Spider Man movie based games have always been a standalone game, and what I mean by that is that it does not need the movie to sell games. Spider-Man 1 and 2 Movie game brought something new to the series and were both best sellers on all game consoles. However this year with Spider-Man 3 every one was disappointed on both the game and the movie.
The Movie of Spider-Man 3 focused too much on peter parker and his EMO side which of course is represented as the black custom, which of course any Spidey fans knows that, that was way off course. The movie focused so much on Peter rather than focusing on Venom which is what really the producers should have focused on. Basically the movie has too many holes that were never filled in. The game however did have those holes as well as bugs that affect the game play.
The game introduces many villains such as Rhino, Scorpion, Gangs, Corporate influence and of course the originals that where in the movie such as New Goblin, Sandman and Venom. The game unlike the movie did not focus only on peter parker because if they would have the no one would have paid attention to the game; instead it tried to make up its story line. The game even though it was influenced on the movie has no relationship to the movie like previous games. Even though a few things where added to make the game even longer which no one can blame because it added more excitement to the game play. Even though Activision was probably a bit off on the previous Spider-Man titles it still had some movie elements in them. However with Spiderman 3, Activision is way off on both story line and game play.
There are many changes from Spiderman 2 such as: A Bigger city, random mission to protect the city from gangs, more interactive environment for example you can now get run over by cars, buses, etc, Swim on water, moves, Combos, and action sequences where you have to press the right button to perform cool moves a la Resident Evil 4. Combos have been upgraded and can be earned by completing missions however with something gained another thing must be lost. There is no longer a targeting mode where you can choose your target so when attacking you will have attack whoever Spiderman is facing even if that is not the person you want to attack. Most of the times however you will be hitting the air because once that targeted enemy is down in that group you will not face or re-target someone else and if you press the buttons like crazy Spiderman will keep on hitting the air for about 4 seconds more after you stop or until an enemy hits you.
New York is now twice as big as the New York in SM2 and more interactive. When you get hit by a car you will be thrown into the air like a rag doll, what sucks about this is that you cannot harm any cars or smash them into pieces. There are a few destructible part such as chairs boxes and other select things in the game however aiming at them is a challenge alone. Crime is also random in the city you can choose to solve crime or continue on to the story line.
The game is full of bugs mainly due to the camera being so bad. When at the right position you can actually make Spiderman float and climb mid air. The Targeting system is so busted that you’d be lucky if you actually hit the target, sometime the camera moves around so much that you don’t know whether you are climbing up, down, left, or right and the camera is limited by your movement on the control that you cannot even see which way you are climbing. After certain missions are complete and go back to the city you will see people and cars disappear as you move towards them. The city at one point becomes empty. This mainly happens as soon as you defeat Scorpion and break him free from his mind controlling suit.
Most of the time in SM3 you will not know what to do and therefore you must die at least a few times before figuring out what to do next. Most of the time you will need to find your own way because the game will not tell you where to go or what to do and even though in the beginning the tell you to use your spider senses, that will not work all the time. Boss fights sometimes are challenging but will require a lot of time and a lot of hard work and strategizing. There is no health around the city even when you fight against bosses with a huge amount of HP so most of the time you will have to run away and get enough distance between you and the enemy to attack. If not then you will be defeated and you will have to start over again. With the game’s lack of explanation on what to do and what to use plus the huge amounts of HP that your enemies have This game is going to be long and frustrating.
Xbox 360 the next generation in graphics? Let me answer that question. Not unless developers spend the time and money to make the game look good. Spiderman 3 does not feature Next-Gen Graphics that you pay for. Yes it looks brighter and some places do look good however it is not the best in graphics. The characters are badly modeled and some of them look as if they’re eyes are getting ready to pop out. For some reason Peter is always fat, and Mary Jane is not the hot babe she is suppose to be. The city looks a little bit better than the city of Spiderman 2 but that’s it. Visually the game is not worth the $60 bucks you pay.
The controls are mapped out perfectly and that is one thing I am happy that Activision did not change at all, However Most of the time you will get confused by pressing the L-trigger when you’re supposed to be pressing the LB button. Now Instead of pressing the R-button and swing until you stop Now you have to press the R-trigger every time to swing through the city. This isn’t really a bad thing and I’m sure people can squeeze out the extra effort to press it every time they want to swing.
When Spiderman 3 was being developed, the sound engineers must have gotten drunk every single day when Spiderman 3 was being worked on. The sound is so bad you just want to put the TV on mute. Even the voice over is badly done that you will always keep asking yourself “Where the hell was the voice director when the voiceovers where being done?” The dialog is so cheesy that it actually fits with the story line and that is not a good thing.
One of the cheesiest dialog and FMV sequences is when Spiderman got rid of the black suit and landed on Eddie Brock JR. It starts with Spiderman swinging to the church where Eddie is at and sees Spiderman go inside the church and asks himself” Huh? Where is he going?” the it shows a sequence of Spiderman getting rid of the black suit and harry sees that Spiderman is really Peter Parker and the funny part is that Parker is still wearing his Spiderman custom underneath the black custom. How Eddie Brock did recognized Spiderman as Peter Parker when he still had his old suit on? I don’t know? The funny thing about this sequence is that this is as close to the movie as the game ever gets. The game is full of these cheesy dialogs that it’s not even funny.
The main story in Spiderman 3 is about 10 hours long if you decide to do a few side missions. The box says that you can choose 10 different missions including the mains story line but here’s the thing. You have to play through all those story lines no matter what. If you don’t then you can’t move on. The game has little replay value unless you want to suffer again once you pass the game. You cannot unlock bonus materials except combos and that’s about it.
Closing Comments:
Horrible!!!!That is all I have to say about this game. If you want to still play it I suggest you buy the PS2 version of the Wii Version which are cheaper than the 360 and PS3 versions.
Game Play: Boring, Horrible, Bad Camera and full of bugs. 1/10
Graphics: Bad Graphics and Visuals. Not a next-gen game. 2/10
Controls: Greatly mapped out and works perfect. Probably the only thing in the entire game that’s good 8/10
Sound: Cheesy and Bad voice Acting. Barely any music. It really makes you wonder what the hell the sound team was doing while this game was being developed. 2/10
Life Span: 10+ hours of game play is not bad but little or no replay value is. 4/10
