Spider-Man 3 [DS]

One of the best things about this little handheld Spider-Man is its can-do attitude. It takes advantage of the unique points of the Nintendo DS with a simple fighting system, and it overcomes the system's limitations with a nicely done smoke-and-mirrors presentation of swinging freely through a 3D city.

What you're basically getting here is a 2D side-scrolling beat-'em-up in the tradition of Final Fight and Streets of Rage. Although the city is built using 3D graphics, you're strictly moving in 2D space, even though the background will twist and turn behind, effectively creating a sense of depth.

Bad guys will come at you from the left and right, and you punch, kick, and web them. Then you move on to the next set of bad guys. Varying your attack moves earns you more points, and if you do well enough, you'll earn a health power up to keep you going longer. The fighting is broken up by occasional rescues, boss battles, and bomb disarming, sometimes with a timer for added tension, if not aggravation.

However, this being a Spider-Man game, there's a hearty vertical element, easily accessible just by pushing up on the direction pad. Spider-Man leaps and then fires out his web, swinging on it until you release the direction pad. Press it again and he'll fire another web. The swinging is easy and gratifying. It's all in the left thumb and it's as simple as can be.

Meanwhile, your right hand is holding the stylus, using a simple gesture-based system to fight and perform web attacks. You start with a simple stroke for punching. Stroke towards the enemy to punch him, and away from him to throw him. Stroke up to send an enemy into the air, and stroke down to dodge. Tap-tapping the screen fires off your webs at the point you've tapped. Simple. There's even an indicator on the main screen to show you just what you're doing with your stylus, which helps you learn the moves and note where you're going wrong.

The gameplay is pretty challenging, and missions can be frustrating since there aren't any save points. If you die during a mission, you'll have to replay from the beginning. You can spend your points to unlock new moves, which will help you deal with increasingly difficult enemies who start to come at you with guns and grenades.

Although there's a storyline in the form of a sequence of missions, there's just enough non-linearity to keep it interesting. You can move around freely among different areas of the city, each its own 2D arena, fighting crime to earn extra points to unlock new moves. There are even hidden caches of upgrade points that reward a bit of exploration. Considering the strict 2D nature of this New York, the game does a great job of presenting a place full of nooks, crannies, tunnels, and platforms worth exploring. You can even play multiplayer battles locally with other friends who own the game.

The graphics are good enough given what the developers are trying to do. Visually, this Spider-Man can be a bit retro. As Spider-Man pulls himself higher, New York is drawn with coarse textures and simple polygons. But the little blobby Spider-Man animation is effective, and the whole thing does a great job of creating the sense of swinging freely through a city, even if it looks like the sort of city you would have visited on your Super NES.

But on the whole, this is a Spider-Man game worth having for its touchscreen fighting and simple web slinging. It does whatever a spider can.