This review is going to be slightly biased, I’m sorry. I need to apologize for it up front because in all truth, the recently released “Spider-man 3” video game is not a great game, but I had a blast playing it.Let me qualify my experience with the game. I am a devout “web-head.” I regularly look in the skies around the city for signs of the friendly neighborhood hero’s presence. Okay, that is an exaggeration, but there is a pretty sweet Spider-man statue on my desk as I write this column.
Anyway, I’m a fan of the guy in the red and blue, so I was very excited when the video game, based heavily on events from the recent movie, was released last week.
The problem that this game has is the same problem that most movie-based games have, the developers try to appease fans of the movie and fans of the comic, making the whole game a relatively enjoyable compromise, instead of an exciting home run.
Most movie-based games have to walk a fine line. They need to allow gamers to “play” the movie, but it would upset movie studios if the game simply retold the movie. So, they compromise. Some scenes of the movie make it into the game, and the storyline is intentionally left vague to keep gamers — who might have not seen the movie yet — guessing.
Also, with a game like “Spider-man 3,” developers might want to include all the different villains or stories from the comic books, but since certain things haven’t happened in the movies, certain villains can’t appear. For example, a villain named Carnage is a man who wears a suit that was spawned from the symbiote (the black goo that gets on Spider-man’s suit in the movie) that Venom wears. But, since the movie just introduced Venom, the game can’t introduce this other character, just in case the movie studios want to bring Carnage into a later movie.
Okay, I’m starting to talk semantics. Let me get back to the game. First of all, the developer, Treyarch, decided to stick with what works by basing this game’s mechanics on those of the older “Spider-man 2” game. That game was the first to give players the chance to swing through a realistic Manhattan as the web-slinger.
It was great. It was liberating. It was fun. But it was two years ago. So, why did the web-swinging get worse and more clunky this time around?
In the new game, Spider-man has fewer movement options, like tricks, than he had before, so that freedom is restrained. Also, the game is very buggy, and not in a “spider” sense, pun intended.
There were quite a few times that I was crawling up the side of a building, and as the camera turned, Spider-man ended up with his back to the wall and his feet pressing against thin air. He still kept climbing but on his back.
The entire experience feels hollow. You’re allowed the freedom of roaming the city, fighting generic gangs, finding some races or moving to the mission markers where you’ll square off with the movie villains, and some comic villains as well. Here my favorite inclusion is easily Kraven because, as in the comic book, Spider-man was wearing his black suit during the showdown. The fight gave me fond memories of the comic book.
But that was probably my favorite thing about the fight — the symbolism, because the mechanics are all wrong.
Throughout the game, Spider-man felt like a weak-armed wuss when fighting. Even when he fought a gang of punk fashion models, it took him a long time to knock one of these girls out, but then, not five minutes later, the game showed Spidey ripping a door off of a bank vault. How strong is he supposed to be?
When all is said and done, this game is very random. There are a lot of graphical errors, and the sound in the city is oddly muted. The boss fights are overly complicated and frustrating. Then, when you unlock the black suit, you’ll feel like you lost a lot of the fighting moves you just learned. But, you get to play as Spider-man in a new video game. It’s a trade off, I guess.
If you liked the older “Spider-man 2,” you’ll probably like this game, but if you’re looking for the best next-generation superhero game, get a game like “Crackdown,” instead.
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