Spider-Man 3 (Xbox 360) review "Gang wars take over the streets. An alien symbiote pops out of nowhere and gives him a new suit with incredible strength - but makes him a complete asshole. Kraven the Hunter, Calypso, the Lizard, the Rhino, the Scorpion, the Kingpin, the Sandman, the New Goblin, Venom - New York City is a battleground, and there’s only thing standing in the way of complete chaos is one little spider."

It’s a good time for Spider-Man. He’s in a serious relationship with the love of his life, Mary Jane. People have finally gotten tired of reading ‘SPIDER-MAN: MENACE’ in the paper, and are treating him like the hero he is. He’s making good money at the Daily Bugle, and he’s up for a staff position. For the first time in a long time, Peter Parker’s life is not sucking.

As any Spider-Fan will tell you, that’s a bad omen. Whenever Spider-Man is enjoying his life, that’s a sure sign that something extraordinarily bad is about to happen.

Gang wars take over the streets. An alien symbiote pops out of nowhere and gives him a new suit with incredible strength - but makes him a complete asshole. Kraven the Hunter, Calypso, the Lizard, the Rhino, the Scorpion, the Kingpin, the Sandman, the New Goblin, Venom - New York City is a battleground, and there’s only thing standing in the way of complete chaos is one little spider.

That’s the odd thing about Spider-Man 3: You’d think, being a movie adaptation and all, it would stay close to adapting the movie…but it doesn’t. As a matter of fact, the movie’s events account for, maybe, 15% of the game’s content. The structure is there and you’ll be reliving some of the movie’s better battles, but you spend the bulk of your time battling reboots of classic Spidey villains.

Which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong.

Dueling with the Scorpion on the top of the Brooklyn Bridge. He’s stronger, he’s faster, he’s armored like a tank, but he’s also crazy as a loon with the intelligence to match. Keep your distance, keep him distracted, pick your punches and take him down.

Trading blows with the Kingpin in his once-plush, now-trashed penthouse suite; he smashes you through walls, tears up the floor, pummels you with insane strength and never gets so much as a wrinkle in his suit - well-trained, well-connected and all muscle. You can’t throw wild blows with him…no. You’ve got to take your time. Look for counters. Use the strength and power and rage of your new suit and wittle him away to nothing.

Fighting with Kraven the Hunter in the sludge of New York’s sewers. He fights with the strength of his past prey; the speed of a panther, the strength of a bear, the flight of an eagle - he even goes invisible, and your spider-sense is the only way to track him down.

Oh, right. Spider-Sense. Almost forgot.

Spider-Man’s trademarked Spider-Sense plays a huge role in the third iteration, much more than any before. It still increases reflexes; slows down time and lets weave through a horde of enemies without a sweat. But now, it also lets you see enemies and important objects through walls, peering clean through the dense urban jungle. It’s really more like Daredevil’s radar-sense than anything Spider-Man’s ever done, but I’m not complaining; you lose so much frustration from just being able to instantly find what you need to find. You don’t waste time looking in every corner, you don’t waste a minute a wondering what needs to be done.

That’s good, no doubt, no doubt, because the ability is sorely needed; I don’t know if it’s the Xbox360’s incredible detail, I don’t know if it’s the fact that Spider-Man finally learned how to swim., I don’t know if the new and massive Subway area…well, it probably has a lot to do with that last one, really, but New York City just seems bigger now.

It’s sure as hell more detailed; car wrecks and traffic jams litter the streets, hot dog vendors and police on patrol, so many civilian models that you’ll never see twins in the same spot. You’re not stuck catching construction worker or snagging balloons in your spare time anymore; now you bust up gang hideouts and follow the police straight to the action; hostage situations, bank heists, even bombings can occur at any time when you’re roaming the city. In the chill of the night, at the scene of a crime, like a streak of light, you arrive just in time.

It feels real. More than ever, it feels like you’re inside a complete world - a complete comic world, but a world nonetheless.

Now, I’m not saying it’s a perfect game - there are flaws. Spider-Man 3 has a handful of push-button sequences, interactive cutscenes which do a great job of showing Spider-Man’s agility and style, giving every fight a certain cinematic flair. But, thing is, they tend to come out of nowhere. They tend to catch you by surprise. You tend to mess up the sequence a few times, and the game tends to take Spidey’s health off for it. Going through an intense boss battle, surviving with only a smidge of heath, then losing because you pressed A B X Y when you should have pressed A B X X? Not fun. Very irritating.

But, ultimately, tolerable, especially when you take into account the overall product. Spider-Man 3 is a strong, seamless game, the kind that you spend a couple of days beating, play over once for the hell of it, then play an hour or two of every other day.

In a word: Amazing.

Staff review by Zack Little (May 10, 2007) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.