It was Friday afternoon and I had just bought Spiderman 3, I was leaving Kmart debating whether I should wait to read some reviews or just open it right away and play it. When I got home I couldn't wait. After a short tutorial mission I was in the city and slowly learning how to use my new found powers for good.
A third of the way through the game I am planning on attempting to return it and get Godfather instead. Not that it is a bad game, it's just not a spectacular game. Here's my review on all aspects of Spiderman 3 for Wii.
Graphics
One of the biggest issues that IGN had was the graphics. I can't argue with them, the graphics are simply unimpressive. Especially buildings that are far away simply look like colored cubes. If you want a good looking game this isn't it. I will say that the graphics somehow look better at nighttime in the game and that when you are swinging around the graphics are acceptable, the real issue is when you're looking at things that are far away.
Web Swinging
This is definitely the best part of the game. As IGN said it's worth renting just for the this experience. It is where I've had the most fun. I could swing around the city for hours. Unfortunately it isn't perfect and occasionally spidey will sling web from the wrong arm. I think this happens because you are supposed to be able to use just the remote to swing if you want. Nonetheless swinging remains very fun.
Fighting
This part is exciting at first but you'll be doing a ton of it and it simply gets repetitive and boring. The first time you do a new move it's really fun, but after the tenth time you want a new move to do. Patrol missions become very easy and repetitive once you've done them and boss battles tend to be the same two or three moves over and over and over again. Bosses are long and the two I've fought were simply the same as fighting thugs just more challenging and longer. The experience system is a great idea and implemented well but they need alot more variety. It's like zelda where you get new moves, each one is exciting but if you didn't get new weapons to make bosses more varied and challenging, link's sword attacks over and over again would get very repetitive.
EDIT: I played a little more of the game and the bosses do get more interesting in terms of how you beat them. I am a little more pleased than I previously was with this aspect. I am going to adjust my score a bit.
Black Suit
I know the black suit was implemented differently in the Wii version than the other versions, I'm not too sure on the details for the other versions. I will say that this was one of the major selling points for me on the game. I really like the decision required in using the suit and the minigame to remove it along with the cooldown period. It was very well implemented and thought out.
Missions
I played alot of the side missions before I had seen the movie because I didn't want to advance the story line and ruin the movie. These got pretty monotonous fast as well. You talk to an informant and then proceed to do one of the following.
1. Beat up thugs
2. Rescue people
3. Disarm a bomb
4. Find clues
5. Help cops beat up thugs
Each mission consists of maybe three of these things one after the other. Maybe I'm forgetting a couple tasks but there really isn't much more to it than that. The only sandbox game I've played that is similar is GTA san andreas, and there was sooo much more to do in that game. The wii should be capable of handling a better game.
Voice Acting
Hand in hand with side missions comes voice acting. The game brought in the actors to record voices for the characters. You can tell from the voices but by your tenth mission you will want tobey to put a cork in it. His lines are cheesy and I just want to hit mute everytime spiderman starts to talk.
Controls
For the most part the controls are pretty responsive but they are by no means perfect. My main complaints are during fighting spidey will sometimes do an extra punch which could cause you to miss an opportunity to dodge an attack. In addition when you're scaling walls you'll often find it frustrating that spidey will just keep moving in the wrong direction for too long before allowing you to correct. Crawling up walls is fine, but running along them and jumping up them is where this problem appears because crawling up tall buildings is just too slow.
Overall
I haven't really played previous spiderman games so I can't compare with them. One of the developers of the game said in a video that you could do whatever you liked doing the most in the game and it was open to people playing it in different styles. If you're going to be swinging around alot and that is mainly why you're buying the game then you will enjoy it alot. If you're buying it for any other reason I'd shy away unless you're a huge spiderman fan. It's not a bad game as I said, just not a great game.
I'd give the game 6.0/10.
IGN gave the game a 5.7/10.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/785/785713p1.html
Gamespot gave it a 4.7/10, which I think is a little harsh but thats gamespot for you. They tend to hate on the wii.
http://www.gamespot.com/wii/action/s... mmary;review
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