Spider-Man 3 Review - PS3

Spider-Man’s cross platform barrage continues, and while the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions weren’t quite what fans might have hoped for, the Wii version is a different animal altogether. There is an obvious expectation that Wii games have that unique Wii-quality and motion sensitive controls. The problem with this theory is that it is more and more apparent that not all games benefit from the Wii-mote controls, and that most developers seem incapable of using it very well.

A Wii Problem

The Wii version of Spider-Man 3 is, in a word, horrible. While the PS3 version was an incremental step up from the last game, with some new technology shine to it, this version is, quite literally, a step backwards in almost every regard. Developed in conjunction with the PS2 version by Vicarious Visions, because apparently companies now think that PS2 and Wii hardware are roughly equivalent, there’s little to like here.

The main plot tries to follow the movie in a loose, haphazard fashion, and there are five different plot threads to choose from. The game even throws in non-movie villains like the Lizard, Kraven the Hunter, Morbius, and Shriek, in addition to plenty of random thugs. You’ll eventually get a chance to try on the black suit and fight Sandman, Venom, and the New Goblin. But, the writing and plot progression is terrible and the story telling and mission progression feel entirely disjointed.

Remote Control

There are several other key differences between the PS2/Wii on the PS3/X360 versions. Aside from the smaller mission scope, you have to actually buy new moves here, which seems absurd, and the black suit mechanism is remarkably different. Once acquired, the suit gives you enhanced strength, but sucks away at your life, and taking it off requires the player to deal with an annoying button-pressing mini-game that gets more difficult each time.
The clumsy, carpal tunnel-inducing combat controls actually require you to shake the remote to attack, and manage to make the brain-dead enemy AI almost seem like a blessing. Gang members just run at you, blindly trying to overwhelm you with numbers and mostly simple punches. The boss fights aren’t much better, and the enemies manage to make the game feel like a blast from the 16-bit, or even 8-bit, past.

Web-slinging through the open New York City environment has always been a great aspect of the series, and here you whip the remote around while pressing a button. It works surprisingly well thankfully, and once you get the knack of the swinging controls, it’s almost fun. Unfortunately, the odious camera mars both the combat and swinging badly. You can move the camera around manually, but normally the camera is simply unable to keep up with the action. This leads to constant frustration, since you can’t target enemies, and swinging around buildings becomes a painful comedy of errors.

Violence is Ugly

All of these issues might have been at least partially forgivable had the presentation of the game not been so utterly appalling. Spider-Man 3 is a truly ugly game. In fact, if you switched back to the Spider-Man 2 game, you’ll find that the developers somehow managed to take a harsh and substantial step backwards. The visuals are fuzzy, unrefined, and just plain lousy, and the draw-in distance is so short that objects suddenly pop into view directly in front of you. The city details—from the buildings, to traffic, and even the general landscapes—are on the level of a mediocre Nintendo 64 game.

It’s unfathomable why the game looks so bad, since the Wii is clearly capable of more. The audio is better than the rest of the game, although most of the voice acting is uninspired and the dialogue middling.

Kill the Spider!

As one of the first big, cross-platform, high profile action games to hit the system, many fans of the Wii and Spider-Man had high hopes. Unfortunately, the game fails on every level. The controls are a mess, the camera is terrible, and the presentation is offensively bad. If you really need a Spidey fix and only have a Wii, stick to the GameCube versions of Spider-Man 2 and Ultimate Spider-Man—they’re far, far better than this mess.

Article by: Jason D'Aprile
Video produced by: Jonathan Solin