To get a whole new side to everyone’s favourite web slinger falls nothing short of a formidable challenge, one that Activision takes up confidentally with the soon to be released Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (developed by Shaba Games). Promises in that department include totally new elements not seen in the comic or film series, which can leave lots confused considering its all been done, if not overdone.
Countering just that, this game will be set up entirely on a fresh canvas and feature you seizing hold of Parker’s destiny, to reinvent and challenge everything you knew about the friendly neighborhood superhero.
What Goes Down:
The city of New York gets laid to waste by the most devastating symbiote invasion ever, courtesy of Venom. Think George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead; only replace the dead with crazy symbiote aliens hungry for human hosts. A city in chaos, complete with symbiote hives, gets its frantic aid from the infamous S.H.I.E.L.D organization.
Caught in the middle of all this, you play a rather shaken Spider-man, pushed to his limits. Desperate times, desperate measures and you decide whether he should stick to his hero guns or form unlikely alliances with some of his most dangerous foes, to cope. This makes for the most open ended Spiderman adventure yet; where you dig deep into his world, play by your own rules, to save New York in one ultimate showdown.
Birth of the Anti – Hero
Keeping in track with the flexible storyline, you get to shape Spiderman into the ultimate hero or even, vigilante. The game features a much more responsive New York City, like never before. If you choose to win the hearts of its citizens and carry out heroic deeds, you will get cheered and appreciated.
On the other hand, donning that black suit a little too much and playing reckless will have them run away in fear. Same goes with the fact that you can form allies with whomever you want. This means you could stick to the usual hero crowd or take the aid of some of Spidey’s worst enemies and go down a darker path, all to shape the outcome of the game.
You and What Army:
Longtime Spider-Man fans get one handed to them as Activision calls back some of the old timers like the impenetrable Luke Cage and the even lesser known Moon Knight. Also on the Marvel Heroes forefront, we have Black Cat and Wolverine (who also gets symbiote infected in the game).
Other than the obvious Venom, the Kingpin and the Vulture are confirmed so far as villains go. Those who own a Nintendo DS will be happy to know that the console will have exclusives, namely the addition of two more characters, Nightcrawler and Green Goblin. The allies you make will also fight alongside you at various points in the game and here’s where the improved next gen AI will really pay off.
Web of Next Gen Shadows:
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows started off with the Spider-Man 3 engine and then pushed it to new limits. What we get now, evident from screens and videos, is a great departure from the initial head start. There are a lot more realistic textures and animations, improved AI and most importantly an all new context sensitive camera. This means you can focus on enemies at hand, and quickly swing between combat areas without anything getting akward.
How It All Works With the Gameplay:
For one, the situation at hand throws a lot of symbiote scum at you at once and the combat system is stepped up just as much to deal out attacks in an all out God of War fashion. This would involve bouncing off from enemy to enemy, stringing melee attacks together with web tricks, interestingly enough to take out hordes of them.
What’s unique in this game, however, is the ability to switch between normal and symbiote Spiderman. The former will have you make the best of Spider-Man’s acrobatic and swift styles, while the latter unleashes raw symbiote power to max out damage. Switching between the two will have you combine the best of both worlds to make the perfect combos.
Not only restricted to ground combat, you can also expect those mid air aerial face offs with villains like Vulture. It would be a shame to stop there and this game also makes it possible for Spidey to get the upper hand, by taking enemies to his wall crawling turf and deal wall specific attacks to get the job done. No sweat moving within these three main areas of combat, thanks to the awesome camera movement.
Such well rounded gameplay calls for a tougher challenge from enemies. Unlike the other Spiderman games, they will hit you from all directions. For instance, this time over you could have enemies jumping and swinging after u from building to building or ambushing you from the wall as you swing by.
So far as Spider-Man’s overall abilities are concerned, you gather experience points in various combat disciplines and develop moves of you’re choice. Be it more red suit oriented or black suit oriented, the main purpose of this is to carve you’re ideal combat experience.
A walk down Activision’s isle will have you know that even though the movie based Spider-Man games lacked depth, games like the cell shaded Ultimate Spider-Man that bought something fresh to the table were instant winners. Spider-Man: Web of Shadows gets even more credit for the very reason that it stays open ended and lets you live the superhero in his darkest challenge yet and if all else fails, you still get to fight symbiote affected Wolverine.
- By Jash Singh Reen