Review #425: Spider-man - Friend or Foe(Nintendo DS)

 Spider-man: Dumb or boring.

 I love beat'em ups, and I love starting reviews about beat'em ups with my classic 'I love beat'em ups', it's a very easy genre to screw up, and Friend or Foe for the Nintendo DS is no exception.

 There's a story about meteorite fragments and symbiotes but... I just couldn't get into it. It's not like I didn't want to give it a chance, but the presentation is so poor that it put me off. Cut-scenes, what few there are, are barely animated, and look ugly. The rest of the story is told via long-winded audio exchanges between characters, mostly Spider-man and Nick Fury, but you cant' fast-forward this glorified text boxes, even if you read faster than what they talk so... I skipped them. Sue me.

 X and Y punches and kicks, B jumps and A uses a special attack, you can select between special attacks by tapping L or press R to switch characters. The 'Friend or Foe' title comes from the fact that Spidey will be accompanied by another character on every stage, and the CPU will take control of either Spider or the ally, depending on which character you are playing as. The CPU is a bit dumb, but they don't lose health when hit by enemies. Friends and Foes are basically model-swaps of each other, same three punch and three kick combo as Spider-man, as well as a projectile and an area-of-effect special moves. Besides the fact that some characters have more health than others, there's no other reason as to why you'd use a character over another.

 Exploring stages nets you coins which can be used to upgrade Spider-man(and only Spider-man), buy allies to use in free mode(Doc Ock, Green Goblin, Black Cat, Blade, Sandman and Venom round up the cast) or buy a few extra modes. For whatever reasons, enemies don't drop coins, which is kinda weird, since there's no reward for defeating enemies besides being allowed to progress. And eventually I just avoided every enemy I could, since the fighting is exceedingly repetitive, unrewarding, bland and downright boring. The crappy framerate doesn't help this game's case either.

 As with every single Spider-man game on the DS, tacked-on touch-screen minigames rear their ugly, unwanted head, but at least these mini-games aren't too obtrusive. Kinda. Every level will have you engaging in the same mini-games over and over again, and every single time you engage these, which you must in order to progress, you'll be forced to sit through the explanation. What where they thinking?

 Spider-man - Friend or Foe on the Nintendo DS is yet another subpar Spider-man game on this poor handheld console. Will they ever get it right? Will we finally get a good Spider-man game on the DS? Only god knows...
 4.5 out of 10

Review #424: Spider-man 3(Playstation 3)

 Celebrating Spider-man's jump into HD with QTEs!

 When the time came to bring Spider-man into the HD world Activision got Treyarch to handle the new game. Ever since they created Spider-man 2, they could do no wrong, and now with the added horsepower of the PS3 and X360, surely the new Spider-man game would be a thing of beauty. It's about as pretty as its graphics.... which is not good.

 You get the gist by now, Spider-man movie tie in games have always been a loose retelling of the movie's plot with added micro-plots, and this is no exception. It's also quite different from the PS2 version, the only common threads being the Lizard/Kraven story, the Mad Bomber story and the movie's main story, but even then those missions play out very differently, sometimes with entirely different outcomes. It's a very different game, and even the way they handled certain scenes from the movie differ. For the first time ever, and about damn time too, story progression is not locked behind busywork, and it's pretty lengthy to boot, about 6 hours give or take, more if you indulge in side-activities.

 As with previous Spider-man games, this is an open-world action game, and just as before, between missions you can partake in side-heroics, although now it offers more involved side-activities, some which even take you inside buildings. Thanks to the power of the new consoles, the world around Spider-man is bigger than ever, he ends up feeling as tiny as a spider surrounded by giant buildings. As ugly as the character models are, the city itself is quite pretty to traverse, even if it's not graphically impressive, the scale makes up for that.

 Swinging has always been the best part about Spider-man games, and this Spider-man 3 is no exception. While it doesn't feel as fast as before, the added sense of scale makes it look almost as gratifying as it is to time your button presses. I can't say that it's the best version of the swinging, since it's kinda hard to get on top of buildings without overshooting your jump and thanks to the inability to use the web-zip to climb it faster. The Sprint button is back in action, and it helps speed up Spider-man on foot or on web, depending on when you press the sprint button will change whether you swing faster or higher. Pretty neat.

 The combat has been entirely redone, with Spider-man being able to string weak and strong attacks together, as well as using his webs to pull or push enemies around. There's a new blue gauge that recharges automatically when not in use, and it governs Spider-reflex, which makes everything but Spidey move slowly, and it also allows Spider-man to automatically dodge most attacks. Landing hits will also recharge a round Spider-symbol, once full you can use special moves. The black suit is no longer a power-up, but a shift that Spider-man undergoes midway through the game that can't be reversed unless the story demands it. Black Spider-man has a few different attacks, and the gauge used for special attacks is now spent to enter rage mode: Enhanced strength and the enemies can't block your attacks anymore.

 Look, Spider-man's combat has always been sloppy, and this one isn't any different. At times combat felt a bit too mashy for my taste, and bosses were pretty darn annoying, mostly because they were damage sponges and had way too many invulnerability frames. Mind you, they aren't hard per say, just boring. But what really soured the entire experience for me were the Quick Time Events. The game abuses them. and every boss must be defeated through one. Miss a button input and you take damage and they get back up again with a little health refilled. Because it's always fun having to redo the entire Kingpin fight again because I missed an input and it cost me a retry. The last two bosses, Sandman and Venom, which should've been exciting, turned into the most excruciating part of the game. They aren't even hard, but the QTEs had a short window of time which had me redoing the QTE scenes way too many times for my liking.

 The upgrade system was also very weird. You have to complete missions and sometimes the game will give you something new. Side-activities too, since that's how I got a Spider-reflex upgrade. Swinging is upgraded by swinging a lot, which actually made sense. It's a weird upgrade system, and not one that I liked, since I wanted to get the health upgrades but I didn't know how. A few missions were rather bland too, mostly the Daily Bugle ones.

 I wish I could rate Spider-man 3 higher. Whenever I wasn't doing story missions, I was having a blast. Stopping crime on the streets? Fun. Swinging around from place to place? Fun. Fighting bosses? Made me want to turn the game off. A few weird design choices and lame missions put me off as well. Spider-man 3 on the PS3 isn't a total blunder, but there're so many other, better Spider-man games that do what this one does just as well or even better, without the QTE nonsense.
 5.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Spider-man - Friend or Foe(DS)

 Also known as one last attempt to cash in on the movie's success.

 If there's something that Activision loves it's money, and thus we got Friend or Foe. There was no Spider-man movie to cash in on the year of its release, so they went with the movie's art direction and quickly whipped out a small beat'em up game for all consoles(But PS3 because I don't know). So I'll start with the handheld version.

 Too much text. Actually, too much voice work. I wanted to give the story a chance, the first cutscene was really good, but it quickly went downhill with barely animated stills and then... portraits and voiced dialogue. Tons of poorly written exposition dialogue that you can't skip, it bored me so much that I skipped it.

 I just finished the first level, featuring Black Cat, and it was fairly serviceable. I don't have any particular qualms with it, even the touch-screen mini-games were non-intrusive for once in Spider-man's run on the DS. The gameplay is your run-of-the-mill beat'em up featuring simple 3-hit combos, no depth but a lot of mashing. But yeah, it's alright, nothing special, but not as terrible as Spidey's previous outings on the console.

Now Playing: Spider-man 3(Playstation 3)

 Hmmm...

 God, this game is ugly. It's also... interesting, because it's really similar to the Playstation 2 version, but also very different. Both games start exactly the same, as a matter of fact the PS2 version borrows the cutscenes from this one, on the same burning building. And then you're introduced to weak and heavy attacks, and while the animations and 'feel' for the attacks are different, it's also very samey, until dodging is introduced, which works very differently. Then on, you are introduced to a very similar, yet very different set of mechanics.

 I can't say yet which swinging and combat mechanics I like the best yet. I played 12 out of the 42 missions and I'm liking the game. It has the same 'sloppy' feeling Spider-man 2 had, which is rather nostalgic, even though I know the game should feel tighter. And man, are the graphics ugly! At least the new HD graphics do wonder for the city, it looks grander, and Spidey smaller than ever before, and buildings come in all sorts of shapes and colors, a stark contrast to Spider-man 3 on the PS2.

 It's good. It's a fun game, and they managed to make swinging feel fresh thanks to the tweaks and the splendor of the new HD coat of paint which makes the city bigger and better than ever before.

Review #423: Spider-man 3(Playstation 2)

 The last time the PS2 will scrape the skies of New York.

 Welcome to the final free-roaming Spider-man game on the Playstation 2, often derided as the worst on the console... it's not as bad as you've been led to believe. Shortcomings are in no short supply, but the brunt of the game works pretty well and is pretty fun.

 Borrowing the plot from the movie of the same name as the over-arching story, the game fits in a few new subplots involving the Lizard, Kraven, Morbius and a very different version of Shriek. It's a rather poor retelling of an already bland plot, but it does do a few things, dare I say, better than the movie, not that that's very hard to do, all things considered. The game should last about 3 hours, more if you indulge in the two collectathons, one which unlocks nothings and another that lets you use the Black Suit with no penalty... although you unlock this by finishing the story, so what's it's basically useless.

 As with every console Spider-man game since Spider-man 2, there're two main components to the game: Swinging and combat. Swinging has been changed again, and it feels more akin to Ultimate Spider-man, which should be a good thing, but feels heavier and slower. Web-zips won't bring you as far or as high, and it's hard to pinpoint why, but I think it has to do with the added weight, but swinging doesn't flow quite as well. To make up for the slowness, there's a pretty cool zoom-out effect when boosting through your swings, which looks kinda cool. It doesn't help that New York feels lifeless, maybe Ultimate Spider-man 2 spoiled me, but there's a glaring lack of color, even Spider-man 2 had vibrant billboards adding life to the world. It's still undeniably fun to swing around, but I also feel like it's the weakest swinging we've had so far.

 On the other hand, combat's probably the best it's ever been. There're weak and strong attacks that can be comboed together, you can shoot web to divert foes, yank away their shields or throw them around. There're new, fun mechanics like vaulting over enemies and even attack them as you vault over them. The dodge button is back, and there's a new Adrenaline gauge that allows you to use devastating special moves. Spidey has regenerating health as well, up to a certain threshold, by avoiding damage for a while. That said, a few times, even though the targeting-reticule was over the enemy I wanted to attack, Spidey would shoot his web towards a different enemy, and it can get frustrating when trying to fight the more squirmy enemies that need to be distracted with webs to their eyes.

 The Black suit is the biggest new addition, by tapping any direction on the control pad you can put on the black suit for added strength and extended health bar. That said, use it for too long and you die, so you need to take it off, by partaking in a QTE(Don't worry, enemies will ignore you while you grapple with it!), and then there's a Cooldown period before you can wear it again. Did I mention QTEs? The game is rife with them! I will grant it that they are relatively lenient so they are not as bad as they could be, but I hate QTEs with a passion, so I won't forgive it. Fighting enemies and clearing missions will earn you XP which you can then spend on new moves, more health, or more speed. I liked that, it makes doing side activities worth it, and it's always fun to unlock new moves this way.

 

 Side Activities work a little bit different this time around. They are still the same ol' same ol' 'beat a bunch of baddies', 'take this victim to a hospoital' affair, and while the occasional side-mission will pop-up every now and then, you are now encouraged to 'talk to a contact' in order to enter a 3-side-mission burst, with loading screens between each one. Oh, loading screens, loading screens everywhere. Fulfilling a side-mission will force an entire-reload of the game, with you respawned somewhere nearby. Get used to loading screens. And, in the game's defense, this game is a bit more lenient with the 'gating story missions behind busywork' mindset that has plagues the series, only twice was I forced to do side-activities, albeit it amounted to about 6 of these 'contact' sub-missions, for a total of 18 side-activities. Much less than previous games!

 Wrapping all up, it bears mentioning that the game felt quite... buggy. At least three times did I see the 'Mission Failed' pop-up, even though I had cleared the mission and the game counted it as clear. After one mission, Spider-man held om to the guitar I had just dropped off with its owner, and in one of those three 'Mission Failed' pop-ups, I got the cut-scene, got the reward and... got a black screen. Quitting the mission didn't help, retrying didn't help, loading a different save file didn't help, I actually had to restart the PS2. Fun times.

 Flawed? Yes. Ugly? Hideous. But it's also pretty fun. I will concede that among free-roaming Spider-man games, this is the weakest one so far, but I had fun with it, and it got a lot of stuff right. With a little more polishing, it could've been the best one yet.

 6.0 of 10

Now Playing: Spider-man 3(Playstation 2)

 Where's the bad game?

 I came in with low expectations, I came in waiting to be disappointed since I had heard that this game was flat-out terrible on the PS2... but I just spent two hours stuck to the TV playing this game, having a blast.

 First, the bad. It's ugly, like really ugly, and Ultimate Spider-man may have spoiled me, but the city feels devoid of life and color. Also, QTEs, QTEs everywhere. Swinging through the city is still fun, but it's undeniably slower, at least they add a zoom-out effect to make up for that, which looks kinda cool-ish and sometimes makes you forget that you're swinging slower than before. And then we've loading screens, loading screens galore. And just as I was about to write that 'finally, they don't gate out story content behind busywork'... they did. But I think it feels more lenient than before.

 As for the good? It's still free roaming Spider-man. Combat is better than ever, I love unlocking new moves or upgrades through experience points and having dodging back. The new additions are fantastic, vaulting over enemies and special moves, not to mention the Black Suit and getting more life and attack power.

 Basically, I don't think it's quite as good as Ultimate, but damn if it isn't just as good as Spider-man 2. Tobey McGuire and the rest of the cast perform much better as well

Review #422: Spider-man 3(DS)

 Fresh new duds, stinky new control scheme.

 They just couldn't get it right on the DS with the arachnid hero, now could they? Spider-man 3 is another complete overhaul of what came before it, trading the comfort, functionality and precision of buttons for a misguided, cumbersome and clunky touch-based interface. It's not the only game that tried to implement this functionality, but it's easily one of the games that got it the worst.

 The game follows the plot from the movie of the same name, somewhat, while adding snippets from the micro-plots added in the console game. It's badly told, and to add insult to injury, they went with these ugly, ugly cut-scenes styled after newspaper pictures. Minimalist and poor animation coupled with limited color palettes make for some hideous and misguided story-telling.

 The game is a 2-D sidescroller action game structured in missions. Before each mission you are free to explore a somewhat open-ended New York, participate in races or attempt to lower the 'crime rate' by doing random 'side objectives', mostly consisting of beating up miscreants. It's a neat way of emulating the open-world console games. There's also fast-travel between areas, a shop accessed by pausing the game in which you can buy new moves for Spidey and even hidden collectibles worth money peppered through each area. You can tell that the developers tried and that they had a few good ideas in mind, and executed relatively well, if only...

 ...if only they didn't have to go for such a stupid control scheme. You use the control pad to move around, up jumps and diagonals make Spidey start swinging. You can gain altitude by holding the diagonal or maintain your current height by holding either left or right. If you are left handed, the XYAB buttons work exactly like the control pad. The swinging idea is good, on paper, but jumps wound up feeling very floaty and imprecise. It was hard to get my jumps just quite like I wanted them to. There's a few other awkward implementations, like when crawling through a duct, you can't just double tap down or up to change the surface on which Spidey is sticking to, and it's easy to get locked into wall-jumping since they tried to simplify control so much so as to work with only the directional pad.

 Swiping down on the touch pad makes Spidey dodge, swiping makes him attack and double tapping makes him shoot web. It works terribly. The game will often mess up and have you shooting web instead of attacking, or attacking instead of shooting web. Frequently Spider-man will also attack on the opposite direction that you wanted him to. Trying to introduce jumps and jump attacks into your repertoire will make Spider-man fumble his moves even harder. Most of the time I was left feeling frustrated since the touch-screen controls are so unreliable and imprecise. I can appreciate that the developers tried something new, but listen, if you can do something with buttons, and do it better... why go for the least precise, convenient or comfortable choice? Your hand may get cramps at times because of how you've got to hold the console. It's not like a Stylus-only scheme can't work, look at Ninja Gaiden, look at Call of Duty, but even then those games had a few issues that this game has too, only that Spider-man 3's got it worse and in more variety.

 There're a few other mechanics at play here, like the Black Suit. Landing attacks will make your rage build up, once filled Spider-man will wear the Symbiote costume for enhanced strength and a few new animations. Staying out of combat, or taking too much damage, will make the rage lower and eventually lose the suit until you get your rage back up again. Most stages have a 'threat' meter, which translates into you having to do your objectives fast unless you want to retry the entire stage again. Ah, yes, dying means having to do an entire mission again, a few which can be quite lengthy. While I never lost due to time, I did die quite a bunch of times since Spider-man wouldn't attack the way I wanted him to, because the touch-screen controls are so bad. Black Suit Spider-man also tends to slide all over the place, once, after doing a downward kick from the air, he got stuck in a kick frame and slid all over the stage. Pressing buttons did nothing and enemies couldn't hit him out of it, so I died due to the time limit. Fun.

 Mark another one under 'Bad Spider-man handheld games', god knows we've got quite a number under that label. If anything at least this game tried to do something different, and I'm sure their heart was in the right place, but the developers fumbled the execution. The best, and only, praise I can give this game is that I'm sure that it could've been relatively fun had it had button inputs.
 3.0 out of 10