I don’t know what it is about
Spiderman games, but they must be selling because companies keep making them. Is
that a bad thing? Well…
This most recent reiteration of
Spiderman is entitled “Web of Shadows.” It is (I believe) the first Spiderman
game that has no attachments to any comic/movie. It was granted complete
narrative freedom. I’m here to say though, that with so much potential under
their belts, WoS just really doesn’t hit the mark. It is repetitive, a little
frustrating, and in some cases embarrassing in terms of voice acting. That being
said, lets dive into the positives first.
Web swinging is awesome. Period. The
Spiderman games have always given a fair amount of freedom for city-slinging.
You can spend a couple hours easy just goofing off and running along the side of
buildings if you wanted, and in some respects, this is the biggest “fun factor”
that game was going for it. The animations are well done, the draw distance is
decent, and the stringed combos work flawlessly in mid-air gliding.
This brings us the combat system,
which earns major advancements from the combo system as well. Parker can pretty
much chain together an unlimited amount of strikes as long as it’s not
interrupted by a building or enemy attack. This works excellent to a certain
degree. The studio has made leaps and bounds as far as mechanics and animation
goes from the previous games, but hasn’t mastered the balance of it. There are
very few times where it specifically matters which combo you pull off in order
to kill an enemy. Almost all attacks work, which really removes the skill of
strategy to play a part in the fighting mechanics.
Which brings us to the story. WoS
really does a horrible job of making itself really compelling and enthralling to
play. Basically the city is contaminated with Venom’s black “ooze from space”
and starts to rip itself apart. Spiderman is not immune, and contracts the ooze
himself, which gives him even stronger abilities (albeit evil) ones. You will
have to make a few moral choices along the way, which – to its credit – affects the gameplay. But it’s too bad they are never super interesting, or even remotely
make you care about what your choices were. On top of that, WoS kills what it
had going for its replayability with choices by forcing the player to learn
specific moves by repeating them over and over. I can’t tell you how many times
I aimlessly kicked an enemy to death (a thousand?).
The graphics are decent but not
amazing. The NPC’s are super clunky, and the voice acting is horrific. In the
end, this game is like having 2 colored pages in a comic book that is totally
black and white. There are far too many negatives pulling this game down than
the positives keeping it afloat.
|
Review Scoring Details for Spider-Man: Web of Shadows |
Gameplay: 6.5
Starts out with promising depth and
game mechanics, but is overwhelmed by monotony and frustration.
Graphics: 7.0
The depth of field and textures are
well done, but the characters other than Spiderman are super clunky and awkward.
Also has a few weird clipping issues…
Sound: 5.8
Music and sound effects are lacking
and I wish there was a worse word to use but abysmal will have to do.
Difficulty: Easy
If you can push buttons repeatedly
then you will beat the game. Be aware that “repeatedly” is not to be taken
lightly.
Concept: 8.0
As a concept, the game idea is great. It’s a Spider-man game with no
strings attached to the movies or comics with deeper fighting mechanics than the
previous Spider-man games. It’s just that the game mechanics and story never
live up to it’s conceptual potential.
Overall: 6.5
Only go buy this game if you are a
die-hard Spiderman fan, or have an unhealthy obsession with bad voice acting…
