Ultimate Spiderman is a hit-and-miss game. Some of the ideas work, and some still need to be worked on.
Aside from the story missions there are a number of side quests you can do which are called City Goals, these are basically pauses in the game that must be completed before you can move on to the next story mission. Some of the City events are helping people to the hospital, or saving people who are hanging off the side of a building, or stopping a mugging. Some are interesting, while some could have used some more thought.
There are also races, which require you to complete the race within a certain time in order to earn a medal. The medals dont really do anything, but the races need to be completed in order to advance the game and unlock stuff. Which can be a bother because the races arent all the great.
Another feature is the combat tour, which has you going to different areas beating up members of a certain gang. There isnt much to it except for swinging around, then beating up a group of upwards of 2 people. For some reason there are quite a few of these in the game, and unless you really enjoy beating on people for no reason, combat tours can be pretty boring.
The game requires you do to a lot of chasing. Pretty much every boss in the game, before you battle them, you must chase them down in the city. Now this feature may sound cool since you get to swing around the city, but in fact it gets old fast, especially since every chase is pretty much the same. As spiderman, you swing around after them, after a bit of time the boss will stop and perform an attack, then continue on. Each chase consists of quick twists and turns, requiring you to stay on your feet, because if you fall too far behind, you'll have to redo the chanse scene again.
The boss battles are all pretty well done. Each boss has a pattern they do, which you have to memorize and then plan your attack. Once a boss takes a certain amount of damage, they change their pattern. Its a real old-school feel to it.
Venom's stuff is pretty much the same, races and boss fights. However Venom doesnt swing, he leaps. It adds an interesting idea to it all since you must judge your leaps in order to keep up on chases. Venom must also constantly feed on people because his health always drains. So always keep an eye on his health.
The comabt system is fairly simple. There are no real special moves, only punches and kicks for spiderman that can be strung together to form combos. When near a wall, you can press towards the wall to bounce off it and add more damage to your attacks. Otherwise you can hit one buttont only and Spiderman will fly around raining down with punches. Its simple, repetitive, and effective.
As for Venom he's more of a brawler than an acrobatic specialist, he has claw attack, and tentacle attacks. He can also hurl cars, so playing as Venom you feel an added sense of power.
To swing, all you have to do is hit the R button to create a line of web, but only one web can be made at once. Swinging is a simple thing, you just press R, release, and press R again. However there can be some trouble with this, such as when you drop off a large building. You can only shoot a web when you are close enough to the building, and if your are facing that building. If you're not, you'll continue falling. This can sometimes be annoying during the chase missions when everything must be done quickly.
The game itself looks amazing, its all done with the Cel-shading style. The game is also done in comic book format, which means scenes of the game take place in panels, and move from panel to panel and it comes across as a live action comic book. Of course, the game takes place in New York, which is divided up between Queens, and Manhattan. Each sections is very well detailed with billboards, road signs, individual vehicles, buildings, and each person walking the street is detailed in their own way.
The sound effects are fairly accurate, punches sound like punches, kicks sound like kicks, and explosions sound like explosions. However there isnt much diversity in the sounds, every punch sounds the same. And of course Spiderman has hit little one-liners he'll shoot out throughout the game. Some of them are pretty good, but others can be a 'wtf' moment. Venom snarls and growls as he moves about, and the people in his was scream in terror. The voiceovers are all done well, and the voices fit the characters they are portraying. Plus, they all have decent acting abilities, so emotions are recognizable.
The game also has its fair share of unlockable content. There are comic book covers, which showcase covers from the Ultimate Spiderman series. There are also landmark tokens, which appear in front of famous Spiderman buildings, the Daily Bugle for example. Once collected you can view these in your collection list.
All in all, the game has its high and low points. The graphics are amazing and the comic book style is effectively done. Its also enjoyable to play as both Venom and Spiderman in a connected story, which also happens to be quite a good storyline. However the lack of creativity for city goals, events, and story missions are a bit disapointing. The chase missions appear too often, and are very similar to one another.
Ultimate Spiderman is the type of game that you should rent before you buy it, even if you're a big fan of Spiderman, its safer to rent it first.