Spider-Man 3 (XBox 360)

Hoping to get a more worthwhile Spiderman experience than what Spider-Man 3 the movie gave? Then this game may be right up your alley!

If you have played any of the previous Spider-Man games then this release will be familiar territory. In control of Spider-Man you get to travel around a free roaming New York city searching for quests, Grand Theft Auto style. Oddly enough it appears the game’s developers have almost ignored the movie plotline, and have almost gone back to the drawing board (and do you blame them, the movie plot is lacklustre at best!) The main story quests involves you romancing Spidey’s missus, tracking down the new hobgoblin, and, of course, attempting to thwart the Sandman, however little of the scenes appear in the film. Side quests are around the city including stopping some of the lesser know villains in Spidey’s world, including the Scorpion, Lizard and Kingpin.

Getting around the city is easily one of the best parts of the game, Spidey moves at awesome speed across a fully populated and dynamically created cityscape. He can swing down at street level, however if you prefer you can take to the skies and swing amongst the tallest buildings. You can easily indulge all of your childhood web slinging fantasies here! However travelling around the city isn’t without its glitches, as whilst swinging Spidey appears to be almost invulnerable to damage. If you swing into a static or moving object such as a bus, Spidey simply bounces off and continues swinging. I don’t know about you, but when did Peter Parker suddenly become a web slinging Hulk! You also find that the camera control is a real pain in the city missions. There are a lot of quests in Spider-Man 3 where you are required to reach a certain point in the city in a certain timeframe. The camera has a hell of a time following you around, so easily navigating to these points is haphazard at best, as you will find that the camera randomly changes it direction and you end up ploughing straight into a building – bouncing off of course, Hulk style…. very frustrating.

However your camera woes don’t end there. During combat situations the camera wildly swings from left to right, so most of the time you end up having to re-adjust your angle of attack to cater for the camera moves. This is further compounded by the improved combo system. Having to pull off a combo is hard enough, even more so when you have to cater for a camera change mid move.

One of the major changes from the other versions of the game is the God of War-esque contextual minigames. Spider-Man will now engage in scripted events of acrobatic and combative heroism, and all you have to do is press a few buttons in time with the icons that appear onscreen. One example is Spider-Man having to stop a rampaging train from crashing into a subway platform. Just hit the buttons or analog stick movements that pop up, and you’re good to go. There’s often very little warning as to when one of these situations is about to pop up, so there tends to be a trial-and-error aspect to them. The icons can occasionally be difficult to discern, as well, specifically if the game is using analog-stick icons. If there’s a lot of crazy action happening onscreen, it can be tough to see exactly which direction the game wants you to go, let alone act quickly enough to pull off the move, however it’s a welcome addition to the game. The in game graphics haven’t improved that much from the earlier iterations of the game, which were manageable. Frame-rate is maintained and no slowdown issues were noticed.

Where the game really shines is the voice acting, except for Kirsten ‘Spider-Man wouldn’t exist without me’ Dunst, all of the original voice actors are there, including Tobey Maguire, James Franco, Thomas Hayden Church, Topher Grace and J.K. Simmons. Having the original actors certainly gives the game a feel of slick authenticity. The in-game music gives a solid effort, however it’s nothing special and is not strong enough to add any drama to any of the major cut scenes or battle moments.

All up, Spider-Man 3 is a solid game, let down by its horrendous camera control, but saved by the fact that having the ability to sling Spidy around New York City is just so damm cool!

Graphics: 5/10 – Inoffensive
Sound: 6/10 – Great voice acting, let down by weak music
Game play: 6/10 – Fun to play until randomly slamming into buildings begins to annoy you too much
Longevity: 7/10 – If you like Spider-Man then you will always love Webslinging your way around the city
Overall: 6/10 – A good movie tie-in with frustrating camera control.

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