. I think part of the blame might be on new developers Vicarious Visions, who didn’t make the engine Neversoft used in the last game.
One thing I didn’t mention last time was the bosses. These felt just like classic gaming; trying to figure out the tricks to beat them down. This time they are just frustrating. Some don’t really have a trick to them, or the trick is optional (like with the Shocker). In some cases, the trick is necessary, but too hard to pull off (like The Lizard). Most keep knocking you down and a couple aren’t even enemies... All this just to say, I didn’t think this was as fun.
Sad to say, the story is again something that has changed for the worse, at least in my eyes. The last time, villains were attacking left and right and Spider-man had to deal with them. This time it’s basically just Electro (other Spidey-baddies are working for him, but it’s still just his plan). The story goes that Electro busts into a lab to steal a device that would harness his “bio-electricity” and increase his powers to that of a god’s. After that, it’s mostly Spider-man chasing Electro down, often in the shadows, and occasionally swinging around to figure out Electro’s plan. Doesn’t this seem more like another super hero? I think Spider-man puts it best when he says “I don’t need pointy ears and a cape to figure out this mystery”. The story’s otherwise pretty bland: typical Electro stuff that just doesn’t have that near “camp” feeling I enjoyed from the first game. It feels more like a long episode of the 90’s series than what a game should be. In short, it tries to be too serious.
This game’s biggest downfall is that it’s a sequel that tried to change too much when it was already shown how to do things the right way. So you get levels that don’t work as well with the game engine, frustrating bosses and a story taking itself too seriously. That being said, this isn’t a bad game: you still have fun Spidey moments, the plot is personal tastes and it does have better graphics and as good a voice acting crew. It’s definitely not as great as the first game, which would explain why it was never ported, but I can’t hold that against it. Looking at it on its own, it’s a good Spider-man game, but there’s no reason it’s not better. I give Spider-man 2: Enter Electro for the Sony PlayStation 7 levels out of 10.
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