|
Ultimate Spider-Man is a 2005 game for the Nintendo GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS. It is a cell-shaded, 3-D game (another example of this graphical style would be The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker). In this game, you have the choice to either play as Spider-Man or Venom, each one with different abilities. It was followed by a sequel, titled Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, in 2007.
Gameplay[]
GameCube version[]
In Ultimate Spider-Man, the player can experience a free-roaming city environment that covers Manhattan and Queens. You start in story-mode where the game automatically switches between Spider-Man and Venom. Spider-Man travels by web swinging, and attacks using acrobatic attacks. Venom travels by using his tentacles to pull himself and by performing massive jumps. Venom attacks using his claws and tentacles. Venom can also throw cars at targets and perform much more brutal attacks, including "eating" people. However the player must shoot a web at an actual building to swing, much like its previous game Spider-Man 2.
As the game progresses, Parker/Spider-Man and the player will have certain City Goals to accomplish in order to continue the storyline.
There are additional activities throughout the game such as finding secret tokens, landmark tokens, comic book covers and competing in trick races.
City Goals[]
Basically a menu for the player to check out how many tokens they have collected, and how many combat tours, races and city events that they have completed. It also tells the player what goals must be completed before the story can continue.
Message Log[]
Every message that appears onscreen during game play appears here and is accessible through the pause menu.
Unlockables[]
This menu shows how many things the player has unlocked through interacting with other non-playable characters, tokens collected, landmarks visited, etc. All unlockables are viewed as a colored question mark and once unlocked is replaced by a pictures.
Game Boy Advance version[]
The Game Boy Advance version of Ultimate Spider-Man is a side-scroller, divided into seven "issues", each containing three chapters, the game allows players to control Spider-Man and Venom. This version features only three boss characters aside from the two leads: Shocker, Silver Sable and Carnage (technically, there are only two bosses since Shocker only briefly appears and you don't ever fight him).
Unlike the Console, PC, or Nintendo DS games, this version features a limited supply of Spider-Man's web fluid, it can be refilled only by picking up special markers scattered throughout levels, or dropped by enemies.
Additionally, players may choose to collect hidden power-ups to gain more web fluid capacity or gain new moves and abilities for both Spider-Man and Venom.
Nintendo DS version[]
The Nintendo DS version of Ultimate Spider-Man is a side-scroller with a 3D environment. The game allows players to control Spider-Man and Venom.
The gameplay greatly differs between both characters:
In Spider-Man levels, most of the game happens on the top screen and the touch screen is only used for selecting special attacks and operating certain objects (moving heavy objects, opening broken elevator door). In Venom levels, the game switches to the touch screen, enabling players to use Venom's tentacles to throw objects or enemies, and even attack by tapping the screen. The game features a slightly modified storyline, for example, players will face Shocker in a strangely challenging battle, despite the comical nature of the character.
The game also features a multiplayer mode, where players can unlock different characters and arenas for a head-to-head fight.
Plot[]
The game starts with a recap of what happened in the Venom storyline and Peter Parker's first fight with Venom before he disappeared, which had Peter and Venom fight from the high school football field on a rainy night and then the battle spans over to the middle of a street where Venom is believed to be killed by a downed, live power line in Peter's point of view.
Three months later, Peter Parker has re assumed his normal life and has forgotten about Eddie who is actually alive and has been feeding on people randomly in a nearby park and proves his strength in a fight with Wolverine, who was the owner of a motorbike Venom threw through a bar.
After a fight with a version. 2 of the R.H.I.N.O., Spider-Man gets his first foreshadowing of Eddie returning when his Spider-Sense overloads. That night, Silver Sable and her Wild Pack attack Venom who easily escapes. During a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Peter gets his "Eddie headaches" again and fights his former friend on the roof. However, Venom is later captured by Silver Sable.
Kept imprisoned in an energy cage, Bolivar Trask and Adrian Toomes convince Eddie to test the Suit for them as they knew Eddie and Peter's parents. His first test is going up against the recently escaped Electro where they fight over a knocked out Spider-Man in Times Square. S.H.I.E.L.D. interferes and Venom escapes, yet he goes back to Trask where he reveals to Silver Sable that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. He then transforms and is chased away by the Wild Pack.
Meanwhile, a Latverian Mercenary who calls himself the Beetle attacks New York by freeing the Green Goblin who Spider-Man defeats, and chasing Venom for a sample of the Suit, yet Venom eventually defeats him. Silver Sable then fires a tranquilizer at Peter Parker and tries to bring him to Trask yet Peter awakens and they fight above the Queensboro Bridge before Venom appears and knocks Sable out. Spider-Man and Venom fight yet both go down due to Spider-Man knocking Eddie out and the tranquilizer that Silver Sable fired at Peter take effect.
Eddie awakens inside Trask Industries due to hearing Peter screaming as Toomes injected him with their own makeshift sample of the Venom Suit, transforming him into Carnage. Venom then absorbs Carnage and spits Peter out again. The combination of the Carnage Suit and the leftover Venom samples in Peter's blood, Eddie believes he now has complete control over the Suit (along with the white spider-symbol that appeared on Peter's version when he transformed). Trask finally gives Peter files on their parents yet takes them while trying to flee from an angry Venom yet he does not know how to fly the helicopter and his contract with Silver Sable has expired. Venom is eventually defeated but escapes.
As S.H.I.E.L.D. arrive, Peter reads the files and discovers that the reason for their parents' plane crash was due to Eddie Brock Sr. trying on the Venom Suit onboard. There were only 3 survivors and one of the witnesses was Peter's mother who died in the ambulance. Eddie is distraught that after all Trask made him do, all he got was 3 years in a golf course prison, so he transforms and kills him. Peter then confesses to Mary Jane Watson that he knows Eddie is alive and a prisoner in the Suit.
Comparison with the comic[]
The game takes place three months after the events of the "Ultimate Venom" arc (Ultimate Spider-Man #33-38), and events within the game suggest the events of Ultimate Six have already passed, since the Green Goblin is found in a cryogenic cell and Sandman is in a vial. Electro is somehow free, despite having been apprehended by S.H.I.E.L.D. Kraven the Hunter's billboards can be seen around the city, which was mentioned in Ultimate Six. Eddie seems to have survived by lying low and staying away from Peter Parker, and picking off random victims to sustain his own existence.
At the time the game came out the most logical point for the game's story to take place between the Superstars and Hobgoblin arcs. (Between issues 71 and 72) A few months later Marvel.com advertised the Silver Sable arc as being the follow-up to the Ultimate Spider-Man video game. However, in this arc, not only are no parts of the game acknowledged, but Sable kidnaps Flash Thompson thinking he's Spider-Man. In the game, Sable knows not only Peter Parker is Spider-Man, but kidnaps and fights him out of costume.
The game was adapted into the story arc, "War of the Symbiotes" (Ultimate Spider-Man #123-128). Events in this storyline happen in a different order, with some events, such as Peter's transformation into Carnage, being ignored. It can be taken that the video game is now out of continuity.
Bosses[]
- Wolverine
- Rhino
- Shocker
- Green Goblin
- Electro
- Beetle
- Carnage
- Venom
- Silver Sable
Development[]
Reception[]
Ultimate Spider-Manreceived "generally positive" and "mixed or average" reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic.
CiN Weekly gave it a score of 88 out of 100 and stated that "The true letdown... is that the master villains can still be supremely frustrating to defeat, requiring several replays and exhaustive bouts of highly patterned attacks". The New York Times gave it a positive-to-average review and said that the game was "very entertaining, and the addition of Nemesis creates some interesting new situations, but over all there isn't a lot of variety; you fight, you race, you ramble around the city, and then you do it all again". The Sydney Morning Herald gave it three-and-a-half stars out of five and stated that "combat against dim-witted goons can become repetitive but missions offer diversity".
Legacy
The premise of making a comic book styled Spider-Man game led to inspire other games such as 2010's Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.
Gallery[]
| Main article: Ultimate Spider-Man/gallery |
External links[]
- Ultimate Spider-Man at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Ultimate Spider-Man (GameCube) at GameFAQs
- Ultimate Spider-Man (GBA/DS) at MobyGames
| Spider-Man series | |
|---|---|
| Console games | Return of the Sinister Six • Arcade's Revenge • Maximum Carnage • The Animated Series • Lethal Foes • Seperation Anxiety • Spider-Man (N64) • The Movie • Spider-Man 2 • Spider-Man 3 • Ultimate • Friend or Foe • Web of Shadows • Shattered Dimensions • Edge of Time • The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) • The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) |
| Handheld games | The Amazing Spider-Man (Game Boy) • The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Game Boy) • Invasion of Spider-Slayers • Spider-Man (GBC) • The Sinister Six • Mysterio's Menace • Battle for New York |
| Related | Acclaim • Activision • Neversoft • Treyarch |