Ultimate Spider-Man

"USM starts from scratch to change up the story a lil bit, along with enemies. But it didnt change enough"

I really love Spider-man, in fact, my friends call me Spider-man. So it hurt me to rate this game so so....average. Because thats all this game is, a bunch of average tossed at you. But it is somewhat fun, not fun enough. Compared to Spider-man 2, it can be less monotonous at times, but I mean just about every super hero game needs filler for it to last long, and to underpower Spidey. If he has to strong or fast, then the game would be over within an hour. Anyway, on with the show.

Ultimate Spider-man starts out with your old buddy Eddie Brock getting The Suit, which basically turns him into a more powerful version of Spider-man. And anytime he is near you, the hatred within him and the power of The Suit, will break you down mentally, as Brock tries to kill you physically. You would think Spidey has no chance, but, The Suit is so strong it consumes Eddie, so you can fight him since he is always weak.

Basically you spend two thirds of this game as Spider-man and the last third as Venom. I was mad when I played with Venom because he is not super powerful as he once was, instead, he constantly needs to feed off the life force of others to survive and on top of that, he has no spider emblem on his chest. Basically, as Spidey you swing around helping people, stopping bad guys, and racing about the city. After doing enough of that, the story kicks in again and you usually have to fight more bad guys that are stronger this time, help out more people, or just talk to Mary Jane. One thing the game does not tell you, is the more races you win, the more you get to meet Johny from the Fantastic Four, you get to chat and have fun, its totally worth checking out. After your Spider-man story ends, it flips to Venom. And by flip, I mean flip.

The game is displayed as one big comic book with different angles being brought up as panels, and characters move throughout the panel, as if you were sitting there, sipping soda and looking from panel to panel. The graphics add to the comic book feeling by being cel shaded, as if hand drawn while you are playing the game. It helps the game have a realistic comic book feel to it, instead of a realistic movie feeling. Explosions swiirl in bright orange, Spider-man's costume is outlined in a thick black pencil, and the whole game just has this comic touch that you should love.

So with all the love, why the low score? It is because this game fails to be fun. You are constantly repeating the same objectives, the music is not that great and it rarely comes in. The controls are good, but the gameplay is quick so you will often get confused. Luckily there is a lock on button to help you out, and you can rotate the camera with the C-stick. But since this is suppose to be the start of Spidey's career, you do not have many moves. You can just kick and punch and web. Nothing to fancy, you can bounce off of walls and such, but you will feel like you have been there done that. So you will feel like you been there done that, done that, done that. Thats how the game feels, and the people talk to much, to loud which gets somewhat annoying quickly because Spider-man talks a lot, but his quips are usually humorous.

I have nothing much more to say, I paid around twenty for this game, but that is to much. I recommending renting this game, you can beat it quite easily if you want to. My game kept freezing in the middle of a boss fight, which was beyond annoying, so I just returned it, rented it, and beat it. But the young ones should have fun with this title, I recommend it for them. I have just played so many Spider-man games, I expect to much from it.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/16/06