Spider-Man 3

"Spidey swings onto the wii to give us a very boring and mediocre game..."

Let me first state, that I was really looking forward to this game. I was reading the article that was covered by game informer, and it sounded preety great. It stated that it would have; action sequences, freedom, tons of side quests, and a very fulfilling experience controlling black-suit spidey.

And it haves all that...only, from READING it, it sounded like great fun, and that it would be a welcome title to the wii library as it was a spidey title, with great promise...

Oh no... it was a lie. Instead of a fulfilling experience, what we have here, is a cash in spidey title that, to me, feels rushed in order to get the game out along the release (as they knew it would sell better that way.)

Graphics: 7/10

Ok, we all know that the wii is the weakest out of the 3 systems in terms of graphics, but this is just sad. This game dosen't show any signs of it being a next gen title, it looks like a gamecube title, but of the worst quality. The 6-7 citizen models are REALLY low quality, and look horrible. The draw distance between building textures however, was suprisingly good, and offered preety low pop-up, but it was there. The buildings looked sort of bland and boring, but they were tolerable. The enemies are bland, cookie-cutter, boring models that really offer nothing to the eye.

Meanwhile, looking at the character models that SHOULD look good, look preety decent. Spidey looks great, could look better, but looks decent enough. The other character models for Green Goblin, J.J., M.J., etc., also look alright, but could use some more work.

The cinematics of the game make the character models look sort of cartoonish, in a bad way. A very common thing will happen during these cinematics as some don't run so smoothly, they clip a bit and the backgrounds suffer during these moments.

Sound: 6/10

The only thing that actually boosted this to a 6 then rather a 5 is that a vast majority of the cast from the movie voiced their corresponding parts. The civilian voices have every ethnic group you can imagine, but they are not really that good. Sometimes, the game glitches up, and when you rescue a girl, a guys voice will chime in, and vice versa. It happens much more regularly than you might think. Shame shame.

It's a spidey game, brace yourself for very cheesy dialog. Spidey chimes in with very cheesy lines at the most unwanted times, and the enemies/civilian dialogue really makes you wince at how horrible it is. If I ever have to hear, "My Spidey senses- LOSERS!" or "You are a spider, I am a WINDSHIELD!" one more time...I will commit honorable samurai suicide.

The sound effects are alright. The web *fwip* and *whoosh* noises sound ok, but the whack noises that are associated with hitting or getting hit are bland. I think there are only 4-5 music tracks in the whole game, and they try to convey a feeling of epicness, but fail, as they grow old fast, and are ultimately forgettable.

Story: 6/10

The story, in short, sucks. It is stories like this that I do wish that they followed the movie. The game only covers a few segments from the movie... I'd say the segments make up about 15-20% of the overall story... the other 80% is filler mess that makes no sense whatsoever.

Controls: 7/10

The controls are passable. Webslinging is preety nifty, as you hold Z to jump, then while you are airborne, while you continue to hold Z, you swing the controller to websling with whatever hand you hold the nunchuk with. In order to swing with your other hand, you just hold the B button on the wiimote and repeat the same motion. Camera controller is something else I found interesting. You hold the C button on the nunchuk and you TILT the Nunchuk in whatever direction you want to look, and the camera corresponds to where you tilt.

Combat is handled by waving your wiimote and mixing in an A button press to toss in a strong attack here and there. It is not the most flashy of combat systems, and it is preety boring, but very easy to do. What I did find annoying however, is that, although there is really no case of reading issues with the controller, you tend to get hung up on walls alot, making fluid web-slinging not such an easy task to perform.

Gameplay: 6/10

Ah, the meat of the game. It is here where people really come for in a game, and if this fails, the game does as well. This game suffers from repetitivity. I can't stress this enough. it is not HORRIBLE in the sense of being too hard, too easy, etc.

It is just boring and repetive. Allow me to explain this further.

The creators stressed freedom and tons of side missions. We have this, but not in the ways you would think we would. The side missions, are horrible. There is NO variety in the missions whatsoever, you are basically playing the same mission, over and over, in just a different order and maybe a different objective here and there, TO TRICK YOU into thinking that it has variety. but it does not.

To break this up even more, if I was to take every single objective this game has to offer, the count would be around 6-8 objectives... spread across 100+ sidemissions... sounds like it would have some variety? heh, think again;

Every side mission is comprised of around 3-5 objectives. Each objective from each side mission takes away from the total overall count of what the sidemissions offer. So from just playing, I dunno, maybe 4-5 missions, you have played everything that the game could offer you from side missions... and from that point up, it just reorganizes it in a different order.

So in short, if I were to take every possible order of all the missions, I would probably be around 6 UNIQUE missions...that all suck. Sure, they even go so far as to switch minuscule things to make you think you are doing something different, but they are so minor, it does nothing to save it. They mainly just change the item you are trying to retrieve, and/or the occupation of the person you are trying to rescue.

Now, you are probably asking yourself, "how could they even add any variety to that?" It is so simple...

Shorten-the-friggen-side missions. It's a SIDE mission, it shouldn't last longer than 3 minutes...if THAT. Shorten the length of the missions, you don't need objectives, and if you do, keep it at 2-3, NOT 3-5... If they only had shortened the length of the side missions, they would actually come out offering more variety than they do now... oh, did I mention that the side missions last around 8-10 minutes?

That's right. You will be playing the same few sidemissions, over and over and over and over again... for around 8-10 minutes each, 5 if you get lucky and the objectives are not strewn all over the place. It makes playing the side missions a test of patience, and it is such a shame, because had they worked on them a bit more, I would actually bother trying to finish sweeping up all of the gangs, (after the 40-50 sidemissions I have played... I grew fed up with it) but I don't plan on rescuing another fruit pie, or saving another squad of powered cops that can handle the deed of stopping evildoers by theirselves.

So the freedom aspect starts to become preety bland, as the side missions offer nothing for you but the same mess you had just completed 8 minutes ago, what is there left to do? Well, you can search the massive city for 100 meteorites that do nothing for you, or you can participate in city trials that are preety boring, the only payout being you get a medal for the deed that earns nothing but bragging rights that you actually are collecting the 50 medals.

What's left? Story mode... Which is the only redeeming factor of the game, not for the story aspect, but because you can actually play a mission that is not the same like the hundreds of side missions. You will do certain things, depending on the mission, from rescuing people from buildings, to chasing down an evildoer, to combating generic thugs-wait, you already combat generic thugs in the hundreds of side missions.

Which brings me to another thing, combat...

It is very dull. The AI is horrible... There is no challenge to it. Swing your wiimote, swipe your nunchuk down to dodge, lather rinse repeat. SURE you can up the difficulty, to make them SEEM tougher, but thats only on account that their DEF-OFF is raised, their AI is unchanged. So now they just take longer to go down... great.

Dark Spidey was a big disapointment. All he does when he transforms is get stronger... ooo... now he can kill enemies in 2-3 hits!!! *yawn. Truthfully, for the first hour or two of obtaining the suit, I never once activated it, because their was no virtual change but a different string of combo moves that dark spidey utilizes, and the obvious strength growth. Another thing that bugged me is that, he shows no dark traits during the change. Why can't I punch the generic civilians? Why can't I get the cops angry at me during the process? I will tell you why, because they didn't work hard at all during it....

All Dark Spidey is in this game is just a costume...with strength benefits...way to go Activision.

At least the boss battles are interesting. The only thing interesting about them however, are the action sequences, which are preety fun. You follow the onscreen prompt when you are told, perform the actions, reap the benefits. It's a shame that the game didn't utilize them enough, as it was the only thing I was looking forward to through the whole mission as I was knocking generic baddies left and right.

Oh yeah, you have a skill web where you put in your "Hard-Earned" experience points to gain skills to better spidey (but you can probably GUESS what they consist of, it's the same mess as every other game; stronger attack, longer health, more combo, etc)

Replayability: 5/10
This is going to strongly depend on how you feel about the game when you play it. It offers a good deal, but offers it as filler to make you waste time playing it when you get nothing out of it. You can clear out all the gangs, gather all 100 meteorite fragments, take 35 pictures, and do city trials to gain 50 medals, so it has content, but it has no driving force to get you to carry on with it.

Buy or Rent:
Do yourself a favor. Rent. Do NOT buy this game. Why? because it lacks polish. It is rushed to the defination, and it is overall boring. Buy it ONLY if you liked it when you rented it. I doubt you will though, a rental is enough to get what you want out of it.

Conclusion:
I am disapointed. This game didn't fulfill any expectations I have had, and it gave me a very bland and generic movie adventure that I can only describe as a boring title altogether.

POINT BREAKDOWN:

Graphics: 7/10
Sound: 6/10
Story: 6/10
Controls: 7/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Replayability: 5/10

37/60=0.6 ROUNDS TO 6

Spiderman 3 scores a 6!

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 05/14/07