Spider-Man 3 (Wii, 2007)

A lot of what I'm going to say is going to be repetitive of an earlier review, but that only confirms what he was saying. I'll start with the pros.

Pros

-- First of all, the web swinging alone is worth having the game. With the Wii controls, a person can pretend he's Spidey and swing through the city. I found myself lost in the rhythm of it and wanting to improve through practice.

-- The plot is well done although a little corney. Some of it is the same as the movie, but it also combines other subplots, Morbius, Shriek, Carlyle, The Lizard...others.

-- The ability to upgrade is excellent. Spidey got better with practice and it stands to reason that his icon can do better moves and improve ability with experience.

--There are many objectives to the game. 1. Complete the main plot. 2. Take pictures of all the baddies (You have to earn a living as Peter Parker). 3. Clean up all the gangs of Manhattan. 4. Complete races that test your ability to do web-swinging, wall-crawling tricks. 5. Collect meteorites. 6. Collect Spidey emblems. 7. And improve your best strike combinations. So, in that sense, there's a lot to do.

--Changing to the symbiotic black suit and powering up is cool. You have to be able to stop it from controlling you.

-- Different ways to defeat different characters. Fighting Sandman needs different methods than fighting Morbius or Venom.

Cons

--The graphics are so-so. I hear they are better for Playstation and X-Box, but for me the webswinging with the Wii is worth the lack of graphics.

-- A lot of the fighting becomes repetitive, especially with the gangs. While the gang fighting is a good idea, there should be an increased difficulty to this. Perhaps, the gangs could somehow get more advanced weaponry or something. In order to clean up the entire city, you have to do the same sort of fight over and over.

-- Realism regarding Spidey's abilities. This is just nit-picking from a comic book fan. The programmers have a pretty good idea of how strong or fast he is, but he can't survive a direct fall from the Empire State Building. Like I said, nit-picking.

The main plot part of the game is a bit short. True, there are the other aspects of the game that make the entire experience longer, but the main plot can easily be expanded.

I wanted to give this a 3 and a half, but there are no halves so I went up instead of down. I will buy a Spider-man 4 or expansion of Spider-man 3 if there is one. If you're all about the graphics or action, don't get it. If you're more about the fantasy and the story and Spider-man, then get it.

The game, Spider-Man 2, was really quite a fun game since it was so exhilirating to swing everywhere. Yeah by the 25th balloon I had to save, it did feel monotonous but everything else was well-done. Including some of the villains that were sorely missed, Spider-Man 3 is basically the same thing with new features. With the Wii controls, it offers a different type of gameplay but polish is really lacking here as it feels unresponsive, lazy and even sluggish. Kids won't mind but this is definately not one of the better Spidey outings.

Story: It incorporates the storyline of Spider-Man having the Alien Symbiote attached to him (honestly I couldn't figure out where he even got it in the game). Doc Connors has mutated and rampaging through New York while rival photographer Eddie Brock gets the Symbiote and turns into Venom.

Graphics: The textures just look...ugly. Buildings up close are fine if a bit repetitive and lack of more refined details while it seems like the higher up you go, the more fuzzy they get. And of course enemies pretty much have 4-5 different settings and you beat up each one over and over. At least now we can go into the sewers.

Sound/Music: Voice acting remains largely intact with Tobey Maguire and co. providing their character voices. It's difficult to badmouth Maguire since he basically says the same things over and over (production thing). The best though is Bruce Campbell providing our Narrator voice. He gets some hilarious things going (my favorite is the Spider-Man who doesn't act Spider-y on walls. "You're just 'Man'? You're playing, 'Man 3?'" The music is fine but I barely notice.

Gameplay: For swinging you use the nunchuk and Wii-mote. Press Z or B and swinging the controller will send you flying. It takes some getting used to but eventually you get hang of it, although I notice it was more comfortable to just use the Wii-mote. Fighting is different as well with shaking the Wii-mote making your combos, A button for kicks/uppercuts. It works fine but the controls are a bit dodgy since it's hard to gauge just how fast to swing and pressing the A is rather slow, causing you to press it 5-6 times before he even does his kick (by which time, enemies are already beating you up). The ideas behind the controls are fine it's just they don't have the responsiveness needed.

As for the game itself, it's very much like 2: very mission-based but thankfully the side missions are kept to a minimum a bit. Some seem slightly inconsistent though. One boss fight took so long because his health went down like a paper sliver with every punch. The one thing that is a pain is that there's these moments that seem like warped reaction commands from Resident Evil 4 or Kingdom Hearts II: at certain points a graphic will display, telling you swing your nunchuk sideways or your nunchuk or both. But they go so far and your reflexes can only go so far so it's a bit of a trial-and-error at figuring out how fast to go.

Do yourself a favor and rent Spider-Man 2. While we do get enemies like the Lizard and Venom, 2 is just way funner.

Spider-man 3 for might be arguably the worst newest-generation Spiderman game. Compared to Ps3, and Xbox360 graphically it is extremely pour (go up on a high building and you would think spider-man is in a game of tetris due to buildings simply looking like blocks). Storywise the game is amusing but extremely short (i beat both the side stories and the main story line in a little more then 6 hours).
Now for the posotives. Using the wii mote and ninchuck to swing and fight, while might be a hard task at first, becomes extremely fun. When playing the game at first I swung around for almost an hour just for the amusement of it. The Game was also made differently for the wii then the ps3, and xbox360. It has a rpg-like system of upgrading, giving you an opportunity to vary your spider. Using the black-suit on the wii is entertaining, giving you stronger attacks, and a slightly varying moveset.

Overall, I would give this a 5 out of 10, but that is giving a boost because I am a spider-fan...and because I recieved it at half price. I would reccomend this only to those who are big fans of Spidey. Also reccomend it to some children, while they might be amused by the game they may have a hard time grasping web swinging with the wii mote and ninchuck. Anyone else I wouldn't reccomend this to. Those looking for a quick fix of spider-man but are big fans should either wait for the next spider-man game. Or try getting Spider-man 2 (not for wii but gamecube games are playable on the wii) at a bargin price.

5/10

Pros:
+ Web swinging and fighting with wii-mote if fun (but maybe difficult to some)
+ Upgrading system while not original, is a nice to ad to the mix

Cons:
- Graphics at its best are poor
- Short game
- Swinging and fighting while fun, maybe difficult.

My 11 year old son wanted this game for Xmas.
The game plays well, but my son became bored very quickly.
Not enough "action" when compared to other Wii games he has.
Not bad but not worth the "full retail" price.

The spiderman 3 game for the Wii is a good game that draws from the movie without being a true copy. The game also makes good use of the wiimote and nunchuck and web-slinging is a joy. The city is huge and there is no limit to the crime you can fight. As with all wii games, the graphics aren't as good as PS3 or the XBOX, but if you have a wii, you know this. Overall, it's a good game with good control usage. Worth the play, for sure.