Once any one particular figure in entertainment becomes iconic in stature, it is almost guaranteed that it will bridge mediums. Characters from comics come to life in movies and characters in movies become avatars in games. It is an inevitable facet of our current entertainment industry and one that has spurred many deformed and unnatural offspring. Sometimes that offspring is horrendously maladjusted; take for instance the Judge Dredd movie. On the other hand sometimes the ensuing result is something that sticks with us forever as a successful amalgamation of the two mediums we love. The Spider-Man movie is one good example of such a mating and there are a small handful of others. Today however I am experiencing a first… a breeding of comic to movie and then movie to game. Spider-Man 2 is with little question in my mind based off of the movie and not the comic books. That might seem a bit odd especially if one takes into consideration that ultimately they both came from the same root however I think that most people who are familiar with the comics would tend to agree.

The story is almost ripped straight from the movie with a few added segments to extend the play time. The basic premise is that Doctor Octavious is working on harnessing a new energy source (a bad idea in any story as it almost always ends up with something along the lines of a nuclear explosion) while making use of a form of experimental AI prosthetic limbs. Does anyone else see the obvious lack of common sense here? Of course the end result is lots of damage to the surrounding area and an insane scientist out to get Spider-Man for interfering. The story continues to follow the lines of the movie almost to a fault. For the benefit of the comic book fans however, the story does include a couple trips down memory lane with the inclusion of foes like Mysterio, Scorpion and the Rhino.

I can control my powers… really
Remember that scene in the first movie? The one where Peter Parker is just learning about his powers and basically everything goes wrong? Well that's what it felt like when I first picked up this game. I am sure the difficulty was heavily centered around the fact that this is the first action game I have played on my PSP. Hell, it's the second game I've played on my PSP. Thankfully, they graciously included a fairly large in game training section which will help to get you accustomed with the fairly unique control scheme. I still occasionally have some difficulty due to the multiple uses attached to the left trigger. It works as your targeting on/off switch and your alternate web slinging options. This quite often resulted in me un-targeting when I wanted to hurl a web ball or vice versa.

Other than the left trigger, the only other annoying control issue I had was related to the wall crawling aspects of the game. I often would find myself inadvertently swinging into or walking into a wall and climbing onto it in the most inopportune times. Disregarding those few minor annoyances the control was fairly basic and fairly easy to make use of. Given a little time and practice I am sure any player will be swinging about like Tarzan on crack.

As a player progresses through the game they will gain the opportunity to purchase new abilities from the "hero shop". Things like a couple extra attack strings, higher strength or stamina, web cocoon abilities and more are all purchase-able for "hero points" which are earned and found throughout the levels. I really thought that they could have done way more with the hero shop as nothing purchased in it sprung out at me and screamed "hey I am so cool that you NEED me or you will die!" Frankly the normal attacks were suitable throughout the game.

One other difficulty I had was with switching between the analog stick and D-pad (the D-pad is how you change targets and move the camera), but I think that might just be me getting used to the PSP. It probably could have been handled in a slightly more user friendly way but I don't know what that would be exactly, so I wont fault them too much.

The boss fights are really the prime definition of any adventure game in my opinion; those are the moments that truly offer a true testament to the quality of gameplay. A games poor gameplay is especially evident when your fighting bosses and struggling to put everything you know about the game to use. As a rule, in a poor game these moments are frustrating, aggravating, boring and generally not very fun. In a good game these moments tend to be everything listed above yet fun, thrilling and exciting instead of boring. Spider-Man 2 had entertaining boss sequences which included interactive environments, deceptive patterns and unique tricks for defeating them. Jumping on top of "Rhino's" shoulders and getting him to lodge his horn into a wall is quite fun indeed.

Mixed in to the fairly standard walk around and beat people up missions are a slew of other objective based missions. Sometimes they will have the player swinging civilians to safety while others have you disarming bombs. These missions played their role well in that they kept the game from being monotonous. Each mission was different enough in execution that it kept things from falling in to a rut.

Good, Bad I am the one with the radioactive spider blood.
The stages were designed in a very believable if not often linear manner granting them a level of realism that I definitely appreciated. My only real complaint is that in the outdoor levels I found myself swinging from a web that I stuck to the sky… Outside of that little bubble bursting blunder I found that the overall design was better than I expected. One level that is worth a bit of extra mention is Mysterio's wax museum. Filled with robotic knights, mummies, traps and illusions this stage stood out from the rest. It was a lot of fun in many ways and even included an interesting "easter egg" relating to Army of Darkness.

Best looking spider man game on the PSP!
I must admit I have had a bit of a quandary when it comes to the graphics on this title. What do I compare them to? PS2 games?... is that really fair to the PSP and this title? I really do not have an answer for that and since this is the first game of this type I have played on the PSP I found this section slightly complicated. Ultimately the graphics are the best of any handheld action game I have played to date. Of course that's not saying much considering I have never played an action game on a portable system comparable to the PSP. The animation is well articulated and good enough to seem right at home in the well rendered worlds. The buildings and cityscapes look quite nice, not on par with some of today's PS2 games but better than most. I think there is a lot of room to grow in this regard and we will see better in the days and years to come.

Part of the obviously movie planted roots are in the graphics themselves. During all of the cut scenes you will be "treated" to images that appear to be torn straight from the movie. The characters look similar enough to the actors from the films that I felt like I was watching some mutated distorted version of a movie I had already seen. Honestly I really did not need to see Tobey Maguire badly rendered into a 3D character -- he pollutes my TV enough as it is.

Real actors are not voice actors - or are they?
Making matters worse of course, they hired the actors from the movies to do the voiceover work. This of course bothered me even more because not only does he look like a deformed version of Tobey Maguire, but now he sounds like him as well. Outside of hearing Toby Maguire throughout the game the sound was pretty good. The sound effects were reminiscent of cartoons from my youth which was a good thing and the music was relatively cinematic and entertaining although forgettable.

That's a wrap
It's a fun game and great for fans of the comic series or the movies. They added in some cameo appearances of some of the all time favorite Spider-Man villains just for those of us who remember the days before the movies. Of course there was no Venom but that just makes me think it's that much more likely we will see him in an upcoming movie. It's a good title for people who like beat'em-up action games who also happen to have a PSP. It is also something worth renting (if you can anywhere locally) just to get some more mileage out of your PSP.