Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Underappreciated"

First off, I loved Spider-Man 2. It had a great sandbox feel to it. I'll break this down into parts: story, graphics, gameplay, sound
Graphics-- Right now, looking at this game, it looks good from far away. When you look at it closely, you see clipping, a bad frame rate, and some weird looking human models. The model of Spider-Man does look great for a game made in mid-2007 for a movie game. The city looks good, with some nice but weird lighting effects, giving the whole atmosphere a dark feel to it. When on the street, humans walk very weirdly and their eyes are popping out of their heads. Cutscenes look better, with more detail and look like Flint Marko, Eddie Brock, Jonah Jameson, and Tobey McGuire. Once in a while the frame rate slows down. Kirsten Dunst is barely even in it, but surprisingly looks bad compared to the rest of them.
Sound--The voice acting is decent, and it seemed like the actors wanted to be somewhere else. The sound in the game is alot better. Spidey's webs have a great shwishing noise while swinging. The sound during battles is alright, but not great, especially in slow motion
Story--see the movie if you want the real story. The story in this game relates somewhat with the movie's, but adds alot more villains and storylines along for the ride. There's the lizard story, where Dr. Connors turns into a giant lizard in an attempt to regrow his arm back, along with Kraven and his girlfriend Calypso. Rhino and Scorpion are also in it, where they have a secret government facility as Governors' Island. They also threw in Kingpin for a brief 2 missions. The mad bomber is also in it, seeking revenge against Jonah and Manhattan for exposing his secret company. There's the movie storyline, with Jonah Jameson, Flint Marko, Eddie Brock, Peter and a bit of Mary Jane too.
Gameplay--like Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3 opens you up with a sandbox open world Manhattan to freely roam around in and under. They took out the ability to web onto a helicopter and fly ro Ellis and Liberty Island (for those of you who didn't know that and own Spider-Man 2, yes, you can go to the Statue of Liberty). Instead, you can go into the subways and part of the sewers(there's a glitch where you can go into the sewers of the connor missions). There's miles of subway to explore, and swinging around the city is the best part of the game. Hold down x to jump in the air and press R2 to swing a web while holding down x and L2 for a stronger swing. Pressing select will bring up a map of Manhattan, where you'll find mission icons scattered throughout the city. You aren't forced to complete side missions to unlock more story missions, though there are side missions and plenty of random crimes around. There are gang story missions-the dragon tails, apocalypse, and arscnic candy gangs-that are part of the story. The missions aren't hard and are very straightforward. The controls are great but combat isn't exactly perfect. Holding down L1 will slow down time and automatically dodge incoming attacks, which works fine one on one but with five or six people flying at you, it's hard because there's a meter for it and it will eventually run out. There are some harder enemies from the gangs, like the dragon tails one with the guy who has two swords with him. Pressing square will start a combo attack and can be combined with triangle as well. To turn around you have to roll the R3(or right anolog stick) around. Pressing R3 will turn the world gray, spotting enemies(red), and important things(green,yellow). The camera is bad in combat, because you can't see who's behind you and can get very frustrating. Also in the mad bomber missions, to disable a bomb is very frustrating-you have to press a button when this yellow liquid passes through tubes to get to the power source. making the buttons face towards the power source defuses the bomb.
I own the collector's edition, allowing you to play as New Goblin after you defeat him in the story. The motion sensor controls are so bad that i sometimes throw the controller. But by changing the options, controlling him with the main controls is a lot of fun. There's no missions for him besides races and random crime. there are combat tours and races availible for Spider-Man. That's all I have to say about Spider-Man 3 collector's edition for the ps3
Final thoughts
Story: 8.7/10--it did tie into the film and the scorpion/rhino missions and the connor missions had good, solid stories.
Graphics: 8.9/10--solid graphics for a movie game. there's some clipping and a slow frame rate, but the cutscenes have some detail and the buildings look fine.
Gameplay: 9.6/10--swinging around Manhattan and exploring is always fun. the combat is alright but the camera and the dodging don't always work well.
Final, Final thoughts: if you like Spider-Man 2, or are a Spider-Man fan, definitely pick this game up. Not that this game doesn't have problems, but its still one of the best movie-games out there like the Incredible Hulk. If you own a 360, buy this game. It has easy achievements and has a better frame rate.