Review: Spider-man 3 (DS)
Score: 75
This is not only a movie tie-in, a genre I'm not too fond of, it's one of a series of tie-ins with the same series of movies. Which isn't a promising start, but Spiderman 3 does quite a bit to redeem itself.
Introducing itself with sequences of animated cutscenes, the story is set up well, with plenty of mock newspaper coverage to help give atmosphere.
Unlike many other tie-in titles, at least you can tell that this one's had some decent money spent on its development:
Once underway, playing against three super-villains, both overground and underground, the action's 3D-rendered all the way, although your Spider-Man character is effectively limited to moving from left to right. Still, it looks cinematic and is spolt only by the smallish sprites used for the characters - this is one game where you'll need good eyesight to play well.
Control of your character is with a combination of d-pad and stylus, a heady mix but you do get used to it. The d-pad controls how your character moves, the stylus controls how he fights, with high swipes for an upper cut and a low swipe to kick an opponents legs, and so on. Within fights, the action's rarely perfect, but there's enough variety here to keep you interested for a while at least.
There's a good mix of settings, puzzles, action and atmosphere.
With a trailing wind you'll complete Spider-Man 3 in about 10 hours, but there are extra 'races' to accomplish, swinging through the city collecting hovering globes against the clock, and these give extra playing value.
Although not a game that really endeared itself to me, I can see a lot of spidey and beat-em-up fans enjoying this professional title.