Otherside: E3 put this article out and I thought it was interesting enough to share with you guys... so here it is:
Spider-Man is back. Or, rather, four Spider-Men are back. Activision gave us a little face time with the upcoming Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions for the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 (Nintendo Wii and DS versions also upcoming) in which four distinct Spider-Mans spanning four different facets of the Marvel universe converge in order to recover a mystical MacGuffin known as the Tablet of Order & Chaos in a story crafted by comic book writer Dan Slott. When the tablet is split and scattered across dimensions, each Spider-Man must do his part to recover the fragments and stop his usual foes from attaining real ultimate total global power. We weren't able to play it, but we did get an eye-full of three of the dimensions: Noir, Amazing, and 2099. Read on for everything we know about the game and find out how it looked in motion.
Our eyes-only demo started with a brief tour of Spider-Man Noir's world. The Noir take on your friendly neighborhood hero involves lengthy stealth sections with an emphasis on direct combat only when fireworks or other light sources illuminate his hiding places. Norman Osborn holds court here in a dark carnival of the soul, and while the Noir world has a generally slower pace compared to its counterparts, it does offer a stylistically dark and brooding environment in which to play.
Since the Noir dimension had been seen by the press already, we were quickly whisked away to the Amazing dimension which is the more conventional and familiar version of Spider-Man that fans of the Tobey Maguire films may recognize. His red-and-blue costume and trademark wit are in full force against Kraven the Hunter. We were treated to a boss encounter that involved dodging flying pillar debris for a moment before being shifted into the future for the truly new material from the game to debut at E3.
The 2099 dimension is less of an alternate world and is actually intended to be the future of primary Marvel continuity. Here Spider-Man exists in a Batman Beyond-type neon city with an augmented costume and additional powers such as enhanced senses that allow him to dodge hazards in what is depicted to the player as the slowing down of time itself. In the world of 2099 we watched Spider-Man swing his way towards the vividly detailed city and dodge debris in slow motion. As mentioned previously, we weren't permitted to play the demo, but what we saw looked impressive enough.
Shattered Dimensions is scheduled to reach stores in September of this year. Kombo will have more on the game closer to release.