The moment Activision started up the game on the debug Xbox 360, we realised this was quite early game code - indeed, it didn't yet have a front-end, and the game scenarios were chosen in text-based debug menus. From the in-game 3D map, Spider-Man can see what missions can be taken, and the first demonstration was of a scene where Spidey must save an old man from a group of heavily armored thugs. Much of the action from the previous two Spider-Man games (Spider-Man 2 and Ultimate Spider-Man) remained intact, with the hero able to travel around the play area by swinging on webs that you shoot and attach to undefined objects off the top of the screen. While it's somewhat lacking in logic (you can stop and look in the direction where a web was previously attached, and only see open blue sky), it's not exactly the game's problem, as both the comic books and the movie are similarly liberal with their definitions of 3D space.
Upon reaching the old man's rooftop garden, the flow of the action presented itself. You can auto-target a bad guy with a web, which grabs him and drags him up to your semi-suspended position, and then beat him up in a combo attack before sending him back down to earth. It works pretty well, allowing you to achieve goals quite some distance apart in a dynamic fashion. If you can't see an enemy (we had trouble with a pesky rocket launcher armed punk), you can flick on your 'spider sense', which works like heat vision (and looks like infa-red), allowing you to see them through buildings.
It wouldn't be next-gen without random shininess, would it?
If you didn't know already, the main plot of the film deals with the Venom symbiote, an alien creature that bonds with a host, giving them extra powers. Its first host is none other than Peter Parker, and between his and Venom's powers it creates a new, more organic, black suited Spider-Man who is extra powerful, but also extra violent. As such, you'll play a lot of the game in the black suit. It gives you extra speed, and a few more 'rage' like moves to perform.
After this, we were shown how the mission system works. The city is set up somewhat like a cross between a Tony Hawk level and a GTA city – there are set story missions, both in on-going threads as well as small crimes to stop at street level. The main story thread will follow the movie, but developer Treyarch has actually gone well beyond this, and added in a few bad guys not to be seen in the movie (we saw a scene with Scorpion) for a more branching storyline. As mentioned, you can view a 3D map at any time showing where you can progress, and aparrently it will show which parts of the city are controlled by different gangs. The way it zooms out is quite nice, and while it's a different set of assets, it matches up well with the initial camera move from your position. You can also just choose a point on the map to go to, and we did so, standing atop the highest building in New York, giving a great view of the city.
The black suit features heavily in both the movie and game.
We were also shown a couple of interactive cut-scenes. Apparently, Treyarch wanted to include a lot of story elements, but felt the whole 'gameplay/cut-scene/gameplay' structure breaks the atmosphere too much – so cue interactive cut-scenes, à la Resident Evil 4 and Shenmue. The first involved Peter (decked out in civvies) getting picked up by Harry on his new Green Goblin glider, and the action begins. Playing out exactly like the more involved interactive cut-scenes in Resident Evil 4 (such as the knife fight), a movie scene begins with Harry trying to punch, kick and crash Peter into walls , and you must perform button commands which flash up on the screen to get Peter to act out a scripted counter-move. Mess up, and Peter takes a hit to his energy, but the scene moves on. While it seems the 'losing' animations were a bit repetitive, the 'winning' moves were all different, and we were assured that they mostly come directly from scenes in the film, allowing you to re-live Sam Raimi's action direction with your controller. The scene was actually quite dramatic, with the city whizzing away around you as you fight with Harry, and some of the moves looked surprisingly good, due to their heavily scripted nature.
Another of these events featured a battle with Sandman, one of the film's new enemies, in a large subway tunnel. Produced more like a cut-scene then regular in-game graphics, with multiple camera angles, it also added some punch to the game's visuals. We were informed that in this case (and some others) you can actually lose the fight, which will send you off on a different story arc from a win. Hopefully this isn't too serious a storyline difference, or it will have the more anal retentive players among us [like you? -Ed] reaching for the reset button for fear of "missing" the "correct" story arc!
Graphically, it's hard to judge since the build we played obviously had some work still to be done. There was a bunch of pop-up evident in open areas, there were some slight framerate drops, and quite a few animations were glitchy. Yet even if these are fixed, it's not immediately the most 'next-gen' game visually. The character models have been given extra detail and look smoother and feature more polygons, and there are a few more effects, but the city basically looks decent PS2 level, which may have something to do with the game's cross platform development. One important factor is that the scope of the city is well-realised, but this was also true of last-gen's Ultimate Spider-Man, although it was a more stylised game. However, the detailed view from the top of a high building was impressive, and we'll have to reserve judgment on it graphically until we play a more complete build. One excellent feature is that all the movie actors have lent their voices to the game, even for the extensive script well beyond the movie's dialogue, which certainly helps the feeling of authenticity.
While we only played the Xbox 360 version, Spider-Man 3 will be coming to every major platform. Activision's record with the franchise is excellent, so just like the film, it will be one to look forward to for fans when it's finally released.
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