Reilly2040's Blog

So, I’ve managed to tear myself away from Star Trek Online (briefly) to pick up some PS3 gaming.  And my latest purchase is the new Spider-Man game, Shattered Dimensions.

I do love a good Spider-Man game.  For my money, the best one money could buy was the Spider-Man game on the PS1, however subsequent games brought in some fun innovations.  Spider-Man 2 on the PS2 had the rendered version of Manhatten, and the reworked web slinging mechanics, which was great fun just web swinging around, although the missions themselves didn’t work too well, often distracting from the web swinging fun.

With this latest game, the developers decided to take a step backwards with the gameplay style.  Out goes the free-roaming Manhatten, and back in comes a more traditional level structure.  And I have to say, I think the game is all the better for it, as it allows them to build up a stronger narrative that the free-roaming makes trickier to do.

However, they’ve also introduced something else that I don’t think any other Spider-Man game so far has done.  Rather than focus exclusively on the traditional Peter Parker Spider-Man, the developers decided to embrace the Marvel Universes in all their shapes and forms, and have set the game across 4 distinct universes in the form of Amazing, Ultimate, Noir and, much to my delight, 2099.  Its another reason for abandoning the free roaming aspect, as coming up with four distinctive cities would’ve been a huge undertaking and possibly not worked as well, with the players having to get acquainted with all four, rather than learning every nook and cranny of the previous digital Manhattens.

There’s a lot of love gone into developing these different Spider-Men.  For a start, just that the game brought them all in was terrific, but then they brought in some great voice acting talent as well, as various Spider-Man voice actors from previous cartoons all get to play each of the distinct Spider-Men.  Neil Patrick Harris (who voiced the character in the 2003 MTV cartoon) takes on the main Amazing Spider-Man, Josh Keaton (who voiced the 2008 Spectacular Spider-Man) providing the voice of Ultimate Spider-Man, Christopher Daniel Barnes (from the brilliant 1994 animated series) voicing Spider-Man Noir, and the one I got a real kick out of was hearing Dan Gilvezan voice Spider-Man 2099.  A voice very familiar from my youth, as he voiced Spider-Man in  Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends.  Just brilliant!

The script as well is full of nice nods, with Spider-Man 2099 in particular quickly building up his world by mentioning Alchemax and the Public Eye being some of the first baddies you need to beat.  As Madame Web augments each of the Spider-Mens powers (explaining the game’s implementation of Spider Sense), you’ve also got Noir mentioning that she’s upgraded his web slinging and wall crawling powers (I’ve only read issues 1 and 2 of that series, so I have to assume they were traditional powers that this incarnation lacked).

So far, I’ve completed the tutorial levels, and the Kraven and Hobgoblin 2099 levels, so I’m not that far into it, but my first impressions are overwhelmingly positive.  As well as the above, you’re automatically invited into the game by a great voiceover from Stan Lee.  Something that’s been omitted from the last few Spidey games I’ve played, and was really welcome to hear.  From the tutorials, most of the Spider-Men are pretty similar, however as you go on, you unlock additional powers and bonuses that’ll start to to set them apart more, building on their unique backgrounds For example, Spider-Man 2099 gets accelerated vision powers, while Ultimate Spider-Man gets strength bonuses from the symbiote suit he’s wearing (to differentiate him from Amazing Spider-Man and explained in the plot as being Madame Web’s doing).

Totally different though, is Spider-Man Noir.  Weaker than his counterparts, this Spider-Man is much more stealth oriented.  To a large extent, its in these sections that the impact of Batman: Arkham Asylum is felt, as the designers have clearly borrowed from its gameplay.  You’re invited to stick to the shadows, zipping from vantage point to vantage point with your webbing, silently taking out enemies using stealth attacks in much the same way as Batman.

The main difference though is Spider-Man Noir is a lot less tough than his caped counterpart, so if you get into a fight with even one enemy goon, odds are you’re taking a kicking unless you can get out of there.  Batman was more forgiving in this regard in that you could tend to fight your way out of smaller groups (as long as they didn’t have guns).  I could see this having the potential to get a bit frustrating depending on how these levels are laid out later in the game, but at least in the initial tutorials its fun, and helps add some variety to the game.

There’s also thought been given to replayability.  The game includes what it calls, the Web of Destiny, which effectively charts the various challenges available in the game throughout the various levels.  Completing challenges unlocks the next set of challenges, but also gains you points and opens up new sets of unlocks you can purchase to add new abilities to the Spider-Men, boost their stats, or provide them with a range of different costumes.

Its not all roses in the game.  There’s a familiar bugbear with these games which again raises its head which is the in-game camera.  The viewpoint for the game is the traditional third person, however as you start quickly web swinging around and changing direction, the camera can get confused which can sometimes get you a bit stuck until you can find a ledge to rest on and get your bearings.  For me though, the great, solid fun that the game has been so far outweighs this.

So overall, so far I’m really enjoying the game.  The audio is top notch and has loads of recognisable voices, the graphics are great, and the different dimensions have their own identities and keep things interesting.  From what I’ve seen I’d really recommend the game.

I’m quite excited about this upcoming Spider-Man game.  I’ve got fond memories of the Spider-Man games on the PS1 which excellently captured the character, and were filled with loads of fun unlockables.  I played those games a lot.  Then on the PS2 I bought the first two movie games, with the second having that great free roaming aspect as you swung your way around Manhatten (the best bit of the game in truth, the missions just distracted from it).

So I really hope this game brings a similar great feeling of having captured what it would be like to be Spider-Man, to the next generation consoles.   And its got different costumes in it which catches my attention straight away.  Especially the unexpected appearance of Spider-Man 2099.   I’ve seen that the Scarlet Spider can be unlocked too.

Can’t wait for the first reviews and demos to appear.  The game’s got a lot to live up to, especially with the recent Wolverine and Batman games being great fun.

Timestorm #2 saw Miguel O’Hara get his powers, and his origin is expanded on further here, whereby, after discovering his new powers, he quickly finds himself caught up in a battle against the new Scorpion 2099 with the original Spider-Man (who escapes from the Public Eye with embarassing ease).

The big problem is the reinvention of Miguel O’Hara.  This seems like a move designed only to push away those fans of the original 2099.

 In issue 1 I was praising how Brian Reed had taken the original comics and crafted a new world that was similar enough to the old 2099 to still be appealing while doing something new.   However, with Miguel O’Hara he’s scored an amazing own-goal, by completely ditching the original character in favour of turning him into a carbon copy of Peter Parker.  I really have to wonder what the point of that is?  The point of Miguel was that he was the exact opposite to Peter Parker.  When Peter got powers he was a kid, so Miguel was an adult.  Peter was quiet out of costume, mouthy in-costume, so Miguel was quiet in-costume and mouthy out of it.  Frankly this seems like a huge disservice to the character and is in danger of putting me off this whole Timestorm mini-series.

(Not to mention Miguel’s powers seem to have now changed to be more like the original Spider-Man’s.  He still possesses the organic webshooters of the original Miguel, however there’s no sign of his signature talons, aside from a scene where Miguel has managed to destroy his shoes which suggests they may be there, and this Miguel now has Peter’s signature spider-sense.)

I could’ve lived with Miguel now being younger if his character could’ve at least been recognisable, but sadly no.

I didn’t mind the way in which he and Kron got their powers.  The fact they were doing a school experiment in genetic alteration when caught in an explosion I thought worked quite well, managing to provide a way to explain their powers within a busy, 4-issue series, and also to give us a look at a genuinely futuristic approach to schoolwork.  Okay, it doesn’t beat the original, but then Miguel’s original origin had the benefit of 3 issues dedicated to it.

One thing about this I did enjoy though, was the elder, more experienced Peter coaching Miguel in the use of his powers.   Miguel has literally just discovered his new abilities when he’s caught by Spider-Man (during a failed web-swing) and then drawn into the fight against the Scorpion (the less-fortunate Kron Stone).  The scenes where Peter gives Miguel advice in how to sling webs more accurately and control his web-swinging I thought worked well and were quite fun.   Similarly I thought Kron’s transformation into Scorpion 2099 worked well played against Miguel’s own transformation.  The horror factor of Kron’s mutation helps underline how much worse Miguel could’ve had things.

I’m still onboard for this event, and I still think that overall this reimagining of the 2099 universe has some legs.  But there’s no denying that the character that was arguably the signature character of the 2099 universe has been mishandled for this reader.  The strength, for me, in what Brian Reed had done so far was to take the original and retell it while retaining recognisable aspects.  With Spider-Man 2099, there’s not really any aspect of the character other than the costume (which also lacks the explanation of the original – the fact that Miguel choses such a radically different costume to Peter’s isn’t really that well covered) that’s recognisable as anything other than Peter Parker.  And that’s a real shame.

Several weeks late for some reason, but Timestorm finally showed up in my comic book shop this week.

Its so nice to see the 2099 universe back.  Well, sort of.  

This is a reboot of the 2099 universe, however it shares more similarity with the original than the reboot a few years back did.  Brian Reed has created a universe that contains a great many differences to the original, however still feels familiar, thanks to familiar sights and characters such as Alchemax and Tyler Stone.

The story finds Jake Gallows (familiar to fans of the original 2099 as the off-his-rocker Punisher 2099) sent back in time.  He thinks its by Thor, however we find out that its actually Tyler Stone, seeking to alter events for his own purposes, using a time sphere created by a Dr George O’Hara.  Jake has been sent back to kill off superheroes, however what he doesn’t know is that when he kills them, they’re actually being transported to the future world of 2099.  First to encounter him is Spider-Man, who ends up in the future, and quickly locked up by the Public Eye.

There’s a lot of differences in this version of 2099.  While Alchemax and Tyler Stone appear pretty constant, everything else has a different, if sometimes familiar, spin on it.  George O’Hara is now Stone’s top physicist, responsible for the time sphere Tyler is using, which was created so they could attempt to discover the missing pages from their history (a nice callback to the original 2099 which also had big holes in its history to allow for wiggle room with the present day Marvel Universe).   Miguel is present, but is only a teenager, which makes me wonder if this version of Spider-Man 2099 will be closer to the original Peter Parker Spider-Man, which I hope not.  

Familiar characters like Kron Stone, Dana (now Kron’s girlfriend), Xina (dating someone called Reilly) and Lyla (still a hologram, but no longer based on Marilyn Monroe and now Tyler’s hologram not Miguel’s) appear, and one reference which gave me a laugh was Rapture appearing as an energy drink, with an advertisting campaign fronted by Captain America.    

And that’s something interesting about this 2099.  The Age of Heroes in the previous 2099 was something of a curiousity and appealed to the scientific characters, however in this 2099 Superheroes are everywhere.  Not just the Church of Thor, but Iron Man appears front and centre on Stark Fujikawa posters (for armaments!), Cap is hawking energy drinks and Spider-Man himself appears on posters.  Even the Public Eye now bear very familiar Punisher motifs.   This is a world where the Age of Heroes is treated like we treat celebrities, with familiar faces, being resurrected for adverts.

I really enjoyed this first issue, and despite the differences, its really nice to see these (mostly) familiar characters back again, and while a reboot, its one that feels truer to the original 2099, rather than the last one which just used the name.   The only thing I’ve got reservations about is the much younger Miguel, but we’ll see how that pans out.   There’s an element of time-mangling going on here with Jake Gallows back in the present day zapping heroes, so that could cause this world of 2099 to change to become more like the classic one.   Interestingly there’s a profile of the original Spider-Man 2099 included in the book, which I found a bit odd, given the fact that this is a new take, so I wonder if that’s significant, or just a gift to the 2099 fans.

Something that’s quickly become a series I’m really looking forward to is the 4-part Timestorm 2009-2099 miniseries Marvel will be releasing.

Revisiting the world of 2099, the solicit has events in 2009 causing the worlds of 2009 and 2099 to collide. Its something we’ve seen previously in the Spider-Man meets Spider-Man 2099 one-shot, but of course, that was a few years ago now, and Spider-Man specific. This time the whole 2099 universe is getting involved.

And Newsarama have a preview of the first issue here.

As I mentioned previously, I was a huge fan of Spider-Man 2099, so revisiting that character and world is something I’m really looking forward to.   Just seeing Jake Gallows (the mad-as-they-come, Punisher 2099) again really brought a smile to my face.

Spider-Man 2099 is one of my all-time favourite comic series. Written largely by Peter David, it follows Miguel O’Hara, one of the top research scientists at a corporation called Alchemax, as he is the victim of a lab accident which gives him powers and he becomes the Spider-Man of the year 2099.

While Spider-Man is hunted by the corporation, Miguel continues at his job, hoping to find a way to reverse what happened to him, and throughout he discovers the harsh realities of the world he lives in,  as Spider-Man becomes a hero to the underclasses who have been forgotten by the corporations who rule this futuristic world.

Its a brilliant series. Peter David did everything he could to make it completely different to the Peter Parker Spider-Man and it works beautifully. The world of 2099 is well-crafted, and there’s a lot to be had from Miguel discovering how sheltered his life has been from working at Alchemax.

The great news then, is that Marvel are going to re-release the series in a set of trades. And to mark this, Newsarama conducted a series of interviews with Peter David, talking about his time on the series, what worked, what didn’t (especially decisions made after he left the title which went against what he’d carefully setup) and what he might do differently today.  Its just a pity they don’t ask him about Flipside.  He was a great villain that sadly only appeared the once, but to me seemed to clearly be setup as the Venom to this Spider-Man.

If you’ve never read it, its well worth taking a look. And you can find the interviews here:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3