Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

Web of Shadows is an Incredibly shallow Spider-Man Story. While it's opening sequence is fantastically setting the tone for the vibe of the game, it can't sustain the feeling of that first mission for the whole game. Starting the game with Moonlight Sonata was perfect in every way. MJ's Voice Over perfectly depicts the conflict within the Symbiote and Peter. No more backstory and explanation needed.

After the Venom fight, the plot is extremely shallow. There are barely any character interactions with consequences. But the fighting system makes up for it. The combat is hardcore and satisfying. Spider-Man truly fights like a menace here, he's not holding back fists and I like It. But let's get to the story-

Horribly executed but great Ideas. No build-ups, cutscenes have no substance, they can basically be skipped without missing a thing, besides the opening and the end fight. I believe that the concept is amazing and If turned into a movie by the right director and team, this could've be an great experience. Because this is dark, gritty and deeply deals with the conflicted soul of Peter and the drastic effects of the symbioses on the character. IT IS A LIVING THING, and I have the feeling that none of these films make it clear. The scene at the end of Spider-Man 3 where the symbiote can be seen without host looking at Peter shortly before he destroys it, there needs to be exactly more of that. Opening sequence great, Ending fight, fantastic, but no character-depth makes for a boring fight without stakes.

It is interesting to see Peter with the symbiote, wanting to stop It taking over the city while HE himself is having trouble with it. Paradoxical, I love it.

The soundtrack is perfect for the whole feeling of the city. But swinging around can be dull because there is barely any music in free roam without playing the story. And the hugest problem with this game-

The CAMERA has a mind of its own. It does whatever it wants. The sensitivity of that cam is so high that when you move your stick only for a little bit, the whole cam turns upside down. Thankfully, new Spider-Man games fixed that.

The greatest thing about this game is the end credits because the Artwork is indescribably beautiful, and the scale of the pictures.. perfect.

I hope someone is inspired by this at Marvel Studios and makes a great story of It at one point.

And it's sure not the gameplay. Lets keep this review tidy, I will rate the game on each category:

Voice acting: Spiderman is a whining nerd and horrible to listen to. The other voices were fine Tricie Helfer is charismatic and interesting as Blackcat, and Vulture is spot on correct.

Atmosphere: Terrible, awful, definitely the thing that lets this game down is the terrible atmosphere. Ugh, it's horrible, TRULY HORRIBLE ughhh, usually the atmosphere in Spiderman games is a great one, but for this game it was just not doing it for me, it was depressing and bleak and miserable, in a bad way.

Gameplay: tedious and not enjoyable, Spiderman's fighting is totally messed up and easily the worst spiderman combat ever seen in a video game, why ? Because it's so exaggerated and unrealistic, totally messed up, you can actually stay transfixed in the air by performing Black suit spideys air upper-cut punch attack repeatedly, he will drift across buildings in the air, not falling. The rest of the unrealisticism is too complex and tedious to explain but all you need do is look up the reviews on youtube to see it.

The enemies are not the worst I have seen, but the electro symbiotes are lame, the Robot guys who sound like Gary Chalk when they yell "Awe !!!!" after they get hit are so annoying and the bad enemies really compliments the bad atmosphere of this horrible game.

Story: Bad

Overall, I may not be the most professional of reviewers but I would strongly advise you to avoid this game if you have to choose between this and any other Spidey games. You WILL be disappointed and probably come out of it HATING Spiderman, were as you come out of Shattered Dimensions loving him and liking the whole thing.

This game is just a bad representation of Spiderman and the Spiderman universe, get Shatterd Dimensions, the games of the movies instead. Ultimate Spiderman is better than Spiderman edge of time but I'm not as keen on that one.

Spider-Man Web of Shadows was the Best spider-man Game I have Ever played! and I had it on the wii when I was 7 years old in 2nd Grade I was so excited and glad I played and beaten the whole game and it was just amazing as well the storyline of the game is really good written. it's about Venom and somehow an invasion spreads all over of New York and it's up to Spider-Man to save the citizens of New York before everything gets even more worse. and you notice that there Fan-Favorite Marvel Heroes in the Game like Luke Cage Wolverine and Moon Knight. and also when finally reached to the End of the game you get to Fight Venom and end this when it got to the part when Brock and parker were trying to grab their hand. I choose the red path Good final choice so Venom sacrifices himself and ends the invasion and all what was going on in New York and then Spidey swings off and the helicarrier explodes and then after a few weeks later things started to go back to normal as always and Mary Jane comes and notice Peter narrating and then they swing off in good old happy ending. and It was Good game as well So you Should love Web of Shadows cause I did! and was the Best Spider-Man Game made! after Spider-man 2.

Spider-Man Web of Shadows was the Best Spider-man Game I have Ever played! And I had it on the wii and also the pc. I was so excited and glad I played and beaten the whole game and it was just amazing as well the storyline of the game is really good written. It's about Venom and somehow an invasion spreads all over of New York and it's up to Spider-Man to save the citizens of New York before everything gets even more worse. And you notice that there Fan-Favorite Marvel Heroes in the Game like Luke Cage Wolverine and Moon Knight. And also when finally reached to the End of the game you get to Fight Venom and end this when it got to the part when Brock and parker were trying to grab their hand. I choose the red path Good final choice so Venom sacrifices himself and ends the invasion and all what was going on in New York and then Spidey swings off and the helicarrier explodes and then after a few weeks later things started to go back to normal as always and Mary Jane comes and notice Peter narrating and then they swing off in good old happy ending.

This is probably the most fun I've ever had with a Spider-Man game. This is the first time since Spider-Man 2 that I've really felt like Spider-Man swinging through the city, and the controls are vastly improved from that game. I do miss the Splinter Cell style missions from Spider-Man 1, but the free-roaming environment gives you plenty to do.

The controls are simple, anyone can do it. It's not like Marvel Ultimate Alliance where sometimes you have to perform combos to defeat enemies. You can, and it's fun, but if you don't want to you can defeat just about any villain with simple punches.

The graphics are pretty amazing. The Incredible Hulk game also uses this large sandbox environment. However, after about three blocks it everything disappears in this green haze. No loading time but no scenery. This game fixes that. You can see details all the way across New York. No haze/fog/mist/etc. And up close things look pretty decent too.

But there is a problem with the graphics, they use the same thing for the cut-scenes. Now, Gears of War can get away with that because their engine is so top notch it made it's own notch. Why didn't this game go the same route as MUA? MUA has spectacular cut-scenes. Sure the graphics are good, not spectacular, but what few cut-scenes they did use with the in-game graphics looked just plain awful. But those cut-scenes like the opening or Nightcrawler escaping just looked so theatrical and amazing. This game could seem far more cinematic if they did that.

I don't care for the decision making. It's too obvious. Either, red (good) or black (evil). They should have done like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic where you make a decision and then find out where it put you. This game makes it too easy to be either good or bad. There were times in KOTOR where I thought I was doing good but ending up with dark points because I didn't know how it would end. Any game that allows you to make decision and have multiple endings should do the KOTOR way, not this one. Because there's no surprise.

The story is lacking. True it's a video game, but in this day and age story lines are becoming more and more necessary thanks to Halo, Half-Life 2, KOTOR, and even MUA. Those games had great story lines where you almost couldn't put them down until you found out what happened. In fact you could enjoy those stories outside the video game medium. With the invasion, Venom, and the choices this could have been a huge, grand epic. Instead, if this was a comic book it'd be over in two, three issues like it didn't matter. You don't really feel the emotional impact from any of the characters. If you're going to make a comic book video game you should use a Kingdom Come or House of M sized story. Grip the audience and don't let go until it's over.

Now there are some glaring problems which also make this an annoying experience too.

The voice actors are just a pain to listen to. When I first started playing MUA, I did not like any voice actors except for Fury and Doom. I thought Spider- Man was too whiny, Thor had no command, and Wolverine was too gravely, etc. By the time I finished I loved them all. They just grew on me till I couldn't imagine anyone else doing the voices. This game does not do that. None of the voice actors fight the characters. If they had subtitles, I'd turn off the voices. The only one I like is Wolverine, because he's been doing Wolverine sine MUA. They couldn't do that for Spidey and the others from MUA?

Exploding cars are like the balloons from Spider-Man 2. It seems like every other battle I get in there's an exploding car. Unfortunately I'm always two blocks away fighting some goon. By the time I find out there's an exploding car, turn around, and get anywhere near it it's already over and I'm getting 10 black points for it all. Or what's worse is if the exploding car knocks you away and by the time your character gets up you're getting the black points. It's very frustrating if you're trying to be good.

Climbing buildings is annoying. Incredible Hulk was very simple: get near a building, press one button, and you're on it. It doesn't automatically make you jump up nor leap across the street. You just get on. This game uses one button too but it sends you running around the side for some odd reason. Sometimes I get on a building but I end up running in some odd direction. I don't understand why you have to get on and run too. Why not just get on and then some other button lets you to run?

I've been fighting the camera more than I have thugs. Especially on the sides of buildings. There are times when it glitches so bad that I'm either looking straight up or straight down (no in-between) and neither helps whatsoever. I had heard there were camera problems with Spider-Man 3 but I had hoped they would think about that before making this game.

If you bypass the flaws you'll have a wonderful time. At midnight I certainly am. Comic book-gamers should definitely play this. Casual gamers may be put off but should at least rent it. Those who loved Spider-Man 2 will certainly enjoy this. I'll eagerly await a sequel, but hope they learn from their mistakes.