Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions - Playstation 3 (PS3), Xbox 360 (360) Previews


	Platform Playstation 3, Xbox 360 Genre Action Publisher Activision Developer Beenox ETA September 7, 2010
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Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions

Anything that begins with the shattering of a mystical nick-nack, The Tablet of Order, sounds more like the setup of a D&D style games, complete with dragons and orcs. But this is Spider-Man and the setup is just an excuse to showcase Spidey in his various comic book forms.

Right off the mark, I became more interested in Shattered Dimensions after it was revealed that it's a "closed sandbox." That is, there's still plenty of space to really put Spider-Man's arsenal to use but there's no free-roaming involved. If you played

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine, you'll have a good understanding of how this will play out. The developer assured me that even though the game follows a linear path, there will still be plenty of exploration (and I'm assuming many unlockable extras).

Three of the four "dimensions" were shown during my E3 demo. (The final dimension will be revealed in July at

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Comicon.) All of them had a very distinct visual style, with my favorite being the animated "classic" version of Spidey, which features ridiculous web abilities and a very comic book look to it. Having been on the very fringes of comics for the last number of years, the Noir universe was the biggest surprise. That portion of the game leaned on stealth and striking from the shadows and the visuals are interesting. I never took a liking to the whole 2099 universe, nevermind Spider-Man, but even this part of the game looked good. The towering futuristic cityscape, with so much neon and flying cars, was in contrast to how I remembered the comic book, which I recall having a darker color scheme.

The 2099 environment, besides showcasing Hobgoblin, also gave a glimpse of guest star characters that might appear along the way. Some of the billboards flashed images of Wolverine, Hulk, and Black Cat. The developers wouldn't confirm anything, instead stating that "there's a big roster of Marvel characters that will show up."

Because the emphasis of the three areas varied so wildly -- action, stealth, speed -- I asked about how the combat elements might differ between dimensions. If I'm really awesome at performing combos with Spider-Man 2099, will that same combo experience extend to the other dimensions? It will. The results might be different but the skills from one to the other are transferable. And thankfully, I don't remember seeing any quick-time events.

The developers also made it clear that they have listened to what players liked and disliked about previous Spider-Man titles.

I'd say that the much more directed design is evidence of this. Many of the open world Spider-Man games all suffered from the same problem of a big city with nothing that interesting to get involved with other than the main story missions. By focusing on a linear route through the story, there's far more opportunity for epic set pieces and puzzles.

Look for Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions to launch on September 7, 2010.

- Aaron Simmer

(June 23, 2010)