Even worse, each Spider-Man doesn’t try hard to differentiate from the other one.
You’d think this would be countered by the upgrade system, but even that does little to change the feel of much by the end of the game. Besides that, this game quickly devolves into a bare bones beat ’em up. Its only real purpose is to put turrets out of commission temporarily. The worst offense of all is that the most iconic part of Spider-Man’s arsenal, his webbing, is the most underused combat tactic in the entire game. Combos are very basic, leaving players with basic attacks, strong attacks, and web shots. The combat doesn’t hold that level of flair or variety of previous iterations. I’m here to tell you that isn’t the case in Edge of Time. When playing as the infamous Wallcrawler, one would expect that the flashy and fluid combat we’ve seen before would be present here. Beenox wanted to make two distinct characters, with all of their similarities and differences, and in this regard they succeeded. The vocal performance boosts the interactions between both heroes and makes their banter enjoyable to listen to.
Let’s not forget the absurd use of the word “shock” by O’Hara which is clearly a replacement for another modern-day expletive. Miguel O’Hara contrasts this nicely by taking a more serious tone with the occasional snarky comment thrown in for good measure. Peter Parker will deliver those cheesy one-liners we’ve come to expect from him. The voice actors of O’Hara and Parker bring out their characters’ personalities expertly. This mechanic appears constantly throughout the game, allowing player to change both past and future through their actions (although it’s all scripted) to aid each other in reaching their goals. To remedy this, The Amazing Spider-Man disassembles the same robot in the past, thus destroying him in the future. For example, at one point Spider-Man 2099 is struggling to defeat a large robot. As one Spider-Man progresses through a level, they are given updates via pictures that appear in the bottom right of the screen. The story itself is intriguing, watching two iconic superheroes battle against time itself, but the real pleasure comes from the storytelling. It’s a rather complicated science that the game will oversimplify and brush aside time and time again. Upon returning to his time, O’Hara notices the immediate change the world around him has taken on and locates stored DNA of Peter Parker to talk to him through a chronal link across time. Stuck in between timelines, future Spidey witnesses the death of the Webslinger from the 1970’s. Seeing this as a major issue, Spider-Man 2099 dives into the Gateway after Sloan, but not before the damage is done.
This leads to the startling discovery that Sloan has prepared a Gateway to send himself back in time to create Alchemax many years before it’s original establishment. Jumping forward into the future, Spider-Man 2099 is hot on the heels of Walker Sloan (Fun Fact: He is voiced by Val Kilmer).
This does not end well for the iconic Webhead, and the game leaves us gazing upon his dead body. With the inclusion of Anti-Venom and the “death of Spider-Man” in this latest title, surely Beenox can outdo their work from last year, right? HOTĮdge of Time opens up with The Amazing Spider-Man and Anti-Venom duking it out. They team up using a special link to communicate, even though they remain within their respective time periods, in hopes of setting the world right again. These two heroes are brought together due to the time-traveling work of Walker Sloan, who uses his newly developed technology to found the Alchemax corporation long before it was originally established, thus creating new realities for each Spider-Man. This time, however, the number of Webslingers has been reduced, leaving us with only The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker, and Spider-Man 2099, Miguel O’Hara. Following 2010’s exceptional title Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Beenox has returned to bring us Spider-Man: Edge of Time.