Celebrity Byte

What causes the black-suited Spider-Man?

It's an alien symbiote that has attached itself to Peter Parker. It feeds on one's darker and more negative characteristics and gains strength on it and digs its claws deeper into its host and enhances one's powers or gives somebody super powers. In my case, I became a stronger Spider-Man, my senses were heightened.

Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker in Columbia Pictures' Spider-Man 3 - 2007

Can you talk about the role that the Big Apple plays in the game?

Spider-Man 3 takes place in New York City. I don't know how well Spider-Man would exist without New York City as he swings from tall buildings. New York is the perfect city for him. It's all over the cit yin the subways, on the ground, in the sky, in buildings, out of buildings, in Central Park... I think it will be really exciting to play the game. It's a big world so you can go off on all of these side missions and then you can follow the story line. And you have the black-suited Spidey for a different experience.

When did you start playing video games and what are some of the early systems you enjoyed?

I have some vague memories of Pong, though I think I was pretty young and didn't play that for very long. I guess on Atari 2600 I played Pitfall, Frogger, and that type of stuff. I also did like arcade games and played Donkey Kong and Pac Man and games like that. I actually figured out, somebody showed me a pattern on Pac Man or a couple of patterns or whatever. I don't remember. But I remember playing for a tremendous amount of time and at one point I got to the seventh key -- I'm still not sure what that means, but I'm curious to look back and see how far that is in the game because I think I got really far in that game.

My favorite game of all time? Well, if Spider-Man 3 sells a lot of copies, it'll be this one!

What video game systems do you own today and what games are you generally playing?

I have the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. And I don't really play. [LAUGHS] I have all those platforms and I don't really have time to play many games. I mean, I tried some of the new games on the Wii which was fun... just to try that different type of game play. And mostly I play the third-person action-adventure games.

This shot from the Spider-Man 3 video game depicts a particularly heroic-looking Spidey in a cool, green glow.

I will play a sports game every now and then, but my days of staying up or my nights of staying up 'til 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning to get to the next level are probably behind me. But within the new era of video games I like Grand Theft Auto and Knights of the Old Republic and the Indiana Jones game, and one of the Bond games I liked. I think it was called Nightfire. Dead to Rights was good. I've played a whole bunch of 'em on the set of Spider-Man. And since then I haven't played as much, but every now and then I break out the controller.

What is your favorite video game of all time?

My favorite video game of all time? Well, if Spider-Man 3 sells a lot of copies, it'll be this one! But one that I'm not involved in, probably the Knights of the Old Republic games. Those two games I think are really great games.