Spider-Man 3 Review - Xbox 360

7

Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 7
Audio: 8
Innovation: 5

Spider-Man, love him or hate him, sells. The newly released Spider-Man 3 movie has smashed box office records, knocking the acclaimed ‘300’ off the throne for 2007. The game which was released alongside the movie on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, PC, GBA, PSP and Playstation 2, offers fans a chance to walk in Peter Parker’s shoes for a few days, and experience what it’s like to be the crime-fighting superhero from the much loved Marvel comics. Although the game does skim through the story of the movie, it seems most of the missions are to do with villains from the comics, which makes Spider-Man 3 a must have title for any hardcore fan.

Gameplay

Web slinging has never been more enjoyable. In Spider-Man 3, you get the massive island of Manhattan in the city of New York, not to mention the extensive Underground Railroad system, sewer system, and dozens of buildings waiting to be explored. The slinging is fairly difficult to learn, and veteran slingers would still have trouble fitting through some of the small gaps around the city. Once you get a rhythm working though, exploring the city becomes a very enjoyable pastime as you work your way through the missions and races. All up there are 42 missions to complete in the main story mode, most of which don’t follow the movie’s story. In fact, the story they use in the movie seems to be different to the story in the game.

There are several different stories throughout the game, such as a Lizard man, a Scorpion man and of course the main story of Venom, Sandman and Harry. Mary-Jane fans won’t be happy with the game as she features only briefly throughout the main story. The only time she’s involved in missions is when you take her flying around the town, in the way she wants to go. If she says to take her higher, you have so sling up to the peak of the buildings to get extra points, and she’ll also tell you to go really low, or really fast. This is just one of the alternate missions that you can complete as you work your way through the game. There are bomb diffusing missions, speed races, and combat tours where you defeat gang members as fast as you can throughout the city. For each of the side missions you are awarded gold, silver, bronze or nothing depending on your time, and Xbox 360 achievements are awarded for those that can complete every task in time.

The combat works quite similar to other action adventure games, but there are a few key aspects that separate it from other titles. Spider-Man can of course use webs to attack his enemies. Pulling your enemies up in the air, webbing them up, or firing bullet-like webs at your enemies can (continued next page)