Xbox 360 Review: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is an all new action story, not ripped from the pages of the comic books. The story gives the gamer the use of both the traditional red Spidey and the “evil” black Spidey. And also brings in some additional characters into the action. With an great new combat system that intertwines web-slinging and great new customizable Spidey powers, it really gives the player more control in the battle. Add to that the ability to explore a full and open city, an environment the size of a real city, and you have a game that is a real grabber.

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is not based on any movie, nor is its story from any comic book story. It is a completely unique storyline that immerses the player in this vibrant comic book world. Return to the story is our old friend Venom. But this time he has brought with him the ability to infect the residents of New York City, causing them to be a tangled mess that Spidey must deal with as well. He works along side of the SHIELD security units that show up to quarantine the city. OF course the player will be able to put on the powerful black Spider-Man suit whenever he wishes, and bring into the action all of that black-suited power that comes with it.

There are a number of different endings to Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, and the player has the job to bring the story to one of those conclusions. This is nice also in that it does add some replay-ability to the game. And with the open environment, this can make for a great game for you to control.

You have a lot of control too. One of the things that will help you is Spidie’s spider-sense. As I understand it, this is the sense that spiders have that is supposed to keep them from getting squashed. But in Spider-Man’s case, it allows him to identify all near-by enemies and lock onto them. This also allows you to incorporate almost limitless combos into your game. For example, you will lock onto one enemy, web him and jump on him knocking him down, then lock onto the next, followed by the next and so on. You are able to string together huge numbers of combos and take out almost limitless numbers of bad guys in one long string. In some cases you will not be surprised to see upwards of 100 or more enemy combos strung together. It allows Spider-Mad to be able to take out huge numbers of enemies in one fell swoop.

Okay, this system is great in theory, but it doesn’t always come off exactly as planned, and you will have to get good at using this system, but it IS workable. Additionally you might find the system and methods a little tedious. Lots of button-mashing, if you will. At least there are a few situations that break up the monotony such as your meetings with Cage. In the beginning, Luke Cage will be how you will learn to use most of the new moves. You’ll perfect them on him and then he’ll send you out to use them on others. Get it right to move on…in this way you’ll get pretty good at the combos before you go out and use them…over and over again.

Though the game itself has some good concepts, action, and free-roaming fun, the storyline is lacking to some degree. It’s just not really complete, like why is this attack on the city happening now? And what about Mary Jane? Their relationship is never expanded upon other than she calls Spidey, “Peter” all the time. For the most part, the story just doesn’t really come together other than to bring in a few new allies like Moon Knight and Black Cat. They don’t really do much more than punch a few of the enemies, but they can be used from time to time.

With all of this being said, the ability of choosing your path to one of many final outcomes is a part of the game that I found very compelling. It basically allows you to choose either the heroic path or the selfish path for several situations allowing you to select one of the alternative endings. This means that you will be able to go back and play the game again for a different outcome if you wish. Yes, I know that this may be quite tedious to many, but to some, this option is going to be a lot more replay-ability to the game.

Graphically, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is not really too bad, though it is not much improvement over the previous titles. The animations and combat moves look good, and the action is fairly smooth. The character animation has a few distortions from time to time, and though the city is expansive, it is not as realistic as we have seen in environments of late.

{slot15}

The sound and voice work left a lot to be desired. Sure there are positive moments but on the whole, I was left uninspired. The ambient sounds were not too bad though, and did give me the feel of quality combat. But for the most part, most of the voice acting was over the top and I was not impressed with Spider-Man’s voice acting quality.

For the most part, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is an action game with all that the genre implies. It is a lot of combat button-mashing, some fun combos and okay graphic quality. But with a storyline that becomes more and more important in today’s games, I feel that there should have been more effort put into that part of this title. Many games today will literally play like a movie, but I’m afraid that if Spider-Man: Web of Shadows was a movie, most viewers would be lost in the first few minutes. The saving grace is that Spider-Man: Web of Shadows has a great combat style and a lot of free-form action. That and the choices that players can make to alter the ending, tokens that can be collected to upgrade the suit are what make this title a “rent it before you buy it” title in my opinion. If you like it, then you will likely spend hours playing it. If you don’t like it, you will know pretty quickly. But I’m afraid that Spider-Man: Web of Shadows left a lot of web-heads hanging.

Overall Score: 7.0 (out of 10)

What's new with Review? Latest News In Xbox 360

You can share this Review news story with your friends or family from our Xbox 360 section. This article can be shared through e-mail or sent to online social Web sites including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and others. You can choose from one of the options below.

Share Article Link:

Send Link via Email: