Toon it up... ...in Ultimate Spider-man

We had just finished working on Spider-man 2, and a handful of us were assigned to work on different new projects. The project I was assigned to work on was so different that I was looking forward to work on – it wasn't a Spidey title. The game's entitled Dead Rush. To get a complete description of the game, I found the Dead Rush E3 2004 First Look article at Gamespot. And here's a preview.

Unfortunately, the game was cut short. I was supposed to start work on a ship level (far different from the ship level that I made in Max Steel) where the player starts from the deck and goes down into compartments below (pretty creepy since most corridors in ships are confined spaces).

But soon enough, I was drawn into another Spidey project. But instead of a movie based game, this one's based on a new Spider-man released comic book series entitled Ultimate Spider-man published by Marvel Comics which was originally created by veteran Spider-man artist Mark Bagley and writer Brian Michael Bendis.

Ultimate Spider-man #1 comic book cover.

In terms of appearance, this was pretty much different from it's predecessor, Spider-man 2. The art was pretty much similar to comic-book art (as well as presentation). A form of cel-shading or toon-shading (to be later dubbed as "Comic Inking Animation technology"). Here are screenshot samples from actual game plays in comic book approach.

Emphasis on the effects in text commonly used in comic books as cue for an action scene.

Another example of emphasis to cue introduction.

And another emphasis on effects using text as means to defeating an opponent.

Outlines around characters as well as projecting details are commonly used on comic books.

A dynamic approach showing Mary Jane's confidence.

However, similarly to Spider-man 2 was how the terrain was built. The entire environment was built using Autodesk 3DS MAX with textures painted with Adobe Photoshop. The only difference was the layout of Manhattan (or NYC). Here's a sample of Ultimate Spider-man map (with Comic-book tokens, Landmark tokens, and Secret tokens).

Token Map of Ultimate Spider-man based from the same master city layout.

The layout is somewhat similar to Spider-man 2's master layout, but this one is slightly smaller on the Manhattan side but it's also opened up to the area of Queens. However, there was hardly any use of known NYC landmarks. Only a couple of places such as Times Square was included in the game but doesn't necessarily look like Times Square.

Putting NYC together (or a NYC of the Ultimate Spider-man universe) is no different from the "LEGO system" that was implemented in the production of Spider-man 2 as well as partitioning the city into regions. The only thing that's different is that the "bricks" on each LEGO piece is much more detailed in terms of geometry such as a door jamb or window frames.

Isolated region from city master plan to be filled with LEGO building system similar to Spider-man 2.

A collection of simplified version of "LEGO" brick building system used in Spider-man 2.

Instead, characters known in the Marvel universe in it such as Human Torch, Wolverine, Silver Sable, S.H.I.E.L.D. and it's leader, Nick Fury were present in the game; as well as other characters such as Mary Jane Parker, Beetle, Green Goblin, Rhino, Shocker, Electro, Venom, and Carnage. Here are a few snapshots of the characters included in the game.

Spidey tries to catch up with a mercenary who calls himself the Beetle.

Venom takes the fight to Electro in the middle of New York's Times Square.

Herman Shultz aka. The Shocker powers up his "vibro-smasher" gauntlets.

But since my role was completely environment stuff, I basically dealt with building exteriors and interiors, bridges, parks, tunnels, and waterways.

City view at street level from the game Ultimate Spider-man.

Just to to show a wee bit of the stuff I made, here are a couple of missions where I built the environments. The first video shows a couple of indoor environments. It starts with a bar and later progresses to a karate dojo (complete with racks of swords and Japanese paintings) . The second one is basically an exterior environment with all sorts of debris scattered, property damage, civilians in distress, small crimes... ...well, best that you check it out.

So the production procedure at my end isn't any different from Spider-man 2. Eventually, the game finally hit the shelf at stores. Reception? Ultimate Spider-Man received generally positive reviews, with its lowest score being a 6 out of 10, given by Eurogamer. Its highest score was a 9 out of 10, from Nintendo Power. And here's what the final product looks like.

Copy of Ultimate Spider-man for Playstation 2

This game was basically my last game developed for Microsoft X-Box, Sony Playstation2, and Nintendo Gamecube. On my next project, I will be dealing with Microsoft X-Box 360, and Sony Playstation3.