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Literally swing like Spider-Man. Spider-Man 2 was praised for its excellent recreation of New York City and for being the first game to truly nail the experience of swinging like Spider-Man. Even though Spider-Man 2 set the bar quite high, Spider-Man 3 on the Wii has the potential to provide gamers with an even more immersive experience.
The Wii version of the game, developed by Vicarious Visions, is not a simple port of the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. This version will still follow the movie’s plot and its villains—Sandman, Green Goblin, and Venom—are included as part of the main storyline but there are also many additional plot lines based on the comic book. The demo of Spider-Man 3 on the Wii was considerably shorter than the Xbox 360/PS3 demo, but nonetheless allowed us to practice swinging through the city, some combat, and even an interactive cinematic.
While the swinging on the Xbox 360 and PS3 is more or less the same as Spider-Man 2, the Wii version takes a completely different approach. You use the Nunchuk and Wii Remote to control each hand’s swinging. You basically hold a button then swing the controller down to swing with that hand and repeat the motion with the other hand. You can maneuver Spider-Man by using the analog stick on the Nunchuk. In our limited experience, it was obvious that there is a rather steep learning curve involved with the game’s swinging mechanism. We were getting better with time and it looks like the swinging mechanism has a lot of potential, but it is definitely harder to get a grasp of than the standard controllers.
The game’s combat is also quite different. You again use the analog stick to move Spider-Man, but waggle the Wiimote for light attacks and use A to execute strong attacks. Combat was easier to get a hold of than swinging and became intuitive fairly quickly. Throwing webs is easily done with the B button while moving the Nunchuk allows you to easily dodge attacks.
The interactive cinematics are essentially what they sound like. Similar to Call of Duty 3 or God of War, the game will move into a cinematic and require a motion at specific moments. If you do everything at the right time, you get rewarded with some of the demo’s biggest “wow” moments such as struggling in the air against the Green Goblin (while playing as Peter) and jumping through lasers as Spider-Man.
Another Wii difference is how the game handles the black suit. The black suit is used during particular missions in the Xbox 360/PS3 versions of the game, but the Wii version allows you to switch between red suit and black suit at will. The black suit is still stronger in the Wii version, although Vicarious Visions did mention that were would be repercussions for using the black suit for extended periods of time. For instance, crime picks up when you’re using the black suit and the city gradually deteriorates.
Visually, the game looks nearly identical to Spider-Man 2 on the Gamecube. The city is still fairly impressive in scope, although when compared to the Xbox 360/PS3 version, is populated with relatively simple architecture, lower-resolution textures, and less advanced lighting effects and reflections. Spider-Man’s character model still looks pretty good, though, and the animation is fairly smooth. We weren’t able to see any of the bosses in action on the Wii.
Overall, we are cautiously optimistic about Spider-Man 3 on the Wii. The potential for a truly immersive swinging experience is definitely there and we’re intrigued by the unique missions not found in the Xbox 360/PS3 version of the game. However, we’ll need more time with the game to see how the controls shape up. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Apr 5, 2007
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