When I tell people that I review video games for a living, there are often some assumptions that come along with my job title. If people’s assumptions were right, I’d be a Warcraft-playin’ comic book-readin’ super-nerd. I’m not tring to say that I’m not a nerd, but I’m not as much into that type of stuff. I’ll read the occasional Vertigo book, but I’m not really into the superhero stuff (Flex Mentallo doesn’t count). I enjoy Superman and the American classics as much as the next guy, but when it comes to superhero games I see a game first and the license second. That’s the reason that I’m able to go into a Spiderman game the way that I do – with no preconceived notions about what to expect, and only hoping for an enjoyable game. Spiderman 3 comes close to being that fun and enjoyable game I longed for, but in the end it falls short of that goal.

This time around, everyone’s favorite web slinger is taking part in a free-roaming action game set in the Marvel universe’s version of Manhattan. The story closely integrates with that of the movie, but it’s definitely not verbatim. There are about 10 plot threads in the game that echo that of the movie, but there’s a bunch of new content here. Spidey can haul around the city swinging from buildings at pretty much any time for any reason, and that’s probably one of the best parts of this game. The swinging system was a definite design focus, and it shows. After a short learning curve, you’ll be freely swinging about from skyscrapers and tearing around just above the ground. It’s a good deal of fun to just put yourself in Spidey’s shoes and experience the degree of freedom that only powers like his can provide. Unfortunately, it gets significantly less great when you move on to the actual gameplay.

For the most part, Spider-Man 3 is a simple and straightforward beat-em-up. There are 3 buttons used for combat so it’s definitely not the bottom of the barrel button masher that it could have been, but the combos presented don’t do a great deal to enhance gameplay. There’s more of a focus on web-based combat that shows through nicely, but it just didn’t quite do it for us. Although you’ll unlock a good deal of moves eventually, the initial experience may not be compelling enough to make you want to play through enough to get there. Worse yet is the dodge and parry system, which feels clunky, forced, and just plain bad. You’ll get tired of being forced to use it for boss fights and the like, but it can be helpful at times. It’s cool to see Spidey go into slow-mo, but it’s not like that’s something we haven’t seen umpteen times in other games already.

Speaking of something we’ve seen a million times before, SM3 adds new context sensitive button sequences in cutscenes. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, think Resident Evil 4 or God of War – basically, you won’t be resting during cutscenes because you’ll be too busy trying to catch the button presses that never cease catching you off guard. It’s kind of interesting, but it’s just not done right here. The cues are too quick and too short, but worst of all the presses don’t always register. I know it’s easy to blame the controller, but when you play as many video games as I do, you can be certain you know whether or not you’re pressing the right button. This problem repeats itself in some of the beat-em-up missions as well, as sometimes you’ll need to press a button to activate a switch – the same button that makes Spidey punch or kick the guys next to him. The result is being stuck next to a switch and trying your hardest to do what the onscreen prompts tell you, but simply not being able to do so. It’s absolutely maddening, and probably the worst problem I faced with this game.

The problems don’t stop there, unfortunately. The camera seems really buggy at times. While, for the most part, it does an acceptable job of keeping the action onscreen, there’s no way to easily re-center your view and so things get confusing at times. Perhaps the worst example of this comes when you’re crawling along the walls of a building and trying to look around – Your view gets twitchy and inconsistent, and it ends up being pretty much equally as effective if you just guess where you’re going.

Oh, you can play as Black-Suited Spider-Man in this game too. To be honest, it didn’t do anything for me at all, but I know that I’ll get slammed if I don’t mention it in this review. Consider the uninspired black suit mechanic officially mentioned. By the way, you’ve got to play through the whole game before you’ll have the ability to switch back and forth at will. Otherwise, the game determines what you play and when. Sounds real “sandbox,” right?

The graphics don’t help the feeling you get from looking at the weird camera issues, either. Up close, the characters look nothing short of weird, but frequently your view is too far away to appreciate any detail that may be there. The models look markedly better than the city environments, and there’s often some pop-up and lag that surfaces when you’re swinging through midtown at high speed. The characters represent the actors who play them fairly well, but it’s nothing like what the PS3 or 360 is capable of. The best part of character design probably comes in the form of the villains that we don’t see in the movie. Scorpion, for example, looks damn cool, but that’s more of a personal taste issue than anything else.

The actors from the movie, with the exception of Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane, are voiced by their real life counterparts, and that’s the saving grace of the game’s audio. Bruce Campbell, eternal badass, reprises his role as narrator from the earlier Spider-Man games, and easily gives the best – although perhaps underused – performance. There’s nothing quite like Ash telling you that you suck at a game.

The rest of the actors turn in a decent, albeit dry and uninspired, performance. The dialog helps to drive the story, especially if you’re a fan of the movie, but the rest of the audio is practically nonexistent. It’s just far too evident that the necessary street sound effects like pedestrians and cars were simply completely overlooked. It’s just not OK to have a tranquil Manhattan. We understand that this is an imaginary reality, but come on…

Overall, Spider-Man 3 has a lot of potential that’s simply left untapped. It’s a fairly fun and mindless game if you can overlook all of the problems, but it just serves to once again prove the point that movie games shouldn’t be rushed in order to coincide with their theatrical release. Peter Parker is the latest victim of unrealistic deadlines, and it’s only the fans who will suffer for it; however this game certainly won’t be converting any new ones.