Spiderman 2

Before you go any further, I must tell you that this article is NOT a movie review. Rather, it is a smack to the side of the head of Activision regarding the release of the new PC game of the same name.

Available last week, amidst much hype due to the release of the movie, Spiderman 2: The Game was promised to be an extremely open-ended game where you had all of Manhattan Island to face off against bad guys and do good deeds in a Grand Theft Auto III style. Not caring much for the violence in GTA III but hungry for a great game to play, I saw that it was available for PS2, Gamecube, X-Box and PC. Naturally, I picked up the PC version of the game at GameStop, along with the strategy guide containing maps of the entire city. Not only were they releasing a PC version, but it was $20 cheaper than the console versions! However, that should have been my first clue.

I installed the game, not wanting to look at the strategy guide until I needed to. About 30 minutes into the game, I realized that the play was very simplistic. And there was no key to press to view a map of the city! What had I gotten myself into?

I picked up the strategy guide attempting to figure out where I was and it dawned on me. \”This is a DIFFERENT game than the console version!\”. Gone was the open-ended structure. Gone were all the bonus missions. Gone was the promise of a GTA rich experience. In its place was a child\’s game with very little promise.

A little research confirmed my disappointment.

So what has got me so hacked off? Activision packaged the game IDENTICAL to the console versions! They attempted to make it look like they were releasing the same game on the PC!

I phoned GameStop and told them about the mixup and they were very good about it. Typically, you can not return a video or computer game once you open it, but since they were clueless about it as well, they allowed me to trade it in for something else. Not really wanting much of anything, I picked up Pirates of the Caribbean. It didn\’t get great reviews, but we\’ll see if it is interesting at all.