Spider-Man 3

"Not nearly as good as Spider-Man 2 or Ultimate Spider-Man."

Remember when Spider-Man 2 came out? Yeah, that was a fine time. We got a great movie and a great game on top of it. There was literally so much to do and you had so much fun doing it all. Well, a few years later, Spider-Man 3 came along. I went to see the movie and loved it, so I was saying to myself "Well, if the movie was good, the game will probably be good again too, right?" So, after I saw the movie, I couldn't wait to play the game, plain and simple. I was also excited because I got the game for the Nintendo Wii, and I couldn't wait to see how the game would play on this great system. Well, it was pretty decent at first, but it started to get really bad, really fast.

Well, now that my little anecdote is told, and before we get into the actual review of the game, I'll give some basic information about the game. As you probably already know, Spider-Man 3 is based on its movie counterpart. It was released May 4, the same day as the movie, and was developed by Vicarious Visions. Not only was the game released on the Wii, but also on seven other systems: the XBox 360, the PlayStation 3, the Nintendo DS, the GameBoy Advanced, the PSP, the PlayStation 2, and the PC. With the game on eight different consoles, it was interesting to see which version would be superior. Not only was the Wii version not the superior version, it was received by most game reviewers as the worst version of the game. The biggest complaints were that the story mode was incredibly short and that the graphics were disappointing. The only thing reviewers really liked about the game were the way that the Wii remote and Nunchuk were used in web swinging. Personally, I'm going to have to agree in saying that this game is mediocre at best.

All right, that's enough background information, I suppose, so let's get into the review of the game, starting with, of course, game-play. Well, remember how I mentioned that there are eight versions of the game? Well, the Wii and PlayStation 2 versions are exactly the same, except that the Wii uses the Remote and Nunchuk, of course. The Wii and PS2 versions have different side missions than the other versions, which I'll talk more about later. Now, the most obvious similarity between every version is that you play as Spider-Man. However, the main thing about Spider-Man 3 is that you get the black symbiote suit, which is famous in the Spider-Man universe. Now, the only big advantage that the Wii and PS2 version have over the other versions of the game is that you can switch between the regular suit and the black suit at will. I'm pretty sure that in the other versions, that while you have the black suit, you're stuck in it. In the Wii and PS2 version, however, you can switch between them. Nice, huh? The only problem is that if you keep the black suit on for too long, it can have negative effects, such as passing out. You can take it off whenever you want, though, but you have to press a sequence of buttons to take it off, which get slightly more complex as you progress through the game. Still, the black suit is all around better than the normal suit, as you have more health and you're stronger. However, this was supposed to be the main "thing" about the game, wasn't it? If it was, it was hardly worth it, I can tell you that.

I heard somewhere that the city is bigger in this game. Maybe it's just been too long since I've played Spider-Man 2...but it looks to me as if it's shrunk. Well, even if it is bigger, it's certainly not better. It's just not enjoyable swinging around anymore. I don't know why, but there's just something about this game that makes me want to not do things that I've done many times in Spider-Man 2, such as jump off the Empire State Building. Another thing I liked to do in Spider-Man 2 was go to the Statue of Liberty. Guess what? You can't do that in this game. For whatever reason, they decided to not allow you to get to the Statue of Liberty. So...the city might be bigger or smaller than in Spider-Man 2, but I can't tell. I think it got smaller. No matter what, it's not fun to explore the city anymore. One thing that I would've loved to explore is the sewers and subways, but you can't do that, either. Wait, I need to correct myself. You can't do that in the Wii version. You can explore over 20 miles of sewers and subways in the XBox 360, PS3, and PC version of the game. There are only two or three missions in the Wii version where you go into the subway or sewers, and I can't say any more or I'll spoil the game. Still, it was FUN down there. It was also pretty big, to be honest. So, this is what I don't get one bit. Why did they make the sewers and subways in the Wii version if you can't even explore them? What's the point? I don't know, it just really makes me mad, though. So, there's a huge disadvantage of the Wii version.

You'll really have to excuse me, because I don't know much to say. Usually my game-play section is much longer than this, but I don't really know much else to say. Then again, there really isn't a lot to say about this game, because there's not much to it. Still, there's one last thing I know I can talk about in the game-play aspect of Spider-Man 3, and that's the Wii controls. Well, first let's talk about the combat. Maybe some people do, but I don't think it's been improved one bit. In fact, just like the city, I think it's actually been watered down. To me, it doesn't seem like there's as many moves. Well, you'll have to work with what you're given. Your basic combat controls for the Wii version are shaking the Wii remote to hit, pressing A for a strong hit, pressing B to shoot web, pressing Z to jump, and moving the Nunchuk forward to dodge. There are also some other things such as vaults and web mounts, but I'm not going to get into too much detail about those. Well, I didn't find there was much to do with the combat. For me, it was basically just shake the remote around a few times, and then press A. It starts to get really repetitive after a while, and I didn't really like it.

Finally, to wrap up the game-play aspect of Spider-Man 3, let's talk about web swinging. When you first play the game, you're going to be really pleased. It feels like you're actually Spider-Man, swinging around everywhere. Remember when I said at the beginning of the review how the game started out decent but then got really bad, really fast? This was one of the big things I was talking about. Sure, it's neat to just swing around at first, but soon the novelty wears off and it just gets boring. Still, this may just be my opinion. I'll at least tell you HOW to swing, though. To swing with your right arm, you have to hold B and sort of flick your wrist. The same goes with your left arm, except you have to hold Z on the Nunchuk. To let go of the web, you just let go of the button. A big complaint I have about this, though, is what B and Z are also used for. Z is also used to jump, so sometimes Spider-Man may just jump instead of swing. This isn't nearly as annoying as the B button, though. Apparently, the game designers got a real laugh, because the B button is also used to attach to buildings. I absolutely hated when I was web swinging, and all of a sudden, Spider-Man decides to just attach to a wall. It happened pretty often, too. I just think the button layout wasn't done that well.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about some other things, starting with the graphics. Guess what? They're horrible! Sure, you probably didn't get a Wii for graphics. If you really want amazing graphics, you would've went with the 360 or PS3, right? Still, even so, graphics ARE a part of the game, and even on a system that focuses on game-play alone, it's not acceptable if they're horrible. They can't be that bad, though, can they? Oh yes they can. These graphics are honestly so bad that Spider-Man 2's graphics were better, and that was last-gen game. Yes, a GameCube game's graphics were better than a Wii game's graphics. The main bad thing is the city itself, and with a city so big, it should at least look halfway decent. The biggest way you can see this is if you stand on top of a really big building, especially the Empire State Building, and look down at the city below you. You might just be close to puking. One thing I REALLY didn't like about the graphics was the "white lines" around everything. If you played Red Steel, it's similar to that. Like, the pedestrians all seem to have that small white line surrounding them, but it's hard to explain. One good thing I can say is that the some of the character models are done well (specifically Spider-Man), but some (I'm looking at you, Venom) could still use improvement. Finally, I must give the game this...the game's graphics do look kind of good during cut-scenes. However, any other time, no, they're terrible.

Ok, ok, what's next? Right, story. Well, this is a movie-based game, so that should give you some general idea of the game's plot. The alien symbiote takes over Peter's suit and makes him evil and such. Still, you will notice A LOT of differences between the movie and the game. Oh, and if you played Spider-Man 2, you'll remember that the game wasn't based entirely on the movie. There were other villains and other plots. The same applies with Spider-Man 3. There are five other villains besides the three that are in the movie (New Goblin, Sandman, and Venom), making a total of eight villains. Now, two of these villains are exclusive to the Wii and PS2 versions, but then again, other versions have exclusive villains as well, so there's really no room to brag. Not to mention that the exclusive villains in the other versions are better (they got Scorpion and Kingpin!). It's all right, though. You play through the story of the game over the course of 24 missions, and although that may sound like a lot, some of them are short and some of them are stupid. There are some missions that are good, though.

Next up are the sounds of the game. Let's start with the voice acting. One positive thing I have to say about the voice acting is that despite some people being absent (*ahem* Kirsten Dunst), out of the three Spider-Man games based on their movie counterparts, Spider-Man 3 has the most voice actors from the movie. Oh yeah, and Bruce Campbell returns as the narrator for the game (^_^). Now for the bad part of the voices…they are WAY too glitchy. Honestly, the voices in the game glitch around so much, it's not even funny. It's very annoying. You'll often hear Spider-Man say the same thing twice or at the wrong time. One time during the game, there was actually a cut-scene in which my sound glitched so bad that you could see the mouths moving, but nothing was being said. Apparently my game decided to not let me hear that part of the game. The sound effects and music are both mediocre. They're not great but they're not terrible. Sound effects glitch a bit sometimes, too, but not too bad. One thing I must give props to about the music, though, is that I thought the final boss music was pretty damn good.

Well, we've arrived at our final category, and that is the playtime and replay value. How long will it take you to beat Spider-Man 3? Well, only about five hours or so, actually. The main story mode is really short. Now, one thing that you can do is try to get 100% completion. To do this, you have to do all the missions, collect everything, do all the races, get all the photos, and do crime patrols to get more hero points. Wait, what did I just say? All right, I'll explain a bit. Well, the missions are self-explanatory. Crime patrols? Well, there are four gangs in the gang, and you can do little objectives. This gives you more hero points, which you're going to need to buy upgrades. Photos? Well, you need to take photos of all 35 villains. No, not all of these are actual villains. They also count every different kind of gang member as a villain, so this is another reason why you have to do crime patrols. Races? Remember those 150 races in Spider-Man 2? They've returned. Only now there's 24, but they're extremely tedious and not at all fun to complete. Collectibles? You need to collect 100 meteorites and 50 spider emblems. The meteorites don't give you anything except percentage, but the spider emblems give you the black suit for whenever you want after you beat the game. Now, I'm usually the kind of gamer that goes for 100% in all of his games. I didn't do that for Spider-Man 3. It just wasn't worth it. It made me hate the game more than I already did. Only thing I did in the game were the missions, a few crime patrols, the villain photos, and about a quarter of the races. It just wasn't worth wasting my time on the rest. So, I finished the game at 65% with almost 11 hours spent. I have no intention of returning to this game to replay it again, and I doubt you'll want to, either.

Now it's time to get the score of the game.

Game-play: 6
+ You can switch between the regular suit and black suit at any time.
+ Web swinging is fun at first
- City and combat are watered down.
- Gets really bad and old, fast.

Graphics: 4
+ Some character models are done well.
+ Cut-scenes are done nicely.
- "White lines"
- Everything else is horrible.

Story: 7
+ Based on the movie with some added things.
- Exclusive villains aren't that good.

Sounds: 5
+ It had the highest amount of voice actors from the movie.
+ Final boss music was pretty good.
- VERY glitchy.
- Everything else was mediocre.

Play Time/Replay Value: 2
+ Umm...
+ It lasts a few hours?
- Will only last a few hours.
- Going for 100% really isn't worth it.

So, I give Spider-Man 3 for the Wii a 4.8/10. I don't suggest you get this game. Get Spider-Man 2 or Ultimate Spider-Man, which are GOOD Spider-Man games.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/06/07