Coming from Vicarious Visions, I knew this game would be one to watch. My expectations were fulfilled when I recently had the chance to play Spider-Man 2 DS. The game looks fantastic, though you wouldn’t know it from still screenshots. Spider-Man moves extremely fast through the levels, and the animation is fluid and eye-pleasing. The game is rendered completely with 3D polygons, but it is played on a 2D plane. The effect has been done in other games, most notably Capcom’s Viewtiful Joe, but this is the first time I’ve seen it on a handheld. The simple effect of Manhattan buildings scrolling by, in the proper perspective, as you swing through the city is oddly captivating. But the most impressive thing about the game’s graphics is how fast everything is. As fast as Spider-Man is, he can’t outrun the camera, even though I found myself trying to.

The other cause of my joy while playing this game is how much fun it is to control Spidey. The controls are quite simple. B jumps, Y and A attack with punches and kicks, respectively, and X web-zips. You can zip towards any surface up to about a screen away, and that goes for walls, ceilings, and floors. It’s quite handy for getting around in tight quarters. For more open areas, you’ll want to web swing by pressing jump twice. Spidey has unlimited webbing, which makes this game feel less constricting than some of his past adventures. There is a special meter, though, which is depleted whenever you use one of Spidey’s special attacks. These are all mapped to R; you select which one you want to use with the touch screen. It’s an intuitive system that allows several useful moves to be mapped to a single button. You start out with only three special moves, and the rest are learned throughout the game. The special meter slowly refills itself, so you can use these moves often, just not constantly. Some of them, like the slide kick, are actually required to get past certain obstructions. This will probably be used a lot in finding the hidden upgrades in each level.

As much fun as it is to just swing and zip around, there is more to the gameplay. There aren’t enough enemies to call this a “beat-em-up”, but there is certainly plenty of combat. Spidey punches and kicks independently, and each type of attack can be chained with itself and comboed with the other. There are other attacks linked with jumping, swinging, crouching, and zipping. And, of course, the previously explained special moves can be used to really dish out the pain. Whenever an enemy is about to attack Spider-Man, you can press L to activate his Spider-Sense and slow down the action for more time to react. The effect lasts several seconds, plenty of time to take out the baddie and any of his nearby friends. It is practically the only way to get past some enemies armed with guns, depending on where they are located in your path. Strangely, this move seems to be available without limit, but perhaps the mechanic is still being balanced.

After playing bizarre mini-game collections and racing game with crazy control schemes all day, Spider-Man 2 DS was a refreshingly old-fashioned, yet polished action game. It’s immediately entertaining, since the controls and gameplay are easier to learn than most other DS games. I’m looking forward to playing more of the game and seeing if there is any depth to the combat and level designs. Right now, I’d have to say that it’s one of my most anticipated DS launch titles.