Ultimate Spider-Man [GC]

While Juan got to enjoy the easy boss battles, your friendly neighborhood comics editor (Hil) stuck to the tough fights. The Beetle boss battle proved itself the most challenging, particularly since most players will have perfected their swinging technique by this point in the game. Instead, I was thrown to the wolves. The challenge isn't in throwing down firsts with the flying villain, but in catching him.

The battle begins with an extended chase through Manhattan with the typical Spidey chase meter in the upper left indicating how far the Webslinger is from the speedy Beetle. USM doesn't play with kid gloves. You can't let Beetle get more than a few seconds ahead or Spidey loses him. This means some trial and error of learning where Beetle will turn. To make it just a tad tougher, Beetle drops grenades that create force fields in the alleys. This requires quick reacting to drop or rise above the fields and continue the chase.

The chases are a lot more exciting than the somewhat tiresome exercises in Spider-Man 2 and the Beetle chase happens almost at ground level. While New York remains massive, the skyscrapers are much shorter this time around and Spidey is more often swinging only a couple stories above ground level. This makes the races feel almost like a high-speed car chase. While you won't get to enjoy the New York skyline the same way you did in Spidey 2, the race was much more intense than those of the previous Treyarch game.

As you chase Beetle, he'll put a few citizens in harms way here and there, which require some quick thinking to save them all. It's a little annoying that failing to save a civilian means the immediate end of the chase (and sometimes a long restart). Though a bit unforgiving, the difficulty makes beating the chase level all the sweeter.

Spidey catches up to Beetle atop the skeleton of an under-construction skyscraper. While Beetle flies circles around Spidey, it can get a bit confusing. The camera can go a bit crazy and, unfortunately, there's no camera reset button. Still, once I realized I had to stand in one place and let Beetle come to me, things got a lot less dizzying.

Battling Beetle is a piece of cake. A few dive-bomb kicks and he's toast. But the chase, that was just awesome.

Electro Boss Battle We actually saw this fight awhile back but never got a chance to play it ourselves. Here, we played as Venom, a black-clad monstrosity who makes Spider-Man look like a daisy. The stage begins with Electro hovering over a very unconscious Spider-Man. Electro wants to kill Spider-Man himself, so the stage centers on Venom protecting Spidey while also fighting Electro. The first stage of the fight feels easy enough since all we had to do was rush Electro and smack him using a combination of punches and our long-rage tentacle attack.

Electro attacks using long-rage bolts of lighting and by discharging waves of electricity. We had to dodge his attacks by using Venom's ridiculously powerful jump ability and by hiding behind cars and buildings. After a few minutes of physical abuse at our hands, Electro charges himself and changes from a regular dude with lightning attacks to a being made entirely of energy. Now, touching him results in a mean and powerful shock. To damage him in this phase of the fight, we had to find nearby cars and hurl them at his face from a distance. We could also find fire hydrants and bust them open. Both these methods transform him back into his prior state, letting us punch him normally.

Electro can heal himself by absorbing power from street signs, so we had to bust every sign in the stage to give us a fighting chance. After this he's left with a series of attacks that aren't too difficult to dodge. Finishing the stage successfully hinged on keeping our distance (by throwing cars) but also coming in close and protecting Spider-Man. After a dozen cars and a few hundred punches, Electro falls to the ground a shadow of his former self. He cried. We laughed. Again, this boss fight kept things fresh by offering surprises at every phase.

Stay tuned for more on Ultimate Spider-Man.

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