E3 2010: First look at 2099 in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions

Until today, we'd onlyseen twoof Spider-Man: Shattered Dimension's four separate universes. The Amazing universe has the default look of a Marvel comic book, with Spidey swinging and webbing his way through a colorful world full of wham-bam-pow moments. The Noir universe, on the other hand, is much more subdued, with a 1930s detective version of Peter Parker relying on stealth and the cover of inky, de-saturated darkness to overcome bad guys.

The most recently revealed universe, though, could be the coolest based on what I saw at Activision's E3 booth. In the world of 2099, a totally different Spider-Man – geneticist Miguel O'Hara – protects a incredibly futuristic version of New York City that looks like a mixture of Tron and Blade Runner. Nearly everything visible on the screen was neon red, electric blue or some dazzling shade of purple in-between. Glittering skyscrapers, plastered with animated billboards and glowing text (I spotted "Stark" written on one), surrounded the player in literally every direction – not just to the sides, but up and down and diagonally as well.

Diagonal skyscrapers? Okay, I may sound a little disoriented in that last sentence, but that's because the gameplay in Spider-Man 2099's universe is designed to be dizzying. Each version of Spider-Man has his own style of gameplay, and in place of swinging or stealth, Miguel O'Hara has a uniquely designed Spider suit made of anti-gravity material that catches air currents and enables him to glide for short periods of time.

Basically, he's a sci-fi flying squirrel, and Shattered Dimensions' 2099 levels take advantage of this fact. One part of the E3 demo had him free-falling through a tunnel of city light, controlling his direction as he dodged objects like hovercars and metro rails. In a second part, he was jumping from shiny tower to shiny tower in order to avoid attacks by the level's supervillain, Hobgoblin. When a projectile missed Spider-Man, it wouldn't simply disappear into the game's programming… it might hit a floating car instead, hurtling that car into an explosion which the player would then be forced to avoid as well.

2099 looks to be the fastest and most frenetic of the three Shattered Dimensions revealed so far, but we're still waiting on the fourth and final universe. Which version of Spider-Man will we see next? Readour guessesor leave your own in the comments.

Jun 16, 2010