"SPIDER-MAN 3" vs "WEB OF SHADOWS"

The are the boxes for the PC discs of the two Sandbox Spider-Man games with "Quick Time Events"For you who don't know, Activision ported the versions of the two games to PC from the current generation of home consoles; XBOX360 & PS3, that's why I placed the back of the boxes to show how similar they are to the back of the boxes of those consoles ports of the two games

SM3 PC most crucial minimum requirements for XP & 7:

• Pentium 4 2.8 MHz
• 256MB graphic card

SMWoS PC most crucial Minimum requirements for XP & 7:

• Core 2 Duo 2.13 MHz
• 512MB graphic cards

"Web of Shadows" was released only 17 months after SM3, and its requirements are far heavier, when "Resident Evil 5", "Devil May Cry 4", "Batman Arkham Asylum" are ported to PC with lesser requirements than SM3, and they were released in 2009. Big difference, huh? Guess that's why people generally say Activision games are badly ported to PC
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I read plenty of comments recommending people to play "Spider-Man Web of Shadows", considering it to be the best Spider-Man game released in a long time. I watched videos of this game before playing it and it looked really awesome.

When it comes to "Spider-Man 3" it comes the exact opposite way around, people insult it and bash it, calling it a waste of a game, the worst Spider-Man game ever. I watched videos of it before playing it, it seemed to be boring, something that really should be avoided, there is even a fan made manual showing SM3 to be a most disastrous experience

What do you think? Forget what you think, what's important is what I think, cause it is my blog, so here go my exact most fair most reasonable treatment ever for a review for both games. Just so you know; I'm a Spideyholic, I can tolerate a Spidey story no matter how bad it is, but I can still be fair in commenting, so here goes everything
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Spider-Man 3:
Loosely based on "Sam Raimi" poorly received finale for his Spider-Man movie series, only in movie plots and in the designs of some characters it follows the movie, and I'll talk since the start

It got bashed cause it opens with a story mission that has a tutorial, when none of "Ultimate Spider-Man" nor "Web of Shadows" got bashed for that -WTF?- it's not something to bash the game, not really, it has a nice tutorial, it shows you have more control of Spider-Man and better grasp on his fighting skills more than any previous game before it, for the first time it is NOT simply a button masher. The only flaw is that you can't do something unless it says you can do it, so you can't do reflexes when you press the reflex button unless it says you can use it, but the first few guys you need to fight are easily dodged without reflexes. After finishing the first mission and first part of the tutorial, the intro is rolled, you see the cast, get an idea of the story, and go forth

Swinging tutorial comes next, it starts with smooth normal basic swinging lesson, how to rise and speed boost, and how to pick the side you swing on, no big deal, good part, with a nice soundtrack

After it you get the map tutorial, it shows how to select the next mission, a.k.a shows you what mission comes first and what comes later, for a comic geek like me it did very good, and it allows you to check the various missions you can choose from, not restricted to the linear story where you have to finish one mission to head to the next, therefore you can leave a mission if it felt hard and complete it later after you complete other easier missions

Story missions: Five movie missions, 3 of them marked with the movie spider, and two are rides, one is a scare ride and the other is a thrill ride, very good fun replacement for what there is in the movie, without leaving a gap in the story. Thirty Seven more missions are there, one of them is the first one with the tutorial, it is fortunate that only less than quarter of all the story missions have the symbiote in them, cause there were too many symbiote centered Spidey games, including the one that came after this one, made me quite sick of symbiotes. Story missions are well written, they tried to take a great a detour as possible from the movie way, they did good (the movie was very well done by the way, I prefer "The Dark Knight", but this one was done 10 folds better, no WTF moments cause they make no sense, alien influence was funny, not badly written, but I'm not here to review the movie). Some subplots from previous games are explained, others that were introduced here will unfortunately remain unresolved cause they were expecting more of Raimi & Maguire Spidey movies, which are never to come thanks to the reboot

In stories and out of stories, this game has the biggest number of things to do in a Spider-Man game, you not only fight and swing, you can use Spidey science knowledge and intelligence in defusing bombs (a guy who amazed two of the worlds eight smartest men with two of his creations, and one creation amazed another genius, you expect a guy like that to not be able to defuse bombs? Give me a break)and defusing bombs is smooth and very easily done, though in the hard ones you need to be sharp & quick. Give "Mary Jane" some quality time like he did in "Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21", and it comes with a great soundtrack, you can do stealth, take some cameras to prove you're not a menace, take photos, collect a cure to help Connors (the stuff behind how Lizard men were around gets explained, unlike the PS2 version). Also outside of the story missions there are trick races and skydive missions, they are fun applications of the various capabilities and works of Spider-Man

Motion:
-Reflexes are great to dodge bullets and other stuff, just don't depend on it too much, some foes just shoot too much you can't dodge all even with your reflexes fully upgraded, so this is something you should really lower your level of dependency on them.
-Combat is smooth and amazing, you can attack in the air, not directed like that in WoS, but you still follow close targets. Boss combats take too long in comparison to fighting them with the "Black Suit", but they still finish fast enough, the more experienced you are, the faster you finish them, but they don't finish any less slower than a fight in "Ultimate Spider-Man"
-This is the first game to allow swinging from two lines at once, swinging is fun and relaxing, nothing stiff
-Poleswing, wallsprint, web yoyo, truly amazing feats, but they are upgrades, except for the poleswing
-Moving from bottom to top, smooth
-Going indoors is great, you can choose to go indoors to some buildings, and you can free roam in the subway, and go to "Roosevelt Island" anytime you choose, you can swim there.
-The first sandbox Spider-Man game to allow you to go to missions without being required to do side quests first

Upgrades you unlock before unlocking the "Black Suited Spider-Man" are not unlockable for the black suit if you finish Venom fight and left some of the story missions with upgrades for after the "Grand Finale", so don't go cheap on them

Of course there are the things they could do better to make the game better:
*Not being pulled by the hammer girl, but to be fair, this annoys people when "Black Cat" -an individual with no superpowers- can beat Spider-Man and that is fun (same goes for Batman beating Superman, it pleases Batfans prefering Batso to Supes)
*Thugs going behind walls you can't go behind. Don't worry, it doesn't reoccur very often, but it does happen more than any other glitch
*Fill the special bar of the normal suit with the press of a button like you can do for the black suit
*Have an option in the Extras to select the mission you would like to do, showing all the story missions in the correct order they happen with, and you can choose one of the side plots after you get through with it, but that is a different option in the "Extras Menu"

Game as I rate it as I think it deserves: 9.5/10
Best Spider-Man game ever made, truest to the core of the character and his mythos, it does what Spider-Man always does to me, it does it better than any other Spider-Man game, it places a wide smile on my face. I finished this game more than any other video game, I finished it over 20 times within the two years I played it in, it applied plenty of things I hoped to have in a Spidey game (though I prefer 4 "Resident Evil" games to it, and RE4 is my all time favorite game)

Professionally worthy rating: 8.75/10
The game has some annoying glitches, scarce, but annoying, it also has funny glitches. The music is great, action is great, Spidey is a solo act, like he is in the comics. Spider-Man is quippy and funny enough, Toby does a better job in the games than he does in the movies. Least repetitive Spider-Man game.
Camera can stick behind you back if you're back is stuck to a wall, so all you will see is Spidey's back
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Spider-Man Web of Shadows:
The trailers showed it to be symbiote centric, and it is indeed, at least 60% of the game is symbiote centric

Story: Platform story, back to the linear way, not choosing one of several scattered missions, but you can choose a path that will decide a different outcome in the game at certain points, it (as I heard) allows you to open four endings. No extra activities available, so no activities you are required to perform to perform missions, at least not like the two Sandbox games before Treyarch's SM3

Motion: Between missions you can free roam in Manhattan (only), can't go indoors or stuff. It has swinging mechanics done better than SM3, so it does have more benefits. Charged jumping doesn't affect the height of your jump, so don't count on it. This is the first game you can do a back flip with Spider-Man, so yeah, benefits are quite more

Combat: First time for combat on the walls, makes some great moves, the more you upgrade the better. Attacks here are back to simple button masher, you press a button repeatedly to do attacks, not like in SM3 where you make a different combo with every change of sequence of button pressing between strong & quick attacks. Symbiote doesn't make fights much smoother, only a bit slightly more, boss fights take much more time than they do in previous games, cause the boss health bar is 3 times the size of your health bar, and your attack takes only one small line in the boss fight. "Black Cat" has no super powers and she can jump much farther than the guy with super human powers, faster, and swings around your neck, meaning you can't grab her. You get slightly hit, no matter how weak the enemy is, you fly back over 50 feet behind, and you can't anchor yourself before going such a distant, and if a wall is behind you, you can't see who attacks you unless in front of you, and you can't see Spidey (On that, so many claim this game is superior to its better SM3, they must be stupid fans)

Activities: You have spidey powers, but all you do with them is swing, fight and destroy. A game like this is a sensation and "Spider-Man 3" is a joke and toilet material? "Spider-Man Friend or Foe" is Extremely WeaK?

Rating (Both my personal view and the professional rating it deserves from my opinion): 4.5/10
What a mess, there are plenty of good points about this game, but the bad almost outweights the good. Enjoy the good in the game if you play it, don't just focus on the negative things about it
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Why did this big pile of crap beat "Spdier-Man 3"? Cause so many fans are stupid, too many fans are stupid, they hate a game for a few bad things emphasizing them, and love another considering it far superior when one of the more superior things in it are the sucky points. Just add great swinging mechanics and great combat, that's all the fans want, they don't want anything really good, not good story, not good activities, just stupid bland violence with great graphics and amazing combat system though it's a button masher. Developers make an amazing game that truly puts all the greater aspects about a character and it becomes toilet material, just know how to use fans stupidity for your own benefit, well move Shaba & Treyarch on thes pile of crap called "Web of Shadows", I don't blame you for doing what you did, I blame fans for being too stupid and love to be blind about somethings, then give nonsense good credits, even if it is just a souped up version of a game badly received by them for being kiddie like & repetitive