Game Review: Spiderman 3 (Xbox 360)
This time I am going to break the normal Weekly Geek "shininess" "funness" etc review mold in order to accommodate a rant. Because Spiderman 3 is such a freaking awful game it warrants a good ripping into, and frankly I don't want to spend that much energy on this waste. That's right, the game is a waste. It's a horrible waste. It's a half-thought out waste of time. Let's start from the beginning. From the first time I popped in the game, I started a little internal dialog with the developers. I started to really wonder what the heck they were thinking when they made the game, and how much they were paying the game testers to shut up about all the glitches and horribleness that they were subjected to. I just imagine a room full of game testers moaning and complaining about the game, and the company just keeps giving them free Spiderman 3 baseball caps until they are happy.
You are thrown into a tutorial right off. There's no real intro, you're just in a burning building and all of a sudden Bruce Campbell is talking at you. Ok, fair enough. Then it gets absurd. Can't I just fight, guys? I know you think you have a really deep fighting system but you don't. Its a simple button mashing brawler and you keeping me here on this tutorial and forcing me to play with your horrible play controls is making me want to stab things. Your smart-ass voice over isn't helping either. Bruce Campbell, stop being a jerk to me. Stop it. Literally they go through the different "moves" that you have as Spiderman, which are just basic counterattacks and dodges. But they FORCE you to do them THREE times before you move on to the next horrible tutorial. That wouldn't be too bad if the play control was tolerable. You'll find yourself doing plenty you didn't want to do, or getting knocked down because it was unresponsive. Completely unacceptable. I wanted to throw the game out the window right then and there. NOT A GOOD SIGN.
During the counterattack tutorial a little message came up on screen after I completed the first successful counterattack: "COUNTERATTACK 2 MORE TIME" - you really didn't spend much time making this game, did you? You can't even get the grammar correct for the first tutorial? Why should I spend my time playing this thing you shat out at me?
Battle is boring and even the most generic of thugs take an insane amount of hits to down. The tutorial showed me the horrors of what was to come, and even once you get out of that shit-fest you get thrown into a city with even MORE tutorials. The graphics are horrible and choppy. Even worse are the camera controls, especially when you try to do something Spiderman-like; climbing on walls or the ceiling. Swinging around the city is glitchy at best. Controls are WAY too complicated. It should be easy and natural to play this game, but it's bogged down by a HUGE tutorial, varied control schemes and glitchy buggy play controls. It just feels rushed and unfinished. There are the makings for a good game tucked away here, it's just a matter of spending enough development time to make it worthwhile.
Now I know games have a reputation for having really bad voice acting, but come on. You have actual actors here from the actual movie, you'd think that the game would be passable. Unfortunately it sounds like everyone phoned it in. It's not like Tobey McGuire is exploding with personality as it is, but Jesus. The dialog didn't help, either. It's completely boring cliche tripe and it gave me no incentive to continue listening.
After I had beaten my head against my TV bloody slogging through the tutorials, I was able to explore the city and start some missions. There's a bit of free-form GTA style stuff here, but the novelty wears off once you start the first HORRIBLE mission that is pretty much impossible because the play controls suck and the thugs are too hard to kill and they keep coming after you. No. I was done.
I just turned it off. The game did everything in its power to make me not want to play it, so I won't. There weren't even any worthwhile achievements for me to nab to maybe MAYBE salvage the experience. All of them are for completing gang missions in their entirety, or splatting to the ground 25 times. No. NO.
Maybe this game is only for people who have seen the movie. That's fine. But I bet people who have seen the movie (which is also getting poor reviews) will just shrivel up and die when they play the game, hoping that maybe it was a little better than the cinema experience that left them sore. Do not buy this game. As a matter of fact, if you see anyone buying this game, slap it out of their hands, hold their shoulders, look into their eyes and tell them very firmly "no" as you would a bad dog. Then rub it on their nose and send them on their way.
Score: 0/5 Skip it and burn every copy you find
What say you?!