Spider-Man 3

"The gimmick of a new outfit doesn't work here."

Superhero games are rarely good. I'm sure whoever is reading this can agree on that. The Spiderman games however were great (most of them anyways) with the cream of the crop being Spiderman 2. Spiderman 3 was supposed to be the same game but going by Spiderman 3's storyline. Now that seems great and all, but this game is nothing compared to the 2nd game. This review is for the Wii version of the game which had a different developer, and I'm basing everything off this version.

From a technical standpoint, this game isn't using the Wii to its full potential. From seeing the civilians of New York City look like robots with twitchy limbs to the aerial view of New York look like Lego buildings, the game looks bad. Spiderman even looks all mashed together with colors, and he's the best looking character in the game, sadly. Black suit Spiderman looks better…but come on, they should do something other then just bloom Spidy up and actually put effort into him so he looks better then his counterpart on PS2. Speaking of bloom, look at Harry in the Goblin type suit. It'll blind your eyes! You can have something that looks PS1 and just put a bunch of bloom on it and call it next-gen! They didn't do this with Spiderman 2 on PS2!

Now that I think about it…everything to do with graphics was better on PS2. Character models…draw distance, etc. Couldn't they at least upgrade SOME things? Well, they did up grade one thing; I'll get to that later on.

Here's a plus. When you're black suit Spiderman and you fly (or swing) off a building to hit the ground, the ground cracks! Is that not just the coolest thing? Well, no it isn't. This proves they were lazy with the graphics. They had enough time to implement this silly little thing, but they couldn't tighten up the graphics? Ugh. And another thing, how come when you jump off a building, (lets say the Empire State Building for this scenario) you don't die? Spidy just hits the ground and lets out a nice sigh. You'd thing he's have a scratch or something. Man, let's hope the game-play is good.

Well, if you were looking for something great, good job, you failed. This game is one of the most boring games I've ever played. Sure, there is fun to be had when you're swinging around the city due to the controls, but that doesn't save it from being a very, very stale game. It's like…a fetch quest. Go to point A. Do point A's mission. Go to point B following point A. Go back to point A. Do Point A's mission. Go get your information doing crimes for point A. Go back to point A. You get the point. (Lol pun) See, it's not as bad because the web slinging is fun. I can definitely say that after playing this I can't go back to traditional web slinging.

Now, about the crimes I mentioned earlier. I guess they were added in to improve replay value. What's that going to help with if every crime ends the same way? “Yo, I hear the dragon tails are robbing a bank, you better go check it out.” *bank robbery ends* “Hey thanks Spidy! By the way I over heard the Dragon tails say they were gonna assassinate someone, you better go stop them!” *stops them* “Whew, I thought I was done for. I overheard some Dragon tail say they were gonna blow up a building, you better stop that bomb!” and so on and so on. Does everyone have super ears in this game? They overhear things way too often. Hope they don't do that at home. Anyways, you get the point. That's what every single gang member mission is like. I didn't have any motivation to do any of that. So I didn't. I'm happy. That pretty much sums it up. The whole game is like only 7 hours tops anyways, and there is a collectathon at the end so you can have black suit Spidy for good. Good luck getting me to do that. You can only stay Black Spidy for so long. You're just gonna have to get out of it when you're screen blacks in. When you do, you'll be followed with some sequences where you shake the Nunchuck/Wiimote to get out of it. (There's a lot more in the game then just that too)

There's also something where you can buy new attacks, or higher jumps but purchasing them with experience points. The only ones that are really worth it are the higher jumps and longer combos. Combos are boring anyways, not too much of a point.

The story is Spiderman 3, hence the title. So basically, Spidy stops villains, gets black goo all over him. Makes him stronger and emo, continues to beat the tar out of villains, black goo takes him over, he rips it off and throws it on the ground and it coincidentally hits some major guy in the plot, and so on...(don't want to spoil big parts) So yeah. Spiderman 3. Movie.

Now, the controls are in fact good. You just hold B and swing the Wii remote to sling some web. Hold the Z button to go faster while swinging. What really bothers me is that you can't sprint by pressing Z like in previous games. To attack, you just shake the Wiimote, and press A for a special attack. The Nunchuck can be used for swinging with the left hand as well. It's not too responsive though, so it's not worth even using.

The sound is probably the worst part of the game next to the graphics. The same song is played throughout the game. Some “epic” song plays when you beat a mission, when you're randomly traveling through the city, etc. Not to mention that the city it's self is completely dead. People don't make sounds, cars don't, and it's just bad.

I can't find any replay value really. I guess if you like to explore the city (which I could understand) you can find every little item, but that's really it.

Graphics - 3/10
Game-Play - 4/10
Story - 8/10
Controls - 7/10
Sound - 3/10
Replay -2/10

Overall -4/10

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/12/07