Game Review-Spider Man:Shattered Dimensions

I recently rented Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions on one of my days off (I was REALLY bored; found my Blockbuster card in my wallet and the light bulb went off).  This game caught my attention when I first heard it was coming out.  I normally don't my games that I don't buy games that I can't get re-plays out of (which pretty much limits my library to sports games and 1st person shooters)...and this game is another example of why.  The campaign was fairly short and not all that difficult.  At times it was a little glitchy, but overall the game was pretty solid.

The story goes a little something like this:  Mysterio was trying to steal the Table of Order and Chaos to...you know, do evil things with it.  Spider-Man, in his attempt to stop him, shattered the tablet.  Pieces of the tablet were scattered throughout 4 dimensions.  Madame Web shows up and helps Spider-Man to find the pieces and reassemble the tablet.  She gets the help of four Spider-Men from the Amazing (the "regular" one), Ultimate (black suit), 2099, and Noir dimensions.  As you go through the game, each Spider-Man uses their own abilities to defeat the enemies of their dimensions to get back a piece of the tablet.  One big plot flaw that I noticed was:  how did each enemy know what the tablet was and what it could do?  Did Mysterio send a bad guy memo out?  Seemed a little convenient that bad guys in every universe found the rock and knew what to do with it.

The game play was pretty decent:  each Spider-Man had his own abilities and played very differently.  The boss battles were epic...many times you had to fight them twice: before and after the used a piece of the tablet (the tablet augmented their abilities).  After a round of studying their attacks they were all pretty easy to defeat.  The in-game achievements made the game fun...these gave you "Spider Essence" points that let you upgrade your character and combat moves.  My biggest beefs were the camera and the glitches.  Spider-Man is such a agile character that its hard for the camera to keep up.  Sometimes I found myself getting dizzy while I was dodging a large group of enemies.  The game seemed to be very glitchy...there were a couple of times where I got "stuck" in the level...both times I had to go back to the last checkpoint.  Very annoying if you're trying to make progress through a difficult part of the level.

I will admit that I'm not a big Spider-Man fan, but seeing the different universes piqued my interest...not afraid to admit that I'm gonna find some digital comics to read.  The Noir universe, set in the 1930s, is the one that I'm most interested in.  Time to hit the internets to see if I can find some comics to read.  The game was ok...a good rent but not anything you would want to shell out $60 for.  If you have some days off and want something to do...I'd recommend you give this one a try.

-Dub