Spider-Man 2 DS
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Vicarious Visions
Release Date: November 16, 2004

I hadn’t really bought into much of the Nintendo DS hype until I got to play one. In my case, that game was Spider-Man 2 DS, a 2.5D action-platformer that’s based loosely upon last summer’s movie.

Spider-Man 2 DS is a bit like the old 2D Spider-Man games on the Game Boy, in that you control Spidey in an essentially 2D world. Unlike those earlier games, though, the environment is fully rendered in 3D, so as you run from right to left, it’ll turn and twist behind you. An average level is a maze, constructed both horizontally and vertically, so you’ll have to explore and find your way past a variety of dangers, enemies, and traps.

Vicarious Visions has used the DS’s dual screens to construct a very accessible, surprisingly difficult game, with the action unfolding on the top screen and the touchscreen controlling your moveslist. Rather than having to memorize and master a long series of move and button combinations, you can get Spidey to pull off his more complicated moves and combos by tapping the touchscreen with your stylus. It sounds a little cumbersome, but once you get used to it, it’s actually really useful.

Spidey’s still got a small arsenal of “ordinary” moves, like punches, kicks, a running uppercut, impact webbing, “web-zipping” (which renders him briefly invincible, letting you dive harmlessly through fire or past live wires), and, of course, web-slinging. Your web-based powers run off a special power meter, which’ll gradually recharge over time. The impact webbing’s particularly powerful, but it also drains the meter like crazy.

You start off with your basic moveslist and a couple of special techniques, and you can unlock new ones by meeting certain mission guidelines (finish the level within a time limit, defeat all the enemies, don’t get hit, find a hidden objective, etc.).

There are fourteen stages in Spider-Man 2 DS, each with two special mission objectives, and like the last games, they’re made up of both original levels and ones inspired by the events in the movie. The fight with Doctor Octopus on top of a commuter train is in here, but you’ll also trade punches with Mysterio, fight a vastly upgraded version of the Vulture, and plow through the usual gangs of thugs.

When you fight one of the supervillains, you’ll find that not only does their AI change as they take damage, but each of them has their own associated minigame. While fighting Doc Ock or the Vulture, they’ll usually back off at some point and start throwing things at you from a distance, like chunks of debris or homing missiles; this is your cue to look to the touchscreen, where a shooting game like Area 51 has started up. By tapping the touchscreen, you can knock the incoming missiles out of the air before they hit Spider-Man. Mysterio, on the other hand, will swarm you with holographic duplicates, so you have to nail them with your stylus to find the real one. Other touchscreen minigames involve defusing bombs, or defeating lesser enemies by poking at their weak spots.

Spider-Man 2 is set to be one of the DS’s launch titles, and it’s a useful barometer of what the DS can accomplish. If you’ve been wondering what the system can do, this’s a pretty good example; it takes the memorization and guesswork out of a combo-based fighting system, so you can just pick it up and play. I’ll definitely be picking this up along with my DS on launch day.