Ultimate Spider-Man

Ultimate Spider-Man
Protagonist(s): Spider-Man Genre(s): Action-adventure Platform(s): Microsoft Windows Game Boy Advance Nintendo GameCube PlayStation 2 Xbox Nintendo DS Release Date: NA: September 22, 2005 EU/AU: October 14, 2005 Nintendo DS NA: September 19, 2005 JP: May 25, 2006 Nintendo GameCube NA: September 21, 2005 JP: June 29, 2006 Developer(s): Treyarch Publisher(s): Activision Series: Spider-Man

Ultimate Spider-Man (Not to be confused with the TV series of the same name) is an action, adventure, superhero sandbox video game created by Treyarch and published by Activision for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo DS, and PC in 2005/2006. The game is loosely based on the Ultimate Spider-Man comic book run.

Plot

The story of the game takes place three months after the "Ultimate Venom" arc in the comics, and events in the game suggests that the "Ultimate Six" arc has already passed. At the time the game came out, the most logical point for the game's story to take place between the "Superstars" and "Hobgoblin" arcs.

Why It's Ultimate

1. Very appealing graphics which helps bring a comic book to mind.
2. Comic series writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Mark Bagley both lend their hands in the writing and art direction respectively, giving the game a sense of familiarity to fans of the comics.
3. Speaking of comic books, every cutscene in the game takes place inside of comic book panels.
4. The game has the Earth-1610 versions of the villains from the comics, including Venom, Beetle, Green Goblin, R.H.I.N.O., Shocker, and Carnage.
5. Ultimate Wolverine also appears as a character in the game, although just as an enemy that you fight as Venom.
6. Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch, one of the Fantastic Four, appears in the game, and you have to race him as Spider-Man.
7. Silver Sable, leader of the Wild Pack, is in the game. She starts out as an enemy, but ends up becoming an ally eventually.
8. Aside from Spider-Man, you can play as Venom in the story.
9. When you beat the story, you can choose to switch between Spider-Man and Venom. As Venom, you can roam around the city and cause carnage, which will cause the cops, and eventually SHIELD, to start chasing you, in a similar manner to a Grand Theft Auto game, or you can challenge yourself with races that are unique to Venom.
10. There's an abundance of side content to complete if you don't feel like following the story, (or after you finish it), including collectables, race challenges, and Johnny Storm race challenges.
11. You can climb up your webs in this game, making it much easier to get to higher locations if you happen to fall way down.
12. The game has fun and challenging boss battles.
13. Insane amount of unlockables like concept art, costumes and character viewer.
14. The PC version has mod support, meaning you can edit the characters and levels.
15. The DS version has a multiplayer mode.

Not-So Ultimate Qualities

1. The side content, despite being fun, can get rather tedious after a while.
2. The story ends on a major cliffhanger where Venom flees, escaping capture by SHIELD. They were probably setting it up for a sequel, though the game's story is luckily retold in the "War of the Symbiotes" story arc in the comics in order to fix some of the plotholes.
3. The game is relatively short.
4. While technically holding some canon to several arcs in the comic books, there are a lot of plotholes.
5. General combat with Spider-Man isn't very in-depth, it basically just consists of a few basic punches and kicks, and some occasional web attacks. However, this is justified as the Earth-1610 version of Spider-Man is still young and hasn't fully realized his powers yet.
6. This game has a bunch of quicktime events placed in certain story missions which can be extremely tedious and annoying.
7. The comic book covers never give you a description about them unlike the PS1 Spider-Man games.
8. The GBA Version's boss variety is bad. All you fight is Carnage, Silver Sable, and Venom. The latter two you fight twice each.

Reception

Ultimate Spider-Man was met with mostly positive reviews upon release.

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