Spider-Man 3

"The world just isn't ready for an emo superhero"

I used to love some of the older Spider-Man games released for the PlayStation and the PlayStation 2, so I was actually pretty excited to see how the wall-crawler would fare in the seventh generation. While it is unfortunate that his first game in the current generation just happens to be a movie tie-in, you'd still expect some of the awesome gameplay mechanics that made Spider-Man 2 one of the better “game based on a movie” deals, but the formula has gone dry and the next Spider-Man game had better rectify all of the problems found in Spider-Man 3 for the Xbox 360.

One of the high points of the game is its combat system which is pretty intense, if somewhat flawed. The X button does some of the quicker attacks while the Y button is for the power moves. Combining these two buttons will send foes flying up into the air, defenseless against your onslaught. Nailing these combos is easy and the game doesn't really require you to memorize any patterns. You just mash until the bad guys are dead basically.

Another aspect of the combat system is a dodge mechanic. By pressing the left bumper at just the right time, Spider-Man will dodge an attack Matrix-style and then you are given the ability to nail a counter-attack by pressing the button that appears on the screen. It might be a little bit tricky to pull off some of these counters until you get used to the game, but after a while you won't have many problems with this.

Being a Spider-Man game, it would be nothing if you couldn't use your web powers to attack your enemies, and Spider-Man 3 definitely has some web-slinging powers at your disposal. You can wrap enemies up to subdue them or pull them to you quickly to hit a huge combo on them. You can also combine your web powers to prolong your combos, but one of the cooler things you can do with your web is pick an enemy up and swing them around with it.

While this is all fine and good, the problems with the combat system arise in the poor camera and the even worse case of Spider-Man's wild jumps. Seriously, you can barely tap the button and he will jump really high into the air, right away from the action. Apparently, depending on how hard you hold the button down affects how high he jumps, but I think that's a load of bull and they made the button way too sensitive. Other times, though, Spider-Man wouldn't jump at all, no matter how many times I pounded on that freaking button. It's really sad when a game's jump button is one of the most unresponsive controls out of the entire set-up.

Spider-Man's other powers come into play as well obviously for the exploration parts of your missions as you take down enemies that look painfully too alike (this is the seventh generation for the love of god!). Climbing up walls is always cool no matter how bad the game is and you can use your spider sense to hunt down clues on what to do next. Unfortunately, a few seconds after you turn your spider sense on, it just turns off. It doesn't use a bar or anything and you can turn it right back on when it turns off, so what's the point of it turning off in the first place? Why not just have it all be done manually by the player, which would make a load more sense? Sometimes developers make really, really terrible decisions and I just can't imagine why.

Spider-Man 3 is supposed to be a free-roam game, but it really isn't if you think about it. Sure, there are some side-quests to complete and you can explore practically the entire city of New York right from the start of the game, but there isn't much mayhem you can cause. Do you know how disappointing it is to run along the streets of a sandbox game and not be able to punch civilians in the face using the strength of your super powers? If they're going to claim to be a part of a genre, at least carry over the good parts of the genre, ya know?

Web-slinging across the city is still available for you to do and it's still just as fun as before. In Spider-Man 3, the web is much more flexible so you have more freedom as you swing around the city. You can use boosts to get even more swing on your web to send yourself flying, but I didn't find myself messing around with the web-slinging gameplay mechanic as much as I did when I played Spider-Man 2. Maybe I just did it too much, but it has lost some of its luster.

A really smart gameplay mechanic is where you have to press certain buttons that appear on the screen in order to complete some tasks. This involves you much deeper into the game and makes the experience feel much more immersive. Plus, it's much more fun to feel like you are actually doing something than just sitting there watching the screen while the game plays for you. Unfortunately, this gameplay mechanic is under-utilized and the button sequences are painfully easy, meaning they don't require any skill whatsoever.

Special moves are also at your disposal if you make a symbol in the upper left-hand corner of the screen start flashing by wailing on bad guys. Your health is also measured up there and it's an easy to understand measurement system.

What really makes Spider-Man 3 such a god-awful game is the way the missions are set-up. Basically, you have to go somewhere to trigger an event, backtrack, trigger another event, fight some thugs, do something relevant to the story, and repeat. Some of the missions ask you to do some really stupid things like take a picture of something; stuff like that. Why they couldn't make these tasks during these overly long missions more entertaining to complete? I guess they just don't want people playing their game.

Marking where you want to go on the map isn't as it could have been. Still, it is very useful at marking where your next mission is at and how far away it is, represented by an on-screen cursor. Spider-Man 3 is set-up in a non-linear way in that you can choose which missions you want to complete first to progress through the game or whether you just want to do a side-mission.

A leveling-up system of sorts is at play in Spider-Man 3. Similar to leveling-up your stats in San Andreas, you must perform a task a certain amount of times before it goes to the next level. This includes special moves, web-slinging, and your web power, among many other things. It's an interesting mechanic, but just doesn't feel as fresh as it could have been.

Like the “devil trigger” in the Devil May Cry games, Spider-Man's black symbiote suit is activated in a similar manner. The suit, however, isn't as useful as it could have been and feels a little down-played in this game, but you will probably be able to get over it.

I absolutely hated the third Spider-Man movie. I felt the first two films were very superior to the emo Spider-Man shown in Spider-Man 3. Fans of that stupid movie will be glad to know that the plot is recreated in the game and fans of the much better comic books and TV shows will be glad to know that some famous villains that didn't appear in any of the movies make appearances in this game. There are a bunch of different stories going on at once, but the main story is that Peter Parker has discovered an alien symbiote that gives him extra power and confidence. Unfortunately, his new behavior forces Mary Jane to start to dislike him and meanwhile, Peter Parker's best friend, Harry Osborn, plans to kill him to avenge his father's death. Still, on top of THAT, an escaped convict has been converted to a man who can change his molecules into grains of sand whenever he feels like it. There is seriously just way too much going on for my tastes.

Spider-Man 3 does have something that I like very, very much about it: practically no pop-ups! I love it when games have smooth frame rates, and Spider-Man 3 proves that games can still provide eye-pleasing experiences while also delivering games at the same time. However, they aren't always good games, as is the case of Spider-Man 3. Still, the graphics are pretty impressive and the city looks great, especially with the load of cars always stuck in traffic. The gang members feel a little bit generic and the character models are so bad that they look like they're being controlled by puppets or something.

Nothing about the Spider-Man films or any of the games provide a music experience that's actually worth the money. The voice-actors from the movie return to reprise their roles, so fans of the movies will definitely feel at home here.

Spider-Man 3 can last up to ten hours usually, and this isn't including earning all of the achievements. The lack of a multiplayer functionality really kills the replayability and New York City just feels a little too bland for my taste.

Some Spider-Man games can be very good, while other Spider-Man games, like Spider-Man 3, can actually be pretty terrible. The only good things about Spider-Man 3 was that it had virtually no pop-ups, the buildings looked very nice, and the combat system is still fun to master. Spider-Man 3 is a great game if you aren't expecting much of it, but compared to its predecessor it is a terrible scam. I'm still going to play the next Spider-Man game even though this game got a such crappy score from me just so I can see if the developers are going to get it right the next time around.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/26/08

Game Release: Spider-Man 3 (US, 05/04/07)