Available on: PS2, PSP, Wii
Price: varies second-hand
I played on: PS2
Notes: There exists 3 versions of this game: 7th Gen (PS3, Xbox 360 and PC), 6th Gen (PS2, PSP, Wii) and the Portable (GBA and DS). There is also a mobile and TV game.
Previous game Spider-man 2 on the PS2 is arguably one of the best Spider-man games ever made so can the sequel live up to the same standards? The short answer is, no.
As this is a movie tie-in to Sam Raimi’s Spider-man 3 the plot is mostly the same as the film but with some extra story around the Lizard and Morbius the Vampire. The pacing feels all over the place with cutscenes in peculiar feeling rushed. Characters will just say flat out what they need you (the player) to know with some of the most forced dialogue imaginable. The main film plot is given so little time that all of the entire main story is stuffed into just about an hour and instead we get boring filler about gangs that never really go anywhere. I can’t say I enjoyed the plot to the Spider-man 3 film but somehow it’s butchered ever further by this game.
The gameplay feels very similar to Spider-man 2 with you having an open world New York to explore, upgrades to buy, random crimes to take on and story missions to get through. Unlike Spider-man 2 however, everything here feels broken and horrible. Web-swinging is stiff with overly long animations and terrible controls. The previous game had most of the fun come from web-swinging but here I groaned every time I was forced to make my way across the large lifeless city. Combat was never amazing previously but at least it did the job and felt fluid whereas here it’s once again just a bunch of broken animations and repetitive actions. The attacks you have are also very limited leaving you repeating the same moves over and over.
Spider-man encounters the black symbiote suit and you can use this at any time for a period of the story. When you’re in black your attacks will be stronger but if you use it for too long it will consume you so after a while you will need to get it off. You have to fight to regain control by going through a quick time event and this is not a bad idea. The best thing about this game is how it handles the black suit as the idea of it making you stronger but if overused causing a game over is very clever. It’s just a shame that this never makes it into more of the game. Bosses or challenges that had you trying to balance your use of the black suit would have been fun.
The graphics here are horrible, Spider-man 2 may look dated due to the hardware of the PS2, Xbox and Gamecube but the wonderful animations and art style keep it looking nice to this day. Here everything feels stiff, lifeless and awkward. The animations are utter trash all feeling like they don’t connect with the world around them. Spider-man will slide along the floor instead of hitting it if you web-swing too low and very often your attacks will not make any contact with the person you’re attacking. The voice acting is terrible with the only passable performance being given by Tobey Maguire. All in all, awful presentation.
I know this game was made with a lower budget than the 7th Gen version but if they had just used the same engine and graphics from Spider-man 2 with a new story and bosses then this would have been amazing but instead, we get this mess. This game is not as bad as Spider-man 1 for the PS2 as the open world and web-swinging is better than the broken liner mess that was that game. But it’s still mostly trash. Avoid this mess and instead pick up Spider-man 2 unless you’re on PSP and really need some open-world Spider-man on the go, In which case still properly give it a miss.
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