An UNDERRATED and EXPERTLY Written Game | Spider-Man: Edge of Time Retrospective Review

[Music] [Music] [Music] in 2010 benox released their first original spider-man game published by activision spider-man shattered dimensions shatter dimensions was well received and considered a success enough so that activision was eager to crank out another binox develop spider-man game as soon as possible activision being activision though only saw dollar signs not caring as much for quality giving bnox only a year to develop and release their new game typically it's a common standard to give game developers 2 years or so to develop the sequel to their last game so with only a year to release this next game benox was already under pressure still they pushed on but given the short deadline they realized they couldn't make a full-fledged sequel to shatter dimensions and instead opted to do somewhat of a follow-up game in the same continuity naming it spider-man edge of time many fans assumed this was a sequel to shatter dimensions however while promoting the game binocs made sure to emphasize on multiple occasions that the game is not a sequel our spider-man 2099 is different from the spider-man 2099 from shattered dimension actually this is not a sequel this led to a lot of confusion as fans wondered if the game tied into shattered dimensions or if it was a separate game in its own continuity looking at the game now after its release i can definitely say that it takes place within the same continuity but i see why they didn't want it to be considered a sequel i think the reason the game wasn't called shattered dimensions 2 was an attempt to manage fan expectations by naming it shattered dimensions 2 it gives the impression that this game will be bigger and expand on everything that they had done in shattered dimensions 1. with such a short release deadline though bnox clearly wouldn't have the ability to make a game of that scale in a year so they decided on the title edge of time to temper expectations in a recent interview by gamesradar binoc's co-studio head thomas wilson looks back on these spider-man games and gives some insight into their thought process back then i wish we could have done a shattered dimensions too as there's so much content to draw inspiration from in the comics now of course the industry has evolved but after the first game i wish we could have jumped right into the sequel because i love the formula and approach we had the big difference with edge of time is that we had very little development time and i guess that's the reason why some of the fans were potentially disappointed that it was half of what shattered dimensions had been it was a situation where a game needed to be released quickly so the decision was made to focus exclusively on amazing spider-man and spider-man 2099 as we knew that it was a storyline that we'd seen in the comic books as thomas points out edge of time focuses on two of the spider-men from shattered dimensions 2099 and the amazing spider-man leaving out ultimate and noir they also changed up the voice cast a bit josh keaton who voiced ultimate spider-man in the first game is now voicing amazing spider-man and edge of time instead of neil patrick harris christopher daniel barnes also returns after voicing spider-man noir in shattered dimensions but this time he's playing spider-man 2099 instead of dan gilvezan edge of time also has a different premise to shatter dimensions shatter dimensions was more of a spider-verse style story focusing on the four different dimensions and the characters within edge of time however is focused more with well time specifically the chronal link between amazing and 2099 since they operate on the same timeline so basically whenever amazing spider-man changes something in the past it affects things in the future it's a pretty cool premise that we'll explore more as we get into the story speaking of the story though alongside creative director gerard leone and ramiro bellinger benox decided to hire comic book writer peter david to pen the story and dialogue for edge of time he was the ideal choice since he co-created spider-man 2099 and had also written a comic book where 2099 and the classic spider-man enter into each other's time periods and briefly meet in person it's only one issue but it forms the backbone of what binox were wanting to do in edge of time amazing spider-man and 2099 spider-man also contrast each other nicely which was the goal of peter david back when he created 2099 in the 90s 2099 spider-man isn't peter parker and is instead a different character named miguel o'hara and peter david wanted to emphasize their differences in a quote with game's radar peter david describes his thought process for creating spider-man 2099 basically i inverted the modern day spider-man wherever i could current spidey is chatty in costume and reserved as peter parker so i had spider-man 2099 be fairly mute in costume and a wise cracker as miguel peter's web spinners were mechanical miguel's biological peter's wall-crawling abilities were never really explained he just kind of stuck to the wall miguel had talons peter's spider sense was nearly mystical in nature miguel had accelerated vision that enabled him to see things from great distances and practically 360 degrees around him i think it's helpful to know these differences going into the game and i also think peter david was an excellent choice to write it spider-man edge of time released in october 2011 for xbox 360 wii ps3 nintendo ds and nintendo 3ds for this video we'll be focusing on the console versions of the game specifically the ps3 version which is the copy that i played i also used the emulator rpcs3 to help boost the graphics and that is where all of the gameplay that you'll see came from if you enjoyed this video i'd also appreciate it if you gave it a like and you can subscribe if you'd like to see more videos like this one but with that said let's get into the story eddie brock listen to me eddie this this isn't you no josh eddie we start the story during a crucial moment in time as amazing spider-man battles anti-venom this is curious though because anti-venom isn't really a villain even though it looks a lot like venom and its host is still eddie brock there are some key differences in the comics eddie brock ended up ditching the venom symbiote for a while unaware that some small remnants of it remain in his body however after separating from the symbiote eddie also developed cancer martin lee aka mr negative at one point put his hand on eddie's shoulder causing his power to fuse to the remaining symbiote as well as brock's white blood cells when venom eventually returned back to brock its return triggered the creation of a new symbiote antivenom as anti-venom brock now has full control over the symbiote he also has the new ability to cure diseases in others and eddie uses these powers to help people so with eddie brock a reformed man now it's surprising to see him trying to kill spider-man here and i think it's a really intriguing way to start the story we also get hints that eddie isn't in his right mind and that peter is psychically linked to spider-man 2099 during this fight it raises a lot of interesting questions for the player right off the bat and it immediately got me hooked anti-venom is really intimidating here as well he's obviously much larger than spider-man but his healing ability is a problem for spidey too since spider-man's abilities are radiation based from that radioactive spider bite anti-venom can cleanse those powers from peter's body during this fight we'll start off pretty strong against anti-venom hitting him with powerful strikes and using our hyper sense to dodge his attacks but as the fight goes on he'll start to drain our powers and make us weak the game makes you play in this weakened state too as you fumble around aimlessly trying to hit eddie while he pummels you with massive strikes this opening segment is pretty bleak so far with anti-venom getting ready for a kill strike while 2099 seems to arrive too late to intervene at this point in time it looks like we're witnessing the death of peter parker and the cutscene ends with 2099 holding an unconscious spider-man in his arms that's one hell of an opening sequence and i absolutely love it it really makes you feel how hopeless peter's situation is here against anti-venom and i was extremely curious as to what was going on in the story to lead us here of course i knew peter wasn't actually dead or at least i strongly assume that there was no way they'd kill him off but still this opening had me hooked and i think it was incredibly well done i also like how you get glimpses at this before you even start the game as you reach the main menu seeing 2099 carrying a defeated peter parker is such a striking image and it really sets the tone going into the game even though we're eager to see the fate of peter parker the game won't pick up right after that moment first we need to go back in time and see how this all started i keep trying to tell myself that i'm just jealous of walker sloane's progress it was only five years ago that he first showed up at alcomax talking about harnessing energy from the fourth dimension now he won't stop until he's running the place i know his type he's thinking beyond alcamax aiming towards who knows what he's the exact type of corporate monster i've sworn to reign in especially if he's mucking with time travel the year 2099 might not be much but it's all mine and he's not been changing [Music] he's been siphoning alcamac's resources into converting the gateway and the old virtual unreality lab into something else something dangerous i've tried talking to him but he's got no time for miguel o'hara but people make time for spider-man just use the convenient access to the ventilation system to get inside and then walker and i can have a little chat we pick up with miguel o'hara aka spider-man 2099 as he breaks into the alcamax ventilation system to investigate evil scientist walker sloan miguel's infiltration here also acts as an opening title sequence for the game and i'm loving how stylistically they integrated the opening credits by the way i think it's helpful to know more about this character in his world before going further into the game so let's do that real quick in 2099 there are no more superheroes like there are in the amazing spider-man's time period which in 2099 is known as the heroic age even though there aren't any more superheroes in the future they're still looked back on fondly and mega-corporation alcomax hopes to try and replicate some of them using their genetic imprinting technology one of which is spider-man and their hope is to use the genetic imprint of a spider to recreate him this brings us to miguel o'hara miguel was a scientist for alchemax as part of their genetics division he was required to do a test on a human subject which ended up as a failure causing the subject to horribly mutate and die miguel refused to do another one attempting to hand in his letter of resignation to alcamax executive tyler stone instead of accepting miguel's resignation tyler laced his drink with a highly addictive drug called rapture alkamax actually created rapture and since they are the sole legal suppliers of the drug tyler's goal was to get miguel addicted to it forcing him to work for alchemax forever in order to get his fix luckily miguel had his own dna on file in his lab and his plan was to use his genetic imprinting technology to revert himself back before the rapture bonded to his dna miguel had another enemy at alcamax though his supervisor aaron delgado aaron noticed that miguel was about to use the genetic imprinting machine and decided this was a good opportunity to try and kill him aaron added in the spider genetic program into the machine as miguel was entering it hoping that miguel would mutate and die the same way as the earlier test subject to his surprise miguel actually survived with new abilities for example miguel had retractable talons that allow him to stick to walls and organic webbing as we saw in that peter david quote miguel doesn't have a spider sense and instead has accelerated vision allowing him to see in perfect clarity even at a distance as well as nearly 360 degrees around himself this allows him to spot incoming attacks easier and react to them he also has enhanced speed moving so fast that he can leave a decoy of himself something we'll utilize a lot in the game going back to the game though miguel continues his pursuit of walker sloane we see him in person and then we get the voice actor title card for him and wow i was surprised to see val kilmer as a voice of a character in this game we'll talk about him more when we get to the audio portion of the video but if you don't recognize his name you'll probably know him as the guy who played batman and batman forever can i persuade you to take a sandwich with you sir i'll get drive through as we follow sloane we can hear some of the conversation he's having with his ai and he's essentially describing his whole evil plan basically sloane has discovered a way to go back in time using a time gate he's developed sloane wants to take all the knowledge he has from the future and create alchemax years before it was originally founded but this time in his image this also gives him the opportunity to dismantle any possible competitors before they arise sloan also mentions that the ceo of alkamax won't be happy with sloan's plan because it would remove him from power so he's keeping it a secret eventually we reach a point where we can no longer follow sloane using the vents so we have to navigate the facility and intercept him in his time research lab when we eventually get there it seems we were slightly too late to prevent sloan from accessing the time gate and beginning his evil scheme even though we were only seconds behind that gave sloane enough time to alter the past and future in his and alcamax's image miguel realizes this but also deduces that everything hinges on the life of peter parker who is the only one who can stop sloane it's changed everything's changed what he didn't start here it started back then back around peter parker's time and he can't fix it because he's gonna be dead it's an abomination is what it is am i the only newspaper man in the city that realizes what a menace that webhead is oh jonah um indoor voice okay i'm trying to get mary jane on the phone people lionizing that freak next thing you know there'll be a musical about him with a chorus line of dancing spiderman i'd pay to see that oh mary jane hi [Music] [Music] go see a show uh mj i would love to but i'm working with dr octavius in the genetics lab on a dna project i had to download a sample of my own dna into the permanent alkamax genetic files i'm still waiting for some test results permanent files huh great so 100 years from now we can clone you yeah i don't think so well how about i come there and we grab a late dinner afterward okay tiger sure it's okay anything for you babe and i love when you call me tiger it's like a blast from the past miguel heads to a higher part of the building and while he's riding the elevator he has a telepathic conversation with peter peter peter parker who's that who's talking miguel o'hara the spider-man from 2099. are the other me's in my head too no it's just me and you old-timer this moment is also where it became clear to me that this game is in the same continuity as shattered dimensions when peter asks if the other versions of him are in his head right now that's definitely a reference to spider-man noir and ultimate who we met in the last game however this is about as far as the references to the last game go during this elevator ride miguel fills peter in on what's going on including the fact that this is the day that he dies we also learn that peter has no memory of his life prior to the change where he worked for the daily bugle miguel also tells peter that he witnessed his death occur on the 66th floor where sloane's time gateway is miguel obviously wants peter to avoid that location to prevent his death but peter is stubborn you've got a lot to learn about priorities pal i'm gonna do what i think is right and that means going after bad guys you want a spider-man who'll do whatever you want go play a video game [Music] this transitions us into playing as the amazing spider-man right off the bat there are a couple fun easter eggs in this office we can see peter's degree from empire state university as well as a couple of photos one of mary jane watson as well as a photo of aunt may and uncle ben we can also see the nameplates of a couple of peter's co-workers all of which worked at the daily bugle with him before sloane's time tampering one of which is betty brant receptionist for jonah in the daily bugle in a what-if comic betty even became spider-girl for an issue there's also robbie robertson one of the editors at the daily bugle we also have ben urich an investigative journalist he's a great character in the comics but you might be more familiar with his character from the daredevil tv series and last but not least a giant billboard outside the window for jameson's talk radio show it's good to see the jonah as a journalist at heart and still finds a way to report the news even when the daily bugle doesn't exist off to the side is also a sign for roxon and energy corporation in the marvel universe moving on though we head outside the office and immediately meet our killer anti-venom sets off an explosion but also tries to warn us to stay away from him peter doesn't listen and continues through the alcamax building we make it to what kind of looks like a mall type area where peter tells miguel his plan instead of avoiding anti-venom and his potential death he plans to head to the 66th floor in hopes of intercepting anti-venom before he reaches that area miguel of course hates that idea but peter does what he thinks is right while we're in this location though random ads will play over the speakers for different businesses in this new universe there are a ton of them and all of them seem to be fun easter eggs based on marvel universe characters and locations i thought these were really clever so let's check them out i'll also put relevant information on screen about the characters that the ads are referencing while we're going through them [Music] sign on scene when your case is just too weird susan richards lingerie guaranteed see-through madame medusa's salon bring your hair vote and is the thunder gabriel o'hara bringing your dreams to holographic life visit the beautiful atlantic the real land down under tune in to dr leonard sampson he's listening i love that all of these were included and they're really fun references to the wider marvel universe the easter egg ads and shattered dimensions were some of my favorite parts so i'm glad benox incorporated more for edge of time but as we continue through the building anti-venom attempts to kill peter with an elevator he's unsuccessful but miguel then tells us that the elevator he was riding on just became a closet this is our first experience with how the past is affecting the future and it will play a major role throughout the rest of the game speaking of which miguel's path is blocked by a force field so peter heads to a security mainframe in his time and destroys it it removes the force field for miguel but instead adds a giant security robot for him to fight the robot is proving to be too much for miguel to handle so peter heads to the robotic research division of alcamax to destroy it before it's operational this level does a good job at illustrating the cause and effect gameplay style of edge of time since every time we dismantle part of the robot we can see it taking some sort of effect in miguel's time once we rip its head off the robot disappears completely from miguel but is replaced with a new threat this time a swarm of robot soldiers this is a lot more manageable though and this is where our gameplay transitions back to 2099 after taking out all of the guards we continue making our way through the alcamax building miguel's goal is to reach the 66th floor in his time in hopes of helping peter somehow miguel is currently on a much higher floor so he decides to free fall through the building as a quick way to reach that level this is the first of multiple freefall gameplay sections that we'll get to play much like the ones from shattered dimensions you'll freefall and have to avoid colliding with objects in your path and you can also boost miguel's falling speed to reach the destination faster the freefall sections in the last game weren't my favorite and i can't say that i enjoyed them much here either honestly they're pretty cool visually but my main issue is that miguel doesn't control all that well here he kind of felt floaty as i tried to move him around making it trickier to be precise he'd often move farther than i anticipated causing me to crash into objects i didn't hate the free fall sections but i never got to a point where i felt comfortable with how he controlled which kind of ruined the experience nevertheless we make it to the 66th floor but it can never be that easy a random robot guard appears and blows up the platform we're standing on causing us to free fall some more past multiple levels miguel manages to web himself to a wall and we have to crawl our way back up even though i wasn't a huge fan of the freefall sections i did think these wall crawling segments were pretty cool you have to make your way along this linear path without touching the edges or else you'll take damage along the way security turrets will pop up and you have to web them while trying to quickly make your way up this wall it's simple but i enjoyed it the wall crawling control is pretty smooth in this game too which i think helped to make the experience more enjoyable as well while we're attempting to recover lost ground we learn that peter is nearly to the 66th floor and won't slow down to let us catch up even worse he's spotted anti-venom and is in pursuit by the time that we finally make our way back up to the 66th floor peter is already face to face with anti-venom it seems that brock is being mind controlled to fight spider-man and is trying to resist the urge brock eventually runs off and we're back to playing as peter our goal now is to try and find brock again in hopes of freeing him from whatever is controlling him after fighting our way through more enemies and traversing more of alcamax we eventually meet back up with eddie at the time bridge back off eddie you're a puppet fight the puppet master not me difficult for me you don't know what you're doing i know enough you have to die or we both can live you think you're so much better than i am acting like you're so worried about me i'm worried about what you'll do to other people and yeah to me but if you can fight it he can't trust me oh yeah i always trust people who are trying to kill me so you're the head lunatic well we haven't been properly introduced i'm the guy who's gonna stop your plans good luck with that anti-venom finish him i can't impressive resistance but activating all the controlled chips releasing your more beastial side should do the trick this brings us to a similar boss fight to the one we experienced at the start of the game where we fight one-on-one against anti-venom the most effective ability we have against him is our hypersense which is essentially our dodge mechanic when you press the left trigger you'll activate hypersense mode and see multiple phasing versions of yourself which indicate your quick reflexes as you passively dodge attacks while it's active you can't be damaged but it's not infinite since it will end once this bar fully drains this bar being our stamina meter also you might be wondering why it's called hyper sense and not spider sense since that's peter's trademark ability well i think it's mostly because anti-venom is immune to peter's spider sense in the comics so it'd be weird if we could use it against him in the game the spider sense is still featured though but it's basically detective vision from the batman arkham games allowing you to see objectives and area of interest hypersense is still really effective against anti-venom though since you can dodge out of the way of his bigger attacks leaving him open for additional damage like last time we start this fight feeling incredibly powerful and we're able to deal a lot of damage to anti-venom early on but unfortunately for us he has the ability to fully heal himself during the fight this starts to make the battle feel insurmountable but despite everything peter manages to get the upper hand on anti-venom and launch him into the other room assuming that brock is now down for the count peter takes a moment to gloat to miguel miguel good news turns out you were wrong hope that doesn't wound your ego what you think if you die i'll be happy to be right i don't think you're happy to be wrong well then you know as little about me as you think i know about you what i know is that brock looks to be down for the count peter definitely jinxed himself though as anti-venom sneaks up on him and starts to drain all of his powers this does quite a number on peter and for us as the player we can no longer use our hypersensibility without our ability to dodge his attacks now he pretty much wipes the floor with us peter is in a very weakened state not even able to stand as we transition back to miguel who is frantically trying to find a way to save him now miguel isn't exactly close to reaching the time gate though as he still has multiple rooms to clear before he's there as we're fighting our way through these rooms we'll occasionally hear from peter as he slowly tries to crawl away from anti-venom it really feels like the curtains are about to close on peter parker and it definitely made these levels feel more tense as i wanted to make it to the time gate as quickly as possible this section isn't timed and i know it's all scripted but i think it's a compliment to the writing so far that i still felt invested in trying to get to peter quickly the way miguel would i will admit though that i did stop to collect some hidden golden spiders along the way so sorry peter eventually we switch back to playing as peter at this point he's in a pretty pitiful state barely able to stand and the best thing you can do as an attack is essentially a slap the developers make you play through this moment too which i think was a great idea i'm sure it was tempting to just show a cut scene of weekend peter getting wrecked by anti-venom but having you play as peter in this moment really makes you empathize with the state that he's in as you're playing you're still trying to find a way to beat anti-venom despite the odds the same way peter would be but you start to understand that there really is no hope now and that his only chance is miguel antivenom then knocks you back into the room with the time gate pretty much signaling that miguel's vision of peter's death is about to come true even more you're still playing as peter as you attempt to crawl away from anti-venom it's all very dramatic in a good way and i'm still invested in what will happen next come on spidey hold it together just another few seconds let's get your strength back no not this time we then play as miguel as he carries peter in his arms the same way we saw in the main menu miguel is taking peter to a cellular regeneration pod hoping to bring him back to full health meanwhile we see what sloan is up to now that his plan's been foiled and we even get to see otto octavius aka dr octopus what have you got me into the middle of walker i'm just a scientist for the love of whining octavius you knew i was out to change the future i didn't know the future was going to start fighting back the forces were unleashing with this quantum tunnel under control it's out of control and spider-man is still alive to stop it we'll just send anti-venom after him the gateway just needs a minute to recharge if it's going to send him through safely even though he looks like the doctor octopus from the comics this is a different version of otto due to sloane changing reality this version of otto is employed by alcomax and more of a whiny scientist than an intimidating supervillain we don't even get to fight him in the game but more on his role a little bit later for now we return to miguel who is placing peter inside the pod when he hears the alarm of the time gate going off anti-venom is woken back up and is ready to charge through the portal instead miguel jumps through to take him on this leads to a boss fight between miguel and anti-venom and it is incredibly satisfying to go full throttle on anti-venom again especially after being thrown around by him so much in peter's weakened state miguel has a big advantage over anti-venom as well since he can't drain miguel's powers miguel's powers are dna-based and not radioactive based like peter's so anti-venom can't rely on that crutch miguel's accelerated vision also comes in very handy here too in the game it's the same button as peter's hyper sense but it functions differently it operates kind of like super speed where miguel moves so quickly that he can be in two places at once triggering his accelerated vision leaves a decoy of himself that enemies will attempt to fight while the real miguel is free to roam as he pleases in this case you can fake out anti-venom when he charges you then sneak up on him from behind for some extra damage it's really fun to do and this fight feels great however there's still the problem of anti-venom's ability to self-heal even though he can still effectively heal during this fight his regenerating brings the mind control devices to the surface allowing miguel to yank them off one by one at one point we're able to trick anti-venom into crashing into one of these side doors which is the same room that peter is being held in in the future coincidentally this is also the moment that some zombie-like failed mutation experiments break free and try to get into peter's pod in order to stop them in the future we have to lure anti-venom into breaking these pods in the past i like this section a lot and i think it's one of the better uses of the quantum causality or cause and effect gameplay style throughout the story it's fun watching as the mutated beings disappear one by one as anti-venom slowly destroys their pods removing them from existence but after this we return back to the main room to finish our fight against antivenom after removing the final control chip he turns his attention to his true enemy walker sloane you did it to me planted that chip in me control me i didn't control you brock i freed you both know you wanted spider-man dead you should be thanking me let me show you just how grateful i am no keep back one side you although this seems like a win it's only the beginning of our problems it seems that going through the portal at the same time caused anti-venom sloan and doc ock to all merge into one being so we'll have to deal with that later for now we return back to peter as he wakes up from the cellular regeneration pod it takes him a moment to catch his bearings but he's fully healed and back to his old self he returns back to the time gate to swap places with miguel but it appears that the return circuits are fried on his end since miguel is now in the past and the technology doesn't exist there yet he needs peter to go retrieve some and throw them through the portal as we're leaving our path gets blocked by a giant symbiote tentacle it seems that anti-venom can portal his new tentacles anywhere he wants and it'll show up frequently to block our path throughout the game luckily it's easily defeated by firing some web bullets at the center of it regardless we continue through outcomex in search of the circuits peter and miguel have regular conversations as we traverse the various rooms of alchemax and during one of them we get an easter egg reference for different marvel characters that have died and come back in the comics by the way thanks for bringing me back from the dead now i know how captain america feels and jean grey and colossus and just don't die again and we'll call it even that list could probably go on for quite a while so it's good miguel cut him off when he did continuing on though we eventually reached the area where the parts are there are only three of them but miguel warns us that if we let them touch they're atomic and could cause a deadly explosion enough to crater the city easy enough right don't let them touch well thanks to the old parker luck peter collects all three and they accidentally make contact so we have to return back to miguel in under two minutes so he can stop them from exploding this actually is a time trial and we have to traverse the next few rooms quickly while also dealing with the random symbiote tentacles that show up to slow us down i usually don't like time trials but i think this one is pretty fun the timer helped to up the tension but i still felt like i had enough time to complete the mission comfortably but now that we're back at the portal we throw the parts to miguel and he puts them in place of course he's still not getting enough power to the portal for some reason so he has to head to the archives room in hopes of finding an answer after many more combat rooms and a couple more freefall sections miguel makes it to the archives room but it's locked using voice recognition miguel has no way in so he needs peter to head to the archives room in his time to see if he can find the solution there peter actually likes this idea because he can view the archived information of his loved ones to see how they died to help him prevent them from happening when he returns to the past miguel hates the idea of peter tampering with time any further and tells him not to access that information peter begrudgingly agrees and heads to the archive room okay i'm here so how do i access it enter my password lila l-y-l-a [Music] let me think i wish i could just say open sesame or grant me access or request acknowledged access granted that was weird okay let's go over the startup procedures slow down parker it's not that simple did you fire up the quark enhancers activate the tachyon relays yes yes i did all that no you just uncouple the heisenberg compensators yes of course i suck and no i didn't i was right wow i oh no what's wrong it's mary jane she dies tonight right there at alcomax how do you know for shock's sake parker what part of don't poke around in the archives was unclear fine i'm a nosy parker but now that i found out it's it's what my job to save her i've got enough to deal with you can't mean that you can't just ignore that she's in danger hey i'm trying to focus on what's important what's important is not standing by and allowing someone to suffer or die because you do nothing if you don't get that then you don't get the first thing about being spider-man you're the one who doesn't get it parker the future depends on my future is meaningless without her this can be a huge mistake i owe you miguel big time shocking right you do but well maybe this will help even the score for everything the world owes you thank you i mean that man i must have been crazy to think about staying here if people i love are going to be in danger then i need to be there to help them [Music] is her we'll save the reveal for who that mystery voice was for a bit longer but for now we play as miguel as he attempts to find mary jane in the alchemax building the symbiote tentacles are really getting out of hand though and are popping up everywhere they're easy enough for us to handle but not so much for mary jane and they keep leading her away from us finally we find mary jane hiding out in an elevator as i'm sure you've predicted this was a terrible place to hide and the tentacles drop it to the ground this leads to another free fall section but this one's my favorite maybe it's just the anxiety of spider-man attempting to save a falling girl and it ending like gwen stacy again but i really felt the pressure to rescue mary jane here it's really tense as you're trying to dodge the tentacles and catch back up to the free-falling elevator especially with peter freaking out in your ear occasionally the control still detracted from the experience a bit for me but overall i felt really adrenalized in this level and i think it was really well done after a while we catch up to mary jane and rescue her from the elevator miguel then carries her to safety as we swap back to peter thanks again miguel the enough with the thanks you ready come home you bet and leave me again how much rejection is a girl supposed to take black cat i was praying i was wrong felicia what if they help me spider they they gave me an anti-aging drug for decades made me over spider-sense going nuts you're lying the real felicia she would have never let them never let them what turn me into this you destroyed me spider after what you did i didn't care what happened to me i don't know what you're talking about the surprise reveal is of course black cat in the year 2099 and she'll act as another boss fight this 2099 version of black cat isn't from the comics though and was an original creation for the game the in-game files give details on her backstory and essentially this is a clone of the original black cat alchemax got their hands on the original black cat's dna and mixed it with the dna of actual cats the villain tigra and a gene from the character vanisher which allows this black cat to teleport she also has the memories of the previous black cat in her relationship with spider-man which is why she was drawn to peter here she clearly blames peter for all of her problems though which doesn't quite make sense yet but we'll learn why that is a little bit later on this is pretty much just the warm-up battle against her though since she teleports away before being fully defeated this room is pretty interesting itself too because it houses some statues of villains we faced in shattered dimensions namely craven the hunter mysterio juggernaut and silver sable although she wasn't really a villain in that game after leaving the room we start to head back to the portal when the big reveal happens i'm into after the gateway room tell me when you're there as well we have to time this right you got it miguel oh how nice you and your counterpart are on a first name basis now it's good to know you've bonded who are you i'm the ceo of alcomax the real question is who are you old friend old friend so this is where you make the big reveal and i say holy cow norman osborne or the kingpin joni jamison come on please be jameson all of them long dead i fear too bad they didn't have access to the anti-aging drug we developed does wonders for you and i do mean you no it you can't can't be yes why do people always say that good thing your future counterpart's safe to say otherwise we couldn't be this i i become the evil mastermind oh don't be melodramatic with great power comes great responsibility and great opportunity and the only way to live up to all that responsibility is to use every opportunity to get all the power i learned that the day i lost everyone i loved and didn't have the power to stop it what do you mean everyone you'll find out except once i've fixed reality you actually won't find out consider yourself lucky peter it's up and running but it's not tremendously stable where are you i think i think i'm in hell the ceo it's me what that's that's insane how can that be holy shock peter now let me explain it all to you explain it to my rapidly retreating backside so yeah future peter parker is the ceo this is the reason why black cat was so pissed at us earlier because the original black cat was promised that anti-aging serum in the game files it states that black cats signed her life away to alchemix for the anti-aging serum which is how they obtained her dna the original black cat apparently escaped but this clone version still remembers and holds a grudge future peter was the one who developed the anti-aging serum so it must have been him who betrayed her peter used the serum on himself as well and the files state that the serum hasn't meshed well with the radiation in his blood and is having a negative impact on his thought process explaining why he's so villainous in the game but yeah future peter is the new ceo and will be the main villain for the rest of the game this is a pretty good twist since i assumed we'd be dealing with walker sloane the entire game especially since he's voiced by val kilmer nevertheless we walk into the next room which is the ceo secret archives there are a lot of cool things to find in here too to start we can find a bunch of different spider-man suits from the comics all of which are unlockable in the game so more on those later however there is one secret suit that you can pull up from the ground that's not from the comics but we'll discuss that one later on too there are also some old newspapers mentioning spider-man and different events he was involved in one of them shows a screenshot from shattered dimensions which i think was a fun inclusion the newspapers mentioning his fights against sandman and juggernaut could also be nods for the first game as well further into the room are some more things to look at on the left side there are more images of peter and mary jane as well as a photo of ant-may and uncle ben on the right side are some additional photos as well as a magazine cover featuring mary jane i like how they snuck some easter eggs on the magazine too in the center it says 616 plus ways to make your costume look like more than just tights which is a reference to the multiverse there are an infinite number of marvel universes but it's said that the classic marvel universe from the comics is the 616 universe so that's the joke there there are some other little nods on this cover as well although it's kind of tough to make them out since they're kind of blurry right here it says something about stormy weather with the bottom text being x-men in bold so i'm assuming this is something about the hero storm under that is also the mention of the character johnny storm aka the human torch of the fantastic four there's also this section that says an ultimatum wave for your skin this is likely a reference to the ultimatum wave that flooded new york city during the ultimatum story arc caused by magneto then the last thing in the room is a spider-man suit front and center that just so happens to be the tattered suit that we're wearing right now which raises the question why did future peter decide to showcase this suit in particular something pivotal must have happened while he was wearing this suit which is definitely a red flag after perusing through the ceo stuff we continue forward towards the time gate along the way we reach a locked door and a certain someone holds the key this means we're in for a more legitimate boss fight against black cat and her clones ultimately she's not too difficult but she does provide a decent challenge she's incredibly acrobatic and can attack with a flurry of strikes our hypersense is key here again since we have to time it for when she performs her bigger attacks leaving her open after dealing enough damage she'll teleport to another platform and we have to follow her there for the next battle you pretty much repeat this process a couple more times until you finally defeat her i was like old times wasn't it peter and i know i knew it wasn't my old times not really but it was as close as i was ever going to get be honest was i yeah good you were great better than the original maybe don't tell mj about that near kiss peter overall i thought she was a pretty decent boss fight i liked the combat in this game and her fight allowed me to engage with it in a more substantial way so i enjoyed it she doesn't exactly feel integral to the plot though and instead feels like a tacked-on boss fight i like her inclusion and i think they gave her a cool backstory but i wish she didn't feel so shoehorned in she randomly shows up out of nowhere we fight her a couple times and then after beating her she just disappears never to be seen again i don't think peter even mentions her to miguel so i can't help but feel like she was included last minute when they realized there weren't enough boss fights in the game regardless i still enjoy the levels that she's in and i think she's a good boss fight so i wouldn't cut her out but now that black cat is out of our way we continue to the portal to meet up with miguel with the portal fully operational peter and miguel jump through at the same time and return to their original time periods they make it back successfully but something else followed peter the fusion of doctor octopus anti-venom and walker sloane presents itself and looks downright terrifying peter comes up with the perfect name for it though those tentacles they were coming from some kind of i don't know what this atrocity is in fact that's what i'm going to call it atrocity because big scary tentacle monster thingy takes way too long to say oh that and thing fools take peter again focus the quantum bridge is building on itself like a hurricane the name thing fang fume is another easter egg reference this time to a giant dragon in the marvel universe as far as atrocity he's an original creation for this game but i can't help but get vibes from the ps1 spider-man game which featured a character called monsterock the combination of carnage and doctor octopus they're so similar that i have to assume atrocity was inspired by that game in some way regardless i love how creepy and grotesque atrocity looks here not only do they have atrocity to deal with but miguel also notices that the portal is overloading and he needs to find a way to fix it not knowing exactly how to handle either problem he decides to head to the parasites research lab in alcomax luckily for us a wormhole magically appears in the room allowing us to teleport straight into that lab that's about as much luck as we can count on here though since the area that we end up in feels like it's straight out of a horoscene at one point miguel needs to push four dna data carts into a center station which wakes up a bunch of those zombie-like failed test subjects it turns out that they feed on the energy from these data carts so we'll have to protect each one from being destroyed by the test subjects meaning that we'll be fighting swarms of these creepy ass dudes this entire level i actually like this mission a lot though fighting a larger volume of enemies was a fun challenge and having to protect the dna carts helped to ratchet up the intensity each new cart adds more enemies and i like the challenge progression and you know me i always like levels with a creepy atmosphere like this one after locking in all four carts the analysis is complete miguel just needs one last piece of the puzzle though a dna sample from atrocity that's where peter comes in so we switch back to him peter needs to find a dna recorded to collect the sample so we'll explore alchemix for a while trying to hunt one down one of the rooms we go to is a biogenetics lab which holds a pretty cool easter egg scattered around the room are a bunch of stasis containers holding some kind of organic material they all pretty much look the same except for one which happens to contain flint marco the sandman amazing spider-man fought him in the last game and it seems he's somehow wound up here kind of a sad fate for sandman but i'm sure he'll break free while we're exploring alchemyx in search of the dna recorder we go through some vents to get to the next room suddenly atrocity grabs us from below and yanks us towards him peter manages to break free and escape to a random room to catch his breath the scuffle with atrocity also left peter's costume in a more damaged state and i just want to mention that i think it's a really cool detail to have peter's suit take progressively more damage as the game goes on i know it was already done in batman arkham asylum but it's fun to watch it here too also the reason why miguel's costume never takes damage the same way peters does is because his is made of unstable molecules so it's much harder to damage this also allows him to freely use his talons without tearing through the gloves another fun fact about miguel's costume is that it wasn't crafted to be a spider-man suit after he got his powers he needed to find something in his apartment quickly to conceal his identity the best thing he could find was an old outfit he wore during a day of the dead celebration this is why his iconography looks more skull based but anyway peter is able to find the dna recorder in his room so we're ready to collect the sample now comes the hard part though as we have to find a way to subdue atrocity long enough to get a sample our goal here is to maneuver atrocity into the gas chamber in the room buying us some time to extract a sample that was easy enough but of course one sample isn't enough and we have to collect two more the problem now is that we've really pissed atrocity off and we learn that he can also teleport the strategy is pretty much the same though lure him into the chamber and lock him in before he can grab us we do this a couple more times until we collect all three dna samples i don't know if i just lucked out but this level felt pretty easy i actually still really enjoyed it though because it was pretty hair-raising hearing atrocity chasing behind you as you try to race through the gas chamber before he grabs you so i like the tension and the atmosphere of the level and i appreciate that it wasn't just another straight up combat boss fight with all the data uploaded to the system though miguel is able to properly read it now no wonder i couldn't get a read that thing's a combination of sloan octavius and anti-venom they must have mutated into that thing when they were shoved through my god any weaknesses at a guess high voltage right now they're supercharged with quantum particles if we can reverse the polarity of the gateway and shove it back through the quantum feedback could reverse the time storm why reverse it miguel when we can use it you know who i of course he knows so i know miguel you're on the wrong side of this i'm not the villain here i'm the guy who's trying to make everything right don't you get it uh apparently i don't when the storm is fully unleashed i'm going to harness the quantum energy it will give me complete control over the times complete what are you trying to play god the first creation of the universe wasn't bad for a first draft i'm just going to provide a much needed rewrite i can make up for my original sin by saving uncle ben not to mention gwen stacy her dad countless others what kind of villain fixes it so that everyone gets to live happily ever after you're talking about power no human should have you'll end up destroying yourself but not before you've annihilated everything else well then i guess we'll just have to agree to disagree this discussion is over it's over when i say it this takes us into another free fall level sending us far away from the ceo miguel now has a bone to pick with the ceo and needs to find a way to get back up there luckily we land near the gravity control center which when powered on sends us back up the way we came this is a pretty cool transition as we're now free falling upwards although it plays pretty much the same way as any other freefall section still it's kind of trippy to know we're going up this whole time we then switch to peter who is making his way to the time gate along the way we discover that atrocity is alive and well and is in hot pursuit meanwhile miguel has made his way up to the ceo's tower and is ready to confront him after fighting through a bunch of his guards we make our way through a long hallway to his door while we're walking peter calls in to give us a tip he learned from captain america okay listen don't even bother trying to get him from behind his spider sense gives him the edge but captain america once told me that i put too much into my combo attacks and leave myself open for a few moments after them i know i shouldn't but i do thanks i'll do that oh well just don't let the bad guys know we'll definitely need to use that tip since when we finally reach the ceo's room he basically calls us out for a fight and of all places the gateway room where almost all of the boss fights have taken place at least the game is self-aware of it the older you is some piece of work why what happened meeting up in the gateway room i'm really starting to hate that place but like you said it began there and it's gonna end there while miguel begins his descent towards the gateway room peter begins his confrontation with atrocity even though i've been throwing some minor shade towards the game for reusing the same locations for all boss fights this is a pretty cool final showdown atrocity is an imposing force and you can't damage him until you've dealt with his tentacles our strategy here is to web up the tentacles and then bait him into latching onto this electric pillar this will stun atrocity giving us a moment to deal some damage before he breaks free after dealing enough damage peter will break off a couple of the tentacles and launch them into the portal meanwhile miguel arrives to the gateway and we transition into his boss fight against the ceo the ceo has fitted himself with a giant spider exo suit something miguel compares to iron man and iron spider iron spider being a reference to the suit iron man made for peter back during the civil war comic run during our fight atrocities tentacles reappear and we use them to our advantage we can lure the ceo into diving onto them subduing him and symbiote long enough for us to get some hits in we'll do this a couple more times and then we'll switch back to peter's fight with atrocity the gateway is starting to get out of control and harmful energy is pooling onto the ground this leads to a floor as lava kind of situation where we have to avoid touching the ground and damage atrocity from the sky the strategy is still pretty much the same though as we need to get him to latch his tentacles onto this electric pillar stunning him and momentarily draining enough power from the portal that we can stand on the ground again to hit him after dealing more damage peter removes the final two tentacles and we're back to playing as miguel tentacles are still emerging from the ground but that's actually a good thing for us we can lure the ceo next to one and then damage it causing it to lash out against him which gives us an opportunity to attack that's pretty much what we'll do for this whole phase of the fight before returning back to peter the portal is now trying to suck things in so our goal is to try and push atrocity back through the portal it's over i thought it was over he thinks it's over doesn't he don't see any fat lady singing though miguel it's still out of control you need to lock it down on your end and if you do actually i don't know what happens if you do then the fat glass should collapse the quantum bridge and overwrite all of this wiping it from existence and don't say if i can still take the ceo his arm is starting to overheat he can't control the energy just as i think now that the ceo is in a vulnerable state it's time to let loose we'll also use present day peter's advice and use our decoy to bait the ceo into a full combo allowing us to get behind him and damage him more after a while we web the ceo to the portal and kick him through it miguel does the whole cool guys don't look at explosions thing and we beat in the game as a final battle i actually think it's a big improvement over shattered dimensions that game's final fight felt more like each spider-man taking turns to fight mysterio without any cooperation between the four of them which was a bit underwhelming in edge of time it feels a lot more like miguel and peter are working as a team talking to each other throughout the entire battle i also like how you switch back and forth between them for each phase of their fights and i think it's a fitting finale but that takes us to the final cut scene it's all back to normal same here okay but if the timeline snap back to normal if none of it happened how do you and i remember it i mean we've got two different sets of memories in our brains shouldn't that be making us i don't know crazy crazy we already dress in skin-tight costumes and fight bad guys for free okay crazy er you really want a five-hour lecture on temporal paradoxes sure why not as it turns out looks like i have all the time in the world [Music] in the credits we get a final dialogue between peter and miguel as miguel tries to give him that lecture on temporal paradoxes also mentioning reed richards aka mr fantastic the science whizz of the fantastic four coincidentally reed richards did the first studies which hypothesized that time is like a vortex and when major changes occur in the surrounding vortex anyone who is dead center of the disruption could observe them without being affected like being in the eye of a storm he called it the observer effect we also get another minor spider ham easter egg reminiscent of his end credit easter egg in the first game but that ends the story of spider-man edge of time overall i thought it was a well-written and performed story i was definitely gripped at the beginning with the near death of peter and the final moments of the game felt epic in scale and triumphant it's the middle of the game that seems to struggle the most for me though it felt like a lot of the middle sections were where they padded the game to increase its gameplay length by sending you on fetch quests from room to room to retrieve a part or break something instead of progressing the story in interesting ways the game also lacks a good variety of boss fights since we primarily fight against anti-venom the whole game and the ceo at the end we already talked about it at length but i think the developers realized they had an underwhelming amount of unique bosses in the game so they threw in black cat for a spider-man game i definitely could have used more noteworthy villains from the comics the level design is also an area that was a little disappointing the levels weren't bad but after the uniqueness and creativity of each level in shattered dimensions edge of time feels like a letdown in that category the whole game takes place in alcamax and a lot of the levels start to blur together in memory all of the boss fights take place in reused locations as well the worst offender being the time gate room where we fight every boss except for black cat but that recycles an earlier level as well i'm sure a lot of my complaints boiled down to the rush development window b-nocks were given by activision but it's still disappointing nonetheless despite those criticisms i still enjoyed the story a lot because i think it gets a lot of things right i really like the twist of the ceo as peter from the future i think it was more impactful thanks to walker sloane who kind of acts as a red herring since i expected him to be the final big bad i also really liked the mood of the game since it felt like it had a darker tone to it both visually and emotionally but they balanced it well with a lot of fun dialogue between the two spider-men while we're on that topic i really love the dialogue between peter and miguel and their banter kept me engaged throughout the entire game peter david wrote the dialogue and i think he really excelled here of course a lot of that is also tied to the performances of voice actors but i'll wait to discuss them when we get to the audio section of the video i also thought the quantum causality theme of the game was pretty cool it was fun watching something you did in the past changed things in the future and i think that element was well done you could tell that bnox were having a lot of fun with that and it was common for things to randomly shift as you approach them in a room thanks to whatever was happening in the past my only minor criticism with that is that it was always a scripted event and i would have liked to have had more control over it as the player for example maybe i break all of the objects in a room in the past so now i can't use them in the future but if i left the room untouched then i can use them in 2099 that's not a great example but you get what i mean it would have been fun as the player to have some choice in how the future was affected by my actions in the past but like i said that's a very minor criticism and i had a lot of fun watching the quantum causality take place throughout the game and i think it was cleverly utilized but ultimately i ended up enjoying the story a lot despite its meandering in the middle in fact i might even like the story itself more than i did in shattered dimensions in all reality that game's story was primarily a fetch quest having you go from dimension to dimension collecting pieces of a tablet and only really progress when mysterio popped up after each act not that shadow dimensions was poorly written or anything i actually think the writing was excellent in that game just that edge of time story felt more seamless and cohesive as we move through it but i think we've talked long enough about the story so let's get into the gameplay [Music] the gameplay is pretty solid in edge of time and functions a lot like it did in shattered dimensions both 2099 and amazing spider-man both have similar combat mechanics to help transition easily between the two but differ enough that their combat feels unique to each of them for example amazing spider-man creates powerful objects out of his webbing like web wrecking balls to hit enemies and these give him a lot of range 2099 on the other hand is more up close and personal but his talons have a wide area of effect allowing you to slash multiple enemies at once if they're in range you'll alternate between light and heavy attacks and different combinations can trigger different combo animations like amazing creating a giant webbed fist strangely i had to learn these through trial and error since you can't really unlock new combos in the upgrade store and i didn't see a button guide the detailed combos still i enjoyed experimenting to see what was available the combat is pretty simplistic overall though and at times felt borderline button mashy since you'll be spamming that light attack button a lot when faced against a group of standard enemies you do need some strategy in your combat as you progress further into the game though as you're pitted against more challenging enemies for example shield enemies and flying enemies are common opponents that can ruin your day shielded enemies can't be hit with light attacks until you open them up with a heavy attack first for the flying enemies you need to find a way to knock them out of the sky and i found the most effective way to do this was by using your special ability that deals with enemies at a distance for amazing spider-man you can web zip towards them and with spider-man 2099 you can send out decoys to pull distant enemies closer and break their block this is effective against flying enemies shielded enemies or anyone that wants to stay on the outskirts of the fight with a rifle i found that you typically want to take out those kind of enemies first if possible since they can deal you a lot of unnecessary damage over time with their ranged attacks especially these stunner enemies because they have a gun that can disorient you if you get hit by it you'll be wobbling around trying to catch your bearings while enemies rush in to take advantage of the opportunity it sucked to be hit by one of those but i actually like this enemy type a lot because they kept me on my toes you're often faced against multiple of them at a time which forced me to really pay attention to my surroundings to see if one of them was charging up so i could either dodge out of the way or break their block to interrupt them webbing also plays a more important role in this game as well since you'll be dealing with a lot of enemies at once many of which are ranged you'll want to buy yourself some time and delay their attacks webbing up enemies is a really satisfying way to slow them down and i found myself using it often webbing is also crucial against security turrets jamming them up so you can destroy them i never felt like webbing in shattered dimensions was all that essential but it felt a lot more necessary in edge of time which i appreciated i also liked how the combat scenarios always felt very frantic but never overly complex it's fun juggling a variety of enemy types and using all of the tools at your disposal to most efficiently take them out the only downside is that the runtime of the game is padded with a ton of combat encounters so it starts to get a bit repetitive fortunately the upgrade store does a good job of helping to keep things fresh as you incorporate new abilities into your repertoire for example you can upgrade current abilities like amazing spider-man's light attacks at the beginning of the game he'll start by punching with his normal fists but as you upgrade him he'll start to apply webbing to his punches for added damage in 2099's case the range at which his talon slash increases allowing you to hit more enemies with each attack you can also unlock more advanced abilities that can be activated when your stamina meter goes into overdrive if your bar is full and you continue to damage enemies it will start to go into overdrive mode once it's in overdrive you can trigger one of your special abilities and i found these to be pretty handy for example amazing spider-man has one where you can perform a flurry of punches on a single target something i really enjoyed using against larger enemies 2099 has a cool one where he punches the ground causing all nearby enemies to be launched into the air there are three of these overdrive abilities for each spider-man and i thought they were a lot of fun to experiment with however what i liked most about them is that they forced me to pay more attention to my stamina meter since that meter drains from both the overdrive abilities and the dodge moves i had to be more strategic with what i used deciding throughout the fight if it was more important for me to be building up overdrive for special attacks or dodging with spider-sense and accelerated vision it also made me want to dodge less so that i could use overdrive abilities more frequently which i think made it less of a crutch as you may have noticed already the store is different from shattered dimensions in that game you were given a long list of different upgrades each one either applying to a specific spider-man or all of them at once the upgrades were also locked by groups based on how many of the in-game challenges you had completed so far it was a unique approach and one that i didn't mind but i wasn't overly thrilled with it an edge of time it feels a lot more straightforward and organized there are three pages within it the center one is shared between both spider-men unlocking aerial abilities and improving the potency of their web bullets you'll also notice a shared ability called time paradox you can trigger this when the purple meter is filled up and doing so will freeze enemies in place for a short duration you can either relentlessly beat on the enemies that are frozen or focus on the enemies that are still moving it's handy in situations when you're overwhelmed by a large group of enemies but overall it takes a while to charge and i didn't find myself using it a whole lot during the game outside of the shared abilities are individual upgrades for 2099 and amazing like with the shared page they are broken up into two categories indicated by the gold upgrades and the blue upgrades the blue ones are the ones we talked about already which are the standard combat upgrades which you can buy using portal energy portal energy are these blue orbs scattered around each level and you can find some giant orbs that generate extra you can also use random computers around alcamax which generate energy and health as well although i'm not sure why the gold upgrades however are bought using golden spiders you might remember these from shattered dimensions where finding one granted you bonus energy to use in the store they've been repurposed a bit in edge of time though instead of granting energy they earn you a point towards these gold upgrades you can find hidden golden spiders around levels as well as earning them through different challenges such as defeating all the enemies in a room there are a lot of combat encounters in the game and in some cases you can solve the necessary puzzle in that room and then leave without defeating all the enemies however clearing rooms can earn you a gold spider which incentivizes you to fight more enemies or at least it did for me there were a lot of times that i'd be tempted to just leave a room and progress leaving behind a couple of pesky guards but i'd usually stay a little bit longer and take them out in hopes of acquiring a spider these gold upgrades are pretty useful too increasing things like health or stamina since they're so useful they get pretty expensive costing around 11 spiders for one upgrade for each spider-man so you'll want to be selective in which ones you prioritize ultimately i like this upgrade store more than the one in shattered dimensions since i felt like i had more choice in what i was upgrading in shattered dimensions you could only choose between a few upgrades for each new group with some being locked behind higher challenge walls in edge of time everything is available at the beginning so you have a lot more freedom in how you upgrade your spider-man going back to the combat itself if i had to choose which spider-man i had the most fun playing as i think i'd say that it was amazing spider-man's his range is really useful and his attacks are more visually exciting to watch due to all of his web weapons 2099 is fun in his own right too though he's definitely very effective against large groups of enemies and i like his accelerated vision ability a lot i think i just preferred the ranged nature of amazing's combat so it could just be a personal preference with this being a spider-man game we should probably discuss traversal a bit too although there's not much to it since this is a more linear game with few big open areas you're not doing a lot of web swinging the swinging feels pretty good when you need to use it it's just not very common instead you'll be using your web zip a lot to reach different purge points in shattered dimensions you use the web zip a lot as well but i felt like in that game it didn't always accurately anticipate where i was trying to zip to leading me to head into wrong directions in edge of time the web zip feature feels more intuitive and i didn't feel like i had that same issue i also thought that the wall crawling was very smooth in the game which isn't always the case for spider-man games i felt like i had a lot of control over where spidey was crawling and the camera never became an issue despite web swinging and wall crawling being of limited use in this game though i think bnox did a good job with it for what it was however if you want to test your combat and traversal skills further the web of challenges returns from shattered dimensions here you can visit different sections of the game and attempt to complete a challenge within them for a medal challenges such as collecting all energy orbs in an area under a certain amount of time or beating all of the enemies in an area within the time limit they're nothing too crazy but they do test your skills and add a layer of replay value if you're looking for it however the main incentive to play these challenges are for the rewards if you can get a silver medal in each challenge within a particular web group it'll unlock concept arts and a token for a new outfit there's a good variety of outfits to choose from and the selection should be enough to please any spider-man fanboy even better each outfit comes with a bio telling you the lore behind how spider-man acquired the outfit as well as its first appearance collecting these challenges are the main way you'll unlock a lot of these outfits although a couple can be acquired through cheat codes if you have a pre-existing save for shattered dimensions on your console you'll be automatically gifted a bunch of outfits from that game as well the outfits look pretty good too so let's take a moment to check out each one starting with the ones available to 2099 even though most of the outfits for 2099 weren't worn by him in the comics the game gives details in the bio as to how miguel got his hands on them which i think is a cool detail for example there's spider-man 1602 which is a real spider-man in the comics but the game bio states that miguel got the suit as a gag gift from his girlfriend dana after she visited a renaissance fair continuing on we also have flipside an android version of spider-man 2099 we also have the iron spider suit created by stark during the civil war comic series there's also the metallic spider armor apparently a halloween staple in 2099 next up is big time developed by peter to be a stealth suit this one is cosmic spider-man 2099 an original creation for shattered dimensions that was part of a pre-order bonus so it's nice to actually be able to experience it this time then there's the new spider armor created by peter to withstand a barrage of bullets there's also the ben reilly spider-man suit ben reilly being a clone of peter parker we also have the hydra suit from a time when miguel was under the influence of madame hydra you can even play as the ceo if you want although he looks super creepy when he's running around even better you can play as the ceo in his armored suit which we can now see is the one we pulled up from the ground in his office now let's take a quick look at the skins available for amazing spider-man first up is the bombastic bagman suit after getting rid of the symbiote suit in the lab of the baxter building peter needed something to wear to get home this suit is courtesy of johnny storm the human torch who gave him an old fantastic four suit and a paper bag to put over his head his finishing touch being a kick me sign on the back then we have the cosmic spider-man suit for peter based on his time as captain universe in the comics there's also scarlet spider another outfit worn by the clone ben reilly next up is secret war spider-man from a comic where spider-man was part of a secret invasion of latveria with nick fury continuing on though we also have the future foundation suit the future foundation being a team reed richards created after the apparent death of the human torch you can also forego your secret identity and play as peter parker in his office clothes one of my personal favorite inclusions though is the miles morales suit from the ultimate universe another cool inclusion is the masked marvel suit which is the makeshift suit peter wore for a wrestling match after being bit by the spider another great inclusion is the symbiote spider-man outfit peter would of course later get rid of the suit causing it to find eddie brock merging the two into venom there's also the negative zone suit from a time when peter needed to enter the negative zone an alien universe composed entirely of antimatter there were also a few bonus outfits if you pre-ordered the game before its release unfortunately i don't have access to those but i do have an old trailer for the pre-order showcasing them they're based on the identity crisis run in the comics and these four costumes even come with buffs to their character something the other outfits don't have they look pretty cool and i definitely wish i could have tried them out however you can see part of one of these outfits in the game since we can see the torso of the hornet suit in the ceo's archive room there are also a couple other bonus outfits accessible via the vip unlock code menu this menu acts basically like a cheat code screen but i think its original purpose was to get people to sign up for email lists or follow their social media pages the text says to go to herohq.com which no longer exists but i believe it used to have information on all of the marvel games under the activision umbrella even though you can't access hero hq anymore you can still find some of the old cheat codes from it three of which unlock certain suits the first one is for 2099 called poison based on a what-if comic where peter permanently fuses with the venom symbiote and names their unity poison this suit is terrifying and i love it it gets better though during the story while you're playing as peter you can occasionally get an up-close view of miguel in the suit as he speaks to you mentally and it's absolutely haunting it's definitely one of my new favorite suits in the game the next couple suits belong to amazing spider-man the first is his last stan suit worn by a darker older version of peter where he becomes an anti-hero killing villains like craven the hunter and dr octopus the other suit is based on another version of peter that kills from a what-if issue called spider-man vs wolverine however spider-man never really fights wolverine in this issue and they actually team up spider-man goes to russia with wolverine accidentally kills someone and continues to do so when he returns home in a new suit it's a pretty cool issue and i like that these vip codes unlock darker versions of spider-man that's all of the suits in the game but there is one other code you can use in the vip section that code unlocks an arena which i'm surprised was locked behind a cheat code and not just available outright in the game also i couldn't access this on the emulator so the recordings are coming straight from my ps3 for this section so if you notice a decrease in graphical quality that's on my end not yours but anyway the arena is basically what it sounds like you can select either 2099 or amazing spider-man and you'll be dropped to the gateway for seven waves of enemies what i like best though is that you start with nothing even if you fully unlocked all abilities in the story mode you're starting fresh in the arena after you beat each wave you're given a limited amount of time to collect as many orbs and golden spiders as you can which you can then spend in the upgrade store so after each wave you want to try and upgrade your most important abilities to help you progress to wave 7. once at the final wave you fight black cat and her clones as the final boss not much changes based on what spider-man you pick though just a few different enemy types that are more relevant for a certain spider-man however black cat acts as the final boss for both characters it's a really fun mode though and i absolutely loved its inclusion here after playing through it i have to give more credit to 2099's combat as well even though i said i favored playing as amazing during the story i noticed i was able to clear through each wave much faster as 2099. he's a really efficient fighter and his overshield and accelerated vision are really useful amazing's combat is more flashy and visually appealing but he can't deal with crowds as effectively as 2099 and focuses on one character at a time typically that being said he's incredibly quick and zippy and i still had a blast playing him in the arena mode as well outside of that there are some other extras in the game that i want to briefly go over as you play through the story you can unlock various collectibles one of my favorites are action figures which are essentially model viewers but i like that they include in-depth bios a lot of information included isn't ever mentioned in the story of the game and is exclusive to these little action figure bios for example backstory on the black cat clone and the ceo's rise to power so if you're really interested in the lore of the universe and want more detailed information on certain characters these are really useful for additional lore you can also hunt down memos these were incredibly tricky to spot and i didn't even realize it was a collectible the first time i found one it's just a small red object on the ground and it's really easy to miss there aren't a lot of them in the game but they're there if you want them you can also check out concept art from the game and you unlock these by completing challenges in the web of challenges menu lastly is one of my favorites which are newspapers as you progress the story you'll unlock two versions of a newspaper one from the normal timeline and one from the alter timeline created by walker sloane these are mostly joke articles but they're a lot of fun to sift through here are a couple of my favorite ones police close in on hammerhead hammerhead opens line of xl hat stores jameson senior may parker wedding is social event of the season jameson senior betty brant wedding is social event of the season chameleon believed responsible for middle east unrest chameleon to host new game show who am i by the way if you're unfamiliar with the character chameleon is a master of disguise masking himself to appear to be anyone he wants honestly i think i'd actually tune in for this game show if it existed but lastly here's my favorite one vulture takes wing and crime spree adrian toombs found new chicken wing franchise adrian toombs is of course the vulture and i think he makes the perfect alternate universe colonel sanders he actually looks a bit like patrick stewart there too also i found it funny that not much effort went into providing fake text at the bottom of the outcome x newspaper since you can see someone wrote today in new york and then proceeded to just mash buttons on the keyboard randomly it then ends with today in new york again but i think that's all of the additional features in the game overall i like the amount of unlockable content there is an edge of time and i think it enhances its replay value especially the additional suits in that arena mode i just wish the arena mode wasn't locked behind a cheat code since i'm sure many people didn't even know it existed okay guess i can go back now and take out sloan once and for all oh great no spider-sense no no trying to cure you go cure yourself nice try didn't work yes it did now to finish the job the voice acting in spider-man edge of time is really good in my opinion so it's no surprise that the game has a really great cast we'll start with the two main leads christopher daniel barnes as miguel o'hara spider-man 2099 and josh keaton as peter parker amazing spider-man if you're unfamiliar with these actors they're both notable spider-man voice actors even prior to shattered dimensions christopher daniel barnes voiced peter in the 90s animated series and josh voice peter in the spectacular spider-man animated show as i mentioned earlier they were also part of shattered dimensions with chris voicing spider-man noir and josh voicing ultimate spider-man they were great in shattered dimensions and i think they both give incredible performances in this game too i also think their chemistry and banter really elevate the story you can tell they're having a lot of fun voicing their roles and they seem to be enjoying being able to record in the same booth together oftentimes voice actors will record their lines separately away from the other actors which can make it more challenging to record dialogue since you can't hear how the other actor is expressing their character in a behind the scenes video for the game they kind of joke about that a little uh the characters are so different that uh seeing that contrast and hearing that contrast really helped me uh to to get a handle on my character that was that's what worked for me see right there i was being a good voice over artist and allowing space between the two interactions so that they can edit them together during this clip we can also see them in action recording their lines and it's really cool seeing the people behind the voices and watching them work oh no what what's wrong it's mary jane she dies tonight right there at alchemist how did you know oh for shock see what part of don't poke around the archives was unclear fine i'm a nosy parker but now that i found out it's what what my job to save her i've got enough to deal that's with dude i also think the idea to swap actors from shattered dimensions for edge of time was a good choice i liked neil patrick harris as amazing spider-man in the last game but i think i preferred josh's voice for peter and edge of time nice don't get me wrong your illusions are nifty but if you ask me they could use a little more no disrespect to dan gilvazan the voice actor of 2099 in shattered dimensions but i never really felt like his voice fit 2099 in that game it was just a little too cartoony for my taste that's me ready to save the universe and looking good while doing it i like this interpretation of miguel a lot more in edge of time and i feel like it's a step up from the last game but anyway i think the casting was great here which i think is a huge win based on the amount of dialogue that you have throughout the story peter david's dialogue writing really set them up for success but it's the performances that really sold it and they had me hooked throughout the game miguel you still there no i'm in venezuela you were right it was a teleporter how do you know because i teleported why did you risk it i needed the guard's pass well get it and stop screwing around head to the gateway room then try not to teleport yourself to mars while you're at it you really need to work on your people skills aside from them there are a few other notable voice actors in the cast as well i briefly mentioned him earlier but val kilmer as walker sloane i was very surprised to see his name pop up since i typically associate him with movies he was probably most popular around the 90s with movies like the island of dr moreau tombstone and batman forever i'm not sure how in demand he was at the time of the game but i still consider him to be the most high profile member of the voice cast from what i've heard recently he's a bit of a strange dude now and you can kind of get a hint of that from the behind the scenes video my character walker sloane is the cause uh really of determining the new world isn't it but if i were to pretend to have a superpower and it was a mental telepathy well then you would know all about it wouldn't you regardless i think he's perfect for the role of walker sloane his voice gives sloane the soft-spoken evil genius kind of eye but i think it works really well given val kilmer's celebrity status i'm surprised sloane wasn't the big bad in the spider suit at the end of the game i'd assume you'd hire val kilmer and give him a bunch of lines not kill him off halfway into the game still i think it's a great twist to have the ceo as the main villain and i think val kilmer does a great job with the limited amount of time he's in the game from what i can tell on imdb this seems to be the only video game role of val's career except for a disney game a couple years later called planes continuing on though we also have steve bloom voicing anti-venom is there a marvel game steve isn't a part of i swear i mention him in every one of these retrospectives but anyway he's probably best known as the voice of wolverine in games such as x-men legends and marvel ultimate alliance he's also played plenty of other characters in the marvel universe and i'm sure i'll discover him in many more marvel games as this retrospective series continues as far as his time as anti-venom i think he does a great job here and makes him sound scary i thought anti-venom was really cool in the game and i think steve's portrayal was perfect for the character i should specify though that steve voiced anti-venom specifically for this game not atrocity that credit goes to fred tata sior another voice actor who seems to be popping up in a lot of these retrospectives fred seems to specialize in these larger more monstrous characters often voicing people like the hulk rhino or bane in various games and animated shows fred is also the one who gives us this incredible but short-lived performance of j jonah jameson it's an abomination is what it is am i the only newspaper man in the city that realizes what a menace that webhead is there's also katie sakhoff voicing black cat she does a great job in the game but you might also recognize her from the mandalorian disney plus series where she plays the character boca tan it's cool to see her here as black cat and i think she was really well cast my my my a blast from the past such an active little spider brings back so many memories but overall i think binox assembled an incredible voice cast for spider-man edge of time and i think all the performances were excellent but now that we've gone over the voice cast let's start to get into the music of the game composed by gerard moreno as with the prior games in this retrospective series i've collected three snippets of my favorite songs from the game soundtrack for you to listen to that i think best embody the mood of the game this first one plays as you're traversing through alcomax and i like how it evokes a sense of tension but still sounds epic in scale [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] this next track plays during your fight against black cat and is my favorite full track in the game its frantic nature matches black cat's quick combat style and it just sounds really orchestral and well put together some elements of it kind of remind me of the old danny elfman batman theme too [Music] [Music] there's also the main menu music that really sets a strong dramatic and tragic tone for the beginning of the game i think it fits well with the imagery of 2099 holding peter's collapse body and i like this track a lot [Music] [Music] i know i always say just three tracks but i have a snippet from another that i want to play as well this one plays during the end credits but also at random moments of gameplay i absolutely loved whenever this track came on and it immediately made me feel more energized during combat [Music] [Music] overall i thought the soundtrack for the game was pretty good not every track stuck out to me but there were definitely some that really grabbed me like the one during the black cat fight and the one during the end credits it's clear that gerard has a lot of talent and i think the soundtrack was well orchestrated and provided great atmosphere for the game get back here um [Music] i feel like edge of time gets a bad rap it's often compared to shattered dimensions and seems to largely exist in its shadow however i think edge of time brings a lot to the table and is a bit underrated for example i know a big criticism is that it features half the amount of spider-man from the first game therefore it's half the game i think that's a bit unfair and honestly i kind of like spending more time focusing on these two spider-men in particular as fun as it was playing as multiple spider-man and shattered dimensions i felt like i was only getting a small sampling of each one we're an edge of time i feel like i'm getting more depth to both peter and miguel as well as more insight into their personalities i also think the story is well written despite some meandering in the center of it the opening had a strong hook and i think the climax was fulfilling and felt earned something i couldn't say about shattered dimensions i also really liked the ceo twist and i think the dialogue between peter and miguel was a really enjoyable experience i also liked the theme of quantum causality and it gave the game a unique visual style compared to other games as you see how your actions are impacting the future if i'm being completely honest i actually think i would revisit edge of time again before shattered dimensions i know that's probably crazy to a lot of people but i really think the writing draws me in more it also feels more refined in some areas like the combat and traversal which felt a bit smoother this time around it of course still has its flaws most notably the level design which feels lacking compared to how creative and unique each dimension was in the last game there's also a noticeable lack of boss fights in the game which is especially disappointing because spider-man has such a robust rogues gallery to pull from not to mention that each boss fight takes place in a reused location namely the time gate where three of the four boss fights occur in a lot of ways you can feel that be knocks were rushed to crank this game out but i also think it's kind of impressive how good of a game they were able to produce with such a limited development window be knocks are clearly talented and know how to make a good spider-man game i just wish they had been given the proper time and resources to put out the sequel they intended i think they were right to not call this shattered dimensions 2 because for bnox i'm sure this isn't the sequel they envisioned it also doesn't feel like a sequel and instead operates more like its own thing it's in the same continuity but almost more like a spin-off regardless i want to judge it based on how it functions as its own independent game so ultimately i give spider-man edge of time a 7.7 out of 10. it's a bit of a mixed bag but i think it's an underrated game and i had a lot of fun playing it and i wouldn't be opposed to revisiting it again in the future as always in these retrospective videos i wanted to compare my score to metacritic and i was extremely surprised to see it sitting at a 58 critic score however the user score of 72 makes more sense to me i know the game has some flaws but a 58 seems really low for edge of time even though i like edge of time for what it is it's disappointing that we never got a legitimate shattered dimensions 2. if activision had been willing to give binoc's ample time to develop a proper sequel i know they would have knocked it out of the park instead edge of time is where it ends which is a little bit sad to think about however we almost got remastered versions of shattered dimensions and edge of time for current generation consoles almost a while back there was a post by reddit user armoured advanced claiming to have a source who used to work for activision apparently activision approached marvel about signing a deal to relist some of their previous games digitally marvel was interested at first but they seemed to have backed out as activision was pushing to make their own original spider-man games again before marvel backed out activision planned on starting with shattered dimensions and edge of time and it assigned a couple of small teams to start prototyping remasters for them this all comes from a reddit post so take it for what you will but it sounds pretty legit for the most part if it's true it's frustrating that these remasters never came to be i imagine they would have sold well and it would be nice for fans to be able to relive some of these great marvel games on current hardware as i'm writing this though it was just announced that microsoft have purchased activision so who knows maybe this could lead to some new deals and remasters regarding old marvel games we'll have to wait and see as far as be knocks though they did go on to make a couple of other spider-man games movie tie-in games for the amazing spider-man 1 and 2. so hopefully we'll revisit those in another retrospective series in the future that's pretty much all i have for spider-man edge of time for this video though but speaking of the future let's talk about what you can expect from this channel in anticipation of the new batman film coming out i think it'd be fun to try a dc game for a change beginning with batman arkham origins the new batman film focuses on a young bruce wayne who's only been active as batman for a couple years so far the bruce wayne of arkham origins has been active for just as long so i'm hoping it'll scratch that same itch plus it's another underrated game overshadowed by the other arkham games in the franchise so i'm curious to examine it with modern eyes and see how it truly stacks up amongst the other arkham games so keep an eye out for that coming up and in the meantime if you're looking for more marvel retrospectives like this one i have plenty more including shattered dimensions the marvel ultimate alliance series the punisher and the first two spider-man film games you can also subscribe to the channel to keep up to date on all new releases and updates as they happen and if you'd like to talk with other marvel fans regarding marvel games movies or shows you can join us on discord the link is in the description below lastly i'd also like to thank vpn for sponsoring this video with a vpn your internet traffic goes through an encrypted tunnel which hides your ip address and online activity maintaining your privacy while using the internet even better atlas vpn also blocks malicious links unsafe websites and will alert you if someone is trying to steal your data right now atlas vpn is running a huge discount where you can get a three-year subscription for just 1.99 a month there are additional perks to using a vpn besides just internet privacy and i personally enjoy using atlas vpn to unlock exclusive netflix content from different countries netflix keeps certain movies and shows locked to specific geographical regions and with a vpn you can now view content that otherwise wouldn't be available to you for example i was recently able to access australia's exclusive netflix catalog and re-watch spider-man homecoming and venom something i wouldn't have been able to do with my us netflix account atlas vpn is available on android ios windows and apple devices and you can have unlimited devices linked to your account if you decide that atlasvpn isn't for you they also provide a 30-day money-back guarantee there are a ton of benefits to using a vpn on your devices and now is a great time to try it out if you use the link in the description below you can access atlas vpn's 82 off deal but that won't last long so make sure to secure it while you can but that's all for this video so thank you for watching and i'll see you in the next one [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Always Nerdy

Views: 444,356

Keywords: spiderman edge of time retrospective review, spiderman 2099 game, spiderman shattered dimensions sequel, spiderman shattered dimensions 2, spiderman spider verse game, beenox, activision, always nerdy, spiderman, spider man no way home, spider man across the spider verse, spiderman time travel game

Id: PCOrTPqYpX8

Length: 91min 19sec (5479 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 01 2022