When I was 3 years old, people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wonder, did the fact they may be applying a bit too much pressure on a toddler occur to them when they posed that question? Nevertheless, I knew even then I wanted to be Spiderman. An early venture into that future career involved falling off the back of a truck parked in the driveway while fending off the bad guys (the next door neighbor and his visiting friend.) I don't think Spiderman runs inside crying. The bad guy got his when our dog, Jake, let him know what he thought of his hand being near his food. My hero.

Cut to some 30 or so years later, I have spent hours patrolling Manhattan swinging on a web line through corridors of buildings. I've walked up to the Empire State Building and climbed it all the way to the top to see the city of New York all around me. I've hitched a ride on a helicopter out to Liberty Island and climbed up the Statue. I've whupped purse snatcher's butts and returned the purse to the owner to receive their gratitude. All possible via modern technology through video games. Here's the view from the Empire State Building tower. Yes, that's the Met Life building in the background.


The games of today barely resemble the games of the 1980s when coin arcades were huge. Nor do they have much in common with the home systems like Atari or Nintendo. The games of today weren't even possible then. Besides the obvious graphical improvement..there is the artificial intelligence as well as the sheer size. Entire virtual worlds that are wide open for you to explore are available now. While credit goes to the fantasy game, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, for presenting the first open kingdom, the format was first popularized by the release of Grand Theft Auto III, a game where you took on the life of a con man. The theme was similar to the film "Payback" with Mel Gibson. Night and Day passes. It rains, the sun shines. You can take a walk along the bay just looking at the city across the river or you can carjack whatever car you see that you like. You have various contacts throughout the city. There was no maze to walk through or just moving from point A to point B to finish the game. You had to actually learn your way around the town just as you would any real life town. It is a simulator. You get to live the life of someone else in another world. Playing as Spiderman enables you to get a feel for what any average night is for the wallcrawler as well as just the thrill of having all of his abilities. You actually do have to practice to learn how to webswing which requires figuring out where you want to shoot out a webline to while swinging, throwing your body weight to manipulate your direction and speed. Plus navigating around the buildings without crashing into them. Most people trying it out for the first time tend to give up and just run on the sidewalk.

When Spiderman 2 was released on the XBox, while many games..including the Grand Theft Auto Series are subtitled, this particular game is not. I played it anyway. I just used whatever cues were on the screen. But I missed out on the main story that unfolds as you play as well as all else. I tried playing it a couple of weeks ago to see how much better it would be. I did note it was improved. I understood bits of dialogue during the cut scenes (sequences that tell the main story with no action requiring your controlling the character.) But the random dialogue from people on the street and those calling for my help were still pretty indistinct to me.

I wasn't daunted by that. Considering that you have for the most part all the sounds you'll hear in any major city out on the street, it's a real life audio simulator. There are cars honking along with the rest of the noise they make. People yelling. Birds chirping. Helicopters flying overhead. It's some heavy listening rehab.

After several weeks of not playing at all, I decided to give it another shot. I didn't have my hopes high...I just figured it would be about the same as before considering I am badly in need of a mapping with things just getting too loose and needing to boost the volume considerably. So I jumped on in to the game and started swinging. I was keeping a fairly low altitude going just above the cars on the street and I heard someone shout "Hey it's Spiderman!" Further down the way I heard someone call "Spidey! Help!" to which I responded. They said "The police are chasing after someone, they might need help!" I also heard a crowd that had gathered while I broke up an assault by two thugs on a pedestrian cheer me on.

Obviously, being able to hear all of these little things, as insignificant as they seem, serves to allow for further immersion in the virtual world. Even if subtitles were present, it's difficult to read them and also pay attention to what you are doing as opposed to passively hearing it. These games are only improving in their quality and ability to capture what it is like to be a super hero. A game based on the movie, Superman Returns will be out this fall for the XBox 360. As with Spiderman, it features a completely rendered city of Metropolis that you must protect by flying around as Superman. So not only do I get to be Superman, but I get to visit a fictitious city (and a pretty nice looking one at that.)



Considering that I work nights with not much of a chance to get out and about during the week, it's a great way to practice listening and understanding speech in difficult situations as well as recognizing all kinds of sounds. Obviously, the option to speech read people in these games does not exist (not yet anyway, mouths open and close but do not form words when speaking.) So I am forced to rely solely on my hearing rather than on old habits.

So that's how I do my listening rehab.

Spiderman, Spiderman,
Does whatever a spider can
Spins a web, any size,
Catches thieves just like flies
Look Out!
Here comes the Spiderman.
Spiderman TV Theme Song - Unknown