The Best and Worst of Spidey

With a number of Spider-Man games out over the last couple of years and more than a few of them seeing price drops, which Spider-Man do we want to grab from the bargain bin or spend our hard earned reward points for? The candidates in this Spidey vs. Spidey are as follows:

The Amazing Spider-Man

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions

Spider-Man 3

I’m leaving out Spider-Man: Friend or Foe only because I haven’t had the chance to play it yet, so if you were hoping to see it on the list, don’t worry. I’ll make sure it’s included in the rematch.

The categories being judged are Gameplay, Controls: Ease of Use, Controls: Realism, Storyline and Spidey-ness. Spidey-ness in this case is defined by how awesome the banter and quips with the bad guys are and the general humor involved. I think we can all agree that one thing you should always be able to count on is a quick one-liner before you wrap the bad guys up in webbing for the cops to haul away.

Spider-Man 3:

This foray into the city of New York, based on the third of the movie series starring Tobey Maguire, shows many of the amazing things we all love about Spider-Man. Open world, full of different side missions to explore, and expanding the movie’s storyline to include other villains and characters including The Lizard, Black Cat, and a new look into romantic comedies in the dates with Mary Jane Watson. While the webbing is organic, as in all of the Tobey Maguire movies, the web slinging is some of the more realistic in this bunch. No swinging from the clouds/sky and being able to perform tricks and athletic feats was a much appreciated bit of fun for the superhero looking to relax.

Storyline: 9/10Gameplay: 9/10Controls – Ease of Use: 8/10Controls – Realism: 10/10Spidey-ness: 9/10

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

Web of Shadows brings us a particularly special style of storyline exposition, bringing us in at the mid-point and then going back to the beginning as Peter himself tells us the tale of how New York was slowly overrun by symbiotes. This is a fresh approach, as all the previous Spider-Man games were very linear, either following the storyline from the movie they were based on or going back further and simply dropping us in the middle of Spider-Man’s life at the beginning of a particular adventure or series of adventures. The gameplay is simple, easy to get used to, if a bit simplistic. Button-mashing works easily in a pinch or you can work out different combinations to overtake your enemies. The web swinging is as realistic as in Spider-Man 3, though I should note that Ultimate Spider-Man was the first to get that realistic swinging perfect. With Spider-Man telling the story and appearances from some random characters during the story, from the usual locals to a couple of visits by Wolverine, this is definitely one you want to grab from the bargain bin.

Storyline: 9/10Gameplay: 7/10Controls – Ease Of Use: 9/10Controls – Realism: 8/10Spidey-ness: 8/10

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions

Shattered Dimensions is unique in that it not only gives us a variety of Spider-Men to control, it even gives us a variety of genres to play through, changing the game play and style with each Spidey. Amazing, Noir, Ultimate and 2099 each taking us into their dimension or time-frame, the game gives us distinctly different styles to play through. Amazing Spidey is the usual over-the-top athletic feats kind of battle, while Noir is the complete opposite, turning Spidey into a stealthy Sam Fisher type hero with the darkness and shadow as his ally. 2099 has us swinging and free-falling through a futuristic city scape, while Ultimate has us harnessing the power of the symbiote and all four working together to restore the space time continuum that was shattered by a battle with Mysterio. With four types of gameplay, four differing controls and realism being Noir extreme or Amazingly stretched, this one gets my second highest recommendation.

Storyline: 9/10Gameplay: 9/10Controls – Ease of Use: 8/10Controls – Realism: 8/10Spidey-ness: 8/10

The Amazing Spider-Man

Very few people I know love Spider-Man as much as I do and few anticipated the newest in the Spidey foray as much as I did. Unfortunately, I was disappointed by this incarnation more than I care to admit. The new reboot is something I enjoyed, going back to the beginning and the story is both interesting and compelling. My disappointment came in the gameplay and controls. The over-the-shoulder view that you can barely zoom out or change hinders visibility of incoming enemies and is only useful for some of the exact aiming done in the game. Aiming, I’d like to add, that could have easily been an R3-button click away if they had thought the controls through a bit more thoroughly. And somehow they took realistic swinging back to original Playstation Spider-Man, where you can swing from nothing, mostly because of the over-the-shoulder view where you wouldn’t be able to precision swing anyway. The fighting controls are also different, oversimplified. This is a plus for novice players, but too close to button mashing for advanced web slinging gamers. The saving grace was the quips and banter, and the emotional storyline that grabs you and keeps you playing. I’m hoping their next Amazing Spider-Man game, which I’m sure will come out sometime near the timing of the second Amazing movie, will fix these discrepancies and bring us back to the Spidey style we all know and love.

Storyline: 8/10Gameplay: 6/10Controls – Ease Of Use: 7/10Controls – Realism: 7/10Spidey-ness: 7/10

The Best and Worst:

Storyline:Best in Show: Shattered DimensionsWorst Storyline: Amazing Spider-Man (though only marginally)

Gameplay:Best To Play: Shattered Dimensions, with Spider-Man 3 as a close second.Weakest Home Game: Amazing Spider-Man

Controls – Ease of Use:Easiest Play: Web of Shadows, with Amazing Spider-Man as a second for novice players.Out of Control: Amazing Spider-Man / Shattered Dimensions. Amazing leaves a lot to be desired, but the oversimplified controls allow novice players to pick it up rather easily. On the flip side, Shattered Dimensions has 4 different control styles, which can be confusing for novices, making it a tie for the most complicated controls.

Controls – Realism:So Real: Spider-Man 3, with the air tricks and web swinging for pros.What Do You Mean ‘Physics?’ : Amazing Spider-Man, swinging from clouds with the greatest of ease.

Spidey-ness:Ultimate: Spider-Man 3, with Web of Shadows a close second. They are the closest of the bunch to throw you into the world of Spider-Man, quips, humor and all.Downright Ordinary: Amazing Spider-Man. The quips were there, the humor was good, but there was something lacking, almost like a radioactive spider that never was.

While I’m sure some of you may disagree, I think it’s rather sad that the newest of the web slinging superhero games fell so short compared to its predecessors. Hopefully, we’ll all be cheering at the next game’s appearance and holding up a glass for our favorite web head. And for Bruce Campbell, because he’s awesome and hopefully back again to narrate our web slinging adventures. And Stan Lee, because… Well, he’s Stan Lee.