Ultimate Spider-Man

"Slightly Improved over Spider-Man 2 I think..."

Spider-Man 2 was not too impressive of a game. The most impressive part, and IMO, the only part that made the game worth it, was the swinging. Now, with Ultimate, they made things more simple, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Story: 10/10

I think the Ultimate Spider-Man story is great. I haven't followed it much at all, but from what I have seen of it, it looks great. It's a lot more modern and many of the villains I think are cooler looking. I think it's great that they todl the story in the game using a comic book form where you get tossed around and stuff through what are the pages of a comic book. The game is presented very, very well overall.

Graphics: 10/10

Ah, good ol' cel shading. I'm giving this a 10 because I have absolutely no complaints whatsoever about the graphics. It gives it much more of a comic book look and...I don't know what else to say, it just looks great.

Sound: 9/10

The voice acting is really good. Peter sounds like he should and so does Venom. There are a lot of repetitive things that the civilians say...some may have been recycled from Spidey 2 but I'm not sure on that one.

Gameplay: 8/10

They really simplified things here. Though, that is not a bad thing at all. First off, lets start with swinging, since that is probably what everyone wants to know about anyway. You can no longer swing off of 2 webs and you have to actually jump off of the web to shoot a new one. So it takes a bit of getting used to but you get a double jump and the web zip works a lot better. So you can change directions and cover more ground much quicker and easier than you could in Spidey 2. Both ways of swinging are great but something about this one is a bit better and I prefer it a little more. The fighting is a lot more simplistic as well. Again, this isn't a bad thing. Instead of doing all these web tricks and combos, you just jump around and punch and kick guys and as you do this you get points that increase your damage. The boss fights are super fun as well. Overall, I really like the gameplay aspect of the game.

Breakdown:

Pros:
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- Boss fights are fun
- Graphics look nice
- Voice overs are done well
- Fluid controls

Cons
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- Controls can sometimes seem too simplistic
- Camera can sometimes be a problem
- Lock on function is kinda funky

Overall: 8/10

I would recommend at least renting this game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/14/05