Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Spider-Man: Edge of Time
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Within the past couple months I finally started reading the old Spider-Man 2099 comics from the early-90s. Never got to when I was a kid, yet the image of him has always remained ingrained in my head as an iconic reminder of the 90s; always gives me a warm, squishy feeling, the same way Genesis games, the X-Files, and Batman the Animated Series do. Low and behold I'm loving the hell out of the comics, so what better time than now to try out Miguel O'Hara's only legitimate appearances in gaming?
Shattered Dimensions actually features four versions of Spidey: Amazing (regular ol' modern-day Peter Parker), Ultimate (teenage, wearing the symbiotic black suit), Noir (an angsty 1930s version fighting gangsters), and of course 2099. The game is essentially split up into episodic levels (unlike the usual open-world mold that most Spidey games aim for), with only a loose shell of a story linking them together. And while the story is nothing particularly engaging, the dialogue is, on occasion, genuinely funny and entertaining. Weak story or not, it's still enjoyable hearing all the well-written chatter left and right. It's a good sign to me that the writer of this one, Dan Slott, is apparently also the writer of the new Insomniac-developed Spider-Man game coming to PS4, so I'm looking forward to that a little more now.
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Gameplay remains relatively the same between the characters (run around levels, beat up badguys, move on), with the one really notable exception being the Noir version. Instead of being all-out action, his levels are generally stealth-based. It's not the greatest stealth in the world, but the extra spice is always welcome when it pops up. And, if anything, I am really surprised by how much I liked this version of the character. I'm not particularly jazzed about reading the comics he's from (they're a byproduct of Marvel's post-2000 "cash in on whatever's hip" mentality, and apparently Sin City was on the brain when they did this), but his setup is still surprisingly engaging.
Regardless, I still had the most fun playing as Spidey 2099, since he was the whole reason I started this to begin with. He does have an occasional mechanic that pops up from time to time which is really cool, in which he'll go into free-fall and have to dodge objects and fight a boss, but it's used very, very sparingly; too sparingly, if I'm entirely honest.
And while the idea behind the voice casting for the different Spideys is great (they basically cast all the actors who have played him in old cartoons and whatnot), I think the 2099 version is horribly miscast. He's too jokey/goofy, and sounds like an old white guy making jokes to his grandkids. Kind of strange for a character who's supposed to be a half-Mexican 20-something.
Last note, Shattered Dimensions is also the first place where Nolan North got to voice Deadpool, which he would later do in the official Deadpool game itself. Perfect casting. Can't wait to play the Deadpool game now, if only to hear more of that.
Edge of Time carries over most of the same gameplay from Shattered Dimensions, though now it's no longer necessarily level-based. Or rather, the levels aren't split up and accessed from a menu this time. One scene organically flows into the next, and it feels much more cohesive, less disjointed. It's just one genuinely exciting action scene and race against death after another, and it doesn't let up for hours. It's pretty great.
This time around, rather than jumping between dimensions, we instead see Spider-Man 2099 communicating with modern-day Spidey through time, usually with one getting into a jam and the other having to take measures to affect the future and change things in some way. It's a fun dynamic, though it's all very, very scripted; this ain't no sandbox.
Speaking of scripting, this one is written by Peter David, original creator of Spidey 2099, so everything feels really, really spot-on in that regard. Miguel O'Hara was also recast, so he sounds a helluva lot more like I've been imagining him as I read the comics.
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Overall, even more than Shattered Dimensions, this was the game I really needed to scratch that itch I had. It's hard to imagine there'll ever be much more in the way of Miguel O'Hara as a main protagonist in a videogame, so this was a helluva lot of fun, and a real treat for a comics dork like me, who actually thinks stuff from the 90s was pretty rad.
If only we could get a genuine open-world Spidey 2099 game; man, the freakin possibilities.