Product Description

Based on Sony Pictures Entertainments Columbia Pictures upcoming feature film, Spider-Man 3 allows players to experience the actions of heroic red-suited Spider-Man and, for the first time ever, his darker, more mysterious black-suited persona. Set in a larger, dynamic, free-roaming New York City, the game gives players the freedom to choose their own gameplay experience through multiple movie-based and original storylines, fully integrated city missions and performance rewards including improved speed, combat maneuvers and agility.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #450 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: ACTIVISION
• Released on: 2007-05-04
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Platform: Xbox 360

Features

• 10 Storylines
• Original Actors Voices
• Easy Acheivement Points!
• Official Movie game

Amazon.co.uk Preview
There cannot be a Spidey fan alive that hasn’t seen the stunning movie trailer for the new film, but rather less is known about the accompanying game. It will feature a free roaming environment similar to the previous games though, which is no surprise considering how popular they are and how most subsequent superhero games have reused the same concept. It’s also known that almost the entire movie cast will be lending their vocal talents to the game, including Tobey Mcguire, Kirsten Dunst, Thomas Haden Church, James Franco, Topher Grace and Bryce Dallas Howard. The main villains of the game will, like the movie, be Sandman, Venom and the new Green Goblin. However several other minor Spider-Man villains will also appear from the comics, including Shriek and the mysterious Dragon Boss. More information will undoubtedly show up as the movie’s release date grow closer but a teaser trailer of the in-game graphics for Spidey himself suggest that this will be one of the most impressive next gen movies license so far.
HARRISON DENT

Manufacturer's Description
Based on Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia Pictures' feature film of the same name, Spider-Man 3 allows players to experience the actions of heroic red-suited Spider-Man and, for the first time ever, his darker, more mysterious black-suited persona. Set in a larger, dynamic, free-roaming New York City, the game gives players the freedom to choose their own gameplay experience through multiple movie-based and original storylines, fully integrated city missions and performance rewards including improved speed, combat manoeuvres and agility. In Spider-Man 3, players draw upon Spider-Man's completely revamped combat abilities as they protect the city and defeat nemeses using expanded aerial fighting, finishing moves and dynamic webbing during missions and epic boss battles.

Key Features:
Welcome to the dark side - For the first time ever, control the legendary black suit, which magnifies Spider-Man's strength, agility and durability. Punish your enemies with explosive new attacks and incredible upgrades, including fearsome room-clearers. All this power comes with a price, though, as players will find the black suit harder and harder to control. Will you be strong enough to make a heroic choice before your quest for vengeance turns the city against you?

Let freedom ring - Go anywhere at any time in a larger, dynamic, free-roaming New York City and get involved in whatever you want, whenever you want. Players decide how to proceed through the game and set their own goals. Should Spider-Man follow a plot twist, switch to an alternate storyline, fight off crime waves that threaten the city or explore vast interior and underground locations? You decide.

The city is your playground - From towering skyscrapers to the vast new subterranean sewers and subways Spider-Man must patrol all of New York. Three criminal gangs and variety of Super Villains will be competing for your attention, taking hostages, stealing cars, harassing citizens, and creating havoc. Will you be able to save everyone?

Don't let the city go to the dogs - Three vicious gangs have laid claim to the boroughs of New York and must be taken down. As Spider-Man brings these criminals to justice, the crime rate will drop in that section of town and city life will return to normal; if he doesn't, the streets will turn to chaos. These super thugs won't go down without a fight though. Their advanced AI will surround Spider-Man, grapple him, call in reinforcements, and do everything they can to retake their territory.

Everybody was kung-fu fighting - Redesigned from the ground up, the all-new combat system empowers players to perform suit-specific attacks and combo chains to defeat their enemies and complete challenges and missions. New animations, combos, and finishers make punch, kick, and web attacks more effective than ever while executing ground and air manoeuvres.

Super Villains galore - Experience multi-stage, dynamic boss battles against the headlining villains from the movie as well as a host of legendary comic book foes who all take advantage of their environments, their minions, and the large-scale destruction that their superpowers cause in trying to defeat Spider-Man.

Go, go gadget - In addition to faster web-swinging, certain events and environments open up additional Spider-powers for you to control. Using Spider-Man's web abilities, he can catch falling objects including people and debris, fix hazards like broken train rails, barricade doors, and even slingshot from the tops of buildings for increased speed and huge air.

Spider-Man is growing up - As players master Spider-Man's powers through natural progression and completion of missions and challenges, Spider-Man gains ability enhancements including improved web moves, swing skills, and amazing melee combos.

Customer Reviews

No where near as bad as it's been made out to be...
Okay, well to start off with i should just drop in that i am a bit of spiderman fanboy, and own all the games, including spiderman 3 on ps2.

All the movie games so far have been incredible, number one revolutionised visuals for the ps2, and number two revolutionised gameplay. As far as i'm concerned this next-gen spidey game has taken all the best elements from its pre-decessors and made a very impressive piece of software. Why specifically? Well ...

First the swinging, which, for any fan is a vital concept in a spidey game, and i am pleased to say that this 360 super hero doesn't fail to deliver. The physics engine is more impressive than it's ever been and swinging through New York feels deliciously real. I have to say however that I actually prefer the swinging system of the ps2 version. I think with all the games before (except the first on ps2) the swinging animation speed has been blasted up to compensate for races and general ease; I like the ps2 version's swinging because you see spidey reach out and shoot the webline in normal speed, not simply hitting R2 and then the webline more or less appearing. Obviously I am splitting hairs, as even this 'flaw' has been majorly enhanced for 360 since the spidey from his second outing, just maybe more so on its ps2 counterpart. The 360's web line transition animations cannot be faulted, and make swinging smoother than any rival, by a long way. For example after hurling yourself off a webline, if spidey is falling un-spectacularly, he will, by himself, form the diving position and enter a dramatic pose from which to shoot out his next line, it's small things like this that make the experience, for me, infinitely better.

This leads me onto the visuals, as the most breathtaking scenes will be out in the air over the streets of New York. The character models are ugly, there is no denying it, and I understand to a degree why this game has been picked up on when it comes to visuals, however it is impossible to knock the light shining off every window around you as you force yourself through the air towards your next objective. Spiderman himself looks very smooth, i hear even smoother on the ps3, however I also hear it makes up for this with a poorer frame-rate and as a result apparently the ps3 delivers a far choppier game. This aside, apart from the character models, the visuals are clear and constant throughout, and I think if you played the ps2 games you would see a truly massive leap forward in presentation. The poor quality of the character models is one of the reasons I only rated this game with 4 stars overall. The second reason is the crazy camera, which at times can become annoying (for example the transfer between sticking on a ceiling and crawling around the walls and then on to the floor can become a nightmare), but not enough to dampen your overall experience.

The combat is good and refreshing yet suffers from some time lag with the faster moves, this may also occur when you are attacked by a number of enemies exceeding nine or ten. Despite this there are many moves, maybe too many, at spideys disposal, this, combined with the reflex slow motion ability allows spidey to dodge and counter-attack with ease. The system basically involves spidey dodging everything in slow mo automatically; it tends to fall down when multiple enemies attack simultaneously leaving the engine confused about how to cope, and spidey with a face full of fist. I havn't actually played with the black suit yet however even the game's notoriously bad reviews seem to like it, so I imagine it adds an even deeper element to the fighting.

The missions are dotted around an impressive map randomly, it's entirley up to you when it comes to which one to play first. Unfortunately this leaves the story complex and unlinked, rendering the whole experience a bit confusing. The missions generally however are varied and fun, ranging from spidey's baffling ability to defuse bombs to taking down force fields whilst on top of scorpion, using his tail to fire in the middle of a fight. I havn't fought all the bosses yet but the ones I have played are fun and challenging enough for me not to find it annoyingly easy. The missions also offer interactive cutscenes when you least expect them; suddenly spidey is performing all sorts of impressive feats of agility and you have to press the buttons that come up on the screen, the lack of expectation adds to the effect and they are implemented into a healthily large amount of missions.

Overall then, Spiderman 3 on the Xbox 360 delivers the speed, power, and visuals that spidey and the player needed. Despite maybe not utilising the 360's drive to its full capacity or being very revolutionary, spiderman 3 proves to be a fun game that I think would appeal to children and adults alike. Unfortunatly it seems to have been tarred with a black brush in all its bad reviews, all I can say is, in my opinion it is a very impressive and more importantly, fun game.

camera crap
it's great swinging around and jumping off the sky-scrapers and all that. the game could have been a classic if it wasn't for the camera! in a boss fight its rubbish, you can't tell if your on a wall or the roof or the floor. and it flicks around all over the place! hells teeth! unplayable i reckon!!

Saved by a webline?
After a relatively reasonable outing in Spiderman 2 I had high hopes for a greatly improved 3rd outing which would improve on all of the shortcomings of the first. However this is not to be as this game has actually managed to include more annoyances and general bad design than the previous.

It seems to be an impossibility for any Spiderman game to do interior wall crawling levels without an extremely jerky and unhelpful camera making it impossible to navigate and this is one of the worst. I seem to remember a relatively decent attempt in the very first Spiderman 3D iteration on the original Playstation but this is definitely the worst. Not to mention that several of the levels actually occur inside small areas (saving people from a fire being a memorably poor one) and suddenly it no longer feels like your controlling a superhero as you end up jumping straight into flames and getting stuck in corners.

This wouldn't be so bad if the combat was reasonable. For the most part it's passable and using midair juggles to keep about five characters airborn is certainly entertaining. However when in a fist fight against certain bosses (Kingpin step right up) it turns into an exercise of sheer patience as what feels like an hour is spent whittling down a seemingly never ending energy bar with the same 2 button press sequence.

There are now Quicktime cut-sequences which are basically God of War/Shenmue esque tests of reaction time whilst amazing spidey-villain fights are on screen. These are nothing special and in some cases (punching a chandelier three times...????!?!) are just exercises in selecting "continue" and watching the same unskippable cutscene for the 50th time.

HOWEVER... this would be a completely dire game if it wasn't for the amazing web-slinging in the game. Swinging through the streets of a much larger New York city in glorious 360 graphics is fantastic (and quite a relaxing post work way to spend half an hour.) As superhero games go this is the closest that I've ever found to actually feeling in full control of the superhero. Slightly tweaked over Spidey 2's swing mechanic it takes a while to get used to but is soon completely intuitive.

Any gamer who has no interest in Spiderman will be hard pushed for any reason to buy this game but Spidey fans will want to at least take a look, if only for the swing mechanics (and a semi-reasonable boss fight with The Lizard.)