Spider-Man Edge of Time does so many things right that X-Men Destiny did wrong, I won’t further compare the two. Instead, we’ll look at the game as we should, on the value of its own merits.
Merits that are evident from the first moment of your entry into the game, which is also your immediate entry into the story. The story and the gameplay itself are interwoven as much as a Spidey web should be. Sure, it’s a on rails a lot of the time and it boils down to button mashing now and again, but it’s still extremely entertaining. The level design varies between 100% on rails while crawling through some air ducts and such to some larger open areas you’re free to explore although the majority of the game does take place in more enclosed spaces.
What it all does is breaks up the monotony and even in some of the alleys (the long straight on-rails parts) you still have some choice of how you traverse it. Since I’m playing as Spidey, I do a lot of web swinging, because it wouldn’t be Spidey if I didn’t. If I were playing a game as say Magneto, I would float around a lot because he doesn’t feel he should have to walk, if I were Beast I would want to swing ape-like, if I were playing the Human Torch, I would fly, etc. So as Spidey, I web swing and web swinging is still just as great as it was in the previous Beenox Spidey titles. It honestly feels like you’re doing it.
Spider-Man Edge of Time Story
For those that don’t know, the game features Spider-Man 2099 and the Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker. A villain decides to reshape the world in his own image and so through time travel ties the fates of the two Spider-men together in a far more intricate way than they were previously. So the two heroes must fight and work together to save the whole time stream. It’s a very video game plot and story which calls for a lot of action and in terms of comic books I believe it would end up being a year long story arc across two titles because of the plot twists and turns. I’ll leave the story at that and just tell you that it does feel very much like a comic book plot.
It doesn’t look like a comic book though, in a good way. The graphics are so much sharper and well done than some of the other games of late it makes me wonder how the others ever passed muster through the publisher and out to the retail shelves. They also did a very cool comic thing, in the opening scene Spidey 2099 is crawling through some air ducts and you’re getting some background on the story and all along in the environment you see some of the credits for the game. It’s cool in a sort of comics meets film way. I was instantly pulled into the game and the story all at the same time because of the cohesive presentation of it all.
