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Spider-Man 3 Review
Written by Cody Musser on Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Spider-Man and his charming license (obviously); All the regular Spidey maneuvers are present.
Too easy; Too short; Too simple; Remember when licensed games were largely brush-off titles?
Licensed games sure aren't what they used to be. These days licensed properties are getting more sales than ever before, consistently placing top rank in the year-end sales results, the games are getting serious coverage from press, and they're finally doing the one thing most reviewers feared they never would, they're becoming damned good games. Well, some of them are. The issue with licensed games has been one of the ever-present conversation points around gaming, sitting directly beside those other great conversation starters: sequels, ports, remakes, multi-platform releases, and ... I guess the list goes on and on. We sure do talk about a lot in this industry. Anyways, when it comes to licensed games these days, companies like Vicarious Visions are hammering out titles with new and interesting gameplay, a serious focus to the core gamer, and not to mention, they're carrying the appeal of whatever license they're riding on.
This new trend seems to have taken off with the latest generation of consoles and handhelds, namely the DS and PSP in our case. So, when a review for Spider-Man 3 for Game Boy Advance is in order, does Vicarious Visions keep up with the A-game of making licenses more than just sales avalanches with mediocre gameplay, or is that benefit strictly for the DS and PSP, and what we're looking at here is something from the B-team side of things. Unfortunately, in this particular case, it seems to mostly be the latter.
Spider-Man 3 isn't a terrible game, but that's leaving critique open to a slew of other adjectives that are more proper. Average, mediocre, dated, un-inspired; these all come quickly to mind. In truth, the game would probably be making some Top 10 lists at the end of the year, if it were on the mobile platform, which the visuals and generally simple gameplay seem to suggest would be possible. The only real issue might be button layout, and even that wasn't stellar on the Game Boy Advance. Performing the various moves requires the player to hold the shoulder buttons and d-pad directions while pressing attack buttons, and the various moves available, from punching to kicking, and web-slinging to web-shooting, all get jumbled into a random amalgamation of possible Spidey techniques. The interesting bit is that to proceed successfully through the game, the player is only ever going to need a few of the techniques. The average foes never become more than those of the common thug variety, and the bosses, in this case a collection of Spider-Man stalwarts including Electro, The Mad Bomber, Sandman, and everyone's favorite Venom, only inspire a shrug of difficulty in comparison.
The boss fights and doing away with the common criminal is genuinely fun in Spider-Man 3, despite the simplistic nature of the game, but the unfortunate truth is that for the majority of the game, enemies aren't actually going to be what's causing the Spidey Sense to send you looking around the periphery. Peter Parker's senses are tingling most often when they're directing the player to save hostages from a number of environmental hazards, whether they're facing fire, bombs, falling floors, or bubbling acid, these damned citizens are stuck in an array of annoying situations, and Spider-Man's focus in nearly every level is to save them from their sorry fate. Excuse me, but wasn't black suit Spider-Man supposed to be all about embracing the darker elements of bashing bad-guys? I say let 'em meet their maker, and let me get on with my fun.
The full course of Spider-Man 3 for Game Boy Advance is only going to take the regular gamer a few hours to complete; in my case it was something like four. Within those hours the game won't be an absolute waste of time, but it will be an obvious harkening back to when licensed games (and particularly licensed games on the GBA) were little more than a bump in the road of more established gaming franchises. It's not a particularly sad memory to let go of, as nowadays the idea seems to be that any franchise could potentially provide a compelling gaming experience, and we're of the opinion that the more good games, no matter if they're branded Spider-Man, Mario, Hannah Montana, or anything in between, the happier we are.
posted June 18, 2007