My day with Spider-Man 3

First, let me tackle the graphics: the game looks great. The graphics are on par with what next-gen should be. There was a lot of motion-capturing done for the game, which really has a nice touch, as the motions look fairly natural. All of the main actors, Toby McGuire, Topher Grace, Thomas Haden Church, and Kirsten Dunst, had their faces texture mapped into the game, although not perfectly; it's just a bit off. It adds a nice touch, but when combined with the voice acting, which is a bit lacking in terms of enthusiasm, it cheapens some cutscenes and definitely brings me back a generation.

The city is 2.5x bigger than it was in the past, and it now boasts a subway and sewer system for players to roam through. There's plenty of space to run around from what I saw, and I think that it will take a while for players to get bored running through the city. One thing that bugged me was that the car and people density within New York City seemed a bit lacking, and made the city seem almost desolate. It might lag the system, but there really should've been a larger number of people there to simulate a crowd. Rarely did Spidey ever have to worry about pedestrians getting in the way of being attacked by villians, unless they're using them as a delay tactic to run away from Spider-Man. It may be the comic book fan in me, but hell, pedestrians make good human shields, and the villians should have taken advantage of that.

Now, let me dive into the action. Webslinging is fairly standard nature, with controls that are easy to use. While in combat, there's a nice bullet time effect that you can do when enemies are about to attack so that you can dodge their moves, adding to the cinematic feel. The fighting engine, something that was completely redesigned for next gen, has a very fluid feeling, as it tries to emulate what Prince of Persia: Warrior Within achieved; you can follow whatever combo system you want for Spidey. As the developers told me, they wanted to have a system where players could re-create moves they saw in-game, which brings me to another point.

The "movie missions," which advance through the film' plot, feature interactive cutscenes. Essentially what they did was take scenes directly from the movie and put the player in the middle of them, so they could actually participate in what went on in the movie. The moves are overly simplistic: you just need to press a button that appears on screen, or a sequence of buttons, in order to get the move pulled off, and it didn't seem too hard at all. If you do it right, then you perform feats right from the movie, while if you don't, then they have a whole sequence of "fail" animations to go along with it. It's a nice addition to the game -- something that I wouldn't expect to see in a movie-license game. The problem with it, though, is that it can drag on to a point where it gets a little tedious, since it's overly simplistic and lasts for a while. This is a good jumping point, though; it seems as though interactive cutscenes are starting to bleed out into the mass market, and hopefully this means the end of movies with gameplay sporadically put into it. That's for a whole different discussion, though.

The whole point of the game, besides to make a lot of money off the Spider-Man license, is to play as Spider-Man in the symbiote suit. Now, the story is following that of the animated TV show, not the comics, where J. Jonah Jameson's son, an astronaut, ends up bringing the symbiote back to Earth with him, where it ends up fusing with Peter. The suit allows Spider-Man to be more powerful, as well as use a new set of moves that he couldn't normally use. Symbiote Spidey also has a rage meter which will fill up after getting beat up and dealing damage, where he'll be able to activate "rage mode," where the player can perform one hit kills and other such power moves. In this version, you're stuck with the symbiote until it leaves you for Eddie Brock. I prefer it this way, as opposed to allowing you to switch back and forth between the suits at will, like in the Wii version. This way, you're lulled into the mentality that the suit is pretty sweet, much like Peter's train of thought when he wore it.

As for the story, there are only 10 main missions that the player has to go through to complete the game, but there's more content than just that available. The main feature that there is a gang war going on between three different gangs and the police. So naturally, Spider-Man gets to play clean-up, and help take back territory from the gangs in order to keep the city safe. I can confirm that Doc Conners, The Lizard, will be making an appearance in the game. Otherwise, the other known villians are Sandman, Venom, New Goblin, and Scorpion. Morbius and Shriek will be appearing on the PS2/PSP/Wii version of the game.

Now, this still leaves a little room for more villians, so allow me to speculate for a moment. They said that the storyline will spend a good deal of time with Venom, so there is the possibility of Carnage making an appearance. I don't quite know what's going to be happening with Gwen Stacey, since she's supposed to be dead, but makes an appearance in the film and game. I'd also give consideration to the thought that Mysterio is going to appear in this game, since Bruce Campbell does make an appearance as Quentin Beck in the film. Wiki says that we'll be seeing Shocker, Rhino, Kraven, Carlyle, and Electro, but I think that's just speculation. I can always dream for Big Wheel to pop up.

As for online content, there is downloadable content being put together for the 360, while for the PS3, Activision is taking the "wait and see" approach as to what they'll be putting out on Playstation Home. They said there'll be bonuses in the game for the comic book lovers. Just as long as I can't unlock Iron Man's spider suit, I'll be happy.

Overall, I was impressed with Spider-Man 3 for the Xbox 360 and PS3. The developers really put a lot of thought and energy into the game compared to most movie to video game titles, where it's usually something that you wish never existed. On the downside, I feel like this draws very heavily from GTA: San Andreas and other sandbox games, and it loses a lot of points for that. Going around the town, even as Spider-Man, can feel like the same old-hat that I've played dozens of times before after a while. The combat and interactive cutscenes should make the game fun enough to enjoy for a while, but there still needs to be something really special pulled out in order to set this game apart from other sandbox games. I think this could be best achieved by including the Robo-Spider.