“Hooray for violence!”

If nothing else, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions inspired the “Spider-Verse” comic book storyline, which eventually led to the delectable Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018). For that alone, much can be forgiven. And the sad fact is that much does need to be forgiven.

Featuring four playable Spider-Men—Amazing, Noir, 2099, and Ultimate—each of which feels semi-neutered in order to provide some distinction between them, the story posits a fractured cosmos; multiple strains of reality unbalanced due to the fragmentation of a mystical artifact. The peripherals are pretty neat too. Each character’s segments are rendered with a different art style, numerous voice actors from beloved television series reprise their roles, and the combat upgrade system holds some promise.

So far so good, but premise and presentation only matter when the game they are complementing is strong. Shattered Dimensions is not strong at all. Though slightly deeper than the atrocious Web of Shadows (2008), it mostly devolves into a sloppy button-masher with unresponsive controls, weightless combat, putrid quick-time events, annoyingly restrained movements, and a frustrating camera.

The frequent mini-cutscenes, which needlessly wrest control away from the player, reminded me of Lollipop Chainsaw (2012); at least that game had some serious charm to compensate. The highlight, as it were, is undoubtedly the noir segments derived from Arkham Asylum (2009), if only because they don’t flood the screen with waves of enemies to mindlessly destroy and actually require some strategy.

At least we got Into the Spider-Verse out of it. That’s gotta count for something.