Xbox 360
There have been a lot of Spiderman videogames over the years. Some of these games have been fun to play, others were a nightmare. This is hardly surprising though, superhero games are notoriously difficult games to get right. Web of Shadows was internally developed and published by ACTIVISION, creators of some of the best and worst of the web-slinger's games, they did promise a number of features though that gave Web of Shadows the potential to rise above it's predecessors. So I was more than a little curious to see how this one turned out.
From a fairly bewildering introduction set four days in the future, you're dropped into New York and given free reign to go anywhere you want and fight who ever you like. Zipping around between skyscrapers is great as both the physics and the controls are intuitive and before long you will feel like the city belongs to you. Unfortunately it doesn't take long to realise that 'New York' really just means Manhattan, everywhere you go the buildings look pretty similar and it's the same goons that you end up fighting. A less well known hero, Powerman gives you your missions but these don't help much, as they all involve is taking out some more of the same criminals.
Things do pick up in the second of the games three acts; as you start working with Black Cat. The city fills up with a technologically advanced army of criminals and The Kingpin gets involved. Combat moves from the streets to the walls and into the air as you start fighting troops stomping around in power suits and mechs or zooming around on Green Goblin style fliers. It's about this time that you can purchase the more interesting combat moves and soon after the game starts throwing Spiderman's rosta of villains at you in the first of the highly satisfying boss fights.
The third and largest act continues this trend and is by far the most fun. New York is now a war zone, overrun by an alien invasion and flooded with different zombie-spiderman things. Simply swinging around helping out in fights between the invaders and either the Police, SHIELD or the Tech Soldiers from the previous act is great fun and the missions throughout this section are the best, and least predictable in the game. It's a joy too to see all of heroes and villains that are brought into the game for this stage. Wolverine's first appearance in the game will be a high point for any Marvel fan.
The combat system really gets into gear as well in act 3 with the later combat maneuvers bringing to mind the excesses of Devil May Cry or Soul Calibur. Particularly satisfying is stringing together combos from different fighting styles by changing costume between hits or by moving the combat between the different arenas of ground, wall and air to maximise your advantage. A competent gamer could probably get through the game with button mashing and a bit of cunning running away to heal. That would perhaps miss the point though, while it is true that at no point do you feel particularly threatened by anything other than the bosses, you are playing a superhero so maybe that is as it should be.
You will get out of Web of Shadows what you put in. After working through the first half of the game the rest of Web of Shadows leaves you under no doubt that you have full control of the Spiderman of the comics. Surely that is worth a bit of effort.
