Spider-Man: Web of Shadows – WII – Review

Sing it with me now; you know the
lyrics “Spider-man, Spider-man, does whatever a spider can.” Now pay attention
to the last two words “spider can.” Obviously the Spider-man in Web of Shadows
must have been confused because I’m sure an actual spider has already given up
on Spider-man’s most recent game. Web of Shadows looked to be a potentially
great Spider-man game but the actual execution on the Wii leaves something to be
desired.

The premise of Web of Shadows sounds
great since it’s supposed to be a darker Spider-man game. The City of New York
has been invaded by symbiotes that have been cloned from Venom. The symbiotes
have launched an all-out assault on the city which has resulted in a dramatic
shift in Spider-man’s life. During an encounter with Venom he was able to gain
control of the dangerous black costume. This has resulted in all of the unwanted
consequences associated with the black costume such as mood swings,
uncontrollable rage and enhanced powers. With these powers he must take back New
York from the symbiotes and Venom by any means necessary.

The game goes a step farther by
allowing you to choose which role Spider-man will play in taking back the city.
Will you play the goody two shoes part by being noble and honorable as the red
and blue Spider-man? Or will you take a more sinister approach by giving in to
the instincts of the black costume? The game will let you decide at various
points on which course of action you want to take. Depending on your choices the
game will adjust and offer different storylines and adventures.

The cast of characters in the game
is a very deep assortment from the Marvel Universe. Black Cat, Black Widow,
Electro, Kingpin, Luke Cage, Mary Jane, Moon Knight, Rhino, Venom, Vulture and
Wolverine are all included in the game. But Spider-man isn’t completely left out
with only the black or red and blue costumes. You can unlock additional costumes
such as Ben Riley’s costume, Cosmic Spider-man and other costumes for Peter
Parker. While the number of characters might not be as numerous as the recent
Ultimate Alliance game, comic book fans should still be happy with the variety
of characters included.

Gameplay wise Web of Shadows focuses
on the differences between the black costume and the regular costume. The black
costume tries to represent a more powerful version of Spider-man than the
regular costume. The attacks you can perform with the black costume do slightly
more damage and have more of a visual “pizzazz” to them. With the regular
costume you have a different assortment of attacks and moves compared to the
black suit. For example, with the black costume you can whip your enemies with
the spider web. But in the red costume you shot small spider web balls using the
same move. Small differences like this one will keep you changing between the
two costumes depending on each situation.

However, the huge downfall of Web of
Shadows has to be the controls. With the motion-sensing Wii-mote and nunchuk we
get a Spider-man game that feels completely out of control. Performing the same
moves over and over again was consistently a challenge because the game didn’t
recognize what I was trying to do. Swinging from building to building was done
by simply flicking the Wii-mote forward then pressing A to release. But I found
the game had a bad habit of letting Spider-man miss the nearest building when
trying to throw another web. It played out like this: Flick Wii-mote, press A,
flick Wii-mote, press A, flick Wii-mote, flick Wii-mote, flick Wii-mote, have
Spider-man hit the ground.

There was never any consistency when
it came to moving around the city. Besides web slinging, climbing up walls was
never an easy task. The game states you can just walk up to a wall and
Spider-man will start climbing or you can press the Z button on the nunchuk to
cling to a wall. But if you’re near a ledge for some reason Spider-man seems to
have a problem getting over the ledge. Then if you were near a corner in the
building the camera angle would sometimes go bonkers and couldn’t keep up with
your climbing. I found myself going back and forth repeatedly in the same place
all because the camera angle would shift almost immediately when I would move
just a little bit. One minute I’m going left but then the camera angle shifts
and now I’m going right, but right back to the spot I was just at.

Unfortunately combat was impacted
with the same control problems. Combat at the street level was fairly easy to
manage as long as you stayed away from buildings. Once you started getting close
to a building the controls would get confused by sometimes having Spider-man
scaling walls instead of attacking the bad guys. Rooftop and air combat are a
complete mess due to all of the same control problems. One minute you’re
smacking a bad guy from a tower but the next second you’re swinging away from
him by mistake. The game allows you to upgrade your attacks by earning
experience points but most of these extra attacks felt worthless due to the
controls. If you’re supposed to swing as part of your attack just be prepared to
see Spider-man flying past the bad guys without any contact.

The other gripe I have with the game
is the mission structure setup. I know the whole open-world environment became
popular after GTA III but by now we really need to move past its outdated
mission system. Why must I have to replay the same mission over again until I
finish it before the game will let me really advance? You will have to perform
each mission with pin-point precision or you’ll have to start it over from the
beginning. No matter how far you advance in that particular mission you must
finish all of it to move on to the next part of the game. Back in 2001 that
might have been Ok but now in 2008 the setup has been used to death and it’s
getting old.

Spider-man: Web of Shadows has a
great premise but ultimately falls flat when it comes to execution. What I want
out of a Spider-man game are precise controls because anything else can make the
game feel cheap and frustrating. The controls in Web of Shadows for the Wii
really needed some more tweaking because what we have now can turn into a mess
quickly. If you can get use to the controls and the headaches that go with it
then you will probably enjoy Spider-man: Web of Shadows.

Gameplay: 4.0
Unresponsive controls and a bad camera are not a winning recipe for a great
Spider-man game.

Graphics: 5.0
The colors are muddy and dark, which I know are intentional because of the tone
of the game. But the Wii version just doesn’t have any kind of sparkle or shine
that you see from the 360 or PS3 versions. I don’t expect to see the same type
of graphics but the Wii is capable of pulling off some great graphics. The
trailer you see online looks like a bad VHS tape in this game.

Sound: 7.0
The voice acting in the game was good with only a few moments of bad dialog to
make you cringe. The music in the game fit the bill with nothing too annoying to
take away (at least further) from the game.

Difficulty: Easy
Forget learning all of the extra combos and just button mash and fling away.

Concept: 7.5
The idea of Web of Shadows I really think is a solid idea for a Spider-man game.
Let you make choices that impact the rest of the game and having a darker tone
are welcomed features.

Overall: 5.9
Web of Shadows keeps the Spider-man gaming legacy going but with some bumps and
bruises. Depending on your tastes the bruises might be more of a compound
fracture.