With most movie-licensed games tending to be a little sub par, it would be easy to dismiss Spider-Man 2 as another lackluster attempt at a quick cash-in. But lately there has been a surge of quality movie-based games. Games such as Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Chronicles of Riddick and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic are trying to undo the stereotype. Spider-Man 2 does its best to help by providing a fun, great playing experience.

Likes its predecessor, Spider-Man 2 is a third-person action game that has you filling the shoes of the web slinger. The most notable difference this time around is the fully open-ended free-roaming nature of the city you’re set loose in. With the entire Big Apple at your disposal, there’s a lot of real estate for you traverse using the newly implemented physics-based web swinging system. Definitely the highlight of the game, the swinging system is very enjoyable and seems so realistic that it’s easy to forget about your missions and just swing around.

While the web swinging is great, the missions themselves are a little disappointing. Following the plot of the movie, you’ll battle Doctor Octopus and try to thwart his plans. Some extra villains are thrown in to try and spice things up, but most, like the battle with Mysterio, are poorly executed.

While swinging throughout the city, random street crimes occur and it’s up to you to stop them.

Ranging from retrieving a child’s balloon to stopping an armored car robbery, these mini sub-quests are a nice little distraction to try and help round out the game. While initially fun, the side-quests tend to repeat themselves very often and soon become somewhat of a nuisance. You do receive “hero points” for helping out, though. These points can then be used to purchase combat and web swinging upgrades.

As for the graphics of the game, they’re surprisingly high quality but not gorgeous. There’s a good deal of detail in the city considering the size of the environment. While Spider-Man himself looks great, most of the other character models could use a bit of work. The Harry Osborne and Mary Jane models look pretty bad and the developers accentuate their deformities by using the in-game character models in the cut-scenes rather than using CG.

The civilians on the streets look equally bad and there’s little variety among them. As with the graphics, the sound of the game is a mixed bag, too. With voice work done by Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and Alfred Molina, you would expect the voiceovers to be amazing.

Kirsten Dunst’s performances sound boring and stale while Tobey Maguire and Alfred Molina’s lines are just decent. The sound effects of the game are superb. Hearing the wind howl in your ears as you swing from building to building only adds to the already immersing sensation of swinging through NYC.

Overall, Spider-Man 2 is definitely worth playing. As the best Spider-Man game to date, it successfully recreates the greatest aspects of the hero and wraps them up in a nice little package. Spider-Man 2 is currently available on Xbox, Playstation 2 and Gamecube and is rated T for teen.