The Tangled Web they Weave: Reviewing the Spiderman 3 Video Game

It's spidy season again, and with the game being released on nearly every console known to man, I'm here to report the skinny on the wall-crawler. This years game has come and gone with a hugely successful movie, unfortunately the game doesn't follow suit. If your looking for good numbers here, this game is going to give you the creeps.

Spider-man 3 starts out with a modest tutorial, and goes down-hill from there. The overly simplistic combat never provides any real depth, and the graphics are geniric on everyone except spidy himself, and a few select villians. Web slinging, I'm happy to report, is still intact and the highlight of the game. Unfortunately even that has had the fun sucked out of it, as the buildings are just as generic as the random npc's running around them. I love spider-man, and my 300+ comic book collection will say the same. I loved Spider-man 2, and was expecting the amazing next-gen improvement that was promised to me. Instead I got Spider-man 2.5. Upgraded graphics, and downgraded...everything.

The story is, and I stress, a loose interactive version of the movie, but you never really feel like the dots are connecting. The random cut-scenes that are triggered for no given reason, lend to the slightly cinematic feel of the game, but annoy more often than not. But as with the previous games, the voice-over work is top notch, lending all the voices you'll hear in the movies, and also, the highlight of the game. Although the black suit is in, and you can switch in and out of it(with increased button mashing everytime you switch), i found myself sticking to red'n'blue spidy, if for no other reason than to simplify my time.

Now, I'm not a game developer, and I try not to get into the technical aspects of any game, much the same as I try not to talk about things I know nothing about. Unfortunately, I know that if the control scheme for any game is sluggish, and doesn't pick up well, then there is a huge problem. While swinging through the city is one of the few engrossing features of the game, doing so will eventually lead to frustration, as the buttons never seem to do what you want them to, right when you press 'em.

Over-All, Spider-Man 3 is a disappointment. I was expecting a game that improved on every piece of the foundation laid in Spidy 2, instead I got a broken version of Spidy 2.5.

Score: 4.2 Of 10