My review of the game

[MacJunegrand]

Short one:

It's meh.

 

Long one:

I know I shouldn't be excited about movie-licensed games, but in general Spider-Man games are very good.  And, for the previous movie franchise adaptations, the second game was one of the best superhero games in existence.  I pre-ordered this one, but I should have spotted the signs, specially after the price dropped.

 

Let's start with the obvious: the graphics are quite bad for a PS3 game.  There are PS2 HD remakes that look better (actually, there are Wii games that look better).  Clearly the production values are not good, and that's also noticeable on the actors.  No one from the movie reprises their role, either as voice actors or as character likeness (well, except for the omnipresent Stan Lee).  Heck, the character of Gwen Stacy doesn't even make an appereance.  The voice acting is subpar and borderline annoying, and the music is super generic.

 

The story is a muddled mess.  It's not a cohesive story, but rather a collection of small plots that are barely interconected.  It feels like playing an episodic game that lacks an overarching plot.  It's also a retelling of the events of the movie at some points, but only on very small parts, all regarding Electro or the Goblin, who are minor characters here.

 

The gameplay has its ups and downs.  Swinging through the city is super fun, as this time webs attach to buildings, like in the older games, and combat is basically a lite version of the Arkham games, including some neat stealth techniques (though sadly combat controls are a little unresponsive).  But then this is kind of ruined in mission instances.  There your webs attach to nothing (the control resembles more the old PSX games), and swinging is much slower.  There are also some forced missions in which you play as Peter, and you can make no use of your powers.  They feel like they're made just for padding.  The same goes for the dialogue "choices".  You can only choose the order in which you ask questions, and I see no reason for why wasn't that made into cutscenes instead.

 

Then there are the side-missions.  Those are normal for a Spider-Man game: rescue civilians from buildings on fire or other dangers, stop petty crimes, follow kidnappers, get rid of bombs, etc.  Nothing particularly original, but they're mostly fun (except for the buildings on fire, which is more trouble than it's worth).  The problem comes from the new Hero/Menace meter.  You might think "Oh, cool, like in Red Dead Redemption", but you'd be dead wrong. As you complete side-missions, your Hero meter raises, but it goes down if you merely ignore them.  That's right, the city considers you a menace for NOT intervening rather than for actually doing something bad.  This might not present such a problem if it were not for the fact that missions dissapear a couple of minutes after they showed up, and if you lose any time doing anything that's not a story mission, you'll be punished.

 

Oh, yeah, there's another problem with that.  If your meter is on the Menace side, a Task Force will follow you, shoot at you and build forcefields that prevent your swinging.  This is absolutely ridiculous, and it becomes a bigger issue later in the game, when there are too many missions showing up and you either have to dedicate to grind them or to be attacked by the force.  And you'll have to grind a lot.  There will be some times when you'll complete a side-mission and your Hero meter will still go down, because too many missions were ignored while you were completing the other.  That's right, you will be prosecuted for the horrible crime of not being able to be in several places at the same time.  It's irritating, and just terrible game design.

 

And then there are the bugs.  Both enemies and Spider-Man will frequently get stuck on walls.  This will make the game either ridiculously easy or impossible to progress, making you reload your save.  Sometimes missions on the maps won't show up, forcing again a reload.

 

In general, there are other annoyances.  The upgrades are mostly useless.  Every time you complete a side-mission you're forced to listen to a newscast report on it, which gets old really fast and can't be deactivated.  The game is too easy.  The only way you'll be killed is if you forget to take a glance at your health bar once in a while.  Boss battles are uninspired and mostly the same, and there's very few variety on normal enemies.

 

The worst part is that there's a good game behind all this.  There are fun stealth side-missions which reward you with new costumes, there are a bunch of collectible comic books to hunt and figures you obtain that can be seen in Stan Lee's comic shop.  And, again, swinging is ridiculously fun.  But this game reeks of being rushed.  There's almost nothing original, and every new thing there is hinders the fun instead of enhancing it.  I can't recommend this game at this price, but you should probably get it when there's a significant price drop (50% off at least), as there's fun to be had here.  Otherwise, avoid.  This is, without a doubt, the less appealing of all Spider-Man games I've ever played.

[PSNP is crap i left]

Really nice review! Reading it reminds me of Angry Joe's Review

[MacJunegrand]

Hey, thanks.  Wait, Angry Joe has a review on this game?  I'm gonna go see it right now.

[FluffyAssassin64]

Nice review bro, saved me a lot of potential heart-ache haha.

 

Also, your short review was my favourite 

Edited May 10, 2014 by FluffyAssassin64

[PSNP is crap i left]

If you're interested here is the Angry Joe Review.

[MacJunegrand]

Thanks, but I had already gone to TGWTG so see it.

[rfrandy2007]

im to maximum carnage still trying beat the carnage zombie on hard any tips

[MacJunegrand]

im to maximum carnage still trying beat the carnage zombie on hard any tips

Carnage is pretty easy if you remember his weaknesses: fire and sound.  You have to dodge his attacks, punch him and when he starts jumping on the walls, use the sonic web attack to make him fall.  Then use the web pull on the faucets to turn on the fire where he falls.  In general I'd suggest to turn the fire as soon as you can, because fire damages him as long as he's near it, but the fire also hurts you.  If you think you can avoid it, turn it on inmediately.  Also, when he makes clones of himself, attack them.  They won't leave you alone if you try to focus on Carnage.

Edited May 25, 2014 by MacJunegrand

[diskdocx]

I would agree with most of your review, with the exception of "The worst part is that there's a good game behind all this". There is at best a mediocre game behind all of this. As you rightly point out, the story is very disjointed, and probably is at most 5 hours. The rest of this is all filler, and not very good filler at that.

 

The grind for the costume upgrades at the end is mind-numbing, and while I certainly have done worse grinds, the fact that the grind takes longer than completing the entire story is telling.

 

This is the definition of shovelware.

 

Sadly, I have a feeling the upcoming Transformers game will probably be going the same route. Thanks Activision.

[MacJunegrand]

I would agree with most of your review, with the exception of "The worst part is that there's a good game behind all this". There is at best a mediocre game behind all of this. As you rightly point out, the story is very disjointed, and probably is at most 5 hours. The rest of this is all filler, and not very good filler at that.

 

The grind for the costume upgrades at the end is mind-numbing, and while I certainly have done worse grinds, the fact that the grind takes longer than completing the entire story is telling.

 

This is the definition of shovelware.

 

Sadly, I have a feeling the upcoming Transformers game will probably be going the same route. Thanks Activision.

Well, my point was that the game's basics are still based on the PS2 games, which were very good.  Had they not half-assed everything, we could have ended up with a good game.  Time wasn't the problem, they had the exact same time window that the developers for the PS2 Spider-Man 2 game had.  And these guys had the advantage of already having a template.  Clearly these guys simply lack creativity.

[kratoz_4411]

I should have seen this before buying the game. Well, I think I have to play it since that I bought it already. I'll just gonna try to gauge my annoyance threshold on this game then. Haha