Ultimate Spider-Man

"If only it were longer..."

I first heard about this game in Playstation Magazine. It looked interesting, and I decided to pick it up. After waiting forever for Blockbuster to get it in, I finally picked it up.

Story:
The storyline is based off of the Ultimate Spider-Man comics. I haven't read the comics, (I watched the 90's cartoon and the movies.) so I don't know how accuratley it follows the storyline presented in the comics. What the story is, is Richard Parker and Eddie Brock Sr. worked together to create the Venom suit, which could cure anything. Peter decided to test this suit, but it didn't work out and it separated from him. Eddie Brock Jr. found this out and decided to take the suit for himself. It bonded with him and he went after Peter.

The story is pretty interesting, but it felt hard to follow. One of the reasons why, is there aren't any subtitles when the characters talk. Also, sometimes the audio level would go down when the characters talked. I had my T.V. up to twentyfive and it was still hard to hear. Also, the story wasn't really clear at most points, and it felt confusing.

Story Score: 5

Music and Sound:
Ugh. Why can't Activision make good music for once? At least Capcom gave the Marvel characters cool theme songs. The music in USM (Ultimate Spider-Man) isn't that great. It's just there to take up space. The only songs I really care for are the title music, and a song that plays at the beginning of the game. Other than that, the music is bland and boring.

On the other hand, sound effects and voice acting are pretty good. The sound effects sound great, and so does the voice acting. It may take a while to get used to the voices, but once you do, they fit the characters perfectly.

Music Score: 3
Sounds and Voices: 8

Graphics:
This game uses cel-shading, and it looks cool. The cel-shading effect gives the game a nice comic book feel, just like the comic it was based on. Personally, I think it looks much better than Spider-Man 2's graphics, because the faces actually look like faces, the mouths move, and the character models are more detailed. If you've ever played Viewtiful Joe, then the graphics in Ultimate Spider-Man look just like Viewtiful Joe's.

Graphic Score: 8

Gameplay:
Feels like a toned down Spider-Man 2. Square is punch, Triangle is kick, Circle is grab, X is jump. Spider-Man and Venom have different moves. Spider-Man can web sling, but Venom leaps 50 feet. Both of them can web sip, and instead of kicking, Venom uses his tentacles as whips. Venom also has some grab moves, and he can throw cars. Spider-Man can double jump, and Venom can't. Both can wall climb. The game will switch between them during the story, and when you beat the game, you can switch between them at anytime. When you travel around the city, you can find secret tokens, comic cover tokens, and landscape tokens. You can also find race and combat challenges. The only thing wrong with the gameplay, is most of the time you have to chase someone, and this gets boring fast. Other than that, it's fine.

Gameplay Score: 8

Rent or Buy?
Rent. The game is short, and only worth the 50$ if your a die-hard Spider-Man fan.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/11/05