
	Platform Playstation 3 Genre Action Publisher Activision Developer Treyarch ESRB T (Teen) Released May 2007

- You get to be Spiderman? - Bruce Campbell’s return as the narrator

- The realization that I paid full price for this - CAMERA!!!???!!!! - Boss fights are terribly implemented

Review: Spider-Man 3 (360) Review: Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3) Review: The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (XB) Review: City of Heroes (PC)
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Spider-Man 3

Score: 6.0 / 10

If I turned in a report to Omni that was as finished as Spider-Man 3 was, I’d probably be looking for a new job. I think anyone with two brain cells to rub together can comprehend why the game was rushed to stores: to capitalize on the timing with the release of the movie (which also didn’t receive spectacular grades in my book) but in comparison with the delight that the 2^nd game brought, I feel disgusted and only finished the game out of a sense of completion, not enjoyment. It’s pretty disturbing to categorize the playing of a game as a chore instead of a fun aside from reality, but completing the game definitely felt more like work than fun. Another 3-4 months of Quality Assurance and I think that score could have been an 8 out of 10. A complete gutting would have been the only way the game could approach 10.

Where to start the analysis? Hmm, the gameplay I suppose. The last game’s swinging system was a tad jerky and you never really learned to move deftly as you did aim yourself like a lawn dart in the intended direction. Spider-Man 3 feels like I’m playing Spider-Man 2 with oven mitts on. I never really got into the groove of swinging (wow, that statement is open to interpretation huh?) and it became more of a necessary evil than cool transportation method.

Fighting seems a tad more robust this time around. I found it a better system to fight against multiple enemies (which does happen quite often in this universe). However, this is mitigated by the in-game camera which seems to take perverse

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pleasure in providing not only the most useless angles, but will actively fight if you try to move it during a battle. Don’t even get me started on fighting indoors; you might as well be playing by feel.

Boss battles and some of the quick-action scenes bring another pet peeve – the “hit the correct button or pay the consequences”. This was an acceptable annoyance in better

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games, but here it is just a pain. Omni actually gave me some advice on some of the boss fights when I was struggling with one of them, and I quote “Stop trying to fight it tactically, just button mash. It’s way more effective.” You could actually see the bile rising over the phone, but damn it if it didn’t work like a charm (and part of me died that day… we shouldn’t reward lameness in gaming!). The fights get long, and are usually broken up into smaller more tedious pieces… prepare to repeat them!

Missions are pretty much identical in style to the predecessor. You can do the story-based missions as you please and you are constantly running across random acts of crime that you can become involved with. They range from the amazing to the time killers… you know any time that you have to spend with Mary-Jane… damn what a series of lame-ass missions… “I want to go on a ride, but for the next 25 seconds could you swing low to the ground? Now swing at middle height!” Hey, Mary-Jane, how about I drop you on your whiny head? How about that? So what if I lose the mission, you’ll spawn back with more of your inane dialogue anyways.

The graphics? Meh. Decent, but definitely cross-platform. Some characters look cool, but most look like puppets and the facial expressions don’t do much to sell the situations. The city looks pretty good on the outside (there’s not something you can say about New York too often) but the interiors seem to have a series of weird hard edges and I noticed quite a bit of clipping on walls and stationary objects. Despite that it is a city of 30+ million people, the streets are apparently quite dead. It’s good to know that I should be able to drive freely at lunchtime through Times Square .

Sound? Well, I’d give compliments to Bruce Campbell for providing the one main reason to play the game, to get to listen to all of his dialogue. Otherwise, most of the voice acting was pretty much just phoned in (think the great scene where Krusty records dialogue for his action figure in less than 45 seconds) and really isn’t worth paying much attention to.

All in all, Spider-Man 3 was a tremendous bore and I think that I’ll go play some more of Spider-Man 2 to try and get the taste out of my mouth.

- Tazman

(June 26, 2007)

“Chris, we’re in Texas now. If I’m not riding a horse, I’m going to stick out like a straight guy at a figure skating competition.”

– Peter, Family Guy