The Game:
Comic book characters have had a long, varied history in video games. Some, such as Superman, have never had a good game to call their own. Others, like the X-Men have several top-notch games on multiple platforms. Spider-Man has had a few successes (Maximum Carnage on the Super Nintendo springs to mind), but by far his biggest and best achievement to date was Spider-Man 2 for the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube. Based loosely on the movie of the same name, Spider-Man 2 put Spider-Man in an open New York city, with the ability to swing anywhere he wished, saving people from falling and stopping criminals. Mission markers allowed him to engage on larger tasks, usually topped by defeating a super villain. However, it had its share of problems. The combat was rudimentary and boring. You couldn't go inside buildings, even on missions. And the character models were atrocious.

Jump forward to the present day and Spider-Man 3 is topping box office records around the world. Never one to miss an opportunity, our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man has seen fit to jump back into the world of video gaming, this time with Spider-Man 3. Developed by the same team who made Spider-Man 2, 3 was meant to be an evolution, taking the best parts of the last game and reworking the flaws. On paper, it sounds good. Not only has the combat been reworked, but at certain key junctures, the game includes what the developers call "Tests of strength and agility," a fancy name for the mini-game found in God of War and Marvel Ultimate Alliance, where you press specific buttons in a sequence as they appear on the screen to make the main character do something that could not be done through regular combos. In addition, the game now allows you to go into the subway, into sewers, and into certain buildings.

While it sounds great on paper, the execution leaves a little something to be desired. But before I get to that, I must commend Activision for their revamp of the combat controls. The fighting now feels intuitive. It's easy to pick up and as you get better, you can do some really amazing tricks. Also, you can breathe easy knowing the silly "hero points" that you traded for new moves have been done away with. Now, the more missions you complete, the more moves you get. In addition, the more you swing, the more swing speed/air tricks you can pick up. Nicely done. Furthermore, swinging through the city is now more fun than ever. New York has been expanded, with added detail, and more definition. Just like last time, it's a joy to web swing around, stopping crime as it comes up, doing tricks in the air.

The other positive change comes in the form of Spider-Man's black suit (or symbiote suit, if you prefer). The black suit adds a whole new dimension of gameplay. It's almost as if they've added an entirely new character. You swing faster, you hit harder, you get different combat moves, and you even get a "rage meter" that allows you to kick butt like never before. Plus, the suit is stylish and while Spidey's got the suit, he wears it in all the cinematics. In addition to the standard story missions you can play, there are also several mini-games, such as skyscraper diving or city-racing.

As I mentioned earlier, though, some serious problems plague this release. The first revolves around the fact that you can now go indoors. While it's nice to have the variety of environment, the camera inside buildings is just terrible. The kind of really awful that will get you killed because you can't see what the hell you're doing at times. The camera outside while swinging is no problem, but a majority of the major missions take place indoors. The "tests of strength and agility" are also a horrible addition to the game. While they work in the God of War series, here they annoy far more than they thrill. The time allowed for button presses is aggravatingly short, prompting extreme frustration as you're made to do the sequences again and again. Also, the tests occur as cinematics, not as in-game animation. This doesn't seem like much, but the seamless nature of this type of mini-game in other titles is what makes it work in the first place.

The particular version I received to review a Collector's Edition, exclusive to the PS3. Aside from a few video interviews, the main extra feature in this version is a fully playable New Goblin. In the main game, you play as New Goblin for a portion of one mission, but this allows you to take him around the entire city. The back of the box declares that he has 10 all new missions, but they're all races. That's right, no enemies to fight. Despite this, Goblin does have some combat capabilities, although they're not well developed. He's as much of a last minute tack-on as one might expect. Even worse, he's controlled through the SIXAXIS, which is not easy nor intuitive. You can disable the SIXAXIS controls, but even then, he's not particularly fun to play. For this, you have to pay an extra $10.

The Visuals:
Considering this is Spider-Man's debut on next gen consoles, you'd assume that Activision would go back to the drawing board and completely recreate all the character models from scratch, considering how artificial they looked in the last game. Sadly, this is absolutely not the case. Every character model in the cinematics look like they were taken from an early era PS2 game, and it's really pathetic. People's fingers are stuck together, unable to move separately. The faces of the main characters look vaguely like their movie counterparts, but different enough to make them incredibly jarring. The visuals in the game fare better. Spider-Man is meticulously rendered in both suits. The standard enemies he faces don't feature much variety, but look less generic than the thugs in Spider-Man 2. The super villains actually look pretty good, especially Rhino and Scorpion. New York City has had a full makeover, and it's really nice to see the city all lit up during the nighttime scenes. But textures indoors are bland and muddy. Also, the PS3 version of the game has some slight framerate issues during cinematics that, while not constant, are distracting when they appear. These issues are not present on the 360 version (although the 360 has some slight bugs not found in the PS3 version, so no matter which way you go, you're in for a buggy ride).

The Audio
The audio has one really great thing going for it: Tobey Maguire. All of the actors from the movie lent their voices to the characters, but Tobey really breathes life into Spider-Man, giving him humanity and a sense of humor that is at times funnier than that displayed in the film. There is, in particular, one scene between Peter and Mary-Jane while he's under the influence of the black suit that is absolutely hilarious and better than anything in the movie, and it's all due to Maguire's fantastic delivery. Bruce Campbell also reappears as the narrator, but he's far more subdued and less comedic than in the last outing. The sound effects are generally good, especially the sound of Spider-Man's webbing. The weakest part is, by far, the score. There are only a few cues and they're replayed incessantly.

The Conclusion:
The basic mechanics of Spider-Man 3 are good enough that fans of the character, and especially fans of the last game, should give this one a try. However, poor camera controls, obnoxious mini-games that prevent forward progress, and some really horrible character models mar what could have been an excellent game. Also, the Collector's Edition that costs $10 more offers nothing of value for the extra money outside of what is available on the regular edition. For this particular version, the most I can say is that you should Rent It.