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Two screens, touch sensitive actions, and a sweet looking 3D engine that runs at a constant 60 fps; these are the best aspects of Spider-Man 2 for the DS, while frustrating design, a few implementation issues, and a lack of overall use of the DS’ unique features are its shortcomings. Does the good outweigh the bad, or does Spider-Mans first DS outing fall short of amazing?

Spider-Man 2 for the DS follows the same basic story as the home console versions of the same name. Each takes a few liberties with the storyline from the motion picture by adding a few new enemies here and there for variety, but largely stays on track with the movie. As I’m sure you could guess, the DS version of Spider-Man 2 doesn’t follow the same ‘go anywhere’ gameplay design of the console versions, but instead opts for a gorgeous 3D engine and blends it with 2D movement (think Viewtiful Joe). The design works extremely well, and runs smooth as you could possibly hope. But while Spider-Man 2 may look amazing on the surface, there are a few issues with the actual gameplay that ruin an otherwise great gaming experience.

Every level in Spider-Man 2 requires you to complete a set of objectives, sometimes rescuing hostages, sometimes taking out every enemy in the level, sometimes even flipping switches or defusing bombs. Oftentimes, the game puts you on a time limit to complete your tasks, which causes you to feel like you need to rush (because you pretty much do). The biggest and most obvious issue with Spider-Man 2 is the complete and total lack of any kind of compass or radar to let you know what direction your objectives are in. This issue, coupled with the time limit on most of the games levels leads to a lot of added frustration while playing the game due to multiple mission failures at the expense of the timer, often with only 1 or 2 more hostages to rescue, enemies to kill, or whatever.

This issue becomes even more obvious once you realize that a lot of the games objectives require you to search every nook and cranny of the level you’re in. Often times you can find that last remaining hostage hidden away in a far off corner, or in a room that you have to access through a vent in the ceiling, etc. Tricky objective hiding spots would usually be welcome, helping add to the difficulty level, but the addition of the timer, and lack of compass are already too much as it stands, making the game a real test of your patience.

Completing objectives is only half of Spider-Man 2 though, with the other half being combat. To Vicarious Visions’ credit, it’s pretty much impossible to create a combat system quite as deep as the console versions on a handheld, but the system they came up with works fairly well. Armed with a selection of punches and kicks, you also have access to 8 special moves, 2 of which you begin with, 6 you have to unlock by completing certain levels within a set time (often much shorter than the levels full timer). This would have been a decent way of implementing character progression, but given the fact that the games levels are often hard enough to beat within the overall time given to you, making you go back to beat it in ½ the time to unlock a new move seems unfair at best.

Along for the ride from the console versions is the ‘spider-sense’ slow motion mechanism, though it doesn’t play as well on the DS as it does on its big screen brethren. During combat, Spider-Man’s ‘spider-sense’ will go off just before you get hit by an enemy, and I do mean just. I’d have to estimate that about 80% of the time, activating the spider sense rewards you with a slow motion view of Spider-Man being hit by an enemy. This is thanks to the fact that by the time your spider-sense warning goes up, it’s usually too late to avoid the attack anyway.

The levels in the game are usually nicely put together, offering up plenty of opportunities to take advantage of Spider-Mans unique abilities such as wall-crawling or web slinging. You’ll be taken through numerous different locales during the course of the game, including city streets, a history museum, and burning buildings, just to name a few. Each level is well detailed and presented in full 3D.

The DS is a very unique system with some great features to take advantage of, but it almost seems like Vicarious forgot all about them. For the majority of the time, the touch screen serves only as a showcase for your mission objectives, and touch sensitive selection for your special attacks. During a few missions, or boss fights, the touch screen becomes home to mini-games, such as swiping away debris being thrown at you by Doctor Octopus, or pulling a fuse from a bomb. The touch screen is under-used overall, and when it is used, it feels like it’s just been thrown in so Vicarious could say that included it.

Spider-Man 2 is easily among the best looking DS games so far (not that it has much to compete with), with its beautiful 3D engine never faltering once during the course of the game, and always running at a silky 60 fps. The whole game features bold colors, especially on Spidey himself, and the games numerous bosses. Spider-Man animates extremely fluently, and has a fair number of animations. NPC characters such as bosses and normal in-level enemies also animate well, but have an obvious lesser number of animations to look at. Even on the DS’ small screen, the whole game is presented with a great attention to detail rarely seen in handheld games thus far, the DS’s current library included.

The audio in Spider-Man 2 isn’t quite as quick to impress, however. Consisting largely of generic rock beats, the games soundtrack is easily forgettable. Sound effects have a likewise general feel to them, and do little to differentiate themselves from the sound effects of the hundreds of other handheld action games on the market today. Voice acting is for the most part non-existent, with the exception of enemies shouting ‘Hey!’ whenever they notice you. Overall, the audio isn’t bad, it’s just not that thrilling.

So what we’re left with at the end of it all is a visual showcase of the kind of power the DS has under its hood, with a decent, yet flawed action game attached for the ride. The small issues in gameplay are fundamental points that really make or break a game, which is a shame, because the majority of Spider-Man 2 is enjoyable. Had VV had an extra month or so to work on the title, I think the present issues could have been tweaked enough to create a much better experience than the one we got, but instead, it feels like certain elements were rushed to help meet the launch deadline.