Ultimate Spider-Man

"Inferior Spider-Man is a better title"

Ultimate Spider-Man is a comic book, by marvel, making an attempt to modernize the original spider-man. A lot of the plots and themes are the same, but with different twists. It's a wonderful series and has maintained a beautiful consistency throughout it's run.
Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley have done the series together so far, as writer and artist respectively. And it was great. But when the comic began gaining more and more popularity the idea of a game came about. And we (the fans), were told many things. We were shown screen shots and videos that let our minds run wild and interviews with the game makers often confirmed our hype.

Lies.

Or rather, they simply did not speak out with the truth. They said the game would be an IMPROVEMENT on "Spider-Man 2: The movie", it was not. They said you'd see lots of appearances from famous and popular marvel characters, but you only see wolverine and human torch. Nick Fury doesn't count because he's often in the pages of USM, so it isn't exactly a cameo as much as it is a returning appearance.

You can do no aerial tricks in this game. You can not do cool moves to bad guys. You can not buy or earn special moves or abilities. You can not go into the cool "Spider-Reflex" mode. The most annoying thing is that you can't even take an enemy's gun.

Guess what? All of those things are things you can do in "Spider-Man 2: The movie", so how is this game an improvement? We've just simply taken a step backward. So without even reading the rest of what I have to say, you could just buy Spider-Man 2 and have a better gaming experience.

But that's only one aspect of why this game fails at what it tried to do.

The storyline, when this game was being marketed and stuff, was supposed to connect with the comics. Bendis himself, I believe, even said that things that happen in the game will be official and connect with the comics. In other words we were supposed to see this game as like another issue of the comics. That was a lie. Because Silver Sable was "re-introduced" recently in the comics, so if this storyline was official then wouldn't Peter have already known about her? And wouldn't she have already known he was Peter Parker?

Okay so right here. You know that the storyline is worthless. Because it's not a true continuation at all. Bendis will most likely retell this whole story with different events later on.

As for supporting cast...MJ is the only one from Peter Parker's life who appears on screen. And she's not in the game. She's only in cut scenes. We see Nick Fury; We hear references to other characters like JJJ or Aunt May but we don't see them.

Look, if you are a casual fan of Spider-man, and you just want a fun game to play as him in...Then get "Spider-Man 2: The Movie" or "Spider-Man" for PS1. But this game was supposed to be intended for comic fans and failed. Because as comic fans, we are familiar with the storyline and were expecting to play a game that let's you be in the story. Ultimate Spider-Man is NOT that game. Ultimate Spider-Man is a racing game with Spider-Man and Venom. That's it. And Venom feels more like playing as the Hulk then as Venom. Because he just jumps, throws cars and hurts people. He isn't after Spider-Man at all when you play as him.

Venom is supposed to hate Peter Parker and Spider-Man and try to kill/ruin him. Even in Ultimate Spider-Man you're supposed to feel that vibe. But in game, you can not stalk Peter's house. You can't look for Spider-Man you just go around destroying things until you get killed. And this is both in game and after you beat the game. you just destroy stuff. That's it. He doesn't even have cool moves for destroying. It's just the same few moves.

Why play a repetitive game that is flashy and covers itself up to look like a real game....

Oh by the way. Did I mention that the scale of the city is smaller than in SM2? It's not a full city and you can't even go to Ellis Island or to see the statue of liberty...You can ACTUALLY do that in SM2, though.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 08/03/06