While the handheld versions of multiplatform games all too often feel like the crappy versions of their console counterparts, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions proves that there's hope yet. Instead of forcing some visually downgraded version of the console game into the DS, the developers have created a unique 2D experience that draws inspiration from great side-scrolling adventure games like Metroid and Castlevania, crafting a game that is blast to play for the most part but also ends just when it starts being great.

Shattered Dimensions is an all new story crafted by Marvel and features exclusive characters just for the DS. The story revolves around infamous Spider-Man nemesis Mysterio, who has obtained a tablet that can mess with multiple dimensions. This tablet inevitably gets broken and scattered throughout multiple worlds, which then forces multiple Spider-Men from the Noir, 2099 and Amazing universes to work together to reunite the fragments. Awesome, right? OK, maybe not, but the story does conveniently provides an excuse for the developers to let you play as several different heroes -- even if they're all some form of Spider-Man.The basic game is a blast, playing like a 2D adventure game akin to Metroid, wherein you take whatever Spider-Man you're in control of for that level and guide them to a boss. Along the way you'll gain new powers for each version of Spidey, allowing them to access new portions of their respective worlds. For example, Noir Spider-Man can't wall crawl initially, but after obtaining this power via the other Spider-Men, he then can crawl up to new areas and reach new portions of the tablet. All the Spider-Men gain powers as you progress as well, giving them abilities like the power to smash walls or use their spider-sense to see invisible objects. Think of these powers the way you might think of a bomb or rocket in Metroid; all of these serve to give the player a reason to backtrack and explore the world again and again.Only the powers aren't enough to make the backtracking as fun as it could be. The various Spider-Men are given good tools to explore the world with, I just wish the game had done a better job in presenting levels that were more exciting to explore. On the default difficulty, the map shows you the areas where the boss and collectibles are located, meaning that all the guess work was taken out of where to go. Still, even playing on a harder difficulty -- which obscures the location of objects and objectives -- makes exploration only slightly better, as generally the environments are repetitive enough that they don't really require all that much of your wits to figure out. Only once, towards the end of the game, did I encounter an inventive portion of the level that required smart use of my powers to get past; the rest I just generally swung, glided, or crawled through as fast as I could to progress.If getting to the next objective is all you care about, then Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions might disappoint you with how short it is. Playing on the normal difficulty means you can blast from boss to boss and complete the game in just a few hours. Now I'm not one to complain about length normally, but the problem is it ends just when you've obtained all the powers that make playing as Spidey (and especially fighting as Spider-Man) go from OK to spectacular.The combat in Shattered Dimensions starts off pretty pedestrian, but by the end of the game, it is among some of the deepest I've ever played on a portable platform. While you can fight enemies by simply mashing the Y button, you eventually get several combos, defensive moves, and aerial maneuvers that allow you to fight and feel like Spider-Man should. After all, Spidey isn't some bumbling, fist-wielding meat head who just bludgeons away at his enemies; he's a veritable ninja, taking his foes out with grace. So, yeah, the combat gets great, but sadly only towards the end of the game, with the rest of Shattered Dimension's combat feeling stale and boring in comparison. I'm all down for unlockable powers, but with combat being such a huge part of what makes the game, I think it would have been wiser to give these abilities to the player right off the bat.Additional time can be spent with the game past a single campaign playthrough, but I didn't find any of it particularly appealing. Slogging through the initial part of the game where Spidey's underpowered doesn't sound good to me, and the game's various Challenge levels are only a momentarily entertaining (and brutally difficulty) distraction. Your best bet is simply to buy this for the single-player game, and play through it with the hard difficulty setting turned on for exploration so that you have to actually, you know, explore.