Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

Sing it with me now; you know the lyrics “Spider-man, Spider-man, does whatever a spider can.” Now pay attention to the last two words “spider can.” Obviously the Spider-man in Web of Shadows must have been confused because I’m sure an actual spider has already given up on Spider-man’s most recent game. Web of Shadows looked to be a potentially great Spider-man game but the actual execution on the Wii leaves something to be desired.

The premise of Web of Shadows sounds great since it’s supposed to be a darker Spider-man game. The City of New York has been invaded by symbiotes that have been cloned from Venom. The symbiotes have launched an all-out assault on the city which has resulted in a dramatic shift in Spider-man’s life. During an encounter with Venom he was able to gain control of the dangerous black costume. This has resulted in all of the unwanted consequences associated with the black costume such as mood swings, uncontrollable rage and enhanced powers. With these powers he must take back New York from the symbiotes and Venom by any means necessary.

The game goes a step farther by allowing you to choose which role Spider-man will play in taking back the city. Will you play the goody two shoes part by being noble and honorable as the red and blue Spider-man? Or will you take a more sinister approach by giving in to the instincts of the black costume? The game will let you decide at various points on which course of action you want to take. Depending on your choices the game will adjust and offer different storylines and adventures.

The cast of characters in the game is a very deep assortment from the Marvel Universe. Black Cat, Black Widow, Electro, Kingpin, Luke Cage, Mary Jane, Moon Knight, Rhino, Venom, Vulture and Wolverine are all included in the game. But Spider-man isn’t completely left out with only the black or red and blue costumes. You can unlock additional costumes such as Ben Riley’s costume, Cosmic Spider-man and other costumes for Peter Parker. While the number of characters might not be as numerous as the recent Ultimate Alliance game, comic book fans should still be happy with the variety of characters included.

Gameplay wise Web of Shadows focuses on the differences between the black costume and the regular costume. The black costume tries to represent a more powerful version of Spider-man than the regular costume. The attacks you can perform with the black costume do slightly more damage and have more of a visual “pizzazz” to them. With the regular costume you have a different assortment of attacks and moves compared to the black suit. For example, with the black costume you can whip your enemies with the spider web. But in the red costume you shot small spider web balls using the same move. Small differences like this one will keep you changing between the two costumes depending on each situation.

However, the huge downfall of Web of Shadows has to be the controls. With the motion-sensing Wii-mote and nunchuk we get a Spider-man game that feels completely out of control. Performing the same moves over and over again was consistently a challenge because the game didn’t recognize what I was trying to do. Swinging from building to building was done by simply flicking the Wii-mote forward then pressing A to release. But I found the game had a bad habit of letting Spider-man miss the nearest building when trying to throw another web. It played out like this: Flick Wii-mote, press A, flick Wii-mote, press A, flick Wii-mote, flick Wii-mote, flick Wii-mote, have Spider-man hit the ground.

There was never any consistency when it came to moving around the city. Besides web slinging, climbing up walls was never an easy task. The game states you can just walk up to a wall and Spider-man will start climbing or you can press the Z button on the nunchuk to cling to a wall. But if you’re near a ledge for some reason Spider-man seems to have a problem getting over the ledge. Then if you were near a corner in the building the camera angle would sometimes go bonkers and couldn’t keep up with your climbing. I found myself going back and forth repeatedly in the same place all because the camera angle would shift almost immediately when I would move just a little bit. One minute I’m going left but then the camera angle shifts and now I’m going right, but right back to the spot I was just at.

Unfortunately combat was impacted with the same control problems. Combat at the street level was fairly easy to manage as long as you stayed away from buildings. Once you started getting close to a building the controls would get confused by sometimes having Spider-man scaling walls instead of attacking the bad guys. Rooftop and air combat are a complete mess due to all of the same control problems. One minute you’re smacking a bad guy from a tower but the next second you’re swinging away from him by mistake. The game allows you to upgrade your attacks by earning experience points but most of these extra attacks felt worthless due to the controls. If you’re supposed to swing as part of your attack just be prepared to see Spider-man flying past the bad guys without any contact.

The other gripe I have with the game is the mission structure setup. I know the whole open-world environment became popular after GTA III but by now we really need to move past its outdated mission system. Why must I have to replay the same mission over again until I finish it before the game will let me really advance? You will have to perform each mission with pin-point precision or you’ll have to start it over from the beginning. No matter how far you advance in that particular mission you must finish all of it to move on to the next part of the game. Back in 2001 that might have been Ok but now in 2008 the setup has been used to death and it’s getting old.

Spider-man: Web of Shadows has a great premise but ultimately falls flat when it comes to execution. What I want out of a Spider-man game are precise controls because anything else can make the game feel cheap and frustrating. The controls in Web of Shadows for the Wii really needed some more tweaking because what we have now can turn into a mess quickly. If you can get use to the controls and the headaches that go with it then you will probably enjoy Spider-man: Web of Shadows.

Gameplay: 4.0
Unresponsive controls and a bad camera are not a winning recipe for a great Spider-man game.

Graphics: 5.0
The colors are muddy and dark, which I know are intentional because of the tone of the game. But the Wii version just doesn’t have any kind of sparkle or shine that you see from the 360 or PS3 versions. I don’t expect to see the same type of graphics but the Wii is capable of pulling off some great graphics. The trailer you see online looks like a bad VHS tape in this game.

Sound: 7.0
The voice acting in the game was good with only a few moments of bad dialog to make you cringe. The music in the game fit the bill with nothing too annoying to take away (at least further) from the game.

Difficulty: Easy
Forget learning all of the extra combos and just button mash and fling away.

Concept: 7.5
The idea of Web of Shadows I really think is a solid idea for a Spider-man game. Let you make choices that impact the rest of the game and having a darker tone are welcomed features.

Overall: 5.9
Web of Shadows keeps the Spider-man gaming legacy going but with some bumps and bruises. Depending on your tastes the bruises might be more of a compound fracture.