Ultimate Spider-man – NDS – Preview


E3 Preview
2005

Spider-Man! Venom! Together again in
one luscious and lavish videogame experience employing some innovative gameplay
ideas and some strong gameplay elements.

It is Ultimate Spider-Man, a release
from Treyarch and Activision for the Xbox, PlayStation2, PC, GameBoy Advance,
Nintendo DS and GameCube. Activision showed the title off during a pre-E3 event
held recently in Santa Monica.

The game is set in the Ultimate
Spider-Man universe and the art style is taken directly from that comic book
style. But that was only part of the challenge of bringing this title to life.

“It was several months of several
engineers to accomplish the shading we are using” in the game, said Treyarch’s
Chris Busse. The game itself can best be described as a living three-dimensional
comic book experience. And that means use of what Treyarch is terming motion
graphic panels to progress the story.

There are a host of villains like
Electro and Rhino, and appearances by other Marvel characters like Nick Fury.
The game picks up after issue number 39, using a few flashbacks, but this is an
original story penned by the writer of the Ultimate series. This is a
free-roaming city, and takes place in both Manhattan and Queens in New York
City, but “it’s a whole new city; not New York, New York, it is Marvel New
York.”

There will be randomly generated
missions, and with Venom, you get over-the-top mass destruction. The combat has
been built from the ground up, and players may actually have to use their wits
during levels, even when playing as Venom. The game has checkpoints to save
along the way and there are unlockables.

Electro has knocked out Spidey and
looks to finish him off, but before he can do so, Venom shows up and the battle
between the two is on.  

“If you read any comic, you just
wanted to be Venom,” said Busse, “to play Venom – and we were just totally
geeked out about it.”

While there are missions that are
timed, and a variety of mission styles to boot, what really stands out about
this game is the graphics. Richly textured, lush effects and everything that
comic book fans would expect in a game pulled right off the backs of the classic
series. This is not about looking realistic, it is about capturing the essence
of the Ultimate universe. 

“I think consoles are powerful
enough to not be chasing the most realistic look,” Busse stated.

One could call the look ‘amazing,’
but that belongs in a different web-head world. Let’s just say that this may be
the ‘ultimate’ blend between comic books and videogaming to date.