Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions Review (PS3)

Does whatever a four-way with a spider can

My personal fear of coming across a parallel version of myself is that I’d be the less interesting one of the group. For all I know he could shoot lasers from his palms and summon Keyboard Cat upon command to taunt the foes he’s just burnt, whereas my only major selling point would be the ability to smell random folk who appear on television, an ability that’s something of a con whenever Jeremy Kyle comes on. So you’ve got to feel somewhat sorry for our typical web slinging crusader when he comes across three more slightly darker, slightly zazzier and slightly more artsy versions of himself in Spiderman:Shattered Dimensions.

Spiderman: Shattered DimensionsDuring a museum heist headed by the slightly pathetic excuse for a super-villain Mysterio, he finally manages to lay his hands upon an artifact known as the “Tablet of Order and Chaos”. Like all good heroes, Spiderman comes to save the day, yet manages to actually shatter the powerful rune, causing multiple rifts in any Marvel franchises that particularly need help in the marketing department. With fragments scattered across four dimensions, it’s up to each ones respective Spidey to recover them from the hands of their greatest enemies and reassemble it with some form of web adhesive.

Jumping into the various shoes of each of the Spidermen, it’s clear that every world is covered with a unique flair that carries throughout. The well known Amazing Spiderman is doused with gentle lashings of cel-shaded splendour whilst injecting enough colour to make a definitive comic styled impact, whilst his evil twin counter-part Ultimate Spiderman comes with more of the same, but with a stronger glaring of blood red and bruised purple wherever it can fit it in. The future filled world of Spiderman 2099 includes nothing majorly artistic, yet douses everything with neon flairs and everything feels incredibly hectic when swinging through hovercraft traffic seemingly miles in the sky. Spiderman Noir, on the other hand, takes a completely different approach and casts everything into black and white. Walking into light only mildly adds shades of colour to the environment, and should anyone see you in it, the only thing you will see is red. Each artistic graphical touch is well realised and crafted to uniquely stylise each dimension incredibly well in keeping to their comic book origins.

There’s something clich� lovingly camp throughout

As well as different coats of paint, each Spidey can brag about their own unique capabilities. Amazing Spiderman can nestle in the comforting embrace of actually being pretty standard to the Spidey we all know and love now. To disguise the basic button mashing combat, Amazing Spiderman can utilise massive weapons formed entirely of webbing and thrash about sections of environment with cobweb cyclones. Defeating enemies and collecting tokens earns essence that can go into purchasing new moves and upgrades to help make fighting combos more complex, yet an unthorough knowledge of how to palm pound the face buttons of your control pad to oblivion, it’s easy to blitz the game on its hardest of difficulties. The rage fuelled Ultimate Spiderman doesn’t choose to mix up the casual mashing chaos, only to encourage it more with a ‘Rage Meter’ equipped to make his attacks more powerful. Spiderman 2099, on the other hand, can slow down time at will to dart around enemies, especially when chased by homing missiles, forcing them into enemies and making henchmen look all the more clutzier. The only major alteration in level layouts really comes into the universe of Spiderman Noir.

Hopefully the developers of Batman: Arkham Asylum aren’t watching any of the Noir segments, otherwise Activision could have another nasty lawsuit on their hands. Though the other Spideys have no issue with standing in the line of fire with nothing but a red and blue onesie for protection, Spiderman Noir has a rather sensible allergy to lead. Due to this, gameplay is forced into the shadows and takes a more tactical approach. Slinging webs makes it easy to drag enemies into the darkness for silent takedowns. One step into any light and you’ll soon be turned into a bullet ridden plonker, so stealth is key. More cramped environments start upping the ante later on, yet can also completely screw up any ninja arachnid antics thanks to fidgety controls when climbing around walls and that classic break dancing camera issue that plagues anything that dares relates itself to a platformer and it destroys any chance of getting any sense of perspective on the surroundings. Due to too many blindspots and fiddly controls, old Noir occasionally looked like something of a vain douche doing a merry jig in the spotlight of a criminals torch. It works very well in places, especially when you are forced to take out an entire army of thugs rather than skip past them, but it is basically a cheaper rip of the stealth system that made Arkham Asylum so popular.

Spiderman: Shattered DimensionsThere’s something clich� lovingly camp throughout, with Stan Lee narrating the plot with enough charisma to blast the Whether’s Original grandfather into his own fireplace. The multiple arachnid personas are all voiced in impressive one-liner fodder form, yet sometimes the constant quips make it feel like everyone’s trying to outdo each other in the comedy department, especially entering overkill during gameplay when the same one liner is repeated almost endlessly.

Although combat and swinging through levels remains consistently smooth, there is always the odd moment where a glitch manages to creep in. Sometimes your web won’t actually kick in, suspiciously more often in the moments where you’re falling down a bottomless pit. Should a wall dare be creative and start showing signs of ledges, any Spiderman can occasionally be found trying to do the worm upon it due to some bizarre jittering.

Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions is quite the blast in an unusually last-gen console sort of way. It mixes basic combat and platforming elements along with an eclectic and imaginative range of worlds to explore to make it an enjoyable ride for the Marvel enthusiast or those simply looking for a decent rental to work through the weekend. However, it’s lack of imagination in most gameplay instances sometimes makes it a shallow experience that isn’t trying to move the Superhero game genre into anything majorly new. It certainly ranks high in the list of Spiderman games, yet doesn’t stray too much from the safety of its predecessors to stand out in anyone’s collection.

The Good: Brilliant styled graphics, Fluid and basic combat, Vast array of challenges to complete in levels
The Bad: Occasionally glitchy, Not all universes contain truely unique approaches to gameplay


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Bronze Y AwardBronze Y Award
3.5 3.5 / 5

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