Full Review for Ultimate Spider-Man by gamefan06

Introduction

After last years Spider-Man 2 movie based game, Activision and Treyarch decided to make yet another free roaming spidey game, only based off the comics. I was highly anticipating the game after reading about uber boss fights, comic style cut-scenes, and the ability to play as Venom. I was quite pleased with the game, but there are a few flaws that bog down the gameplay a bit.

Graphics

The graphics are really good, especially if you are into cell shading. Character animations are nice, and the comic panel cut scenes are fantastic, the only problem is buildings out in the distance look a little choppy. Example: If you look at the Empire State Building from Queens, you may just see the tip of the building floating in mid air. I don't know if it's just the gamecube version that does this or not, but i'm willing to bet it isn't

Sound

Things haven't changed much from Spider-Man 2 sound-wise. Music tends to come on now and then while swinging, but most of the time it's dead silence, even when fighting people. The voice actors are quite good though, even if they are pretty much nobodys, except Jennifer Hale who plays Silver Sable, anyone who has played Tales of Symphonia or a Metal Gear game will probably know who she is. Spidey has a high pitched voice in here, which seems out of place at first, but you have to realize he's only 15 in here.

Gameplay

The boss fights are very very very awesome, web swinging, while not as fun as in Spider Man 2, is still enjoyable, and you don't need to have read a single Ultimate Spider-Man comic to fully understand what's going on. Now for the bad stuff: Venom didn't live up to his expectations, due to the fact there is very little you can do with him. Eating pedestrians is fun, but he barely has any moves at all, and the only things you can do while free roaming with him is go on a only somewhat fun rampage and do some poorly designed obstacle courses. Spidey's obstacle courses on the other hand are rather enjoyable, and he can bust crimes and fight gangs. There's more, but this is a long but paragraph, so lets skip a line first.

There we go. Anyways, you know the game's slogan "Be Legendary, Be Predatory, Be Both"? Well with Venom, I was looking forward to stalking civilians in the shadows, slowly going towards them, grabbing them, and then heading off to somewhere secluded where I could then eat them. Well it's hard to be predatory when you can be in a cranny 10 stories up where there would'nt be a chance of them seeing you, and still have them running around on the streets fearing for their lives. Heck, you can't even grab civilians anyways. You can grab enemies, but Venom drops them if you try to move. Even if don't move, you have to finish them quickly or they escape from Venom's grasp. All in all, the gameplay is good, but free roaming as Venom isn't that great, and with Spidey, there still isn't very much to do. Venom fans will be pleased with the fact that Venom's parts in the story mode, while more repetitive then Spidey's, is still quite good.

Lastability

The story mode can easily be completed in about 6 hours, and as I said, there isn't much to do while free roaming, especially with Venom. But the story mode is very worth replaying, and the free roaming is good enough with Spidey, so it's still worth playing.

Overall

Story Mode is great, free roaming with Spidey is fun enough, but if they're going to say "Be Predatory" then you better be able to "Be Predatory" I know I like to take that stuff to the max, but I just don't see how you can be predatory when civilians always seem to know where you are.

Final Score: 78%