I picked up Spider-Man 3 for 360 the other day and am really enjoying it. Swinging around New York is just as fun as I remember (much more fun than in Ultimate Spider-Man). The combat’s pretty fun (when the camera isn’t retarded), although it still irks me that a guy that can rip a bank vault door out of a wall can’t knock out a common thug with one hit. But that happens in the comics too. But if you look at the reviews, you’d think it wasn’t a very good game. And the main complaint seems to be that it didn’t advance enough past what was established in Spider-Man 2. Which I believe got some damn fine reviews.
I could see this being an issue if this was a franchise that updated yearly or something, but I don’t see the problem with just polishing up the game this time out. Madden makes incremental updates each year. Zelda hasn’t changed much since Ocarina of Time. Halo 2 was basically Halo 1 except not nearly as good. And yet they each score(d) well. This may just be because I’m a giant Spider-Man nerd and am trying to defend it, but I just can’t figure out why this game gets punished for updating what was by all accounts a fantastic game, when other series’ get a pass. I’d rather they stuck with a successful base than go out on a limb and basically break the game. Or maybe I’m just out of touch with today’s gamers.
That is a very good point. Many strongly hyped series seem to still get rated high, even if the formula doesn’t change much. Sure they will mention the lack of change, but it is still ranked high because it is a good quality game. Look at the Soul Calibur series. not much has changed since its leap from Soul Edge, yet it still gets high praise. One Spiderman game that follows the mantra of “if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it” then they rate it low. That’s a bummer. It makes you wonder if it would have ranked higher had it not been based off of a movie license.