Of all the Superheroes in the world, Spiderman has always been one of my favourites, lets face it, being able to swing between buildings along a busy street and climb to the top of the highest tower while disposing of super villains is pretty impressive stuff, so when Spiderman 3 the game was announced I was really looking forward to seeing if Activison could do the film justice as so often games based on films are a major disappointment, so how does it measure up? Read on.

The first thing you are treated to in Spiderman 3 is a quick tutorial to get you used to the controls, this will get you up to date on each move you can expect to use such as dodging, jumping, fighting and using your trusty spiderweb, it was probably a good idea to include this because otherwise you would be fumbling all over the place trying to figure out how to swing from one building to the other.

Once you have the tutorial out of the way the fun begins. The in game missions vary and are presented to you by viewing a map of the city, as you complete missions you will be given a wider choice, all in there are 42 mission in Spiderman based around the events from the movie and as well as this you have three gangs to tackle and other various side events such as races and petty crime. 

At first the game looks absolutely stunning, using the free roaming element to have a look around I was very impressed with the scale of the city, Central Park looks really breathtaking and as I was swinging through it’s tree’s and passing by the ponds and pathways I could not help but be in awe as the sunlight hit the water through the trees, unfortunately it didn’t last though as soon you start to see the pop up appear, especially in the busy streets were cars and pedestrians just seem to come out of thin air.

The controls are very easy to use, Spiderman’s abilities like his Spidey sense, Dodge and web attack are all present and can be accessed by a simple push of the assigned button, fighting is just as easy with all the buttons combining to devastating effect.

The games action unfortunately is a bit of a mixed bag, it is very enjoyable for example, just roaming through the city and stopping random crimes like gang members attacking members of the public and the good thing about this is, the more you stop the random crime in each of the three areas ruled by the gangs the better, because once you have eliminated crime the areas will become peaceful and allow you to receive upgrades which improve your reflexes and health.

Once you start the main missions from within the map however the problems start to appear, combat for example is a straight forward affair and when faced with more than say 3 enemies the game turns into a bit of a button basher, although you have special moves you can use, it is just so much easier to hit the dodge button and bash as many button combinations as possible, this usually results in you winning the fight, the problems don’t stop there though as fighting against the main bosses is a task in itself, it seems to take forever to kill them as they are very tough and although this would usually be good, it isn’t because you just use the same move over and over again, dodge and reverse and wearing them down not only takes time but is just so tedious.

Some of the missions also leave a lot to be desired like being a Taxi for Mary-Jane as you swing through the city with her on your back or the photo missions where you go out to take pictures of certain events, it’s all a necessary but a really time consuming business which soon becomes very boring.

So there in lies the problems with Spiderman 3, although swinging through the city from one building to the other and stopping random crime is great fun, when you begin the main missions it does start to get tedious, this is mainly due to the missions feeling rushed and not thought out, I personally would at least rent this game because it has quite a bit of playability about it as well as having Spiderman and all his special moves, but whether this is enough to keep your attention is debatable for long enough to justify the price tag of buying the game is one for you to decide.