When we got invited to Activision’s press event the only game I knew anything about was Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. Even then I had only seen a few videos, but it looked awesome. I told Edgar a little bit about what I knew of the game and we then watched a few vids to get up to speed. None of it prepared us for the awesomeness that is the new Spider-Man games. The console versions are probably the most entertaining and engaging Spider-Man games ever, making you really feel like a wall-crawling super-powered hero while the DS game delves into the Metroidvania realm and comes out reminding me of some of my favorite sidescrollers ever. Check out our Wii and DS impressions after the jump.

Edgar’s Impressions of Spider-Man: Web of Shadows for Wii
I’ll admit, I was scared to see Spider-Man on the Wii. I was having flashbacks of Spider Man 3’s horrible textures and extreme Superman fog. But Treyarch did an amazing job on this one, built from the ground up for the Wii and not a port of the PS2 version. You can see the differences. No more fog, amazing city geometry, the ability to destroy things like in the other console versions… it’s all there. The game on all consoles is great and there were no sacrifice made for the the Wii version, which is not only nice, but it makes me want to high-five the developer and say, “yeah! that’s how it’s done”!

The biggest addition in this game is fighting in the air. The air combat is so fluid that I thought I was playing a Tony Hawk game, chaining all my combos together and never hitting the ground. Shaba Games, who’s doing the 360 version, are the ones that came up with air combat system. They have wanted to do something like this for about 10 years. They wanted it to feel like playing an extreme sports game, only with combat. And it does.

You still have the option of switching between the black and red suit, but this time around it will affect the story. At certain points you’ll have to make some decisions, choosing either black or red, which will trigger different events, mostly cinematic but also enabling you to take on new quests and changing how the NPCs in the city see you. Since you can affect the story, this also means we’ll be getting multiple endings. I couldn’t get them to tell me how many of them though, bummer.

There’s a certain level of customization in the game too. Killing baddies gives you a small amount of experience and finishing quests will grant you even more. With the experience, you have the choice of learning new moves for either the black suit or the red suit. Being in the red suit will let you regenerate your health while swinging on your web. You’re also quicker than the black suit, but less strong. While you’re in the black suit, you regenerate your health by killing enemies, so the more you kill the more health you get back. The black suit is a lot stronger than the red suit but a little slower.

Further in the game you’ll be able to call in on some helpers, different heroes from the Marvel universe, to help you out. Depending if you’re going on the black path or the red one, you’ll have different characters to help you out. It’s a great addition to the game and the benefit of not having this tied into any movie. In fact, the developers were given free reign to come up with any story they wanted. The only disappointing part is the fact that there is no big push by Marvel or Activision for the game outside of the game itself. There is no comic book tie in. No animated shorts. Nothing. And it’s too bad because it’s ripe for it. Just wait until you see Wolverine taken over by the symbiote goo and you’re gonna go all fanboy geekfest. It’s awesome.

Keep your Spidey sense tuned for this one.

Nick’s Impressions of Spider-Man: Web of Shadows for DS:
While most of the focus of Activision’s Spidey event was on the console versions of the game, tucked away in the corner was something no one was expecting. A Metroidvania Spider-Man game. After playing it, it makes you wonder why no one has taken this approach with the webslinger before.

First off, I have to give developer Griptonite Games credit for the controls on the game. They looked at the game and evaluated it the correct way for a DS game. It’s what works best for the game, not what works best for the DS. And this turned out to be classic controls using the d-pad and buttons. It’s simple, intuitive and feels great. Yes, there are still the occasional mini-game type of events using the touch screen (Most notably when you die you are thrown into a little mini-game where you have to quickly drag bits of floating power back to Spider-Man. If feels vaguely reminiscent of reviving yourself in Punch-Out!! and it’s great.), but you won’t be playing and randomly have to pull your stylus out for no reason.

On the graphics front, this game looks amazing. It’s 2D gameplay with 3D environments. The environments look great, but most importantly, Spider-Man looks great (in both suits… more on that later). As opposed to the fairly realistic take on Spidey on the console games, here we get a much more animated version of our hero. It feels much more like the SNES days of wonderfully hand animated sprites. Except it’s in slick 3D. It’s fantastic and the graphics time perfectly with the controls, something a lot of developers just can’t seem to get right.

I only got to play the game for a short while, but it seems like this could be the best Spidey game since the SNES days. Sure, I enjoyed the console versions, but for me, the DS version was the shining star of the day. I wasn’t expecting much and was totally blown away. There is a lot of love in this game. And from what I played it looks like the level design is clever and definitely has a Metroid feel of exploration and unlocking new powers to access new places. And if you are wondering, the story is the same as the console versions. In fact, the DS version has a few Marvel characters in it that the console versions don’t (one being Nightcrawler). This is probably my most anticipated DS game at this moment.

Developer Q&A at IGN
Gameplay Video

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows Site