Ultimate Spider-Man

"Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a handheld spider can...."

Let's face it; ever since Spider-Man The Movie was released in theaters, the web-slinger's seen a huge surge of popularity, from action figures to games to LEGO sets (which I own two of, I admit). Now, I've been a Spidey fan since I was 8, and I have to admit, the movie didn't really wow me. But I digress.

Ultimate Spider-Man is based off of the comic book of the same name; it's a part of the Ultimate Marvel universe. In fact, Ultimate Spider-Man was the first comic book series in this lineage. Knowing this, I decided to grab the GBA version. It ain't great, I admit, but it's fairly good if you just feel like kicking the crap out of random thugs and punks.

STORY: 7.5/10
Three months after Peter Parker's encounter with the life-eating suit his and Eddie Brock, Jr.'s fathers created, he answers a police call about Shocker's thugs terrorizing Manhattan. Spider-Man swings off to confront the thugs, realizing that there's more to this than meets the eye...

Meanwhile, Eddie Brock, Jr. is trying to cope with the Venom suit, which is feeding off of him and anyone he encounters.

And someone else wants that suit, at ANY cost...

GAMEPLAY: 7.9/10
If any of you out there have played either Maximum Carnage or Separation Anxiety for the Sega Genesis and SNES, you might get a feeling of deja vu. You basically take control of either Spider-Man or Venom in certain levels, and swing, zip, punch, kick, and web your way through umpteen bazillion baddies.

In certain areas of certain levels, you are given an objective, which is usually either rescuing hostages or beating a set number of bad guys so you can progress.

Spider-Man and Venom, save for a few moves, play identical. Spidey does what he always has; web swing, web zip, capture web, punch, and kick. You have a limited amount of web fluid, but this can be upgraded. Venom has slightly longer reach than Spider-Man due to his suit, but not as many attacks. He's more powerful and slower than Spidey, and he can't swing. In addition, Venom's health is constantly decreasing, which means you have to eat EVERYONE that you encounter. And that is why this game is rated E10+.

GRAPHICS: 8.9/10
This looks like it just came straight out of the comic book. Everything is very bright and detailed. A nice job of coloring and shading has gone into it. The cut-scenes, which are simply pictures with subtitles underneath, are VERY nicely drawn. My only suggestion would be to have speech balloons instead of subtitles, to give it a more comic-book feel.

SOUND: 7.6/10
"Ha!" "Ha ha!" "Ugh!" "Ah!" That's pretty much spoken dialogue here. All of the thwacks and bams of you hitting people sound fairly punishing. Venom's eating people just creeps me out, as you hear him chowing down on some unlucky sap.

REPLAY VALUE: 6/10
Sadly, there's not much here. There are 7 "issues" with 3 chapters each, totalling to 21 levels. Power-up tokens are available in each level, and you unlock Challenge mode once you beat it once. That's it.

OVERALL: 7/10
It's good for a run every now and then. If you're someone who just sits down and plays the game for a good while because you just got to have everything, you might want to steer clear. But the casual gamer/Spider-Man fan shouldn't have any problems.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/10/07