Spider-Man: Web of Shadows - Hands On Preview

Who doesn't love a bit of friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man action? Treyarch's envisioning of the film tie-in games has been nigh on inspired over the last few years as the developer has gradually expanded its free-roaming New York City and Spidey's web slinging abilities. Spider-Man 2 and 3 were worth the price just to realise our boyhood dream of swinging through the streets of Manhattan like the superhero himself. But with Activision pining for annual releases of its most successful brands, where now for the game series as we wait another few years for the next film?

"To the comics!" I hear you all cry, and you'd be right. This is what the new development partnership between Treyarch and Shaba Games has opted for, but they've got to be careful here. Activision and Treyarch have been down this road before with the cel-shaded Ultimate Spider-Man. This was a tie-in with the comic book series that re-imagined Spider-Man's annals of back story under the writing talents of Brian Michael Bendis. Both Venom and Spider-Man were playable in a game that was certainly a juicy spin-off to the licensed film titles, but it leaves us wondering where Shaba and Treyarch are going to tread new ground in Web of Shadows' plot.

Symbiotic Relationship

The story draws from the comics once again, although the graphics aren't cel-shaded. In many ways it's a mesh of Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man 3. The plot has similarities to story-arcs in both games (which are in turn drawn from classic Spider-Man comics themselves) while the visuals are certainly more towards Spider-Man 3's realistically depicted game world. Certain touches such as the black suited Spider-Man (more on that in a bit) and the emerging symbiote threat in the game stray towards comic book styling, but these are realistic graphics at the end of the day - it's the next visual step forward from Spider-Man 3.

As with Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man 3, Venom will play a key role in Web of Shadows' story. Once again he is the principle antagonist, although this time you won't be controlling the salamander tongued beast. Instead, he instigates an attack of symbiotes on New York which leads to S.H.I.E.L.D. enforcing a lock down on civilian movements in and out of the city. In non-comic book geek language, that means that Spider-Man will be battling lots of gooey, but very strong and aggressive alien bad guys in a New York City under an authoritarian lockdown.

Similarly to Spider-Man 3, you will get the chance to play as the black suited Spider-Man in Web of Shadows (having bonded with the alien symbiote), although this time around you're free to switch between both red and black suited Spider-Men at any point and each one has different traits in combat. The red suited Spidey is much more adept at ranged combat and uses his web slinging skills to chain combos together and pick out bad guys from a distance. The black suited Spider-Man, on the other hand, is better at melee attacks; he's much more of a brawler than his red counterpart and uses oily tendrils to wallop evildoers into submission. It looks like these more aggressive traits for the black suited Spider-Man will be quite prevalent in the game. For example, another ability that he has over the red suit is that he can lift cars and launch them at enemies. He's that little bit more mischievous and destructive, although this comes at a price: civilians will react more negatively towards a black suited Spider-Man and will tend to avoid him where possible. Activision does assure us, however, that although the city's inhabitants may be more suspicious of the black suit, the symbiote Spidey is still your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man at heart - this is not a good vs. evil affair.

Not content with simply allowing gamers to switch between black and red suits on a whim, Shaba Games has also added some RPG aspects to each suit. Firstly, the game's XP system is affected by the amount of time you spend with each suit, so you can chose to spend all of your time with the black suit and become the ultimate symbiote Spider-Man if you really want to. There will also be separate black and red suited story-arcs and you'll be able to choose between them at different plot points in the game. The route you decide to take will ultimately determine the heroes, villains, and factions that cross your path as the game progresses.

Combat Evolved

Speaking of heroes and villains, during our hands on of Web of Shadows at Leipzig GC we came across one of the heroes that will be assisting you during the game. Luke Cage (voiced by The Wire's Robert Wisdom) bolted into one of the missions and came to our aid by using his hulk like strength to pulverise a few enemies and give us a break from the onslaught. Activision told us that this will form a key feature in the game because as you're introduced to key characters in various missions, they can then be added to your list of allies and you can call upon them whenever you need some extra help.

As far as the villains are concerned, we saw one of the game's boss battles against the nefarious Vulture. He confronted us on top of a skyscraper and instantly began shooting knives at us from his plumage, as you do. This required some pretty sharp avoidance tactics on our part, but the fun had only just begun as the Vulture took to the air and ordered in some hover-boarding minions to aid his attack. Activision took this opportunity to show off some of the new combat features introduced by Shaba games and these are shaping up to be some of the most impressive and substantial improvements for the series' gameplay.

Using the new aerial combat options we were able to sling between each hover-boarded minion and perform a swift attack that knocked the enemy of his board and vaulted us back into the air where we could lock-on to another foot soldier. Thanks to some clever camera work that continuously revolves around the Spider-Man, it's a combat system that works just as well in the air as it does on the ground, or even along the side of a building (helped by the fact that Spidey can now run as well as crawl on walls), finally doing justice to Spider-Man's web slinging abilities in a way that sits well alongside the series' much loved skyscraper traversing.

Timing is the key to mastering the combo system that lies beneath these new combat styles. After locking onto a target, you then press Y (on the 360) to haul them in with a strand of Spidey silk. As you near the enemy there's a brief window when you can press either the Y, X, or B button to perform a variation of attacks, throws, or special moves. As long as you time it right then the bad guy will be dispensed with in your desired manner and you can leap onto the next target. We assume that more complex combos will unlock as the game progresses adding more variation and upping the difficulty once you've mastered the basics. We do know that some of the combos will use the strengths of both red and black suits, which is a mouth watering prospect at the worst of times.

Activision were quick to point out during our hands on that the New York City in Web of Shadows has been re-designed since Spider-Man 3 to have more of a comic book style. As we mentioned earlier, there was some evidence of this during our demo. Activision has also released trailers which show a New York City transformed by the symbiote threat, with black goo dangling between buildings like treacle off a spoon, and this certainly veers turns up the dial of our graphic novel-o-meters. However, it still looks very much like the last film licensed game at the end of the day, although we're glad that Treyarch and Shaba Games have mixed things up a bit (not least with the inclusion of a very 'Golden Age' looking Wolverine in one of the game's mission arcs).

Web of Shadows also has an all star cast lined up for the voice acting of the game's main characters. We mentioned Robert Wisdom's involvement above, but Activision also told us that Spider-Man will be voiced by Michael Vartan (Mike Vaughn in TV's Alias) while Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) is responsible for the femme fatale voice of Black Cat.