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Spider-Man: Web of Shadows
A new look
Spider-Man is one of the few comic heroes who has received fairly solid transfer into the video game realm, with Treyarchs efforts with Spider-Man 1 and 2 focusing on the best aspects of our webbed hero, swinging through New York at a cracking speed and beating up baddies with a good fighting engine. Even the poor camera couldn’t hold it back, but when Spider-Man 3 was released something went completely wrong, as the whole experience was marred with plenty of design flaws that along with movie, rendered the game rather painful in most aspects. Well Treyarch are back along with Shaba games to tell us a fresh, original story, free of any film responsibilities, and he’s brought some friends along.
Spidey starts out on a rooftop amongst a raging battle between heroes and ordinary people, possessed by the same Symbioite that gave birth to Venom, with Spidey’s head hung low and slowly walking through the carnage, sympathetic piano music in the background, he picks up speed before jumping over the edge into the foray of a city that is under siege by the Symbioite menace. After the tutorial the story as to why people are possessed by the alien symbioite is told through Parker's recollection of the past few days and entails all the events that lead up to the epic battle in progress, his inner struggle with being in possession of the black Spider-Man suit and to why Mary Jane is mad at him.
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"HEY! Are those nipples PG rated?"
Decisions, decisions…
It is this struggle with Peters decision whether or not to keep the Black Suit is the underlying context of this story and the main driving force as to how he goes about his business. With a click of the left thumbstick he can change from the traditional red and blue suit to the darker black suit, with each starring their own strengths and weaknesses. Red suit is generally faster, has light but rapid fire attacks and generates positive repercussions for Pete. On the other hand the black suit feels heavy, scares off civilians but enables higher levels of strength and power as combos are heavier hitting and deliver greater amounts of danger, and with the ability to lift and throw cars quite dangerous. Over use of this suit can gain negative points for Pete which directly affects his integration with other superheroes of the city and affects his alignment with either the red or black suit. The powers of each suit can be increased using an experience system from defeating baddies, with these XP points being spent on new combos, finishers, linking attacks, aerial combos and so on. Collecting spider tokens around the city will also level up our hero, unlocking further attacking options for both red and blue suits.
Yes, Spider-Man isn’t the only superhero to star in his latest outing, as other super heroes and villains either require the help of Spidey to complete tasks around the city or need to be smacked around until they come to their senses. With appearances from Lucas Cage, Black Cat, Wolverine, Vulture, Rhino and a wealth of others there is no shortage of stars making their presence felt. These characters give our hero leads on villains to progress the story and will come to help with combat, but only if Pete’s alignment is with good intentions. At times throughout the story there will be instances where Spider-Man will have to make decisions based on what Red or Black suit he chooses to wear. Case in point, when confronting Black Cat Spidey can either choose the red suit, do the heroic thing and choose to ignore her sexual advances, or he can indulge in the black suit and get into all kinds of mischief. Depending where his alignment is, and what we choose to do as players other villains and heroes will either help us or try to stop us.
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None were impressed with the new nipple inspector
Swingin’ in the midst
As is usual with Spidey, travel throughout the NY is done using his web shot, either to swing from building to building or to hit a target and zip line to that location. What separates this mode of transport from previous encounters is that there is no chance to latch onto and swing through the sky where there is no buildings or enemies. Where there is no building to latch onto, Spidey will fall gracefully like a bullet to the ground. If there are enemies in the sky however, then he can easily zip line from one enemy to another using an all new targeting function and attack style. By pressing Y he will shoot out his web, locking onto an enemy and with perfect timing either demolish the bad guy on the spot, or bounce off his head and chain the attack onto other baddies. This can be done indefinitely as long as there are enemies in the vicinity and in a few missions it is a pre-requisite to achieve success.
The new lock on system is utterly fantastic, but does nothing to help the camera. Past Spider-man games had woeful cameras at best, missing the action, and blocking the view of the enemy, but the new camera is undoubtedly worse than all the rest. For instance, swinging through the buildings, spotting a group of nasties on the side of the building and swooping in to fight them will either result in the camera struggling to show the position of our hero and where his foes are. It tries to get the best angles, but will focus on a wall, or point onto the sky or just completely vomit all over itself and show nothing but glitches. It isn’t always bad, but when trying to take down a mechanized menace and then focus on a civilian in a car explosion to save them it becomes an exercise in frustration, as you can’t lock on to the helpless person because the camera is busy giving you an ace close up of a lamp post, meanwhile the civilian dies and you end up looking like a chump.
Bug Spray
Optional side missions to increase XP are also somewhat of a bore as they entail saving a set number of civilians 3 times, then 7 times, then 10 times, or beating 50, then 100, then 150 enemies and with the random spawning nature of foes to crush completing these side missions, which will disappear when the story progresses no less, become somewhat of a time waster, boring and a bit frivolous in the end and before long you return to just swinging in the breeze looking for more tokens, ignoring the screams of the general public.
Having the ability to choose their own visual design in more traditional sense with the comics rather than the films, Web of Shadows sports some great character designs, but surprisingly some rather iffy ones too. Spidey, Venom, Cage, Black Cat and Vulture all look fantastic, whereas Wolverine looks a bit wrong and Mary Jane has a serious case of man shoulder-itis. New York city also looks to be rather dull as the developers seem to have borrowed the model from The Incredible Hulk, and we all know how generic that looked. I suppose having a bland backdrop will inspire the masses to focus on the heroes, but when you spend most of your time swinging around, everything tends to look the same, as major landmarks tend to go unnoticed.
![]()
*Om nom nom* "Gah! My nipples!"
The audio department is also nothing special, with voice actors on occasion sound rather ace, but in many cases are out of place, uncomfortable or just downright dodgy. Spider-man does sound good and familiar being typically wimpy sounding with a sense of false authority and the added poor one liners give him a certain charm, but funnily enough it is the banter that lies outside of the main story are where most of the giggles are to be had. Spidey teasing Wolverine about having a My Face page is a bit of a standout and delivers some much needed giggles. What is done well is the audio sense when you are high up in the buildings with nothing more than the wind to keep you company, which just further enhances the bliss that is just horsing around with Spideys web in amongst the sky scrapers.
In the end though, Web of Shadows is a bit of a mixed bag. On the plus side it has great combat, plays well to star more heroes and villains rather than generic enemies, and it looks fairly well. But the hateful camera, inconsistent voice acting and boring side missions that tend to pull this game down a bit, which is a crying shame as this has so much potential to be the best Spider-Man game to date.
Gameplay – 87
Visuals – 80
Audio – 80
Overall – 85
Great, fast paced action and a fine game, marred with some poor production and a hateful camera.
Game experienced on 360 with 40" Sony Bravia at 720p over component and 5.1 surround sound
A new look
Spider-Man is one of the few comic heroes who has received fairly solid transfer into the video game realm, with Treyarchs efforts with Spider-Man 1 and 2 focusing on the best aspects of our webbed hero, swinging through New York at a cracking speed and beating up baddies with a good fighting engine. Even the poor camera couldn’t hold it back, but when Spider-Man 3 was released something went completely wrong, as the whole experience was marred with plenty of design flaws that along with movie, rendered the game rather painful in most aspects. Well Treyarch are back along with Shaba games to tell us a fresh, original story, free of any film responsibilities, and he’s brought some friends along.
Spidey starts out on a rooftop amongst a raging battle between heroes and ordinary people, possessed by the same Symbioite that gave birth to Venom, with Spidey’s head hung low and slowly walking through the carnage, sympathetic piano music in the background, he picks up speed before jumping over the edge into the foray of a city that is under siege by the Symbioite menace. After the tutorial the story as to why people are possessed by the alien symbioite is told through Parker's recollection of the past few days and entails all the events that lead up to the epic battle in progress, his inner struggle with being in possession of the black Spider-Man suit and to why Mary Jane is mad at him.
"HEY! Are those nipples PG rated?"
Decisions, decisions…
It is this struggle with Peters decision whether or not to keep the Black Suit is the underlying context of this story and the main driving force as to how he goes about his business. With a click of the left thumbstick he can change from the traditional red and blue suit to the darker black suit, with each starring their own strengths and weaknesses. Red suit is generally faster, has light but rapid fire attacks and generates positive repercussions for Pete. On the other hand the black suit feels heavy, scares off civilians but enables higher levels of strength and power as combos are heavier hitting and deliver greater amounts of danger, and with the ability to lift and throw cars quite dangerous. Over use of this suit can gain negative points for Pete which directly affects his integration with other superheroes of the city and affects his alignment with either the red or black suit. The powers of each suit can be increased using an experience system from defeating baddies, with these XP points being spent on new combos, finishers, linking attacks, aerial combos and so on. Collecting spider tokens around the city will also level up our hero, unlocking further attacking options for both red and blue suits.
Yes, Spider-Man isn’t the only superhero to star in his latest outing, as other super heroes and villains either require the help of Spidey to complete tasks around the city or need to be smacked around until they come to their senses. With appearances from Lucas Cage, Black Cat, Wolverine, Vulture, Rhino and a wealth of others there is no shortage of stars making their presence felt. These characters give our hero leads on villains to progress the story and will come to help with combat, but only if Pete’s alignment is with good intentions. At times throughout the story there will be instances where Spider-Man will have to make decisions based on what Red or Black suit he chooses to wear. Case in point, when confronting Black Cat Spidey can either choose the red suit, do the heroic thing and choose to ignore her sexual advances, or he can indulge in the black suit and get into all kinds of mischief. Depending where his alignment is, and what we choose to do as players other villains and heroes will either help us or try to stop us.
None were impressed with the new nipple inspector
Swingin’ in the midst
As is usual with Spidey, travel throughout the NY is done using his web shot, either to swing from building to building or to hit a target and zip line to that location. What separates this mode of transport from previous encounters is that there is no chance to latch onto and swing through the sky where there is no buildings or enemies. Where there is no building to latch onto, Spidey will fall gracefully like a bullet to the ground. If there are enemies in the sky however, then he can easily zip line from one enemy to another using an all new targeting function and attack style. By pressing Y he will shoot out his web, locking onto an enemy and with perfect timing either demolish the bad guy on the spot, or bounce off his head and chain the attack onto other baddies. This can be done indefinitely as long as there are enemies in the vicinity and in a few missions it is a pre-requisite to achieve success.
The new lock on system is utterly fantastic, but does nothing to help the camera. Past Spider-man games had woeful cameras at best, missing the action, and blocking the view of the enemy, but the new camera is undoubtedly worse than all the rest. For instance, swinging through the buildings, spotting a group of nasties on the side of the building and swooping in to fight them will either result in the camera struggling to show the position of our hero and where his foes are. It tries to get the best angles, but will focus on a wall, or point onto the sky or just completely vomit all over itself and show nothing but glitches. It isn’t always bad, but when trying to take down a mechanized menace and then focus on a civilian in a car explosion to save them it becomes an exercise in frustration, as you can’t lock on to the helpless person because the camera is busy giving you an ace close up of a lamp post, meanwhile the civilian dies and you end up looking like a chump.
Bug Spray
Optional side missions to increase XP are also somewhat of a bore as they entail saving a set number of civilians 3 times, then 7 times, then 10 times, or beating 50, then 100, then 150 enemies and with the random spawning nature of foes to crush completing these side missions, which will disappear when the story progresses no less, become somewhat of a time waster, boring and a bit frivolous in the end and before long you return to just swinging in the breeze looking for more tokens, ignoring the screams of the general public.
Having the ability to choose their own visual design in more traditional sense with the comics rather than the films, Web of Shadows sports some great character designs, but surprisingly some rather iffy ones too. Spidey, Venom, Cage, Black Cat and Vulture all look fantastic, whereas Wolverine looks a bit wrong and Mary Jane has a serious case of man shoulder-itis. New York city also looks to be rather dull as the developers seem to have borrowed the model from The Incredible Hulk, and we all know how generic that looked. I suppose having a bland backdrop will inspire the masses to focus on the heroes, but when you spend most of your time swinging around, everything tends to look the same, as major landmarks tend to go unnoticed.
*Om nom nom* "Gah! My nipples!"
The audio department is also nothing special, with voice actors on occasion sound rather ace, but in many cases are out of place, uncomfortable or just downright dodgy. Spider-man does sound good and familiar being typically wimpy sounding with a sense of false authority and the added poor one liners give him a certain charm, but funnily enough it is the banter that lies outside of the main story are where most of the giggles are to be had. Spidey teasing Wolverine about having a My Face page is a bit of a standout and delivers some much needed giggles. What is done well is the audio sense when you are high up in the buildings with nothing more than the wind to keep you company, which just further enhances the bliss that is just horsing around with Spideys web in amongst the sky scrapers.
In the end though, Web of Shadows is a bit of a mixed bag. On the plus side it has great combat, plays well to star more heroes and villains rather than generic enemies, and it looks fairly well. But the hateful camera, inconsistent voice acting and boring side missions that tend to pull this game down a bit, which is a crying shame as this has so much potential to be the best Spider-Man game to date.
Gameplay – 87
Visuals – 80
Audio – 80
Overall – 85
Great, fast paced action and a fine game, marred with some poor production and a hateful camera.
Game experienced on 360 with 40" Sony Bravia at 720p over component and 5.1 surround sound
