Activision: A Phantom Menace

About two weeks prior to this writing, a demo for the Spiderman 2 PC game appeared on sites all over the web. To the surprise of everyone who downloaded it, the demo was not the much-lauded nonlinear Spiderman game that publisher Activision has been hyping up. This Spiderman was a simple, level based, kid friendly, crapfest of a game.

Word has it that Activision never intended for that demo to fall into the hands of the public, but that it was meant to be distributed exclusively as a cereal box toy!

While some people held out hope that the demo wasn't actually indicative of the final product, we here at GG expected the worst and got what we expected. So before you waste your time reading anything else (although it should prove to a very entertaining read), let me give you the quick hit: Spiderman 2 is a fresh, steaming turdburger of a computer game.

Packaging

It's unsure whether Activision was just trying to save money on advertising or if they actually intended to lie to their PC customers. Regardless, they have made doubly sure that the deceptively designed packaging ties closely into their current console version marketting campaign.

At a glance, the console and PC packaging are indistinguishable from one another. Most consumers won't give the game enough scrutiny to tell the difference before it's too late. Even if they do, they might not think anything of it until they get home and play the game for themselves. For example, while the screenshots on the PC box actually are different from it's console counterparts, all of the boxes, regardless of platform, have a very prominent shared shot of the Doc Oc opening cinematic. The only other telltale differences are the big fat E rating and the Fizz Factor logo on the back where Treyarch's should be.

The box contains both a tiny manual and a classic clear flip-top CD case. With so many games shipping in paper sleeves these days this is a much appreciated detail - especially at a $29.99 price point. The real problem with Spiderman 2's packaging is that Activision is trying to make you buy the game under the impression that it's something that it's not. It's like buying a beautiful antique music box at the swap meet only to get home and discover that there's a huge fucking turd inside where the musical bits should be. This is the kind of thing that sets new standards for the way publishers can legally screw their customers.

You'd think that in a game like this the opportunity to play the superagile, wall-crawling, web-slinging Spiderman would be it's own reward. But as I mentioned earlier, this is not the open-ended nonlinear Spiderman that you've been hearing about. The gameplay is linear and level based. Linearity can be forgiven when it's accompanied by an excellent narrative and it's sad that Spiderman 2 can't even claim that. In fact, without having seen the movie beforehand the game's story makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It basically goes like this: Doctor Octopus is apparently up to something nefarious - therefore you have to beat up an endless stream of beanie-wearing bad guys with Shiny Pink Blowdryer Ray Guns™. Yeah, shiny - pink - rayguns. But I guess with an ESRB rating of Everyone, what else could you expect?

Spiderman 2 also demonstrated that the 'glass cieling' extends as much to superheros as it does to bitchy female executives. Because of the game's linearity, many rooftops simply don't exist. As a result, the developers have capped off the maximum height you can reach. What that means is that if you want to climb to the top of a skyscraper and survey your surroundings, you're shit out of luck. About half way up any sizeable building you will hit an impassable invisible barrier. Even more frustrating is that the same is true of sidestreets. You see, they're all just there for show. Fizz Factor makes absolutely sure that you don't do any pesky exploring on your way from point A to point B. After all, what fun is exploration anyway?

Further offending the idea that this is not a console game is the fact that you are supposed to collect bright red Spider Coins in order to score Hero Points. As far as we can tell, Hero Points don't really amount to anything except that they turn Spiderman into a character from TRON. As for the web slinging, Fizz Factor dosn't even attempt to create the illusion that you're swinging from building to building. The game uses an absurd system of magical floating web icons which you simply click on to swing. As you might imagine, this makes swinging around town about as much fun as navigating Windows Explorer.

Continuing it's steadfast stream of awefulness, the combat in Spiderman 2 makes Diablo seem complicated. You have basically four attacks: punch, kick, web, and pull gun. As meager as that sounds, it actually borders on overkill. You see, bad guys just kinda stand there while you kick their ass. In fact, the only time they seem to fight back is when they're armed with Shiny Pink Ray Guns™. Not to worry, though - three or four well placed kicks will take down virtually any opponent - even bosses.

Despite all this scathing negativity, Spiderman 2 does have one redeeming quality: it's short. Although there's a lingering pain afterward, the game clocks in at about three hours when played straight through.

It's obvious that Fizz Factor wanted something more cartoonish than realitistic - but rather than deliver the somewhat passable cell-shaded graphics of, say, XIII, we get a world composed of 90 degree angles, bland textures, and flat primary colors. It's like Oni, but with less detail. To add insult to injury, Fraps was reporting consistent framerates only in the mid 20s. With graphics no more detailed than Quake classic, one might expect slightly better numbers than that. To the games credit, however, Spiderman didn't crash or lock up once and even handled multitasking with an uncommon ammount of laxity.

Activision promised us the freedom of Grand Theft Auto and delivered us simpleminded kid-friendly shmuck. The game itself is an affront to both the Spiderman franchise and gaming in general. The greatest crime, however, is that gamers are being lyed to about the product. Between the television commercials, magazine ads, and Activision's own official website, we feel this is so blatant and irrefutable that it may actually warrant a class action lawsuit for intentional false advertisement.

Even in it's own right, this is a terrible game. It's so easy that calling it easy is false. This game is automatic. It's obvious that the game was made by an unskilled company for a very young audience. I just can't imagine why. Kids are familiar with consoles - consoles are simple. PCs are complex. Kid's don't do complex. The only logical explanation that I can come up with is that Activision contracted this game out of simple unmitigated spite for the PC market. If you or someone you know is initiating a class action lawsuit over this game, please let us know! If you would like to contact Activision directly, you can access their contact page using the link item below.