THIS GAME TOTALLY ROCKS IS THE BEST SPIDEY GAME EVER PLUS IT INCLUDES VENOM AND THE APPEARANCE OF CARNAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ultimate Spider-Man allows gamers to play as two distinct characters, Spider-Man and Venom. The game starts off by telling the story of Eddie Brock Jr. and Peter Parker discovering the last remaining samples of the Venom suit. The suit was originally developed by Peter and Eddie’s father as a cure for cancer (which is a major story change from the original Spider-Man legacy). The suit was unstable and soon Eddie Brock Jr. is causing havoc in the city as Venom. During the game you will switch between both characters during key parts of the game. The game doesn’t allow you to switch at will between both characters on the fly, which is sort of disappointing but necessary to the story line.
One huge part of the game is the look of the game coming close to appearing as a living comic book. The artist of the comic book, Mark Bagley, did the character designs and models. This helps in re-creating the comic book style that is so often missing when a comic book gets translated to a video game. The game even uses some comic book style panels during the in-game cutscenes to keep the comic book feel alive. But the panels aren't always on display; sometimes the panels will zip in and out of the scene to keep the scenes alive. It’s a great effect that is used tremendously to help the presentation of the game. The rest of the graphics in the game come close to matching the excellent characters and cutscenes, but sometimes fall flat. One part that really falls flat is the buildings in the game. The buildings are just bland and stick out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the graphics. Here you have a game that tries really hard to present an authentic comic book style but the building graphics make it seem as if Spider-Man is swinging through a city of cardboard painted by children. If you didn’t spend a large amount of time climbing buildings then it wouldn’t be such a problem but we’re talking about Spider-Man here. The rest of the graphics in the game didn’t disappoint when compared to the buildings. The city is alive with activity from cars and citizens moving about all the time. To help with the disappointing building graphics there are some billboards and neon signs attached to various buildings. The skyline at night reminded me of a scene out of Batman, instead of Spider-Man, with a full moon shining over the city and the clouds moving in front of the moon. All of the main characters in the game, from Spider-Man to Nick Fury, all look right out of the comic book. Regardless of the main characters being in a cutscene or during the actual game the characters looked the same which was excellent. The gameplay for Ultimate Spider-Man doesn’t deliver in the promise of being “ultimate.” The main part of the gameplay that everyone should be concerned about is how Spider-Man (and Venom) controls. The feeling of swinging through the city as Spider-Man is well done since it’s a breeze to swing from one building to another. One issue that I thought was strange was the controls were different for Spider-Man and Venom. This made the game a little bit difficult to adjust to since you spend a majority of your time playing as Spider-Man. When you do play as Venom you’re thrown right into the middle of a tense situation that requires you to know Venom’s controls immediately. The combat in the game is easy to pull off as well but it’s not as smooth as it should be due to the camera control. You have full control over the camera but it doesn’t really help because the camera will sometimes jump at the most inappropriate time. I found the jumps in the camera really annoying while climbing buildings. This problem was frequent while controlling Venom. If I tried to jump while climbing a building as Venom the camera angle would move and Venom would sometimes leap away from the building. This was especially disappointing during one mission in the game because every time this incident happened I would have to start the level over again. During certain levels in the game, let’s call them the chase missions, if you fall behind just a little bit or get lost for a second the game can be very unforgiving. Be prepared to replay some of the missions over again repeatedly. The voice acting in the game was topnotch. Sean Marquette did a great job playing the role of Peter Parker. Even though Ultimate Spider-Man offers a different telling of the Spider-Man legacy we still get the same wise cracking Spider-Man we’re used to. In fact I would say that the producers of the new Spider-Man 3 movie should play this game to get an idea of the type of wise crack comments that Spider-Man should be saying. I actually laughed out loud at a few of comments he made. Some of the comments did get repeated but not too often. Even the other major characters in the game had their own unique comments and excellent voiceovers. Ultimate Spider-Man falls short in being the “ultimate” Spider-Man game but it still offers a solid gaming experience. The biggest win for gamers with Ultimate Spider-Man is the presentation. This is a great comic book style game that has the look of a living comic book down pat. The excellent character models and storyboard panels used during the cutscenes will suck you in if you’re a comic book fan. The ability to play as Venom in the game really wasn’t explored enough because you spend most of your time playing as Spider-Man. Swinging through the city and fighting bad guys, as Spider-Man, was easy and at times very satisfying. However playing as Venom was a little frustrating simply because Venom controls differently than Spider-Man. The voiceovers in the game were excellent and rather surprising just how good they were for all of the characters. If you’re a Spider-Man fan then you will probably find plenty to enjoy with Ultimate Spider-Man.