by Mike Smith
Let's face it: the Wii's not exactly overflowing with great games. Triple-A releases aside, the cross-platform games that come to Nintendo's flagship machine are often rushed, ugly and poorly thought out. You could be forgiven for assuming the Wii version of the latest Spider-Man game would be likewise.
But this time, you'd be wrong.
Developer Treyarch is taking the Wii version seriously, and, far from watering down the game to fit onto Nintendo's little white box, it's aiming to keep nearly all the features from the other versions of the game intact and pair them with Wii-optimized controls.
It's a tough job -- especially when the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions use every button on the controller and show off enough high-definition special effects to shame Michael Bay -- but after an hour or so with an almost-finished copy of the Wii version, our Spidey-sense is telling us Treyarch could well be on course to succeed.
Think you wave the Wiimote and nunchuck around in each hand, thrusting them around and hammering buttons to sling webs just like Spidey? Uh, wrong again. Simply nudge the remote up or down to swing, and tap the B button to let go of the web. No, you won't be leaping around your front room or scaring your pets with your gesturing, but you'll find it much more intuitive than most Wii control methods, and it's certainly much easier to learn. If anything, it's more of a pick-up-and-play game than the 360 or PS3 versions manage to be.
By this point, any Wii fan should be comfortable with the fact that Wii games just don't look as good as those on the PS3 or 360. But you'll be surprised by quite how much visual fidelity Treyarch has managed to squeeze out of what's often called an underpowered hardware platform. Run it next to the 360 version, and although it's certainly muddier, blurrier and lacking in pizzazz, it boasts just as many enemies on screen and nearly as many special effects.
Case in point: at one point, we were scaling a skyscraper, having just fought off a whole host of symbiote-suited baddies. As we reached the top, a horde of perhaps 30 possessed cityfolk emerged and made a bee-line for Spidey. Having to keep track of all those enemies - not to mention draw the impressive view from the top of the building - would be beyond most Wii titles, but Web of Shadows proved more than equal to the challenge, delivering a smooth, stress-free performance.
Wish we could say the same for our Spidey-skills. Yes, we died, but it was hardly the game's fault, and even as we watched our health ebb away we couldn't help but be impressed at Treyarch's skills. Far from a quick-and-dirty port, Web of Shadows is shaping up to be one of the Wii's must-have titles for this holiday season.
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Posted: 8 Oct 2008
