As some of you may be aware a few months ago I wrote a little news piece on the new Beenox title Spiderman: Edge of Time. I had some preconceptions that this had the potential to be even better than the studio’s pervious release Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions. This was due to all the positive reports I had been reading off of the net. Was what I was reading on the net correct or your typical video game hype? Playing the game was the only way I was going to find out.
I was a fan of Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions, I felt the story was well thought out and had the graphics, BGM and SFX were good making Shattered Dimensions a good game overall. Of course there were a few things I disliked in Shattered Dimensions but I don’t want to rant on about the predecessor, I want to rant on about the latest Spiderman release from Beenox.
Well to start things off the story is very similar to what I originally posted in my new piece, but just to recap. In the year 2099, Walker Sloan is the head of a department in Alchemax, a company is going to be taken over by the crafty Stark-fujikawa . So Sloan decides that he will travel back into the past and create Alchemax well before its original conception. This way Alchemax is created in Sloan’s image and would never be in a position to be taken over. Sloan jumps into the temporal portal (time machine) and Miguel O’Hara, AKA Spider man, swings in to stop him by jumping into the portal, thus changing history as they know it. Miguel is able to see all of what happens and also see the death of the original webslinger Peter Parker. As he is in the middle temporal flux whilst the timelines are changing Miguel’s memories of the original timeline are unaffected, but he has the memories of the new timeline and that Peters death was a major factor of the timelines changing. So it’s your job to not only undo what Sloan has done but also save Peter Parker from being killed. You switch between Miguel and Peter throughout the game and this allows you to follow the game on both sides of the story.
Something very unique happens the first time you play this game, unlike any other game I have played, when you first start the game you get the usual beginning sequence, but when you press the start button, there is no start menu, nor any start features the game just starts. You dive right into a fight with Anti-Venom, with no way of knowing what the controls are; I just pressed any button to see what happened. I found out that I had no reason to worry though as the controls were the same as Shattered Dimensions, which made things so much easier when fighting Anti-Venom. I got my ass kicked and that was obviously going to happen and as it was part of the story.
Once the short cut scene was over I found myself crawling after Sloan, at this point I noticed another unique element to the game. The opening credits and cast list was displayed on the walls and panels whilst I was moving, the amazing thing was that this did not take anything away from the story, in fact whilst you were crawling through Miguel speaks about Sloan as the credits roll on by.
When you reach the end of the vent you finally reach Sloan, which at this point you find out is voiced by none other than Val Kilmer, yes that’s right Val Kilmer. He talks to his A.I unit Joana about his plans and does a scan of the room for security, this is where you control Miguel to avoid the scans, if you choose too as the scans don’t really affect you if you are caught. This happens a couple of times as you find out all about Sloan’s plans and what he intends to do, after you have crawled through the last bit of tunnelling, you find yourself in a room where you can now freely control Spiderman and play through the story.
As I mentioned earlier the controls are the same as Shattered Dimensions, which means you have the same feel in this game as you did before when it comes to controlling Spiderman’s movements. I was able to get the hang of controlling Spiderman easily because I had played the previous title. The good news is you still get the little tutorials that explain about the movement and controls making it very welcoming for new comers. To obtain unlock new moves and combos you collect orbs, much like Shattered Dimensions, however if you wish to increase your health for both Spidys or shield for 2099 Spidy, you must collect golden spiders. A new feature has been added to make it easier to obtain these, every time you are close to one a little golden spider emblem flashes. The closer you get the more it flashes. This is a novel idea to help you find these special golden spiders and a great element for all you completionists out there.
Both Miguel and Peter have their own unique fighting moves and special abilities, but there are also a few moves that you can unlock for both of your web slinging character. This is something I haven’t seen in any pervious Spiderman games, which is starting to become a trait for this the Beenox Spiderman franchise. This is something I am quite happy to say, as not many action games have a lot of unique features such as these.
In edge of time you have the ability to kick butt in two different timelines, which sounds like it’s going to be a lot better than butt kicking in just one timeline. If your familiar with the Shattered Dimensions fighting mechanic then can beat everyone up with ease, but if you haven’t played it before, then don’t worry the game is about button mashing your opponents into submission. Eventually you unlock a new move that allows you to create a temporal paradox, this allows you to freeze all enemies within a certain distance making battles a lot easier, plus you can strategize on when the best time to use it.
Plus both Miguel and Peter have their own special ability to help improve their chances of winning battles, also some parts of levels require you to use these abilities so you can progress further in the game. Miguel’s ability is called Accelerated Vision, this is allows you to send a deco and cloak so you can get your enemy to attack that whilst you run behind them and then attack. Peter’s ability on the other hand is called Hyper Force, this allows Peter to move at a much faster speed then he could previously. This allows you to dodge almost any attack that comes your way, but more importantly allows you to attack your enemy faster meaning you are able to land more hits and combos than usual. These abilities aren’t just limited to combat. Miguel’s Accelerated Vision can also be used to divert rockets to blow open certain doors and Peter’s Hyper Force can be used to run through lasers, or to avoid sensors that would usually lock onto him.
Again these abilities are something that brings alot to the way you fight and play the game, however there are quite a few things wrong with this game in my opinion. For me the biggest issue is the fact you never really had a place in the game where you could swing freely. It was an issue I had with Shattered Dimensions as well. There is some light relief at least, as some levels you do need to swing through areas to progress further. This game has some big open spaces to swing around but they are few and far between, as most of the levels you have to run around or crawl around, which for me does not feel like a Spiderman game.
In addition to all these game elements there are quite a few free fall levels. These are areas where Miguel dives down a shaft and you have control him while he is falling to avoid barriers and obstacles. I found these levels annoying, although I understand that this was something that stood out in Shatter Dimensions which you only did a few times, in this game however I felt it was over used. In one level you dived through a vent four times in a row, and that is just a fraction of the amount of times you do this.
The game itself is also far too short, I completed this game in the space of a week, which doesn’t sound too bad, but I only played it for maybe two hours a day or less. So if I was to try to think how many hours it took me to complete I would say less than twelve hours, which for an action game is pretty average. It took me almost a month to complete Shattered Dimensions and that’s me calculating this in the amount of hours it took me and not days.
There is an unbelievably weak villain list in this game, I was very unimpressed by Anti-Venom but what ruined things completely for me is the fact you have very few true villains that you go up against. I mean I can count them on one hand and still have plenty of room for more, which was not what I read would be happening.
Then we have the BGM and SFX to take into account, one of the most important things when it comes to games spawned from a comic is the voices. If you don’t have the right voices the game could be amazing but you would always be annoyed by the voice, well I must admit Beenox used the same character voiceovers as they did in Shattered Dimensions, however there is something they did that seriously annoyed me and that was the overuse of the word “Shocking” by Miguel O’Hara. Now I know he uses it quite a bit in the comic and they want to portray him as accurately as possible, but after hearing it being said constantly and for most of the time at a completely unnecessary and out of context points. Usually I am able to let things like this go but it was so annoying that I would actually stop playing and walk away it annoyed me that much.
Other than that the SFX were spot on during fights or even during level, there were particular sound that made me aware of impending danger or where I was being attacked from, which is useful. The BGM was also on point which is something I was happy to hear, during battles with bosses or even during tasks the dramatic music made its point and gave a great feel to the game. Also the game is graphically impressive, the detail they used was amazing and was again along the same lines and concept they used in Shattered Dimensions.
With all this said there is one thing that I have left for last and that is the challenges, bonuses and other extras the game has to offer. I will start off with the bonuses, well you get the obvious concept art and bio’s as you go through the game, but there is also during the game you unlock news paper showing you the headlines of real timeline and then of the adjusted one, so you can see just how different they are. You also have different costumes for Miguel and Peter, you can choose to wear if you like, what is really nice is if you have played Shattered Dimensions you unlock some costumes. If you want to get the other costumes you have to complete a particular amount of challenges and get silver or higher.
So the challenges are shown on a web (like Shattered Dimensions) and you can see what the challenges are and what you need to do to complete them, you unlock challenges as you progress through the game. Pretty simple but during the game when you unlock a challenge you do not get told what it is and that was annoying too. The other bonuses are the cheat codes, well the game has a website you go to which has V.I.P cheat codes for you to use which I feel is unfair and just spoils the games feel.
So all in all this game is ok but is nowhere near as good as I expected, I am disappointed that they went through all this trouble only to put out a mediocre game. There is a lot of unique content but with the game being so short I didn’t really feel happy when it all ended.
Pros
+Easy to pick up even if a first time player
+Unique aspects in the game and gameplay
+SFX and BGM work very well with the game
Cons
-Game was far too short
-No real place in the game to websling
-Too much freefall gameplay
6/10
-Random Man
