Spider-Man: Toxic City

Sometimes the youth of today just make me despair. Big on opinion but short on attention span, it seems that everyone is trying their hardest to cater for this most volatile of demographics.

Take Ultimate Spider-Man, for example. It’s a complete re-imagining of the classic Spider-Man universe that has been given a lamentable ‘modern’ spin in an effort to ensnare kiddies raised on Power Rangers and Limp Bizkit.

Still, ranting aside, the new series has proven to be incredibly popular and has done much to revive the previously ailing fortunes of the original comic. Naturally, it has also been accompanied by a raft of video game adaptations, which brings us neatly the Gameloft’s latest superhero epic - Spider-Man: Toxic City.

Nestled neatly in the Ultimate Spider-Man universe, the game is packed with colourful visuals, humorous dialogue and exaggerated brawling action.

Think along the lines of Capcom’s crusty coin-op classic Final Fight, but with a lead character who likes hanging around in empty bathtubs before being unceremoniously flushed down the plughole.

The objective behind this particular jaunt is to prevent the Green Goblin from transforming New York’s populace into genetically modified super-soldiers. To do this, Spider-Man must traverse several baddy-filled levels and take out the boss character that happens to be waiting at the end of each.

Naturally, everyone’s favourite neighbourhood web-slinger has a few nifty combat manoeuvres at his disposal. Not only can he pummel opponents with impressive multi-hit combos, but he’s also able to fire web-pellets in their direction and trap them with his sticky web-rope.

Sadly, regardless of the lead character’s offensive versatility Spider-Man: Toxic City fails to offer much in the way of deep, rewarding gameplay and as a result quickly degenerates into a rather repetitive button-masher.

While there are some neat bonus stages between missions that serve to break up the monotony, the general structure of the game is painfully dull and the basic nature of the fighting means that you’ll have exhausted all the available possibilities within minutes of firing the game up.

The game looks impressive, with bold and beefy sprites cavorting around the highly detailed stages thanks to some reasonably fluid animation, but when all’s said and done you’re basically just hammering the fire button as quickly as possible and hoping for the best.

There’s little skill involved as Spider-Man automatically homes in on the nearest enemy to unleash his combo, and if the distance is too great it’s sometimes just as effective to wrap your foe in web-fluid and pull them towards you for a hectic close-combat battering.

The only time that your patience is likely to be challenged is during the boss encounters. Combos will only get you so far as these powerful enemies have the ability to block attacks after a certain number of hits.

This encourages you to experiment with different tactics - such as attacking from the air - but ultimately they end up being a painfully tedious exercise in attrition. It’s almost impossible to come away from a boss battle unscathed.

It’s a shame that Spider-Man: Toxic City is so shallow and uninvolving because there’s always room in the world for more old-skool scrolling beat-‘em-ups, if you ask us. However, they need to have brains as well as brawn, and sadly Gameloft’s latest effort is dumb indeed.