I'm sure that, by now, you have all heard the buzz surrounding the second Spiderman game. Is web-slinging around NYC as good as they say? Yes, it really is. But, before I get ahead of myself even more, proper introductions are in order. Spiderman 2 from Treyarch is the second game for the Xbox to feature our favorite wall-crawler. While the 'open-ended' game design has garnered lots of attention, the principles of this second outing really hasn't changed. Much like the previous effort, it is an action-heavy adventure and a movie tie-in that retraces the events of the film while adding side-stories and new characters.

So, if Spiderman 2 does indeed follow the plot of the film, can't we just nab the game and skip the cinema altogether? To answer that question, I'd have to kick you in the head, take your wallet and buy you a ticket to the movie. The game divulges barely enough of the story from the film to be spoilerific, and quite coyly leaves out all the details so that seeing the film is almost essential. When the game does tackle a scene from the movie, it does so without much cinematic flair - even the dialogue gets a Reader's Digest rewrite for the worse. The exceptions here that add some spark to the otherwise lackluster reiteration of the film's plot are the new story elements – I call her ‘Black Cat'.

In place of a rich story, what you do get in Spiderman 2 is free reign over the Manhattan skyline. The entire city of New York is present in the game and even if you are not a local, surely you will recognize more than a few landmarks dotted around the virtual urban sprawl. Right after a short tutorial provided by none other than Bruce Campbell, the entire city is opened up to you as your new playground, without a load-screen in sight to spoil the illusion (except when you enter a few key indoor locations). While traveling from one end of the city to the other takes no more than several minutes, the city is in no way small. You are, after all, Spiderman, and being able to leap great distances as well as web-sling freely from building to building does help somewhat to circumvent New York traffic. Also, there is always the Y-axis to contend with.

Speaking of commuting in NYC, it is here that Spiderman 2 accomplishes something other developers only dreamed of in superhero-themed games – Pete gets his full gamut of superpowers! Maneuvering Spidey around town cannot be easier as you simply squeeze the right trigger on your controller to shoot out a string of webbing that automatically sticks to the nearest building (if one is in sight) and allows you to swing forward. The direction of your swing can be controlled by moving the left thumbstick. That's it, that's web-slinging in a nutshell! It doesn't, however, begin to describe all the nuances and complexity of the act.

The physics of web-slinging has been implemented quite realistically by Treyarch, well, as much as one who lacks the ability to produce webbing from wrists can vouch for. Factors such as the direction of your forward momentum, the length of the webbing, and its pivot point all affect your swing! This, coupled with Pete's other superhuman abilities such as super jumps, wall-crawling and a whole range of maneuvers in between that can all be easily stringed together to optimize your travel speed (and style!), makes for an outstandingly complex, yet suitably accessible, not to mention exhilarating experience that anyone who has played the game can attest to.

Spiderman 2 may purport to have an open-ended game structure, and all outward appearances certainly support the claim, but upon closer inspection you will find that it's actually quite linear. The game is split into 17 unevenly paced chapters, in that you'll find yourself getting through several chapters in a blink of an eye while others take a lot longer. Within each chapter, you will be given a set of objectives to complete and once you do, a new chapter heading appears on screen and you receive the objectives for the next chapter. The objectives are either story-related events or ‘earn x amount of points and buy upgrade' tasks, and I'm sad to report neither of the two mission types are as good as they should be – considering the great setting.

The story-related missions generally require Spiderman to travel to a designated location to either trigger an in-game cutscene or to engage some enemies. There is a variety of challenges within the missions, from time-limits, to obstacle courses, having to defeat certain enemies or to rescue civilians, but they suffer from being mildly entertaining at best, to downright idiotic and/or frustrating at times. The developers managed to leave out the fun in most of the challenges and I rarely felt motivated to continue along with the story. The humdrumness extends to the numerous boss battles as well, as aside from a few noted exceptions, you never feel that these oddly elaborate battles are exciting or even necessary. I imagine that Peter Parker, when faced with these fights, would have rolled his eyes, said "whatever...” and walked away with hands firmly planted in pockets.

Aside from the story objectives, you will spend the bulk of your time in Spiderman 2 completing random missions in order to earn the requisite points needed to buy upgrades and advance to the next chapter. These random missions are initiated when you engage certain citizens (indicated with a green marker above their heads) in conversation. When I say conversation, I mean one of a handful of in-game cutscenes where the New Yorker bobs his/her head up and down with not a facial expression or lip movement in sight. And when I say citizens, I mean one of a handful of characters wearing one of a handful of outfits. The missions themselves fare just as badly, as there are only, you guessed it, a handful of mission types available, ranging from stopping an armored car hold-up, to beating up purse-snatchers, to saving passengers on a sinking boat. It gets old very quickly, even with slight variations that border on being merely cosmetic thrown in later on, and serves only to pad out the game's relatively short length. It doesn't help either that the thugs you have to dispatch never put up much of a fight.

Speaking of fights, you will be happy to know that over the course of the game, you can purchase an entire truckload of combo moves and ability upgrades from stores littered around the city. Some of these will aid you during combat, while others improve your abilities such as the speed at which you can web-sling, yet others are just fun acrobatics to pull off in mid-flight! The only damper put on upgrading your moves is that since your enemies are literally pushovers, you won't necessarily need too many fancy moves to defeat them. Yet another feature of the game that serves to extend its life long after the story is done is the amount of secret tokens to be collected all over the city. There are skyscraper tokens that can be found only on the tallest of all buildings, and buoy tokens that, well, you get the idea. Collecting different sets of tokens will unlock more moves and techniques for you to purchase.

Graphically speaking, Spiderman 2 is a little deceiving, both in a good and bad way. Initially you will probably feel pretty under whelmed at the lack of detail in the cityscape. As you roam around virtual NYC, though, you will start to notice that the buildings come in all shapes and sizes and the streets are filled with a healthy amount of pedestrians and vehicular traffic to make the city quite impressive and believable. Best of all, zipping around the city at incredible speeds and leaping off skyscrapers to land several hundred meters on the sidewalk never incurs a hiccup in frame-rate! Later on though, you begin to realize the same few polygon-deficient citizens occupy the city, and the awkward way they move about and gesticulate.

The quality of sounds in Spiderman 2 also varies wildly. Much of the game is without a soundtrack, only with familiar themes that are faithful to the film soundtrack kicking in during key sequences. This actually works very well as the absence of a musical score lets you hear ambient sounds such as the wind rushing by your ears as you move about the city at high velocity. This little sound effect adds a tremendous degree of realism and excitement to web-slinging and leaping around. The voice work is a great let-down considering all the actors from the film lend their voice to the characters in the game. The dialogue is uniformly flat in delivery and you get the distinct feeling that these actors have no idea of the context in which their lines were used.

The random civilians are even worse. Aside from being repetitive, they seem to enjoy speaking through their noses and just sound utterly annoying. Bruce Campbell, the voice of the narrator, provides the only saving grace to the voice work in the game as he liberally dispenses with his unique blend of humor/insult throughout the game.