An exception being the first stage where as Spider-Man you have to deliver pizzas like in the opening of the movie and you’re given an arrow to tell you where the pizza shop is, but not one informing you where the customers are. The levels themselves still are highly detailed, as are the character sprites, however the levels are less busy for lack of a better word and are much easier to navigate and figure out where to go unlike those in Spider-Man (2002). Hailing from the same developer, Digital Extremes, Spider-Man 2 doesn’t stray that much farther from Spider-Man (2002). It once again features open, non-linear stages where you’ll have to complete objectives like diffusing bombs, rescuing hostages or hunting down keys to unlock doors. Given that the template of the game hasn’t changed, this is another 2-D side-scrolling action game, it doesn’t hurt the overall product that much, but it’s much more noticeable this time around than in the first movie handheld game. This didn’t hurt the first game all the much, but it’s more noticeable in part 2, as they turn Doc Ock into more of a generic criminal overlord and there’s none of the drama between Peter and MJ, or Harry’s desperate quest to make Spider-Man punish for killing his father. Spider-Man 2 on the Game Boy Advance does a much better job of linking itself to its source material, going as far to use still images from the console games FMV’s to communicate its story, but it still feels like more of a generic Spider-Man game than a movie game.

It’s a template that many have tried to emulate since the game came out in 2004, and despite having beefier consoles on their hands, many game developers still can’t quite change people’s minds that Spider-Man 2 is the best Spider-Man game to date. Unfortunately the game that went by the same name on the Game Boy Advance didn’t redefine what could be done with Spider-Man on a handheld, being little more than an evolution of the first movie game that’s only slightly better with issues that still aren’t addressed. Spider-Man 2 on the sixth generation of consoles was one of the most important comic book games of all time, radically changing how we thought about how the character of Spider-Man works in a three-dimensional space by giving players the freedom to more or less swing around and do whatever they pleased in an open-world environment.

Spiderman 2 gameboy advance