Everyones friendly neighborhood Spider-Man steps out into the streets to keep his foes at bay. In an interesting twist, you will also be controlling the villain as the Goblin reigns destruction on the unsuspecting citizens of New York. For those howev...
Everyones friendly neighborhood Spider-Man steps out into the streets to keep his foes at bay. In an interesting twist, you will also be controlling the villain as the Goblin reigns destruction on the unsuspecting citizens of New York. For those however who are not familiar with the Marvel Ultimate continuity and are wondering why the Green Goblin looks more like the Incredible Hulk, you might need to do a bit of reading beforehand.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Spider-Man]
Spider-Man Battle For New York is essentially a level based brawler, and sees you controlling either Spider-Man or the Green Goblin as they run through a linear level completing various objectives, such as saving citizens, destroying a research facility or just engaging in plain ol’ fisty cuffs.
BFNY contains some really clever level designs that play well with using the two characters. In an early level you control the Goblin as he destroys Peter Parkers School, setting fire to science rooms and knocking down supporting pillars. Then with Spider-Man at your control you will need to run through the carnage to rescue trapped students and avoid the carnage you created previously. Its a great concept that works well and the game puts it to good use in various stages.
Keeping the streets clean
As you would expect when a game has two controllable characters, a player will generally like using one more then the other. With BFNY, its hard to imagine anyone enjoying using the Goblin more then Spider-Man. Whilst spidey is agile, can duck attacks whilst jumping, zip up to the ceiling at a minutes notice and generally take care of himself, the Goblin is slow, cumbersome and features no way of blocking attacks.
This leads to some clumsy mechanics. It is an absolute blast when playing as the Goblin to pick up policemen and S.H.I.E.L.D agents, pummeling them before throwing them over the edge of buildings or into laser traps (my personal favourite). However you’ll quickly discover that Goblin has a very limiting arsenal. For one, he can’t kick, and jumping and shooting a fireball upwards is also out of his skill set. The lack of aforementioned block manoeuvre is equally infuriating, especially being as when you fight the Goblin as Spider-Man he constantly blocks your attacks.
Spider-Man on the other hand is an absolute joy to control, and users will quickly get used to zipping through the city, tangling up some foes in webbing, and using the generally well developed fighting system to deliver swift and brutal justice. You just come out of his levels wondering why developer Torus Games didn’t ditch the Goblin and focus entirely on Spider-Man levels.
Goblin angry, use fireball
A fantastic mix of 3D characters and environments set in a linear motion path; BFNY really does look the part. Sporting a semi-cell shaded look, the game also runs at a smooth frame rate, only slowing down when lots of enemies get on screen at once.Comic book style drawn screens tell the story in-between levels and they do a nice job. The Treyarch engine shows real promise and should be able to be expanded on in the future to be a thing of beauty on the DS.
Ow my ears!
Unfortunately, sound is not one of the strong points of BFNY. The DS speakers don’t lend any support, and things only get worse when you plug in headphones, as the heavily compressed sound effects and voice acting only ring through clearer. Strange audio glitches also occur spasmodically where a background noise continues playing when the character has moved far away from the source. Overall, you’ll be wishing the game was on a bigger cart so the audio quality didn’t have to take such a hit.
Doing it web crawler style
BFNY is a real mix of a game. Whilst the Spider-Man levels are an absolute joy to blast through, the Goblin just cannot keep the momentum going when he gets his chance in the spotlight. Fans of the Ultimate Spider-Man universe and of previous Spider-Man DS games are going to love his latest outings, whereas those new to the series might find it a bit too clunky in parts.
In the end, BFNY is a very enjoyable romp, and is also a great stepping-stone for this well-established Australian developer to expand on in the future. It would be great to see them take another crack at the series to really distill what makes BFNY an enjoyable experience.
It's happening (they told us it would).
Social Media sucks, let's make a new one?
No rush, you got until June 30th.
So much Shovel Knight.