It seems as though I was in the minority with my favorable impression of Spider-Man: Friend or Foe. Fans of the series that were disappointed in design changes, which were largely geared towards younger players, will be happy to know that Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is a return to the traditional Treyarch form. The 2D-style brawler has given way back to the freeform, open city environment of the previous movie tie-in releases.
Web of Shadows is the second of the non-movie Spidey titles, opening it up for a new story. The alien symbiote from the third film and introduced in the comics during the 1980s returns, and it has taken its designs beyond Brock’s Venom and goes about infesting New York. The base story is about what you would expect, but the shoehorning of Wolverine, Cage, and Moon Knight stretches things a bit. Although there is a brief attempt at trying to address where the oodles of other heroes are, given the handful that do appear, but it kind of falls flat when you find out that no one else shows up to help save New York because Spider-Man doesn’t have their personal cell numbers. Yep. Still, the end result of the symbiote covering large swathes of the boroughs is definitely cool and worth the silly excuses.
The real meat of the game, as always, is websling about, stopping random muggings, and introducing a few aliens to the business end of a web ball. Web of Shadows isn’t just similar to the previous move tie-ins, but in many respects it’s much better. The combat system has evolved enough to where the innumerable fights are enjoyable, and a few battles approach the kind of epic encounter that one expects to find with such a license. Defeated enemies and accomplished tasks result in experience, which unlocks purchasable moves on combat trees for both the red and the black suit. Once the moves are unlocked, they can then be purchased with the accumulated points; these are often simple extensions on earlier moves, few more than an extra punch or two onto a combo, and are easy to attain throughout the course of the game, but they do add help to add some incentive to accomplish the more mundane tasks. The moves for both suits are largely similar, but the black suit focuses on brute strength and tentacles while the red suit focuses more on finesse and web lines – in line with what you would expect. The ability to switch between costumes at any time is cool, and their usage does have implications for the story.
The tasks required of Spider-Man are similar to those in previous titles, though you might be happy to know that city workers are less prone to falling off of structures this time. Instead, Spider-Man will focus on stopping gang violence, Kingpin’s forces, and various alien symbiotes that vary between mindless zombies to variations based on the Vulture and Electro. As diverse as the enemies might seem, they quickly become dull as task after task consist of nothing more than pummeling 10, 20, 50, 100 of them. That sort of repetition is the main knock against Web of Shadows.
As enjoyable as the combat is, and the swinging around New York remains, there is no sense of restraint throughout. Ignoring the optional side quests of pummeling hundreds of enemies, there are still numerous encounters and objectives that go on for way too long. Pacing is fairly poor in all instances, from beginning to end. Starting out, Cage teaches Spider-Man a few tricks – ignoring their bantering about Cage’s costume from the 1970s and why it’s taken him 30 some-odd years to bestow his wisdom – that must be successfully landed on him before proceeding. Right after one early tricky move that involves timing a hit after latching onto a target, Spider-Man has to then go and defeat over 40 snipers with that same move within a given time limit. Let that number sink in: 40. Shaba Games were at least mostly thoughtful about checkpoints, so slipping up on the 35th or so won’t restart you back at the beginning, but that is just a ridiculous amount to contend with. That sort of artificial padding is even present in boss battles, as a very long chase with Black Cat – oh, the dreaded chases – goes on for a good 20 minutes, as Spider-Man has to randomly stop, pummel her, whine about her being mean, and then chase her…over…and over…and over. The encounters and mission often start off strong, indeed the game itself starts off with Spider-Man walking around a massive battle, but they inevitably drag on to the point where you just don’t care what happens - you just want to move on.
Sprinkled about, however, are some strong positives. There is a great encounter with Wolverine where he tests Spider-Man with questions about their pasts, which severely shook my faith in my Spider-Man knowledge that I accumulated throughout my childhood. The fight itself was actually just as I would want, with enough space given for the appropriate amount of acrobatics and Wolverine just feisty enough to keep things challenging. The dialog can actually be good at times, despite the universally poor (re: annoying) voiceovers, with plenty of references to comic lore and the previous movies. The graphics, while prone to severe framerate drops and visible seams, are pretty good as well; in particular, the costumes actually looking like costumes is a great touch. The help given by heroes and villains, depending on the suit used and choices made, is also implement well, similar to the tag feature found in Friend or Foe and the Marvel vs. Capcom titles; you also get the impression that Moon Knight is clearly insane. The moral choices also add a twist, with key plot points revolving around Spider-Man being good and siding with virtue (red) or bad and siding with vice (black). The third act really brings the alien menace to the fore, looking great in the process, and the zombie-like symbiotes that infest the streets shuffle along just beg to be pummeled – dispatch a few hundred of those was certainly not a problem.
