Spider-Man: Web of Shadows First Look
A redefined action system brings new life to Spider-Man's latest.
June 9, 2008 - When comic book fans think of Spider-Man, images of extreme sports are likely far from their minds. That will change soon enough if Shaba Games has anything to say about it. The creators of Tony Hawk Project 8 and Wakeboarding Unleashed Featuring Shaun Murray are now helming development on Web of Shadows. And they're hoping their re-imagined fighting engine and beefed up XP mechanics will give Spidey the freedom -- through both fluidity of motion and character development options -- to whoop ass in a way that we've never seen from our favorite arachnid hero.
There's no doubt that Spider-Man is one of the most agile characters on Marvel's roster of heroes. Whether it's vaulting off of the top of a building, creating a makeshift slingshot for himself with his webs or attaching himself to oncoming traffic and going along for the ride, we've seen a lot of moves from Spider-Man over the years. Having seen the game running in its current pre-alpha state first-hand, we can say that Web of Shadows will feature moves that some may have never thought possible in a videogame.
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/880/880300/spider-man-web-of-shadows-20080609020016920-000.jpg)
The aerial combat system at work.
While our look into the world of Web of Shadows was limited since the game is still fairly rough around the edges, we did get a general overview and a fairly in-depth look at what the combat system has in store. First things first, Venom is the main bad guy in the game. While you will fight and have the option to team up with a gaggle of other Marvel heroes and villains (including Luke Cage, Vulture and Kingpin), Spidey's black-suited arch nemesis is your main antagonist. At the beginning of the adventure Venom learns -- thanks to Spider-Man, actually -- that he can clone his symbiote suit and have it spread throughout the city, possessing hapless bystanders along the way. To combat this, SHIELD has stepped in and quarantined the island of Manhattan by blowing up the numerous bridges that connect the bustling cityscape to the rest of civilization.
Needless to say, that's not exactly conducive to Spider-Man's vision of a safe and cozy Manhattan. In order to combat this new army of symbiote citizenry Spider-Man must make use of the black suit himself. At least, players will have the option to do so. See, Web of Shadows is about more than leaping from building to building and taking out baddies and saving people. Instead Spider-Man's latest outing intends to give players the choice of being a friendly superhero or a dark, brooding protagonist who wears a black suit of his own. You'll be able to switch between suits during combat with the traditional red and blue garb providing for more web and agility-based abilities and the black suit having more strength-related advantages. The red suit recovers health by avoiding action while the black suit regenerates health by dealing out damage. Depending on your actions you'll earn either red or black points (good or evil, essentially) and that will then change how characters and the population of Manhattan react to you.
But what about that new combat system that we were rattling on about earlier? According to the folks at Shaba Games, one of the big detractors to past Spider-Man titles was the combat. Spidey just never had the flow or the repertoire of acrobatic moves to bring the look of the movies and comics to life in a virtual world. Web of Shadows is trying to change that by opening the combat up to three different types.
There's ground combat, aerial combat and wall combat. But players won't be presented with a singular wall battle followed by a separate incursion on the ground. Instead they'll be able to take an enemy from the ground, run up the side of a building, use their body as a skateboard to go back down the building (other moves feature a similar extreme sports flair), then vault off of the building and take the fight to the air. Picture the Doc Ock fight from Spider-Man 2 and you'll get the idea.
We were shown one mission where uninfected citizens made their way to the top of a building to meet a helicopter for a safe evacuation from the possessed population of New York. Spider-Man had to run along the side of the structure, thwarting oncoming bad guys trying to run up the building and reach the innocent public.
The next mission gave us our first look at Vulture, except the virtual depiction of the classic villain in Web of Shadows had seen a bit of a redesign from its comic book roots. Gone are the froofy feathers and soft exterior. They've been replaced by metallic wings made up of several sharp blades. The battle against Vulture was largely aerial-based with the top of a building providing a safe landing spot. Watching Spider-Man use his web slinging to stay aloft actually reminded me a lot of Devil May Cry 4. There's also a combo meter that builds and rewards XP points if you can link several attacks together. We were told that the longest recorded combo by the development team was over 500. No word on how long that actually took to accomplish.
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/880/880300/spider-man-web-of-shadows-20080609015917000-000.jpg)
Benefits of using the black suit.
The XP system is where players will find the RPG elements of Web of Shadows, as there are more than 100 upgradeable moves to toy around with. From what we could tell, each move has three levels and you'll assign points to them as you see fit. Of course a Spider-Man game wouldn't be complete without the requisite Spider Sense ability which lends itself to Web of Shadows' targeting system. When Spidey feels the tingle of danger electricity bolts appear above his head. Tap the left bumper (L1 on PS
and a wave will emanate out of Spider-Man's body, revealing good guys and bad guys in the environment. There's also a handy lock-on system that's governed by the left trigger and should help keep Spidey focused on the appropriate baddy.
Visually Web of Shadows doesn't differentiate itself all that much from what we've seen from prior Spider-Man games. The draw distance has been improved, as standing on top of a building reveals miles and miles of real estate, but the character models have a familiar look. Also, since this is a standalone Spider-Man game, none of the voice actors from the movie are used. The only one we heard was Spider-Man who sounded like a nerdy high school student whining about his lack of girlfriend and no sex life.
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows looks like it could be heading in the right direction with its redesigned combat that gives players a bit more freedom to fight like the true Spider-Man character, and we're hoping that the rest of the package takes a similar approach. We'd like to see a fleshed-out game world with multiple side quests and a non-linear mission structure that changes depending on your chosen route of good or evil. No news on whether that will become a reality, but it seems like they've got the right idea with regard to the experience points and the different paths (good and not-so-good with black suit) that are available to the player.
We'll have more on Spider-Man: Web of Shadows leading up to its currently nondescript release date of fall 2008.
