Spider-Man 3 [X360]

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Treyarch's last Spider-Man game showed a lot of potential, so there's good reason to expect Spider-Man 3 will be just as good. Which it is, but not by much. Spider-Man 3 does next-gen web-slinging wonderfully, and pretty much everything else poorly.

The best part of this game is traveling around a lavish 3D Manhattan. The graphics are wonderful from on high, with traffic crammed into the streets, unique buildings setting neighborhoods apart, and some impressive draw distance tricks. The sense of speed is as good as it ever was as you fly though the air with ease, only minimally fussing with what to do with your webs.

For better or worse, the web-swinging is a lot easier than the last game. Spider-Man 2 required practice, rhythm, careful timing, and then more practice. If you hit a building, you lost all your momentum. It was difficult, but extremely gratifying once you mastered it. However, there's no such learning curve in Spider-Man 3. Your webs still have to attach to a building, so you won't be doing any high altitude web-swinging through Central Park. This is largely automated, leaving you to finesse your swinging with a speed boost and a jump button.

However, you can use the analog stick to direct your webs, which helps when you want to turn down a side street. You can also unlock new tricks like improved speed, dual webs, and mid-air moves. It's forgiving, but it's a rush for how well it captures to glee of web-swinging nearly as well as Sam Raimi's films.

This is also where you'll appreciate the variety of activities available in the game. A handy 3D map makes it easy to see what you can do and where you can do it. Refer to this at any time to drop a waypoint that will take you to the next story mission or side activity. Along the way, the game can create scripted crimes as you move around, and you can even make a point to traffic high-crime areas in search of these incidents. Finding these dynamic crimes are easily the high point of Spider-Man 3, and this is where Treyarch seems to best appreciate what it takes to make a good superhero game.