Spider-Man: Edge of Time Preview

Written by Michael Rohde Monday, 04 April 2011 09:00

GoozerNation was invited to a preview demo for Spider-Man: Edge of Time on Friday. The demo was played on the Xbox 360 and looked amazing. Activision brought back the team from Shattered Dimensions along with Peter David and the collaborative effort appears to have paid off. The demo showed plenty of webslinging action that takes place inside the Alchemax Facility. Yes, the entire game does take place inside a single building. However, the building is huge and there are plenty of different environments, including a hydroponic jungle. Developer Beenox has created a cause-and-effect game that takes place in two different time lines, with two different Spider-Mans, with a seamless transition between the two that occurs through a picture-in-picture feature. The actions from one timeline affects the environment and gameplay in the alternate timeline. Confused yet? Let me walk you through one of the sequences.

Spiderman: Edge of Time Image Gallery

On the main screen, the Peter Parker Spider-Man, in the current-day timeline, is challenged with defeating a giant robot, which is still under construction. Meanwhile, in the picture-in-picture, you see the Miguel O’hara Spider-Man, in the year 2099, battling the fully functional robot. It’s Parker’s job to destroy the robot before it’s built so that the future Spider-Man does not have to fight it. And there you have it. The actions from one timeline affect the actions in the other.

In another sequence, Spider-Man falls through an elevator shaft and starts plummeting downward. You must avoid objects as you fall through space. To help you accomplish this, the developers did provide a crosshair that shows if you’re going to hit an object or not. This is especially helpful if you’re the type of gamer that has difficulty judging perspectives. While the crosshair feature might sound like a crutch, believe me, you’re still going to need extremely fast reflexes as the environment goes from a wide-open area to a closed-in area about the size of a ventilation shaft. Even the guy playing the demo hit at least a few walls and objects; and that guy plays the game non-stop all day long from one demo to the next.

Spider-Man: Edge of Time is a single player action adventure game that will run approximately nine hours. It is scheduled to release in the fall. There is no multiplayer planned. The graphics are amazing and the storyline is intriguing. Basically, the plot involves the death of Spider-Man and you must stop Spidey’s death by never allowing it to occur in the first place.

As for the gameplay, Spider-Man can crawl along walls, shoot his webs to swing (the building does have rooms large enough for very effective webslinging) and Spidey can also sling objects with his web-shooting ability. The two different Spider-Man characters do have two different fighting styles. One is more up-close-and-personal and the other is more focused on medium and long-range combat. There’s also an evade mode that allows Spider-Man to basically avoid anything and everything, including mines and enemies. Spider-Man does have spidey senses that can help you solve where to go and what to do. Spidey senses looks a lot like Detective Mode in Batman Arkham Asylum where the whole world takes on a different tone.

By using voice overs and the picture-in-picture, the two different Spider-Mans can communicate with each other to keep the story progressing and also provides the transitions from playing in the present and the future. The Creative Director for Spiderman: Edge of Time did not offer an explanation on how that occurs, but he did imply that it will be explained within the game.

Spiderman: Edge of Time is one to look for this fall.