Ultimate Spider-Man
|
| Ultimate Spider-Man

There's no shortage of Spider-Man around at the moment. He's sticking himself everywhere: in cinemas; on seemingly every type of fast food known to man; and in a game that's out on every console.

But mobile gamers needn't feel left out, because there's an Ultimate Venom vs Spider-Man battler here, too. One that not only lets you play as the sickly good Spidey, but also as tentacley, people-munching extraterrestrial parasite Venom himself.

Initially looking like a standard 2D side-scrolling platformer, Ultimate Spider-Man is actually more of a game of cat-and-mouse. Playing as Spidey, your goal in each of the 15 levels is to find and stop Venom from killing civilians. This objective is failed when the number of civilians on the level falls below five.

Winning is easy initially, when the streets are populated with 11 people, but as you progress the difficulty level is cranked up by starting you off with a decreasing population level.

Levels are vast, with multiple screens to explore. The locations are quite drab – featuring a lot of office blocks and building sites – but it's a challenge to navigate your way through them all, finding doorways and little gaps in ceilings. Tracking down Venom is quite simple when you're Spider-Man, mind – a touch of the old Spidey-sense pans the camera to where he's lurking, usually up to no good (even though we're pretty sure Venom is meant to be undetectable by Spidey-sense in Spider-Man lore).

You get around using jumps and wall climbs. Spidey will stick to any surface, of course, and climb vertically as well as crawl upside-down along ceilings. He can also spin webs to swing across gaps and yank himself quickly in one direction.

Once face-to-face with Venom, the sticky yarn also comes in handy for taking him down – a well-aimed shot ties enemies in a temporary knot, giving Spidey time to get in some health-depleting punches and kicks.

Stopping Venom's one-parasite killing spree is made a little bit tougher by the Spidey-loathing thugs scattered around a level. Most are easily avoided by leaping onto a ceiling, but the ones packing guns are capable of shooting down a fair bit of your health, which unfortunately can't be topped back up again.

This cat-and-mouse superhero/villain battle isn't bad to play, but it is a bit random. Sometimes, Venom is very easy to find and kill, sometimes he's right on the other side of a level and has already munched his way through most of Manhattan by the time you catch a glimpse of him.

The fighting, too, is quite fiddly and often descends into repeatedly mashing the attack button in the hope of inflicting more damage than Venom manages. While you might expect Spider-Man – the star of the game and the owner of some impressive web-slinging abilities, after all – to be fluidly acrobatic and as tough as a Black Widow, it's actually Venom who turns out to be the more responsive and fun to play character.

When you're Venom, the objectives of the game's 15 levels are reversed. Instead of webs, Venom has his tentacles, which are used to stick to walls and drag unsuspecting people into his clutches.

Strangely, the city thugs are just as keen to take you down as Venom as they are when you're Spider-Man, although as Venom you also have the cops on your case. Being able to replenish health helps, though. You also have a sensor to help find Spider-Man and, once you do, it's a near identical task of taking him down, albeit using different moves.

Instead of tying enemies up, Venom can smack them with his tentacles, and he also has a powerful jumping attack. Jumping is much more intuitive, as the alien parasite as he has a chargeable jump with a helpful meter that comes up on the screen. While jumping around as Spidey can be frustrating thanks to not knowing how far he'll jump and the fact he sticks to anything in his path, it's a far easier and enjoyable activity with the supervillain.

Getting to control both characters offers two slightly different ways of playing, which fans should appreciate. And the game does look pretty, with big levels to leap around. The superhero-esque theme tune playing throughout is fitting, although it's a shame there are no punching or web slinging sound effects to make you feel like you're really connecting with the environment.

Ultimately though, the game doesn't really excel in many ways. Combat is inaccurate, it's too easy to get stuck when you're fighting, and the levels are repetitive. Ultimate Spider-Man is good for a quick blast of superhero action, but the developer doesn't seem to have taken on the 'great responsibility' of making a really outstanding Spidey game.

Ultimate Spider-Man

For superhero web-slinging and bad guy rampaging, this isn't bad. But it doesn't deliver the really fluid Spider-Man we hoped for
Score
Kath Brice
Kath Brice
Kath gave up a job working with animals five years ago to join the world of video game journalism, which now sees her running our DS section. With so many male work colleagues, many have asked if she notices any difference.