Spider-Man 3

If you're up to it, this is certainly the best Spider-Man game that's graced a PC yet, even if it's also one of the toughest.

If you are you die-hard Spidey fan and must have this game, do yourself a favor and buy a gamepad. For all others, avoid getting caught in this web.

Spider-Man 3 certainly has its enjoyable moments, but camera issues and repetitive combat keep it from reaching its full potential.

The graphics miss a beat when it comes to the characters themselves. While Spider-man might look great, everyone from Peter down to J. Jonah Jameson looks painfully done.

By now, Spider-Man should be swinging for the fences when it comes to his own video games -- no other game character can even move like Spidey. None. But instead, he's leaps and bounds behind less superheroic fare, and he's fending off too many inner demons which, in this case, are castrated frame rates and multiple bugs choking up his web sights.

The good news for PC owners is that the PC version happens to be a port of the 360/PS3 version. The bad news is that this port doesn't quite cut it. The control scheme is totally unplayable unless you have a good dual-analog gamepad, and a number of performance problems frequently get in the way of the action.

If you cannot resist the temptation to web-swing through NYC, don't forget to bring a few tranquilizers to numb the inevitable pain from dealing with terrible frame rates, crappy camera and not exactly consistent single-player mission design.

A mess, but an interesting one. [July 2007, p.76]

The game has plenty of problems and if you have a gamepad controller that is the preferred control device, as the keyboard and mouse just don’t cut it.