Multiple Spider-Men to bend space and time this September

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, the web-slinging superhero’s next console game title from Activision, will hit store shelves this September, the company announced today. Jeremy posted the first screens and a reveal trailer hit yesterday, and we can now share some more details thanks to a handy dandy press release from Activision.

Shattered Dimensions will center around four Spidey-esque characters contained in four alternate dimensions. Yesterday’s trailer reveals two of them, regular-old Amazing Spider-Man in his blue and red suit resides in a stylized, almost cell-shaded dimension, while another Noir Spider-Man wears dark, nondescript clothes in a setting heavy on darkness, shadow, and, well, noir. Expect the other two characters and their corresponding dimensions to be revealed in the coming weeks and months, as the clip explains: “Amazing…Noir…Two worlds are known…Two more will be revealed.”

In a prepared statement, Rob Kostich, Activision’s Head of Marketingsaid: “Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensionsdelivers an original storyline that bridges four unique worlds. Each action-packed universe will have its own detailed art design and thrilling missions, challenging gamers to use new skill sets to defeat enemies as they unlock powerful new moves and progress through the game.” Today’s press release also reveals that in-game enemies will include Kraven and a noir-version of Hammerhead. The release, however, does not specify which platforms this will hit.

The difference in art styles between the Amazing and Noir dimensions really intrigues me. Not only does it look like two different games, but I can imagine that changing up the setting every now and then would help a lot of games seem less…crappy. The possibilities for a story that intertwines four different versions of Spider-Man is, likewise, intriguing.

While this trailer piqued my interest, I’m cautious. Unlike Jeremy, I’ve never enjoyed a Spider-Man game. They’ve often seemed to me to be too much like the movies: over-hyped, over-licensed, empty games that spent way too much budget on cosmetics.

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions has a high mountain to climb in order to impress me. The base of that mountain is made up of all the bad Spider-Man games I’ve played, while the peak of the range is another comic book game – Batman: Arkham Asylum. That was, to me and many others, the best comic book-based game ever made. If the next Spidey title is to achieve similar success in my eyes, it will have to do just that: be a Spider-Man comic book game. The movies are terrible and taint these games. I’m encouraged to read that Marvel comic book writer Dan Slott has penned the story. So perhaps Shattered Dimensions will do something that no other Spider-Man game has done to date: make me smile.

Stay tuned to MMOMFG, as we’ll be sure to keep you updated on the two as-of-yet unreleased dimensions included in the game. What if one is a dimension where the hero shoots toothpaste instead of spider-silk and all his enemies are cavity-ridden molars? That would be a trip.

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