"Ultimate Spider-man sees the wallcrawler swinging to new heights....then falling back down"
I was looking forward to playing Ultimate Spider-Man but when i first played it, i noticed something....not the new cel-shaded graphics, not the chance to play as Venom( More about that later) It was the fact that this game was just like Spider-Man 2 in terms of gameplay and missions.
The gameplay has some sparks, but not enough to make it stand out. Sure, being able to climb up your webs after you have swung on them for awhile comes in handly when you are doing the races, but having to hold down the right trigger to keep holding on to your web-line was really annoying. Spider-man's combat moves remain the same as they were in Spider-man 2 with a few new combos here and there, i enjoy the move when Spidey webbed a enemy, jumped over him and threw the baddie into a wall. The wall-crawling remains the same from Spider-Man 2 with a few tweaks here and there like the running up or across a wall move is now better to pull off.
A main improvement to the gameplay is playing as Venom, thats right, VENOM!. Don't get me wrong, playing as venom is cool, but once the trill of throwing cars around and jumping around like a monkey on crack wears off, venom is nothing more then a second-rate HULK. Venom's levels don't do him any favors either as they are boring mind-less beat em' up's. You will find yourself beating army men up left, right and center. Sure, the story to venom's levels are pretty cool but not cool enough to make them fun. Venom's way of getting around is 100% different to Spidey also. Venom jumps around, not a little jump, i mean like a HULK size jump. Venom will go soaring before he falls back down to the streets of NYC. The main thing i hated about playing as Venom was his life-bar. I bet you are thinking, whats wrong with his life-bar? well it slowly decrease as a sign that the venom suit is feeding off Eddie Brock( Venom's human host). The player must feed from people on the streets to stay alive. Sure, you can't die from this but having to refill my life bar up again and again when i was goin up against such hard-hitters as Electro, it did get annoying.
The story fits into the Ultimate Spider-Man world nicely and the FMV's as comic panels are a nice little touch. Switching between Spider-Man and Venom as the story moved forward was pretty cool, even if i enjoyed Spidey's levels more. Many baddies from other Spider-Man games make a return here like Rhino or Green Goblin. Rhino was fun to run around while he tried to move his huge metel body around, while Green Goblin mainly kicked me around the streets before i put him down for the count. I also liked seeing Nick Fury and i enjoyed the Father-Son thing he and Spidey had goin. The sand-box world of NYC is back also, but with nothing but the same cars, people, combat tours and races filling its streets, it seems a little life-less.
The sound was alright i guess, having to listen to the same theme music over and over was annoying but the great sound effects of Venom's growls and Spidey's nerdy humor made up for it.
In all, Ultimate Spider-man adds nothing new to spidey's videogame world expect for being able to play as Venom. The game is perfect for hard-core fans of Spidey or for people who haven't had the chance to pick up a copy of Spider-man 2. Also a great weekend rent, worth a look.