Spider-Man 2 (video game)

Spider-Man 2 (ported for the PC as Spider-Man 2: Swing Into Action) is a 2004 action-adventure video game, open world in various iterations, based on the film of the same name, while incorporating additional material from the comic books, namely villains not present in the film like Rhino, Mysterio, Puma, Shocker and Vulture, depending on the platform. It is a follow-up to the 2002 game Spider-Man, itself based on the 2002 film, and incorporates various references to the events of that game. Published by Activision, the console versions were developed by Treyarch; other versions had different developers.

The game was released on June 28, 2004 for the Game Boy Advance, GameCube, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2 and Xbox, followed by N-Gage and Nintendo DS versions, both released later in the same year. A PSP version, which uses the same engine and graphics as the first game, was released almost one year later, on March 23, 2005. The Game Boy Advance version, developed by Digital Eclipse, came in a Twin Pack cartridge bundled with Spider-Man: The Movie in 2005. The console versions of the game (as well as the PC port of those versions) received critical acclaim, with critics praising the realistic like Manhattan and web swinging mechanics. The other versions received mixed reviews.

The game was followed by Spider-Man 3 in 2007, itself based on the film Spider-Man 3.

Gameplay
Spider-Man 2 is in most versions, an open world action-adventure video game, with a few role-playing elements and takes place from a third-person perspective. The Treyarch version of the game allow the player to freely roam around Manhattan, Roosevelt, Ellis, and Liberty Islands. The home console versions were also innovative in that physics-based algorithms simulated Spider-Man's web swinging in three dimensions, creating a new game mechanic unlike the traditional jumping or flying of previous Spider-Man games. The PSP version of Spider-Man 2 was compared to playing the original Spider-Man movie game.

While street thugs only have handguns, machine guns, crowbars and their fists to protect them, the super-villains and their minions have their various unique powers and weapons that they use to either steal, cause terror or defeat Spider-Man. At the end of the game, it becomes possible to unlock a warehouse in which the player can again fight thugs and villains such as Shocker, Rhino, Mysterio, Doctor Octopus, and an additional boss, Calypso, who is not found elsewhere in the game.

The player has the ability to choose either to go on with the storyline or swing around the city. The player can explore Manhattan, Roosevelt Island, Ellis Island, Liberty Island, and a mysterious label on the map over the water claiming "Governors Island" (which was omitted from the final version of the game due to time constraints) with many sidequests for the player to complete. The player can do random tasks to earn "hero points," which must be accumulated to continue with the story.

Treyarch version
Two years after the events of the first game, Peter Parker/Spider-Man is shown to be still having trouble balancing his superhero and civilian lives, frequently being late or absent for school (much to the disappointment of his science teacher, Dr. Curt Connors) and leisure time with his friends, Mary Jane Watson, whom he is attracted to, and Harry Osborn, who hates Spider-Man, believing he murdered his father. One night, after dinner with his friends, Spider-Man stops a museum robbery, during which he meets professional thief Black Cat, with the two eventually becoming allies and working together on several occasions to fight crime.

Besides his jobs as a pizza delivery boy and photographer for the Daily Bugle, Spider-Man contends with supervillains like Rhino, whom he defeats one day on the streets. Spider-Man also beats special effects artists Quentin Beck in a series of "games" meant to prove he is a fault. Embarrassed, Beck later assumes the identity of "Mysterio" and leads attacks on both an opera and the Statue of Liberty, which Spider-Man foils. He soon tracks down Mysterio to his apartment and overcomes a series of challenges, learning that Mysterio is a fraud, despite his escape.

Peter later meets Dr. Otto Octavius through Harry, a respected scientist who is trying to recreate a nuclear fusion that would allow him to provide an unlimited amount of energy for Manhattan, with the experiment being funded by Oscorp, now led by Harry. Peter forms a bond with Octavius, but on the day of the experiment, the fusion creates a strong magnetic field, which destroys the lab and kills Octavius' wife Rosie. Although Spider-Man manages to shut down the reactor in time, the fusion has grafted Octavius' metal arms, created to help him control it, to his spine and destroyed the chip allowing him to control their artificial intelligence, causing the arms to influence Octavius' mentality and slowly turn him into a villain. After speaking with his old friend Curt Connors, during which the arms make Octavius very paranoid and aggressive and he injures Connors, Octavius adopts the name "Doctor Octopus" and seeks to finish the fusion at all costs. To earn enough money to rebuild the reactor, he robs a bank, where he kidnaps Peter's Aunt May to prevent Spider-Man from pursuing him, although Spider-Man chases after him nonetheless and saves May.

Later, Spider-Man learns that Mary Jane is getting married and, saddened, reunites with Black Cat, who tries to convince him to give up on his civilian life to be Spider-Man full-time. The pair then work together to track down Shocker, who escaped from prison during Beck's initial competition with Spider-Man and flees after a brief fight with them. Shortly after, Spider-Man faces Mysterio in person when he attempts to rob a store and easily beats him, unmasking him as Beck and taking photos of him for the Daily Bugle, only for his boss, J. Jonah Jameson, to make it look like he and Spider-Man were partners. Enraged by this, Spider-Man decides to confront him, but is stopped by Black Cat, and the pair once again track down Shocker and defeat him for good. Spider-Man later meets with Black Cat one final time, telling her he can't give up on either his civilian or superhero life, which she understands.

Meanwhile, Doctor Octopus makes a deal to Harry to give him tritium for his reactor in exchange for Spider-Man. When Peter meets with Mary Jane to confess his feelings for her, Doctor Octopus kidnaps the latter and demands Peter to tell Spider-Man to face him. Spider-Man fights Doctor Octopus on top of a moving train, but falls unconscious after saving everyone aboard and is delivered to Harry, who prepares to kill him, only to discover he's Peter. Although shocked at this, Harry tells Peter where to find Doctor Octopus after learning he kidnapped Mary Jane. At the warehouse where Doctor Octopus is planning to recreate the fusion, Spider-Man attempts to stop him, unmasking himself in front of him and Mary Jane in the process, but to no avail. He then decides to fight Doctor Octopus, allowing him to regain his sanity. Realizing his mistakes, Octavius make a heroic sacrifice to destroy the reactor permanently by demolishing the warehouse, while Peter rescues Mary Jane.

The next day, Peter receives a surprise visit from Mary Jane, who ran away from her wedding to confess her feelings for him and states that she will be fully embracing his double life. With his confidence renewed, Spider-Man prepares to save the city once again.

PC version
Two years after the events of the first game, Peter Parker/Spider-Man befriends Dr. Otto Octavius, a respected scientist who is trying to recreate a nuclear fusion that would allow him to provide an unlimited amount of energy for Manhattan. However, on the day of the experiment, the fusion creates a strong magnetic field, which destroys the lab and kills Octavius' wife Rosie. The fusion also grafts Octavius' metal arms, created to help him control it, to his spine and destroyed the chip allowing him to control their artificial intelligence, causing the arms to influence Octavius' mentality and slowly turn him into a villain. Adopting the name "Doctor Octopus", he seeks to finish the fusion at all costs.

After a short tutorial, narrated by Bruce Campbell, the game's storyline begins with Spider-Man following a mysterious van to prison, where a large group of thugs are causing a riot. He defeats some of them, before Rhino busts out of the prison and tries to charge away, but is caught in a laser cage set up by the police. Spider-Man fights Rhino, who escapes from the cage, only to ram into a gas station that blows him away and knocks him unconscious, whereupon he is picked up by Doctor Octopus. Later, Peter is at the bank with his Aunt May, when Doctor Octopus and his goons rob it, looking to earn enough money to rebuild the fusion reactor. Suiting up as Spider-Man, Peter beats the goons and saves the hostages, before fighting Doctor Octopus inside the vault, but he manages to escape with the money, whilist his remaining goons attempt to make off with May, although Spider-Man stops them.

The next day, Peter is walking through the city with his friend, Mary Jane Watson, when they both spot the latter's car being stolen. After telling Mary Jane to wait while he calls the police, Peter suits up as Spider-Man and follows the car to a warehouse, where he is confronted by the villain Puma and his goons. After fighting his way through all the crooks, Spider-Man engages Puma in a battle across the city, culminating at a construction site, where the villain reveals he was merely a distraction while Doctor Octoups kidnapped Mary Jane, before being subdued by Spider-Man. Later, Doctor Octopus and his goons attack Oscorp to steal a piece of high tech equipment necessary for the reactor. Spider-Man defeats all the crooks and rescues numerous civilians and scientists, while also defusing eight bombs that Doctor Octopus has placed through the building. Spider-Man eventually confronts Doctor Octopus, but he escapes with the piece of equipment and summons Rhino to fight him. After subduing Rhino by freezing him using liquid nitrogen, Spider-Man gives chase, only to witness New York being literally torn out of the ground and into the sky.

Spider-Man makes his way through the floating city and eventually defeats Mysterio, the villain responsible for all of this, who reveals that he was yet another distraction for Spider-Man, allowing Doctor Octopus to escape. Mysterio then tells Spider-Man that Doctor Octopus is hiding at the subway station, before disappearing, while New York returns to normal, indicating that it was all an illusion. Spider-Man arrives at the subway station and fights through Doctor Octopus' goons, whilist he escapes aboard a fleeing train, but Spider-Man manages to board it as well and fights the villain on top of it. However, Doctor Octopus then sabotages the train, allowing him to escape while Spider-Man stops it and saves everyone aboard.

Spider-Man is able to track down Doctor Octopus to an abandoned warehouse at the docks, where he finds both him and Mary Jane by the fusion reactor he's attempting to rebuild. After a final battle with Doctor Octopus, Spider-Man is able to knock enough sense into him to help Octavius regain control of his mind. Realizing the error of his ways, Octavius makes a heroic sacrifice to permanently destroy the fusion reactor by demolishing the warehouse, while Spider-Man rescues Mary Jane (without revealing his secret identity to her).

PlayStation Portable version
Set two years after the events of the first game, the story opens up with Peter Parker/Spider-Man narrating his origins as a superhero and explaining his current struggle to balance his superhero and civilian lives, frequently being late for school, job, and leisure time with his friends, Mary Jane Watson, whom he is attracted to, and Harry Osborn, who hates Spider-Man, believing he murdered his father. Spider-Man is then seen web-swinging through the city, when he spots some thugs landing a helicopter on the bank, planning to rob it, and defeats them. Later that night, after dinner with Mary Jane and Harry, Peter follows a van chased by the police to the Queensboro Bridge, saving some civilians and cops, before following the crooks to a warehouse, where the explosives they were carrying cause a massive fire, which Spider-Man puts out, along with defeating all the crooks.

Peter later meets Dr. Otto Octavius through Harry, a respected scientist who is trying to recreate a nuclear fusion that would allow him to provide an unlimited amount of energy for Manhattan, with the experiment being funded by Oscorp, now led by Harry. Peter forms a bond with Octavius, but on the day of the experiment, the fusion creates a strong magnetic field, which destroys the lab and kills Octavius' wife Rosie. Although Spider-Man manages to shut down the reactor in time, the fusion has grafted Octavius' metal arms, created to help him control it, to his spine and destroyed the chip allowing him to control their artificial intelligence, causing the arms to influence Octavius' mentality and slowly turn him into a villain. Adopting the name "Doctor Octopus", he seeks to finish the fusion at all costs.

After bringing J. Jonah Jameson, his boss at the Daily Bugle, photos of the incident, Peter learns that Octavius has escaped from the hospital after killing the staff, as well as that several supervillains have been broken out of prison. Jameson tasks Peter with taking some photos of the gala at the Wax Museum, only for him to discover a hostage situation orchestrated by the villain Mysterio. Spider-Man defeats Mysterio, saving all the hostages in the process. The following day, Peter goes to the bank with his Aunt May, when Doctor Octopus and his goons rob it, looking to earn enough money to rebuild the fusion reactor. Spider-Man fights his way through the crooks, saving the hostages, before fighting Doctor Octopus in the vault, but he manages to escape with the money. After escaping from the bank, Spider-Man gives chase, but soon loses Doctor Octopus.

Later, Spider-Man foils a bomb threat by the villain Vulture (whom he already fought two years prior, and escaped from prison), and defeats him, learning that Shocker has escaped as well and is planning a job at a warehouse. Meanwhile, Doctor Octopus makes a deal with Harry to give him tritium for his reactor in exchange for Spider-Man. At the warehouse, Spider-Man defeats both Shocker and Rhino, learning that they were hired by Doctor Octopus to steal a piece of equipment for his reactor, as well as that Rhino was the one who broke all the villains out of prison (although it wasn't intentional, as he was supposed to break only Shocker out).

The next day, when Peter meets with Mary Jane, who is soon to marry, to confess his feelings for her. Doctor Octopus kidnaps the latter and demands Peter tell Spider-Man to face him. Spider-Man arrives at the subway station, defeating all of Doctor Octopus's goons, before facing the villain on top of a moving train. However, he falls unconscious after saving everyone aboard and is delivered to Harry, who prepares to kill him, only to discover he's Peter. Although shocked at this, Harry tells Peter where to find Doctor Octopus after learning he kidnapped Mary Jane. At the warehouse where Doctor Octopus is planning to recreate the fusion, Spider-Man attempts to stop him, unmasking himself in front of him and Mary Jane in the process, but to no avail. He then decides to fight Doctor Octopus, allowing him to regain his sanity. Realizing his mistakes, Octavius make a heroic sacrifice to destroy the reactor permanently by demolishing the warehouse, while Peter rescues Mary Jane.

The following day, Peter receives a surprise visit from Mary Jane, who ran away from her wedding to confess her feelings for him and states that she will be fully embracing his double life. With his confidence renewed, Spider-Man prepares to protect the city once again.

Development
Development on Spider-Man 2 began at Treyarch shortly after the financial success of the first Spider-Man game. The physics-based web swinging system was conceived by designer Jamie Fristrom, who was dissatisfied with the web swinging system of the first game, which he was on the development team for, and desired a "more realistic" swinging system in the follow-up. He cited the game Rocket Jockey as an inspiration. Although the concept was initially difficult to prototype due to the work involved in manually adding points into the game that web lines could be attached to, Fristrom and programmer Andrei Pokrovsky implemented ray casting into the game as a solution to automatically map infinite points where players could attach webs to swing from. Fristrom demonstrated the web-swinging system to Activision executives, including company COO Ron Doornink, who approved the system for use in the game.

A few months before the game's release, which was set to coincide with the release of the film, the developers at Treyarch were forced to cut a large amount of content in order to complete and ship the game on time.

Reception
The console versions (as well as the PC port of those versions) of Spider-Man 2 received critical acclaim. Critics noted that the realistic and life-sized Manhattan, the large variety of crimes and emergencies to stop, and the game's vivid use of Spider-Man's abilities all combined to make the player really feel like Spider-Man. The most popular aspect of the game was the web-swinging mechanic, where Spider-Man had to shoot webbing at an actual building, unlike previous games where he shot webbing up into the sky. However, small parts of the game were criticized, such as the repetition of some of the side missions. The game has been ranked by critics as one the best Spider-Man games made.

IGN gave the game a score of 8.8 out of 10 for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube versions, 9 / 10 for the Xbox version and the PC port, Swing Into Action, 7.1 / 10 for the N-Gage version, 7 / 10 for the PSP version, 7.5 / 10 for the Nintendo DS version, 6.5 / 10 for the Game Boy Advance version, and 4.5 / 10 for the original PC version. IGN stated on the PS2, GameCube, and Xbox version to "call it Grand Theft Spider-Man. And call it damn fine." The version even won the IGN Editor's Choice Award for the year. IGN, reviewing the GBA version, credited positively the presentation, graphics, sound, web-zipping and wall-crawling. They only negatively stated that the music loops a lot because of the enormously long levels, "not the tightest combat developed for a Spider-Man game", and stated that the levels are "a big pain in the butt to accomplish".

The PSP version received generally mixed to positive reviews. Gameplay and graphics were praised, while the bad camera angle and the length of the game faced criticism.

The Official PlayStation 2 Magazine ranked the game #80 of the "Top 100 PS2 Games of All Time". In the ScrewAttack top ten 'Top 10 Movie-Based Games' Spider-Man 2 came in eighth.

Sales
Upon launch, the game had shipped more than 2 million units in North America by July 7, 2004. In the United States, the game's Game Boy Advance version alone sold 600,000 copies and earned $17 million by August 2006. During the period between January 2000 and August 2006, it was the 47th highest-selling game launched for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS or PlayStation Portable in that country. By 2005, the game had grossed US$110 million in sales revenue in the United States. The game's PlayStation 2 version received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom.