Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (PS3)
Listen, bub...
10/29/2008 7:29 PM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 3
What's Hot: The aerial sequences in particular make for dizzyingly spectacular fights where all sense of where the ground is goes out the window.
What's Not: The overly flippant dialogue and meandering, padded plot fritter away most of the dramatic potential of the core premise.
You don't always have to rescue innocent bystanders, but it's fun to watch them taste their lunch all over again.
Controlling Spidey does feel great, though. Bouncing from enemy to enemy and yanking, kicking, and tossing them in the midst of a heated throw-down never feels old. Massive chain attacks and upgradeable melee moves make the fighting feel fresher than in more recent Spidey games. A truly great "superheroes-meet-then-fight" brawl with Wolverine is peppered with a quick-time Q&A session, in which the ferocious Canadian tries to figure out if the entity he's fighting is actually Spider-Man. The questions Logan asks come from actual Marvel Comics trivia. For example, "Whose killer did we track down in Germany?" references the great Spider-Man vs. Wolverine comic. Aside from being a great boss battle, this marquee match-up is a nice way of building a nod to longtime fans.
Spider-Man will work with both enemies and heroes to save New York, but some of them will fall prey to the symbiotes' corrupting influence.
The developers make smart use of Spider-Sense as an in-game radar and targeting system -- especially useful since enemies and objectives can be hundreds of feet from ground level. Sadly, even with Spider-Sense, the camera can sometimes have a tough time following all of Mr. Parker's zipping and bouncing. And, the lack of a smooth transition between wall combat and web-swinging does inhibit the sense of flow that pumps so pervasively through the revamped combat engine. The minute you have to transition to wall combat -- which on its own feels fine -- you'll find yourself pulled out of the moment. Clinging to walls isn't hard to activate; it's a simple button-press. But, that split-second of having to think about turning on one of Spidey's native abilities feels inorganic.
Visually,
Web of Shadows impresses. The animation stays fluid, and the art direction gets increasingly grim as the infection establishes itself throughout the city. Huge symbiote tendrils stretch between skyscrapers, infected civilians shamble throughout the streets as attack helicopters scream overhead, and plumes of smoke add to the gritty smog that chokes the sky. The overall effect creates a bleaker feeling than is usually present in most Spidey stories, but serves to fuel the urgency.
Just about every enemy type walks on walls, so they can take the fight right to the web-slinger.
However, the Manhattan you swing through feels smaller and oddly nondescript, lacking the landmarks and details of other games set in the Big Apple. Spidey's voice actor is annoying, though the dialogue feels true to Spidey's comics persona. The voice for the supporting characters is inconsistent, too, and it's sometimes hard to resist making the "bad" choice as a way of lashing out at bad line readings.
