Spider-Man 2 review

Almost a full year after the release of the Spider-Man 2 film, Activision launches a PSP version on to the unsuspecting public.

Now, it doesn't take a genius to work out why. It's because a) they wanted to get a foothold in the PSP market as soon as possible and b) they wanted to milk the teat of the webbed-wonder's movie popularity until it positively whistles with emptiness.

We're all for the first reason, but the second is a certainly a bit of a cheek, given that what the developers have actually produced is a half-arsed effort in the extreme.

Vicarious Visions, the developers who brought us the delectable Spider-Man 2 on PS2, has crapped on all its good work by ditching the innovative features that made Spidey's last outing so enjoyable.

Web-swinging is no longer the pendulum physics affair it once was. Instead you hit R1 to unfurl the first length of web, and then wrestle with the analogue stick to steer him in your desired direction.

And don't worry about ledges to grapple your webs on to - thin air will suffice. Brilliant, eh? No.

And if you were expecting to have a tiny Manhattan in the palm of your hands to explore at your leisure, then think again. Spider-Man 2 is on rails. Big, fat, uninteresting rails.

Blunder past eye-patch wearing (almost 2D) goons, swing around erratically for a bit and have a boss battle. And that's it.

This basically the first (not very good) PS2 Spider-Man game, NOT the excellent Spider-Man 2 movie game.

You get to go web-to-toe with three of Marvel's other creations - Vulture, Rhino and Shocker who offer a welcome alternative to the proceedings, and some of the scuffles you have with them are fun, like the one where you coax Rhino into bashing the walls of a warehouse so that it topples onto him.

But these don't last forever - and aren't all that exciting anyway.

No joke, you can swing through the entire game in about three hours and, at a TBC 40 quid, that's just not good enough.

Yes, Spidey may look almost as good as his PS2 game, but this PSP version is lacking in atmosphere and totally disappoints. Most annoyingly, the developer hasn't included anything new, instead simply opting to take out the best bits.

If you're still hungry for web-slinging action go check out Ultimate Spider-Man, because this PSP version is one spider that's been deservedly washed down the spout.

Spidey 2 drops on to PSP on 1 September