Spiderman: Web of Shadows
Latest screenshots
View the gallery
Spiderman Web Of Shadows
Superhero’s now have a choice, and that’s a good thing.
To the public, life as a superhero seems like a pretty sweet deal. You get some neat-o super powers, a secret identity and you get to fight crime in the comfort of your underwear. Now if only it were that cut and dry. If anyone knows just how difficult the life of your above-average crime-fighter can be, it’s Peter Parker a.k.a. Spiderman. In Spiderman Web Of Shadows, Activision and company look to offer us a sampling of the trials and tribulations facing the wall-crawling wonder, and life as a superhero is definitely not all it’s cracked up to be.
Gameplay
Web of Shadows starts off in dramatic fashion, with our hero literally walking through a war zone while a somber tune plays softly in the background. Things quickly change pace as the story begins and Spiderman encounters longtime nemesis Venom gunning for Mary Jane. Obviously a confrontation ensues and during the ensuing battle part of the symbiote that turned Eddie Brock into Venom attaches itself to Spiderman. This introduces the main gameplay mechanic, which is the ability to switch between the traditional red and blue suit, and the powerful, stylish, and entirely evil black symbiote suit. It’s here that you’ll have to decide what’s most important to you: upholding justice, and being an all around nice guy or obliterating the enemy by any means necessary.
Throughout the mean streets of New York, Spiderman is faced with these choices again and again. Be it against hordes of gangs that are shooting it out in the streets, or against villains such as Kingpin, Venom and Black Widow. You won’t be alone in the fight, either, as Wolverine and Nick Cage will also join the fight against evil. The story here is definitely better than the average comic book-to-game conversion, and the ability to make the hard choices is definitely one of the reasons for this. It’s refreshing to be given the option to abuse your power every once in a while, and make decisions that are definitely more self-gratifying. (Especially when they involve the Black Cat.) The story overall is pretty interesting, but the script could definitely have used a bit of work. On the whole, hardcore Spidey fans will likely get the most out of it, though it doesn’t really follow a particular storyline from the comics itself.
As you can imagine, Spiderman is equipped with an impressive array of combat moves which he’ll use to complete his objectives. Using the B button for your default attacks, you can unleash quick combos that make short work of your opponents. This is where the game falters a bit, as 90% of the attacks involve just mashing on the B button, which is just so unintuitive and mindless that it defeats the purpose of having a large array of moves. Fortunately there’s the other 10%. Flicking the Wii remote down and pressing the minus button performs a special move, best used for some of the tougher boss fights, but also there to give you something more to do than just press B. You can also opt to flick the Wii-mote left to right to unleash an aerial attack when near an enemy. This does look incredibly cool, but there are times when you’ll need to do this 16 times or more in a row. It’s especially frustrating when the targeting system isn’t as accurate as you need it to be and you’re trying to beat the clock in certain missions. Still, pulling off that many aerial attacks looks and impressive and feels pretty good. Just be sure to bring an ice-pack for those times that you need to repeatedly use those particular moves.
While the combat itself is pretty straight-forward, you are given the ability to upgrade your attacks by gaining experience through defeating enemies and completing mission objectives. Add to this that you can change up the attacks by changing from "good" Spidey to "evil" Spidey, and you’ve got a pretty good arsenal with which to smite wrong-doers. Changing your suit is a simple matter of flicking the nunchuk from side to side. Each costume has its own benefits and short-comings. The red and blue suit is great for quick and agile attacks, but sacrifices power as a result. The opposite is of course true for the black suit. However, the differences don’t stop there, as during certain sequences, you’re given the option to make key decisions that will affect your story. This is handled by picking between either the red or black suit during a cut-scene. It’s a simple, but effective way of letting you have a hand in the story, and immerses you deeper in the Marvel universe than previous games which only let you play the hero their way. While it may not be the deepest system out there, it’s still a nice change of pace and one that I hope we’ll be seeing more of.
One of the best and worst parts about being Spiderman is the ability to web-sling and crawl your way across the city. This is where the game runs into its major problem: the camera. To start slinging your way across the city all you need to do is flick down sharply with the Wii remote. Provided your web has somewhere to stick to, you’ll be off in no time. The analog stick on the nunchuk is used to navigate your direction, but the camera doesn’t seem to move nearly as quickly as you do, and sometimes gets hung up on invisible objects. Being that some missions require you to make it to certain areas within a fair amount of time, this can be extremely frustrating. You can control the camera with the D-pad on the Wii remote, but this is difficult to do whilst swinging and pressing A to move from web to web. It will take some time to get used to this, and it could have used a bit of fine tuning, but once you do find the right groove you’ll love the feeling of swinging high throughout the city. Crawling on buildings also suffers from poor camera control, which is especially frustrating during some of the boss battles. The camera will often invert itself, get caught on the edges of buildings, and generally make a nuissance of itself at the worst possible times. The best way to alleviate the issue is to avoid wall-crawling unless you absolutely have to.
The missions themselves are another small problem. There’s little variety to them, and not much incentive aside from gaining experience to take on side-missions. While you can gain upgrades faster by taking these side missions, in the long run, you don’t necessarily need the upgrades to get through any of the standard missions. You’ll likely earn enough experience during the main storyline to upgrade your preferred suit of choice anyway, so trudging through a lack-luster side quest is something best suited for only the most hardcore Spidey-fan out there.
Graphics & Sound
Obviously, as the game is a multiplatform release, the game is not going to be on par with that of the 360 or PS3 versions. That said, Web of Shadows is a solid looking game during gameplay. Swinging through the city looks fantastic. However, being that this is New York, the city just isn’t detailed enough to make you believe you’re in a highly populated metropolis. The streets are virtually void of people or cars at times. Buildings at least vary in size, but don’t really have any identifiable features that set them apart from the other gray rectangles you’ll find throughout the city.
Characters themselves nice, and the combat animations are fairly well done. Surprisingly, it’s during the cut-scenes that this game looks its ugliest. The video compression looks terrible on the Wii, and colours during these scenes look washed-out when compared with that of the actual in-game visuals. There’s also an issue with excessive load screens. They’re relatively short, but break up the gameplay and take you out of the game pretty easily.
The audio side of things is a bit uneven, as well. The voice-acting varies from character to character. Black Cat, Wolverine and Cage are all pretty well done, but the main man himself, Spidey, just doesn’t sound all that impressive. In fact, during the dramatic opening cut-scene he nearly killed the game entirely for me. As the game goes on, it gets less grating, but this is definitely the worst voice-over I’ve heard for the webhead. The rest of the game sounds fine, but is largely unremarkable.
Value
There’s plenty to do in Spiderman Web Of Shadows. The story is good length, and the option to choose a path throughout the game definitely means most will want to replay it just to see what they missed by playing one path over the other. The differences between the stories are really night and day, so it’s totally worth checking out both storylines just to see how different they truly are. There are also some unlockable outfits that you can earn, though these are purely cosmetic and don’t unlock any new abilities at all which may seem pointless to anyone who’s not familiar with the other suits Spidey has donned throughout the comics. Still, it packs enough geek-out value for any fan of the series.
Conclusion
Considering just how different this game is from the other Spiderman games out there, it’s easily the most recommendable to anyone who didn’t enjoy the previous two outings. While it never reaches the level Activision reached with Spiderman 2, it’s still an enjoyable romp while it lasts. It’s refreshing to see a game come out that focuses on the dark side of being a superhero, and it’s definitely a trend I hope we can see more of in the future.
Pros
+ Great story for fans of Spidey.
+ Deciding between good and bad is fiendishly fun.
+ Plenty of missions to keep you busy.
+ Controls implemented well.
+ Web-slinging your way across the city looks and feels awesome.
Cons
- Despite being implemented well, controls can also be exhausting to execute.
- Unlockable Spider-suits are kind of pointless.
- Combat can be extremely repetitive.
- Camera just plain sucks.
- Voice-acting is mediocre, at best.
- City is void of life in most areas.
Final Verdict
Here's a small guide to help you understand our evaluation of games.
PRESENTATION GRADE
Can be from the game's box to the contents of the booklet, and even the game introduction. (Intro, menus, options, etc)
GRAPHIC GRADE
Up to what point the graphics have been worked on my the developper. The design type, the effort used for textures and environments, as well as animations and framerate.
AUDIO GRADE
Is the soundtrack a good match to the game's style, he ambient sounds keeping with the gameplay and the sound effects clear and convincing?
GAMEPLAY GRADE
Placement of the controls and the inferface that the player with be using during the game.
REPLAY VALUE GRADE
The most important factor in the evaluation of a game. It identifies the lifespan of the game and the fun of coming back again and again.
Mature gaming has come a long way since its infancy. I mean, back in the Atari days, mature gaming was considered "Custer’s Revenge" type of fare. It was crude, senseless, and more often than not, pretty darn offensive. I think it’s safe to say that gaming is finally past that juvenile period, and we’ve now entered an age where a mature game... 
RSS Feed