At least it's not Iron Man.
At the beginning of last year, I said that Spider-Man 2 was one of my favorite PlayStation 2 game all the time. Think about that for another - all the time. Now I can not tell you that it is a better game than God of War, the shadow of the Colossus, or others of the hundreds of great games Sony's console brought us what I am saying is that Spider-Man 2 was one of my favorite games to play. Even after I had besteden Doc Ock, I could swing around New York and stop the crimes, collecting collectables, and take in the city that never sleeps. At the time, I thought the game had the perfect plan for what a superhero game should be, and I thought that Activision got it and would expand the idea when the next generation of systems came about.As Spider-Man 3 and Spider-Man: Friend or foe shown that not happened. Rather than tweak and extend a formula that was fun, but flawed, Activision let webhead slipping into worse and worse titles. Now, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is upon us and while it is not where near slap in the face, that Spider-Man: Friend or foe was, it has nothing on Spider-Man 2, either.
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Web of Shadows is a smart idea on paper. Rather than being based on a specific movie or comic arc, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows creates a unique story set in the comic world. During a fairly routine fight with Venom, the symbiote we all know and love fractures and a part of the jump to Spider-Man, once again providing him with the black suits, and all the forces and evilness that comes with it. The main part of goo sticks with Eddie Brock and Venom alliance, but it appears that the suit creates symbiote-spitting pods, which infects the civilians in New York. Quickly, the city is filled with people who are scaling buildings, kicking ass, and trying to eat Spidey's brain. S.H.I.E.L.D. shows up, quarantine the town, and basically freaks as all hell breaks loose.
Their mission is to take Spider-Man from prior infection, through the dark times, and that one of several conclusions. At times, this trip can be a pleasant trip. First off, swinging through the city is as fun as ever. Holding Right Trigger / Button 1 will throw a web and attach a building in any direction you point out, while pressing the web swing command casts a web-zip, allowing Spidey to shoot through the air in a solitary direction. You can change your swing to go faster, double jump in the air, running along the building sides, and not just about anything a spider can. All these swing mechanics and wall-crawling capers register with Web of Shadows' new combat system.
By pressing the Left Trigger / tab, you must activate the Spider-Man's spider-sense, a device that highlights enemies and locks on them. Once locked in, you can - in theory - leap into the air, swing from your sites, and so forth without fear of losing your husband. I found that sometimes lock-on would get rid of my goals for seemingly no reason, but when it works, it is actually super helpful, because the Web of Shadows is great at linking the attack in a long combo chains. Top right-hand corner, the game is actually tracking the number of hits you've pulled off in a row (do not be surprised to see it pushing 100 more than a few times), and those ginormous combos is thanks to this lock - on the system. See if there is a group of bad guys, I lock on to one of them, take him out, and leap into the air, to lock-on system should jump to the next villain, but if not, I can choose my next opponent .
That may not sound much, but Spider-Man's attacks can be pretty cool and devastating in Web of Shadows. As you play the game and pull off mandatory story missions and optional side tasks, such as defeating a certain number of enemies, you will be awarded experience points. These points can then be exchanged for a number of specific actions for each spider suit - 65 of the red and blues and 56 for the black duds - that they are scattered among ground, air, wall, web and other various attacks, and you can collect Spider Tokens throughout the game to upgrade your health bar and swing speed. Now most of these combat upgrades are just building on steps already established as an addition to a final STOMP to a punching combo, but some are pretty frickin 'cool and brutal. One of the combos have symbiote Spider-Man wail about the evil of his extremities a few times before unleashing a flurry of renewed symbiote whisk to whip, and throw opponents into the air before the stone to know them down and crush their bodies.
Still, if it sounds like I'm lauding the struggle, I think it is a good enough place as any to tell you why I love this Spider-Man title. See, as cool as these attacks can see, they are just mashing. When I needed to steam roll the bad guys, I just tapped XYXYXY. Sometimes it was the tendril attacks I have just described, and sometimes it was just Spider-Man wigging out and cleaning clocks. It did nothing for me because it got the job done, and there are many jobs to get done.
See Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is redundant and monotonous. Infuriatingly redundant and monotonous. In the beginning, Luke Cage will teach you a move, you have to do it in a number of times for him, send you out to make it a series of villains, and then you have to do it all over again when you come back to learn a second motion. The same "go do this" stuff happens when you meet Wolverine, Black Cat, Moon Knight, and everyone else in the game. Apparently, all mandatory mission has you helping X number SHIELD EVAC, stop X number of symbiotes, or attacking X number regardless. It will be old. Fast. Only to make it worse, you must attack these enemies in the same way again and again. You want to jump in the air, throw a web server, drag yourself to the Bad Guy, and trigger an attack. Sometimes, the bad guy will block incoming attacks, you'll jump to escape, and then start the web-based attack again. Still, that rarely happens, because every boss, enemy, and the mission is a push into this game with a standard difficulties.