Like its predecessor, Spider-Man 3 puts the city in the palm of your hand and lets you plan your activities based on a selection of scripted and random events that occur throughout the game. Unfortunately, though, as gifted as VV are, you can’t win them all. While the developers have implemented some truly brave uses for the motion controls in Spider-Man 3, the game struggles in terms of gameplay and presentation, and the end product isn’t what it could have been with a larger budget and a bit more development time.
Swinging High (and Erratically)
Spider-Man 3 closely follows the plotline of the popular movie, so if you haven’t seen it yet, you might want to do so before diving into the videogame. At the start of the game, you’ll be dropped right into a burning building, which is actually just the setting of a short tutorial. In it, you’ll learn the basics of the game’s combat system, as well as other simple maneuvers, with the help of the genuinely hilarious (if perhaps a bit corny) jokes from the game’s sarcastic narrator. One of the first things you will notice throughout this training is that battling thugs is done almost entirely with the motion controls; rather than pressing buttons to punch and kick, you simply swing the Wii remote left and right. It feels liberating, albeit a bit confusing at first.
But once you get into the more complex maneuvers, the controls really start to get confusing. Trying to pull off the more complicated techniques really isn’t all that fun, especially considering that the motion controls don’t always seem to translate quite as accurately as simply pressing buttons. (We’re currently at that stage where developers are actively trying to “feel out” the unique strengths of the Wii, and so it isn’t surprising that this kind of experimentation will often lead more toward confusion than enrichment.) Even so, many combos finish with the A button, and through a relatively simple combination of A and the web lassoing technique, taking down most bad guys isn’t too hard. And once you get your hands on the black suit (which happens very early in the game), combat becomes much easier—though it’s still more drab and repetitive than it is fun. Camera controls are thoroughly useless, as pivoting the nunchuk makes for an erratic response.
Web-slinging isn’t much better. While it does admittedly feel cool shooting webs from your wrists by simply flicking the remote and holding a button, it’s much too easy to slam into the sides of buildings, and actually getting to where you want to go is often more challenging than it should be. Particularly frustrating is when your destination is at the top of a building with a large lip; crawling around the lip frequently results in Spider-Man inexplicably falling a few stories and having to re-grapple his way back to the top again for another try. Throughout all of my time with the game, I was still unable to figure out exactly why this was happening. I’m quite sure it’s just a design flaw.
Not Much to Look At
All of this might be partially forgivable if the game was at least aesthetically pleasing—but it is nothing of the sort. Spider-Man 3 looks like a bad PS2 game most times, with chugging frame rates that constantly suffer under 15 and 10 frames per second and a vast array of blurry, unvaried textures. It’s bad enough swinging stutteringly through a city that’s ugly to look at, but all of this is exacerbated by the game’s notorious case of pop-in. Aren’t we beyond the age of blurry textures and gratuitous pop-in? It’s really too bad that more couldn’t have been done to improve upon the game in this category.
The music comes straight from the movie, and because of that, it sounds great. Unfortunately, however, it doesn’t take long to notice that there just isn’t enough variation in the game’s soundtrack. The few common tunes wear on you quickly, especially if you’re taking your time to wander around the city and solve random crimes when you’re met with them (as you’re supposed to do). Some of the voice acting, such as that of the refreshingly derisive narrator (who sort of sounds like a Norm MacDonald knock-off), is excellent, while the rest of it is thoroughly unimpressive and even repetitive—during a scene where Spider-Man is carrying MJ home, she vocally responds with a few different rotating clips, including “this is worse than a rollercoaster ride!”
On a more positive note, MJ does not sing in the videogame.
All of these design pitfalls overshadow the game’s stronger points, such as its fairly expansive character-building system (which rewards the collection of hero points with the ability to spend them in exchange for new techniques), and that’s a shame. What’s here is a foundation that could have been built upon to create a truly great experience if more time had been invested… and when you’re dealing with a development team as talented as Vicarious Visions, it’s too bad that things worked out this way.
Arachnophobia (Overall Comment)
If you’re absolutely dying for a Spider-Man game to play (but you aren’t too worried about a challenge), you might want to check out the beat-‘em-up Spider-Man: Friend or Foe (our review of this one will be up shortly). Or, if you just want a great sandbox-style game where you don’t always feel like a criminal, go for Microsoft Games’ Crackdown (Xbox 360). Regardless, Spider-Man 3 just doesn’t have what it takes. It’s plagued by basic design issues both in terms of control and fundamental presentation that make it unworthy of any Spider-Fan’s repertoire.