When it comes to the age-old Marvel vs. DC Comics debate, I’ve always fit in rather well with the DC camp. However, that’s not to say I don’t recognize an enjoyable offering from Marvel when I see one. This review is about one such offering in the form of 2010’s Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. Sadly, the game has been unavailable for purchase on Steam since April of 2017 due to the expiration of Activision’s publishing agreement with Marvel. I’m only able to review the PC version of the game because I managed to snag a copy years ago, before Shattered Dimensions was removed from the storefront.

Shattered Dimensions begins, as most Marvel games of the time did, with a narration by the late legend Stan Lee. Mr. Lee sets the stage for the game’s events by showing us that someone unscrupulous lurks within the halls of one of New York’s universities. That particular ne’er-do-well turns out to be Mysterio, master of illusion and arguably one of Spider-Man’s less-powerful adversaries. Mysterio seeks to steal the university’s prized possession, the Tablet of Order and Chaos.

As Spider-Man is known to do according to the 1960s version of his theme music, he arrives just in time to stop Mysterio from stealing the Tablet… or, at least, to make an attempt at stopping Mysterio. During the ensuing altercation, Spider-Man’s super strength causes him to accidentally shatter the Tablet into several fragments. Mysterio subsequently escapes, and Spider-Man is then telepathically contacted by Madame Web.

Madame Web proceeds to explain that in shattering the Tablet of Order and Chaos, Spider-Man has not just endangered every world in his own universe, but he has inadvertently inflicted the same fate upon three other universes as well. Thankfully, it just so happens that each affected universe has its own Spider-Man who can retrieve the Tablet fragments that wound up in their timeline. Once all four Spider-Men in question have cooperated long enough to reconstruct the full Tablet, the balance across their various universes will be restored.

The problem standing in their way is that, to quote Madame Web, “those with evil hearts will be drawn to the unleashed power of the Tablet.” This means the quartet of web-slingers will have to defeat several notable villains from Marvel Comics history in order to retrieve every missing piece of the Tablet of Order and Chaos. Before we get too deep into that, I feel that I should probably explain in more detail this whole “multiple different Spider-Men” thing.

If nothing else, this will give me an excuse to ramble about Marvel Comics for a bit, so I’m all for it. The Spider-Man who originally shattered the Tablet of Order and Chaos is the Spider-Man in the primary, roughly present-day universe. You know, the one with the inexplicable red and blue tights. He’s referred to in-game as “The Amazing Spider-Man” and is further differentiated from his three cohorts in that he’s voiced by Neil Patrick Harris.

The first of his counterparts is a younger version of Peter Parker known as Ultimate Spider-Man. This alternate Peter (voiced by Josh Keaton) is forced to don the symbiotic black suit known for making its wearer unable to control their rage. With assistance from Madame Web’s telepathic abilities, Ultimate Spider-Man is able to keep his suit’s otherwise unrestrained power in check, and even use it to his advantage as he hunts for the Tablet fragments in his own timeline.

The third Spider-Man is yet another alternate version of Peter Parker, albeit a much stealthier one who employs different tactics. Known as Spider-Man Noir and voiced by Christopher Daniel Barnes, this version of Peter arose in New York during the deepest point of the Great Depression. He dons a much more spider-like black and brown suit so as to more easily remain concealed by the shadows as he silently eliminates his foes. I actually have a fair amount to say about the gameplay mechanics that become active during Spider-Man Noir’s levels, but I’ll come back to that in due time.

Finally, we have the only playable Spider-Man in the game who isn’t an alternate-timeline version of Peter Parker. I’m referring to Miguel O’Hara (voiced in this instance by Dan Gilvezan), better known as the Spider-Man of the increasingly less-distant year 2099. We’ll call him “Spider-Man 2099,” for short. This version of Spider-Man must contend with the existence of the deeply corrupt Alchemax Corporation, which is influential enough to control virtually all aspects of daily life for every citizen in Spider-Man 2099’s universe. For reference, this universe is known as Earth-928 in Marvel terms.

Alchemax’s power includes the formation and maintenance of a private, heavily militarized police force known as the Public Eye. Miguel O’Hara frequently comes to blows with officers in Alchemax’s employ. As you can probably imagine by now based on everything I’ve just said, the universe in which Spider-Man 2099 resides is a particularly dystopian one. The final noteworthy thing I feel compelled to mention about Spider-Man 2099 at this point is that, in the context of the game, Madame Web has temporarily granted him a Spider-Sense akin to that which is shared by his three allies in order to assist him in locating fragments of the Tablet.

Right, that’s quite enough rambling about the different Spider-Men for now. Let us move on to discussing some actual gameplay present within Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. As I alluded to earlier, the still-missing fragments of the Tablet of Order and Chaos have fallen into the hands of various evildoers from all reaches of Spider-Man’s continuity. The game is structured into individual levels, wherein you control one of the four Spider-Men with the ultimate goal of defeating the level’s boss and claiming their Tablet fragment for yourself.

After you complete the game’s tutorial, the only level available to you will be one which pits you, as Amazing Spider-Man, against Kraven the Hunter. This level has mechanics and other aspects which I would argue serve to continue the tutorial in certain respects. For example, it introduces you to spider emblems, which restore certain amounts of your health and grant you bonus points toward purchasing unlockable character upgrades when collected.

This first level will also introduce you to what’s known as the “Web of Destiny,” which contains a list of level-specific challenges you can complete if you’re so inclined. Completing certain amounts of these challenges unlocks new tiers of character and combat upgrades, so I’d say it’s wise to knock out as many of them as you can if you want to make all four Spider-Men more powerful down the line.

Thankfully, many of these challenges task you with things you’d likely end up accomplishing over the course of the level anyway. Two examples of these feats you’ll encounter early on include defeating a certain number of enemies in general or doing so via a certain combat technique.

I mentioned a moment ago that the game is divided into individual levels. Each set of four levels constitutes one of the game’s three acts leading up to the final boss. As you might imagine given that there are four playable Spider-Men, each one gets one level per act to call his own. The acts are arranged in a specific order in terms of the playable universes. By that, I mean the first level in an act takes place within the Amazing Spider-Man universe, followed by that of Spider-Man Noir, then 2099, and finally Ultimate.

Despite that arrangement, however, you have total freedom to play through each act’s levels in any order you wish. Additionally, once you’ve completed a level, you can go back and replay it as many times as you like. This allows you to test your spider-skills by going through each level on a higher difficulty setting, or perhaps attend to any Web of Destiny challenges you missed the first time around.

I find that going through each level on Normal difficulty the first time is optimal before playing through again on Hard. Doing things this way allows me to develop a sense of the level’s layout and objectives on the first playthrough so that I have an easier time with things on any subsequent higher difficulty runs.

We’ve reached the point in this review where I would ordinarily explain what I like about controlling the various arachnid-themed gentlemen. However, the problem with doing that is that with the notable exception of Spider-Man Noir’s levels, the other three Spider-Men aren’t differentiated from each other as much as I would personally prefer. I don’t mean to say that Amazing Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man, and Spider-Man 2099 don’t offer their own unique abilities. It’s just that I don’t think those abilities contribute all that much to spice up the core gameplay.

That is to say, aside from Ultimate Spider-Man’s “rage mode” and Spider-Man 2099’s ability to slow down incoming projectiles, both of which operate exactly as you probably think they do, three of the four playable universes essentially revolve around the same things. Specifically, your current version of Spider-Man web swinging about and beating up goons of various shapes and sizes until he reaches the level’s boss. Yes, the unlockable combat upgrades have the potential to change up your usual battle strategy by adding a bit of flair, but that’s about as far as that goes.

We’ll come back to Spider-Man Noir’s levels in a bit. As I said earlier, I want to discuss them in more detail than I otherwise would. Before I get to that, I want to offer my thoughts on something that served as a sticking point among many reviewers when the game first released. More specifically, Spider-Man is quite like Deadpool in one specific respect: neither of them ever stop making snappy, increasingly repetitive quips.

I recognize that Spider-Man is supposed to be something of a “comic relief” character (as is Deadpool to an extent), but I think there’s a significant difference between serving as a comic relief and being so utterly annoying that anyone listening stuffs their ears with pages ripped out of comics in an effort to find relief. Even Spider-Man Noir, the version of the character who basically needs to stay quiet in order to remain alive, is no exception to this rule. That’s why I agree with most reviewers who found the game’s writing to be particularly grating over time.

Speaking of Spider-Man Noir, let’s talk about his levels specifically. As I’ve alluded to, this version of Peter Parker operates differently than the other three Spider-Men. His levels focus on stealthily eliminating anyone who stands in your way as you chase down any of your three assigned level bosses. This sounds great to me in theory, which is one reason why I was originally so interested in Shattered Dimensions before it initially released.

In practice, though, Spider-Man Noir’s universe provides little other than longer versions of the “silent predator” sections from the Batman: Arkham games. On top of that, it is basically what they would be if Batman incessantly cracked corny one-liners at his enemies’ expense. If you’re unfamiliar with what I’m referring to by that, essentially everything you need to know is that you’re perpetually outnumbered, your enemies all have guns, and they’ll alert each other and open fire if they see you. Thus, you must stick to the shadows and wait patiently for your opportunity to strike.

The primary difference between Spider-Man Noir’s levels in Shattered Dimensions and the Batman: Arkham stealth bits is the fact that Spider-Man can use his webbing to take down enemies from a considerable distance rather than having to be directly behind them. I consider this to be the singular saving grace for all three Spider-Man Noir levels.

Now, I know I haven’t exactly presented Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions with glowing praise throughout this review thus far. That’s because I certainly don’t believe it’s worthy of a perfect ten out of ten score. However, I actually do quite enjoy most aspects of the gameplay, even if it can grow to be somewhat same-y three-fourths of the time. Granted, I would find the game a fair amount more enjoyable if the barbershop quartet of Spider-Men would shut up every now and again, but there’s not much I can do about that.

I like the idea of being able to upgrade each variation of Spider-Man’s combat abilities to make the process of beating up huge waves of goons as much more fun as the upgrade list can make it. Furthermore, I don’t know why, but I greatly appreciate the fact that each available Spider-Man has additional unlockable suits that can be equipped at will once unlocked just for the sake of it.

I’m not much of a completionist, but the Web of Destiny offers quite a bit that will keep those of you who consider yourselves completionists occupied for quite some time. I should know; believe it or not, I actually managed to one-hundred-percent complete Shattered Dimensions on the PlayStation 3 many years ago, and had a grand old time doing it. Heck, I would even go so far as to say you might have the most fun of all knocking out all the various challenges just because you can.

All of that is to say, if you’re a Spider-Man fan and you can actually find a secondhand copy of Shattered Dimensions now that it’s nigh impossible to purchase digitally, I think you should absolutely give it a go. Just don’t necessarily expect it to be “the most ambitious crossover event ever,” or whatever the correct tagline for Avengers: Endgame was.

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Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• High Replayability
• Enough Content to Keep Completionists Happy
• Sufficient Way to Learn More About Marvel Comics Lore

Cons

• Gameplay Can Become Repetitive Quickly
• Dialogue Can Become Annoying Over Time