Review: Spider-Man 3 (PS3)

First impressions count and for a video game Spider-man 3 makes an absolutely diabolical introduction. So much so that Gamestyle is having a hard time casting back over the decades for another high profile release that eroded any initial enthusiasm or excitement so efficiently, within those few first vital moments. When inserting your new purchase into the PlayStation 3 for the first time, the game proceeds to dump 2343MB of data onto the hard drive. After what seems like an eternity or at least the running length of the film itself (not helped by the percentage counter using decimal points for goodness sake), the installation will be completed. Finally your Spider-man adventures can begin, but only after some more loading screens. All of this would be forgivable if the game suddenly picked up the pace rather than nose-diving into mediocrity.

The initial training mission confirms all of those problems with the Spider-man 2 design have returned once more. Why? This is a question we ask time and time again, as such issues were well documented and obvious to even the most blinkered player. Combat is little more than a rudimentary exercise in button bashing to reach the next area, while the cut scenes seem to have a lower budget than The Evil Dead itself, and are voiced by the real life actors who seem to have approached this project with a casual attitude.

You can try and inject some flair into the fighting sequences, by trying to control the range of attacks and whether you stay on the ground or take to the sky. Any satisfaction is removed as Treyarch have opted for quantity over quality, meaning your opponents are as dumb as the phrases they utter. The option to slow down the pace of the action to enable your dodge function has not been implemented effectively, as very rarely are you faced with only one opponent thereby rendering the ability virtually useless.

Outdoors things improve with the city of New York benefiting from a next generation makeover. While enhanced, it is still not the visual leap forward Gamestyle was really expecting - especially when you see what Rockstar have achieved with Grand Theft Auto, or what Saints Row delivered last year. Traffic and pedestrians have increased in number but there is little actual interaction as you travel across the map. The Big Apple seems a desolate, quiet and ghostly place with passers by seemingly unable to actually see your character, or react. Adding to this eerie atmosphere is the hugely variable frame rate, which even at its best seems leisurely but fails to maintain a consistent pace on the PlayStation 3, often lurching into some horrendous moments of slowdown.

The strength of the game is obvious with web slinging being a constant highlight, allowing you to explore the rooftops and see the city from a unique vantage point. It is also presents a major distraction from the storyline itself, as Gamestyle opted to experiment rather than follow the linear and inoffensive tale that tries to engage you emotionally but fails. Hey you've got the girl, and your best friend doesn't like you anymore and if this wasn't enough there are all sorts of bad superheroes lining up to give you a good kicking. And how can we forget those tiresome "punk" gangs, engaged in their own street turf war, pushing for new territories and Green Day albums? Exactly, more web slinging please.

While outside is passable visually, internal environments are somewhat devoid of graphical flair or detail. It would be easy to point the finger at the multi-format approach but as several developers were involved in various versions, its far more likely that outdoors received the majority of focus, leaving indoors half finished and rushed. Given the use of the sandbox dynamic (ok, a quarter of a sandbox) you cannot avoid one environment without the other. If the excellent in-game map highlighted those missions that were exclusively internal, you could try to skip around such nuisances. With the focus on progressing the story, opening up new abilities and completing various mission types such an intelligent approach is not possible. Leaving you open to pain and plenty of it.

If the combat system is a thorn in your side, the in-game camera is the knockout blow. Outdoors it copes reasonably well with showing the expansive environment, and allowing you to navigate the unusual terrain. Indoors the camera dispenses with any sense of direction or cinematography, favouring the all too familiar problem of failing to show hazards, pitfalls or coping with the gymnastic ability of Spider-Man. Throw in several unimaginative bosses, haphazard animation and you have a release that even the polished presentation or monologue from Bruce Campbell fails to drag back into the realm of respectability.

Rating: 4 / 10

Words by Jason Julier