Spider-Man: The Movie
The answer is a resounding, if somewhat qualified, yes. Not to be wishy-washy about it, but if you liked last year’s arcade-friendly Spider-Man game for the PC, you’ll positively “zwip!” over this one.
The two games are nearly identical gameplay-wise, but the movie game has received a big-budget upgrade: gorgeous cinematic visuals, aerial combat sequences, a targeting camera, a web-load of new combos, and celebrity voiceovers (Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin, and over-the-top thespian Bruce Campbell as the tutorial’s snide narrator).
If anything, the improvements are so profound that it’s devastating to see Spider-Man’s remaining faults hamstring the action. You see, there’s a super-villain far more evil in this game than the pumpkin bomb–throwing Green Goblin, and it’s the camera.
In short, Spider-Man needs a zoom-out function. Imagine if you’d watched the movie and saw nothing but Tobey Maguire for two straight hours. Bad guys could be shooting at him from offscreen but all you ever saw was the Tobe. Wouldn’t that be frustrating? The ability to zoom out to get a better view of Spidey’s surroundings would’ve been a huge boon to gameplay, especially during stealth missions and melee combat.
Anticipating this complaint, the developers have included a target-lock mode that follows your target anywhere on camera. Tailor-made for boss battles, perhaps, but this function is nearly useless against multiple attacking enemies.
And since I’m venting, here are my other gripes: no saving during missions; awkward control when wall-crawling; and a few annoying audio and graphics bugs (one blacks out your screen, usually in the tutorials).
So why does this game warrant such a high score? Because the rest of it rocks.
Need an example? The moment I forgave Spider-Man and all of its transgressions came during my first aerial battle with the Green Goblin, the climax of which takes place over New York’s lush Central Park. No blanket of fog covers the city as it did in the last game: there’s a living, breathing world down there with moving traffic, awestruck pedestrians, and real-world geography. It hit me: visually, this game (like Spider-Man himself) is amazing!
The phenomenal aerial combat alone is worth Spider-Man’s modest $30 price. Web-swinging through the city, you’ll launch web-projectiles, punches, and cannonball kicks at enemies, and if you get the timing just right, you can even land on a villain’s shoulders and beat him senseless in mid-air.
Besides straight-out action, you’ll find plenty of stealth, puzzles, and tutorial mini-games to prime your interest. Tons of secret areas and power-ups await, including unlockable costumes and skins (play through the game as Mary Jane if you want), and there’s even a secondary game that — if you beat the game on Hero difficulty — lets you replay as the son of the first Green Goblin (in Goblin garb and with his powers) intent on clearing the family’s name. The Shocker, Scorpion, and the Vulture make cameo appearances as well.
Spider-Man is one of those rare movie-to-game translations that mostly gets it right. My advice to Spidey fans? Swing on by your friendly neighborhood software store and pick it up.