Spider-Man 3 begins with a short tutorial, taking you through the basic attacks and web-swinging ways of our beloved superhero. The game starts off well enough, in an enclosed area with Bruce Campbell providing the perfectly appropriate narration. But it's after you pass the tutorial, when you're left to your own devices, that the tears rapidly begin to show in the game's tight-fitting lycra suit.
Spider-Man 3's game world is set up much like those of its predecessors. You're given free rein to roam around the city, cherry-picking missions as you like. The game features ten separate storylines, and completing these means you get to see snippets from the film. However, the film's storyline is only one of many in the game, so while Sandman and New Goblin all appear to make things difficult for Spider-Man, you'll also have to battle Lizard, Scorpion and Kingpin if you want to complete all of the main missions in the game.
Jump right in.
Aside from the main story missions, there are other things you can do in the city if you want to either take a break from the story, or simply complete the game in its entirety. For a start, there are random crimes going on quite frequently, and although it's not mandatory to actually intervene, it's a good excuse to practice your attacks. There are also races where you'll have to try and swing around the city as fast as possible, and occasionally you'll need to use Peter's camera to take photos of certain things in the city, though these missions are about as exciting as they sound, and you'll quickly begin to hate them.
On the subject of cameras, Spider-Man 3's is its own worse enemy. An incredibly frustrating tool, there's nothing worse than swinging around gracefully, swooping between a pair of buildings, and then losing track of Spidey completely, and all because the camera just cannot keep up. When you're climbing up the walls, it's quite easy to lose track of whether you're climbing up, down, left or right. There were several points in the game where you'll double-take, and think a car is driving into the sky. The reality? You're actually climbing around a building and not moving up.
In enclosed areas, it's common for the camera to become epileptic, only increasing the sense of frustration. The game is rather unforgiving when it comes to checkpoints, so failing a mission because the camera has gone crazy and having to restart from the very beginning will mean you'll quickly be reaching for the bug spray.
You sticking around?
The "redesigned and redefined" controls are patchy at best. The X and Y buttons are used to attack, you can shoot your web with B, and Spidey will jump if you press A, with the length of time you hold down A determining just how high our titular hero jumps. As in the Matrix games, pressing the left bumper allows you to slow time down, letting you counter-attack enemies with the spider reflexes move. Super attacks are executed with the right bumper. When it comes to web-swinging, the right trigger shoots out a web, and when timed perfectly with the left trigger, Spidey gets a little speed boost.
At times, you'll need to employ your "Spider Senses", which are executed with the right trigger. Using your Senses basically reveals enemies, and lets you see past walls and buildings. At certain points during the game, you'll need to press buttons at specific times to pass a mission. These scripted events, such as saving a woman who is about to fall to her death, are clever additions, but can feel tacked on and rather random. Overall, the combat just isn't all that enjoyable - you'll be consistently doing the same things over and over - so while you will eventually unlock a barrage of moves, you'll only need to rely on the spider reflexes move and the X and Y button to defeat the goons.
There are instances in the game where you'll shake your head in disbelief at the sloppiness of it all. At one point, we were following Lizard footprints on the side of a building with Spidey's senses activated. When panning the camera, it was clear that the footprints were actually suspended in midair, and not even on the building. The pedestrians are dull and uninformative as well, happy to tell you about the whereabouts of criminals, but then unable to point in the direction of the enemies - instead, they simply stand there, motionless. It all makes Spider-Man 3 feel like a deeply unpolished game.
Graphically, Spider-Man 3 looks best when you're simply swinging around, taking in the view. The city has a lot of detail, but the characters themselves look ugly. It's clear that a lot of work was put into making Spidey himself aesthetically pleasing, and he does look the part. But when it comes to any of the other characters, they're all ugly, and barely recognisable. The frame-rate can dip at times as well, which will frustrate you even more. And although Tobey Maguire, James Franco, Thomas Hayden Church, Topher Grace, and J.K. Simmons have all contributed to some good voicework, the city itself is eerily quiet. When Spider-Man is swinging around, it's unforgivable that we don't hear comments from the pedestrians - an occasional "Wow, it's Spider-Man" or "Look at him go" would have made the city feel that much more alive.
Fear the Sandman.
The main Story mode will take about ten hours to complete, and mercifully you won't need to complete any of the side missions to progress. This is appreciated, though to unlock the Achievements you'll need to complete races, random city missions and collect tokens. The game includes an option for downloadable content, so it's highly likely Activision will release content with extra playable characters or missions down the track. Even if more content isn't released, if you can tolerate the problems then there is plenty to do.
We can tolerate one bug in Spider-Man 3 (the red- and blue-suited guy, of course) but anything beyond that is pushing it. With a terrible, terrible camera, repetitive and boring combat and a lacklustre frame-rate, Spider-Man 3 is a highly average movie tie-in. The game is at its best when you're swinging around peacefully, though as soon as you try to do anything beyond this, you'll immediately be caught in a web.
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