Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (Wii) Review

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows for the Nintendo Wii is yet another poor attempt at creating an open-world game in the Spider-Man universe. The long list of problems includes an incoherent story, soulless characters, substandard controls, repetitive gameplay and plenty of unexplained technical glitches. The graphics and audio are also disappointing and do little to raise the games standard. The only real positive is that the game does features a lengthy quest, but the value of this is mitigated by the absence of quality anywhere else.

Instead of being based on one of the movies or a specific comic book storyline, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows presents a unique story based in the Spider-Man comic book world. Unfortunately, the story is rather bland, disjointed and incoherent. The characters are very wooden and fail to express even the simplest of emotions. Many of the characters act out-of-character and there is very little exploration of motivations or basic reasoning behind what is going on. One positive in the story is the ability to choose either a red (good) or black (evil) path for Spider-Man to follow. This will affect the way other characters react to Spider-Man and will result in different endings depending on the choices made by the player.

The controls are another of the games big problems, with a badly thought out combination of button presses and motions getting in the way of the fun. A number of actions have been mapped to not only Wii-remote motions, but also to nunchuck motions, causing loads of confusion about what motion does what action. This wouldnt be a problem if the motions were well thought out and easy to perform, but too many of the movements are too similar and this can often lead to unintended consequences. For example, when the player wishes to lock on to an enemy they must flick the nunchuck downwards, however flicking the nunchuck to the left or right will switch between the red and black suits. Too often this kind of movement is misinterpreted and causes problems during combat. Also, while there are plenty of special moves and combos to learn, none of them are necessary as a simple repetitive button mashing will allow the player to defeat any enemy in the game.

This leads to another of the games big problems, a complete lack of variety. Missions, enemies, attacks, situations and strategies are used over and over again until it becomes extremely tedious. This is surprising given that there is an extensive cast of characters and a huge city to explore. Since the player is generally confined to a single large stage for the entire game, open world games require a broad selection of mission types. Spider-Man: Web of Shadows delivers the same types of missions over and over and quickly becomes something of a chore.

The graphics are well below par for a game released this far into the Wiis lifecycle. The city is lifeless and boring, the buildings all look the same and the art direction is poor. The audio is even worse with painfully bad voice-acting, flat music and generic sound effects failing to raise the games atmosphere. There are also a number of technical glitches that negatively impact on the game, including unexplained pauses which may, or may not, be caused by loading; frame-rate drops; and poor motion control recognition. The game is also sparsely populated with very little going on in what it supposed to be New York City. Other open world style games have proven that a well populated world, full of colour, individuality and personality is something that is possible on the Wii. The fact that New York City, the city that never sleeps, feels like a ghost town points to poor programming and a stunted development cycle.

The game does feature plenty of content though, with branching story paths; lots of collectibles, suit upgrades, special moves to collect; and a reasonably lengthy quest. Fans of the game will find plenty to keep them entertained. Sadly, most of this extra content will never be accessed as the game is just not compelling enough to warrant extended play time.

Personal thoughts

I was extremely disappointed in Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. Last generation Spider-Man games proved that creating an open-world superhero game was both possible, and a good idea. Why current generation superhero games are so bad is beyond me.

The game doesnt control well, the graphics and sound are terrible, the gameplay is repetitive and simple, and the story is laughable. The only positive is that there is plenty of content in the package. I put positive in inverted commas because is it really a positive? Surely, instead of padding out the gameplay with unnecessary repetition, development time and money could have been better spent on actually developing a fun game or hiring some decent writers who could come up with an entertaining story?

Quantity has never been a good replacement for quality and I would rather a game with a quarter of the content, if that quarter could be guaranteed to at least be good. There really is no excuse for the game to be so bad. Spider-Man has been around for a very long time and I am sure that there was a comic book story arc that could have been adapted for the game instead of the lame story that has been presented here. The Wii itself has also been around for long enough now that developers should really be able to create a game that isnt technically inferior to last generation games. There is also no excuse for the poor graphics or art direction. With a wealth of comics, art and movies to draw influences from, it is very sad to see that so little effort has gone into giving the game a proper Spider-Man feel.

If you buy Spider-Man: Web of Shadows because you are a Spider-Man fan, you will be sorely disappointed in the poor use of the characters and lame story. If you buy it because you like open world games, you will be disappointed because the city is empty and lifeless. In the end there is not really any reason for anyone to buy this game, as doing so will only encourage more of the same poorly made and uninspired Spider-Man games to be developed.