I just finished playing Ultimate Spiderman for the XBox. Asides from a few small things, it's really an enjoyable game. It has a very unique feel to it. The designers have tried to make a game that feels like you are actually playing a comic book, and I'd like to think they did pretty well.

One of the things they managed to do quite well was swinging by Spideys' webs. I've played a Spiderman game or two where I'd be above tallest skyscraper and still be able to swing by my webs. Not so in this one. There has to be a building nearby for Spiderman to swing from if you want to use his webs. Nice touch of realism, considering this is a game where you play a guy with 'Spider Sense'.

The other thing they did really, really well was the humor. In just about any Spiderman comic book, Spidey is usually cracking jokes while he's cracking down on crime. So when you're fighting villans like the Green Goblin, it's nice to hear Spidey quip "I'm goina hit the green off of you!". This is the first game that got me to laugh out loud in several different parts. For instance, in one part of the game, you're battling against the Green Goblin, who's throwing fireballs at you. Throughout the battle, Spidey is saying things like "I've already had a fireball for lunch!" and "Only you can prevent Spidey-fires". These, and many other lines, kept me laughing the whole time I was playing this game. "I've officialy run out of ways to say 'Ouch'". Classic.

Also fun is playing as the villanous Venom. Untill you beat the game, you only get to play as Venom during certian missions. But when you do, it's hella-fun. When you play as Venom, it's time to go GTA on the city. Throwing cars around, beating people up ( or eating them to regain health, what kind of message does that send to the kids? ), is always fun. It does take a little while to get used to the fact that you can't web-swing through the city, though. When you're playing as Venom, your primary mode of transportation is your 'super jump'. Where Spiderman uses his webs to get from place to place, Venom uses his legs to perform Superman-like jumps over buildings. In a game mostly about being the good guy, it's nice to induldge your evil side every now and then as Venom.

One thing that takes some getting used to is the fact that this game is based on the "Ultimate" series of comic books. In the Marvel universe, there is the old Spiderman. The one who was a photographer for the Daily Bugel, and the Green Goblin was Norman Osborn in a suit. In the Ultimate Spiderman series, Peter Parker is the webmaster for the Daily Bugel, and the Green Goblin is a giant green monster ( Norman Osborn after injecting himself with a bad batch of "Super Solider" chemicals ). For those of you who don't follow the newer comic books ( like me ) or are expecting a re-hash of the movies, it can come as a wee bit of a suprise. The tranistion is fairly easy to deal with, especially with Spidey cracking ( great ) jokes left, right, and centre.

Unfortunatly, this game has a few pitfalls. The first are the chase sequences. Mabey it's just me, but even on the easiest setting of the game, every chase scene took me about two or three tries to complete, minimum. A chase sequence is where you have to chase after a villian, like when you have to chase the Green Goblin as he leaps through downtown New York. Several times something will go wrong, and I'll quickly lose whomever I'm chasing. Kind of annoying. Mabey it's just me, but I doubt it. I think part of the problem is that the villians are just plain faster than poor old Spidey. For instance, when chasing Venom around in one of the later levels, I found myself memorizing his route so I could use shortcuts to follow him. To someone just looking to play this game and enjoy themselves, this would probably get annoying, fast.

The other thing that I found troublesome was that in the final battle, the developers resorted to the tried-and-true "make the game 10x harder" bit. If you've played any Final Fantasy or SNK game, you know what I'm talking about. If you've played any game where the you're doing fine up untill a boss completly hands you your arse, that's known as SNK Boss Syndrome. It's what happens where instead of the difficulty level steadily progressing, it flatlines untill you hit the last boss, and said last boss will beat you. Every time. No matter what.

That was the final boss fight in Ultimate Spiderman. In previous boss battles, if you hit a boss, even if he was in the middle of an attack, you'd stun him for a second. In the final boss battle, if the boss was in the middle of an attack, you'd get hurt when you attacked him. Really quite annoying, because the game gets you into this rhythm of how to approach boss fights, and then throws all of that away in the final boss fight. Asides from that final boss fight though, Ultimate Spiderman is really an enjoyable game.

As fun as it is though, I don't think Ultimate Spiderman is a game I'm going to play a second time through. You can only swing and jump through metropolitan New York so much before you get bored of it. A great fun game, but unfortunatly no replay value. If you have an XBox ( not sure if it's available for the PS2 ), I'd recomend taking this game for a spin. I'd say this game gets about seven stars out of ten.

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