Super Choop
Chocobo Breeder
Ever since 2004's Spider-Man 2, the Spider-Man games have all been large, open world action games with an emphasis on mobility. Though in the last few years I've pined for a Spider-Man game with a heavier focus on the action. One similar to the classic Spider-Man on the original Playstation. Well, fortunately for me it seems that Activision and Beenox have answered my prayers with Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.
In the opening FMV, stupendously narrated by the ever-lovable Stan Lee, Spider-Man foils an attempt by Mysterio to snatch a priceless, magical artifact called "The Tablet of Order and Chaos". In the ensuing ruckus Spider-Man accidentally shatters the tablet into several pieces that disperse across the multiverse and end up in three other dimensions. With the guidance of Madame Web and the aid of his Noir, Ultimate, and 2099 counterparts, Spider-Man sets forth to reassemble the tablet before it destroys reality. If it isn't blatantly obvious already, the story is merely a flimsy pretext for setting you up against a cavalcade of villains across the four dimensions.
Shattered Dimensions is certainly a familiar game. If you've played just about any mainstream action game in the past seven or so years you know what you're in for. Light attacks, heavy attacks, grapples, and finishers are all par for the course. The combat isn't going to set the world on fire, but it works well. While it's all too easy to resort to spamming heavy attacks to dispatch enemies, the game occasionally throws enemies that require specific tactics to defeat them. It's nice that Treyarch at least tried to mix up the enemies, but being forced to diversify your tactics as opposed to doing it on your own for the fun of it gets a bit annoying. Especially since you're usually tasked with using moves that don't flow well into combos.
With the exception of a single stage, the game plays out in a mainly linear fashion. When not engaged in combat you spend time swinging through large chasms and using your web zip ability to precisely move from one tiny platform to another. It all sounds like tricky business, but it's actually a relatively smooth process. Web zipping is handled much in the same way the grappling hook was in Batman: Arkham Asylum. A small target indicator appears on screen to show exactly which platform you're web zip will take you to and with a tap of the shoulder button you're zipped to your target. While it's a very simple way of getting from place to place, it feels really cool to zip from ledge to ledge over the game's giant bottomless pits.
After mentioning Arkham Asylum once, it's only inevitable that I mention it again when on the subject of Spider-Man Noir. While Noir's stages have plenty of the same platforming and beat'em up elements as the other three spider men's, Noir also has a stealth mechanic unique to him. Remember those silent takedowns you could do in Arkham Asylum by hanging from a perch? Well, that's Noir's stealth gameplay in a nutshell. You wait for enemies to get just close enough for the game to give you the button prompt and Spidey does the rest. It's not terrible. Your position in conjunction to the enemy's will lead to a variety of different animations, and it's nice to see a Spider-Man game pull off a functional stealth mechanic for once. Still, the novelty wears thin shortly, and it doesn't help that Noir has easily the lamest move set out of the four Spider-Men.
While Shattered Dimensions' gameplay is certainly fun, I feel that the real draw is the phenomenal way it presents itself. The game does an excellent job of portraying the four universes. The Amazing and Ultimate dimensions each have their own unique cell-shaded look, while the 2099 universe looks like one of those futuristic cities you'd see in a 90's movie like Judge Dredd or The Fifth Element. The Noir universe spends most of it's time lingering in the back alleys of 1930's New York with the colors desaturating every time you step into the shadows. Each dimension has it's own specific style to it so even if all of the characters control the same, it doesn't feel like you're doing the same things in the same places over and over again. From a purely technical perspective the character models and environments are all rich in detail, and the only particularly noticeable flat textures are the ones in the Amazing and Ultimate universes in which they are obviously intended.
Shattered Dimensions looks great and the audio follows suit. While the supporting cast of villains and goons is handled by the same old same old (Steven Blum, Nolan North and the like), it bears mention that each Spider-Man is voiced by an actor who previously voiced Spidey in one of his various cartoons. Neil Patrick Harris, who voiced the character in Spider-Man: The New Animated series plays the original, Amazing Spider-Man. Dan Gilvezan from Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends plays Spider-Man 2099. Josh Keaton of The Spectacular Spider-Man fame plays Ultimate. And, last, but most certainly not least, Christopher Daniel Barnes from the classic 90's Spider-Man: The Animated series plays Spider-Man Noir. Each actor plays their respective role like they never left us, and it's a great bit of fan service.
If there's one major misstep in the audio, it's that almost every character in the game is afflicted with Robotnik Syndrome. The Spider-Men are absolutely hysterical at times, but those hilarious one-liners lose a lot of their flavor after being repeated ad nauseam. When I say nearly every character I mean it. Everyone from the villains to the thugs to Madame Web herself will repeat the same lines over and over. This isn't the first game I've had this problem with, but it's the one where it was the most apparent.
The music is plagued with similar bugs. On more than one occasion I've heard the music completely cut out or begin to loop over itself. You'd think that working with a linear game would have made it easier to smooth out these very same bugs that plagued the last two Spider-Man games, but apparently not. Regardless of the occasional audio bug, the music in Shattered Dimensions is fairly diverse and offers different themes to fit the setting of each stage.
To top off the experience, Shattered Dimensions is rich in unlockable content. There's plenty of optional challenges, secret costumes, and unlockable abilities that give incentive to play through the game's various stages multiple times. If you can stomach the game's shortcomings you'll find a great game that caters to comic book fans with gameplay that appeals to fans of modern action games.
In the opening FMV, stupendously narrated by the ever-lovable Stan Lee, Spider-Man foils an attempt by Mysterio to snatch a priceless, magical artifact called "The Tablet of Order and Chaos". In the ensuing ruckus Spider-Man accidentally shatters the tablet into several pieces that disperse across the multiverse and end up in three other dimensions. With the guidance of Madame Web and the aid of his Noir, Ultimate, and 2099 counterparts, Spider-Man sets forth to reassemble the tablet before it destroys reality. If it isn't blatantly obvious already, the story is merely a flimsy pretext for setting you up against a cavalcade of villains across the four dimensions.
Shattered Dimensions is certainly a familiar game. If you've played just about any mainstream action game in the past seven or so years you know what you're in for. Light attacks, heavy attacks, grapples, and finishers are all par for the course. The combat isn't going to set the world on fire, but it works well. While it's all too easy to resort to spamming heavy attacks to dispatch enemies, the game occasionally throws enemies that require specific tactics to defeat them. It's nice that Treyarch at least tried to mix up the enemies, but being forced to diversify your tactics as opposed to doing it on your own for the fun of it gets a bit annoying. Especially since you're usually tasked with using moves that don't flow well into combos.
With the exception of a single stage, the game plays out in a mainly linear fashion. When not engaged in combat you spend time swinging through large chasms and using your web zip ability to precisely move from one tiny platform to another. It all sounds like tricky business, but it's actually a relatively smooth process. Web zipping is handled much in the same way the grappling hook was in Batman: Arkham Asylum. A small target indicator appears on screen to show exactly which platform you're web zip will take you to and with a tap of the shoulder button you're zipped to your target. While it's a very simple way of getting from place to place, it feels really cool to zip from ledge to ledge over the game's giant bottomless pits.
After mentioning Arkham Asylum once, it's only inevitable that I mention it again when on the subject of Spider-Man Noir. While Noir's stages have plenty of the same platforming and beat'em up elements as the other three spider men's, Noir also has a stealth mechanic unique to him. Remember those silent takedowns you could do in Arkham Asylum by hanging from a perch? Well, that's Noir's stealth gameplay in a nutshell. You wait for enemies to get just close enough for the game to give you the button prompt and Spidey does the rest. It's not terrible. Your position in conjunction to the enemy's will lead to a variety of different animations, and it's nice to see a Spider-Man game pull off a functional stealth mechanic for once. Still, the novelty wears thin shortly, and it doesn't help that Noir has easily the lamest move set out of the four Spider-Men.
While Shattered Dimensions' gameplay is certainly fun, I feel that the real draw is the phenomenal way it presents itself. The game does an excellent job of portraying the four universes. The Amazing and Ultimate dimensions each have their own unique cell-shaded look, while the 2099 universe looks like one of those futuristic cities you'd see in a 90's movie like Judge Dredd or The Fifth Element. The Noir universe spends most of it's time lingering in the back alleys of 1930's New York with the colors desaturating every time you step into the shadows. Each dimension has it's own specific style to it so even if all of the characters control the same, it doesn't feel like you're doing the same things in the same places over and over again. From a purely technical perspective the character models and environments are all rich in detail, and the only particularly noticeable flat textures are the ones in the Amazing and Ultimate universes in which they are obviously intended.
Shattered Dimensions looks great and the audio follows suit. While the supporting cast of villains and goons is handled by the same old same old (Steven Blum, Nolan North and the like), it bears mention that each Spider-Man is voiced by an actor who previously voiced Spidey in one of his various cartoons. Neil Patrick Harris, who voiced the character in Spider-Man: The New Animated series plays the original, Amazing Spider-Man. Dan Gilvezan from Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends plays Spider-Man 2099. Josh Keaton of The Spectacular Spider-Man fame plays Ultimate. And, last, but most certainly not least, Christopher Daniel Barnes from the classic 90's Spider-Man: The Animated series plays Spider-Man Noir. Each actor plays their respective role like they never left us, and it's a great bit of fan service.
If there's one major misstep in the audio, it's that almost every character in the game is afflicted with Robotnik Syndrome. The Spider-Men are absolutely hysterical at times, but those hilarious one-liners lose a lot of their flavor after being repeated ad nauseam. When I say nearly every character I mean it. Everyone from the villains to the thugs to Madame Web herself will repeat the same lines over and over. This isn't the first game I've had this problem with, but it's the one where it was the most apparent.
The music is plagued with similar bugs. On more than one occasion I've heard the music completely cut out or begin to loop over itself. You'd think that working with a linear game would have made it easier to smooth out these very same bugs that plagued the last two Spider-Man games, but apparently not. Regardless of the occasional audio bug, the music in Shattered Dimensions is fairly diverse and offers different themes to fit the setting of each stage.
To top off the experience, Shattered Dimensions is rich in unlockable content. There's plenty of optional challenges, secret costumes, and unlockable abilities that give incentive to play through the game's various stages multiple times. If you can stomach the game's shortcomings you'll find a great game that caters to comic book fans with gameplay that appeals to fans of modern action games.
3/5
Last edited: