More Spider-Man On The Way

I've just completed a run-through of the latest Spider-Man 3 game for Wii. With extensive play time put into it, I gotta say I was... underwhelmed.

It plays very much like Spider-Man 2 for the previous generation of consoles. Free-roam the city, be a hero, upgrade yourself, have a damn good time doing it. They did eliminate a lot of nuisances, like saving a balloon for some crying child. They took a lot of liberties with the main story, for simplification I'd assume, and to include more bosses for increase game play. It's about the same graphically as the other games, though more polygons were put into all of the main characters.

Activision really tried to use the Wii controls well here, and it works well, and doesn't at the same time. You can use both the Wiimote and the Nunchuk (representing Spider-Man's right and left hands) for web-swinging through the city, and that is fun. Being able to physically switch hands freely and motion-forward to thwip out your line is extremely entertaining. What doesn't work so well is the combat... which is the other half of the game.

Quick attacks are done by shaking the Wiimote, strong attacks by pressing A, and dodging by swinging the 'Chuk. You finish quick attack combos with strong attacks. However, the finicky shaking causes the final move to be another quick attack than a strong attack more often than not, which causes frustration. You also have much less options this time around. Spider-Man 2 gave you great combos to do with combinations of quick, strong and web sling buttons. The best combo you have this time around is four swings and a strong attack.

Anyway, the game is still pretty decent, with a lot of replay value (collect the meteroites to play as Venom, eh...?) though the second game holds stronger. The PS3 and XBox 360 versions bear much more resemblance to that game, with full combo options, and practically an entirely different game. Either way, Tobey Maguire is a horrible voice actor. So is James Franco.

The point of this post by the way is let you know that Spider-Man isn't done yet. Skimming through the instruction booklet of the PS2 version of SM3 will show a teaser for a little something called Spider-Man: Friend or Foe. That's all the information that's really out there. It's a supposive retelling of the three movies, whatever that means, and will explore Spider-Man in a way that hasn't been done before... whatever that means. Regardless, if your name is Peter and want to have a nerdgasm, clicky-click on the teaser website.