Spider-Man 2 Activity Center (Windows)

The SPIDER-MAN 2 ACTIVITY CENTER offers seven activities that are a good mix of learning and just-for-fun. The software, which features the voice of actor Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, invites kids ages 6 to 12 to help Spider-Man fight evil. Some of the games are variations on typical arcade gaming such as stopping falling debris with Spider-Man's webbing, moving through a maze, and directing Spider-Man's progress up the side of a building.

Other activities are more educational. In one, kids try to identify the perpetrator of a crime by putting together a mug shot after looking at him for a short time. Kids select from a set of eyes, noses, mouths, and hair features. In another, children help Peter Parker (Spider-Man) finish schoolwork by following directions about mixing and measuring ingredients in a laboratory setting.

The realistic sounds of Spider-Man's webbing expanding and stretching, coupled with rapidly passing graphics, greatly enhances an activity in which kids fly with Spider-Man as he web-slings between skyscrapers in hot pursuit of escaping criminals.

The games offer multiple levels of play and keep track of the highest score earned. But there are no sign-in and no save features, so kids start on the first level of an activity every time they play. Kid-testers didn't mind the replay, and they enjoyed finishing levels to unlock printables and video sequences from the Spider-Man 2 movie.