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Peter Parker’s alter-ago adds another kick-ass game to his repertoire. Like the games before it, Spider-Man 3 on the Nintendo DS is not a radical departure from its prequels. But it does manage to fix the minor complaints of the previous games, add more content, and polish everything up. The end result is the best portable Spider-Man to date.
Spider-Man 3 follows the movie’s plot. It begins right after the prequel ended with Peter finally getting his life in order. Of course, this cheery mood doesn’t last very long. In Spider-Man 3, the game, you’ll be able to relive the movie and classic action sequences against Sandman, Green Goblin and Venom but Treyarch also added a lot of additional plot lines not based directly on the movie.
Spider-Man 3 for Nintendo DS will be fairly familiar to anyone who has played a Vicarious Visions’ previous Spider-Man DS games. The actual levels still have you running, jumping and swinging primarily to the right as you fight enemies, explore the levels, evade fires and other obstacles, and rescue citizens. That is not to say that Vicarious Visions didn’t make significant changes to the gameplay. The game is structured differently now, allowing Vicarious Visions to introduce some non-linearity. You can go to any of the game’s NYC districts at any time and you’ll even find challenges in the overworld.
Besides structure, Vicarious Visions has also changed the game’s controls, especially for combat. Combat is now exclusively handled by the touch screen. You simply tap on the screen in the direction you want to attack and Spider-Man will do so. Tap twice and he’ll throw webbing at the enemy. Tapping up and down will do things like picking up citizens and putting them down. This tie into the other big change: the addition of the black suit. The black suit, of course, makes an appearance but is handled differently than cthe Wii and PS2 versions since the game designates when you can and cannot use the suit.
The game’s graphics are comparable to previous entries but decidedly larger in scope. You can’t always tell but it’s hard not to be impressed by the scope when the camera pulls away and shows you the level you’re playing through. The various levels are united by a collection of neighborhoods that collectively form New York City to form one massive Spider-Man game. As always, the character models and animation are top-notch and there is plenty of detail in the levels and backgrounds.
The sound in Spider-Man 3 is very solid. The soundtrack is a mix of epic, orchestrated music with some newer, hipper, techno thrown on top for good measure. The sound effects are largely the same but are nonetheless good. There isn’t voice acting in the game but the story comes across very well through the stylized, written narration sequences.
Overall, Spider-Man 3 looks like another top-notch entry in the DS line of Spider-Man games. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- May 5, 2007
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