The most original Spiderman Story to date with a whole new combat system, but it comes  with a price.

Spider-man games have always been tied to some sort of story whether it’s from comic’s movies and TV shows. Although the game varies to what the movie or comic have to offer it eventually offers the same story line to whatever story the Movie or Comic is trying to tell. Web of Shadows changes that with its own unique story not related to anything. On top of a unique story Web of Shadows also pushes Spider-man to places where he has never been before in a video game.

The story behind web of shadows is quite interesting you’d think that George A Romero wrote the script but he didn’t. New York is being taken over by an alien Symbiote and people are becoming infected with the Symbiote. In the first half of the game Spider-man focuses on regular crimes such as gang wars, robberies and robots. He does this with the Help of the symbiote custome that he acquired from Venom while fighting him. As the game progresses you will notice New York being overrun by the alien and New York Begins to change. Not only are civilians infected but enemies and allies also get infected as well. Depending on your path you choose you will wind up with different dialog and a different ending.

In previous Spider-man games you would either fight or swing. In Web of Shadows the fighting system has been reworked to include both in one. You can fight while on the air, on walls and of course on the ground. Defeating enemies will reward you points and with those points you can buy upgrades for your customs. Each custom although different almost have the same abilities as each other however when you switch between customs you will notice a huge difference in how they handle. The Spidey custom is made for speed and light punches to fight many enemies at the same time. The Black Custom is built for strength and it is a little slower than the Spidey Custom and fighting enemies one on one. The black custom however has the ability to allow you to pick up cars and toss them at enemies where as the Spidey Custom allows you to tie up your opponents with webbing.

Like stated before each custom has almost the same abilities but they also have their own unique abilities. The Black Custom replaces the webbing when fighting enemies with tentacles and the more upgrades you buy with the black custom the more you can do. Throughout the game I found myself using the Black Custom because it is a lot easier to defeat stage bosses than using the regular Spidey Custom, but that’s just me you might prefer the Spidey Custom more than the Black Custom.

With a complicated Combar system like this you would think that the controls for it would be complicated. Well they’re not. They are very easy to use ever your Grandmother can learn to play in just minutes. Each Combo has its own Button combination and works perfectly if you can manage to remember all of them through the mist of all the chaos. However, with said chaos sometimes the controls fail to respond causing you to miss your chance at continuing the combo. The Camera also doesn’t work with the controls from time to time. You want to go up but Spiderman goes down, you want to move through some buildings but are sent crashing through said buildings because the camera hasn’t realigned itself for you to maneuver through perfectly. These little annoyances will pop from time to time however they’re not enough to distract you from anything else.

Mega Man X7 made Mega Man into a little bitch and gave him the voice of a Bitch to go along with it. That problem was fixed in Mega Man X8. Why am I bringing Mega Man in, you ask? Simple because the actor who played Spider man in web of shadows is so annoying sometimes it makes you want to put down the controller and call it quits or play through the game with the volume to 0. Seriously who does the hiring for these actors and are they so stubborn to see that the voice does not match to what Spider man is suppose to sound. The story is a great story however that doesn’t mean that the Script is pure gold especially with the Voice over of Spider man. There will time when you will say to yourself “wow that is really cheesy”. Music sounds similar to that of the movies. I’m guessing they probably copied, modified and pasted previous soundtracks from the movies. Overall Spider man Web of Shadows isn’t winning any awards for Best Soundtrack or Voice Over or Original Soundtrack for that matter.

Graphically, the game still has room for improvement. Yes there are more people and Cars on screen as there should be in a busy city like New York and even though the models for people are overused, it gives it that feeling that the city is indeed alive. Unlike previous spider man games where you can go through city block and not find a single person or car. There is no lag in the game however you will notice that in a few Movie Sequences, you will see scan lines and the frame rate will drop slightly, but not enough to affect game play. The custom for Spiderman however was really over looked. Comparing this custom to the other Spider man customs I will say that this is the worse.

Spider man Web of shadows has a great story line and multiple endings that will bring you a total of 16 hours of enjoyment. It can bring you more if you complete all the side missions and collect all the spider emblems but who really does that anyway. After you are done with the game you would want to put it away for some time until you decide you want to play it again because of its little replay value. There is no trophy support for the PS3 however it is dual shock compatible for those of you who have the DualShock 3. Spider man is truly the definition of a single player game.

Spider-Man Web of Shadows introduces a new style of combat that is truly worth checking out. However they focused on the combat so much that they over looked a few things such as Spider-man’s custom. The camera is more responsive than previous games and the city feels more alive. The only problem I’ve had with the game is that it froze on me once but that shouldn’t scare you away as the game auto saves every few minutes. Another little annoyance is that it requires a 2GB install which shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes(Took 4 for mine).Spider-Man Web of Shadows is the type of game you would rent and beat it on a Lazy weekend rather than purchase it for $60. Right now I’m actually regretting my purchase and wished I would have rented it but it’s already too late as I cannot return open software.

Story: 9/10

Game Play: 10/10

Graphics: 6/10

Sound: 4/10

Life Span: 6/10

Web of Shadows is a really great game but what brings it down is the terrible voice acting for Peter Parker and the inferior graphics. If anything I think you are better off purchasing the PS2 Version or just renting it.