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(KRT) ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN (Playstation 2/Xbox/Gamecube, Treyarch/Activision): Like the game that preceded it, "Ultimate Spider-Man" gives you a city and lets you run, jump and swing around until your thumbs turn blue. But where "Spider-Man 2" was a fun sandbox game that got old after about an hour or two, "USM" is the real deal. The game is a bit more constricted in its freedom certain areas of the city are magically blocked off by invisible barriers but it boasts a much better story, better (and more realistic) web-slinging controls, and objectives that don't involve you constantly saving some child's balloon or beating generic bad guy X. That's to say nothing of the Venom levels, which put you in the bad guy's shoes and are refreshingly different and devilishly fun despite a few control similarities. This, along with a trove of side missions, unlockables and surprise appearances from the Marvel universe, make for a far more complete game than we got last year. The cel-shaded look torn straight from the pages of a comic book is a nice step up as well. ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN (Nintendo DS, Vicarious Visions/Activision): Spider-Man's DS debut last year was promising but undermined by its level design, which focused almost obsessively on collecting/saving/completing X amount of people/things/objectives in Y amount of time. The 3D-on-rails style returns in "Ultimate Spider-Man," which also finds you playing both as Spider-Man and archrival Venom, but the action is focused more on moving forward and pounding heads than mundane exploration. The touch screen is put to far better use: You'll need it to tackle quick objectives and solve puzzles as Spidey, but the real fun comes in maneuvering Venom's tendrils to smack, throw and ingest all that stands in his way. "USM" is no slouch in terms of difficulty checkpoints are sometimes few and far between but if you like a good, old-fashioned sidescrolling challenge, that shouldn't faze you. TRACE MEMORY (Nintendo DS, Nintendo): One of the many nice things about the Nintendo DS is the way it basically begs developers to bring the point-and-click adventure game back to life. Still, it's surprising to see Nintendo, which isn't known for making this sort of game, lead the way. The inexperience shows: The novelty of "Trace Memory" makes it an interesting game by default, but when measured against its peers, it's basically "Myst for Dummies." The story is pretty engaging and the presentation puts the dual screens to excellent use, but the puzzles are often as simple as "see something that needs fixing, find obvious solution laying at your feet two screens over, fix problem." The short length doesn't help things, since point-and-click games don't exactly have "replay value" written all over them. Makes a good rental, if only to play something different and find out how it ends.
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© The Voice 2005 Revised 09/17/2007 02:16:48 PM — http://www.uamont.edu/Organizations/TheVoice/3_7/videos.htm |
