Spider-Man 3…it blows!

Spider-Man 3 the game is about as fun as a box of rocks. In fact, if you broke the CD into 100 pieces and put it back in the box just to rattle it around a little, you’d probably have more fun than playing the actual game.

Spider-Man 3, the fourth game in the series from developer Treyarch and Activision, is about as charismatic as the movie itself.

The game runs in a sandbox-style environment with open-ended missions that are typical of the Grand Theft Auto games. Spider-Man 2 was a really fun, inventive game that surprised a lot of people and ended up carving a niche into the superhero gaming market. Spider-Man 3, however, has stepped into the same exact format of the last one and taken no advantage of the Xbox 360 graphics. The animation cut-scenes are horribly blocky, something that was expected of the old Xbox and PS2 consoles.

The absolute best part of the game is swinging free through the streets of New York City. It is simple, fun and easy to get good at. Making acrobatic web-zips across two buildings, followed by a long arching swing through a thin alley onto the cab-heavy streets is really exhilarating and never gets old.

On the other hand, the physics of actually being able to do some of the things that Spidey pulls off are ridiculous, even for a superhero. When web-zipping around (a horizontal traveling move), you can time it right so that Spidey can actually zip across Central Park 100 feet above the trees without any descent or buildings around to actually grab a full web-swing. Spider-Man can also run into walls at insane speeds, land on the ground after free-falling, and fly through traffic lights without ever getting hurt or majorly impeded.

As with most poorly made games, Spider-Man 3 has terrible camera control. When Spider-Man is indoors (which happens way too much for a primarily outdoor superhero), sometimes the camera will glitch and show an extreme close-up, making it impossible to judge where anything is in relation to the character. Web-crawling up walls produces similar camera problems. If you want to crawl upside-down, be warned-the camera will snap around and make you lose track of what is up, where is down and which way to vomit.

The voice-acting could be compared to pulling unanesthetized teeth out of actors and asking them to sound happy. Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Hayden Church, Topher Grace and J.K. Simmons all make appearances during the game. J.K. Simmons, who may be in the best-cast role of his life as J. Jonah Jameson, is the only one that gives a decent performance.

The game’s fighting engine is entertaining for the first 20 or so minutes, but the mindless button mashing gets old. To fight is to run around using the left bumper (on 360) or L1 (on PS3) button to use “spider senses” that slow down the entire fight, allowing Spidey time to predict an enemy’s move. It is typically unnecessary when fighting the endless drought of thugs and minor baddies, but against bosses the button is essential and sometimes needs to be used at all times.

Sometimes during combat with the bigger bad guys, the game will snap into a scripted acrobative/combative mode where different buttons will flash on the screen. The right button must be hit to move on and prevent something from happening to Spidey and the cut-scene from restarting. The system is very similar to the one implemented in God of War, but it is fun enough to break up the monotony of regular combat.

Overall, the game is dull and looks like it was rushed out to accompany the movie. It is fun to play as Spider-Man and go flying through the city, but the rest of the game is disappointing and not nearly as ground-breakingly fun as the originals.