After so many attempts at superhero games over the years with varying degrees of success, finally there is a game worthy of the star character. While Capcom’s Marvel vs. Capcom series of 2D side-scrolling fighters did an excellent job capturing some of the aspects of favorite comic book characters (Spider-Man included), no game has really been able to capture the essence of what it would be like to be a superhero: stopping bank robberies, rescuing hostages and running from misguided police forces. Until now. Spider-Man by Activision and Neversoft does all this, and is easily one of the best games I have ever played, period.

What makes the game so great is the complete interactivity of the environment. As Spider-Man, you can go anywhere, up walls, on ceilings, through tunnels, swinging over rooftops — anywhere. The camera tracks your movements extremely well, and the walls and objects will become opaque or transparent depending on your relationship to them. There were a few times when the camera didn’t keep up, or when I felt a little queasy as the camera tried to follow Spidey’s movements quickly, most noticeably when crawling through the steel girder buildings, but other then that you don’t need to worry about following along, you just need to concentrate on getting Spidey where he needs to be.

The story line is a collection of old Spider-Man plots, tied together loosely with a thread about Dr. Octopus doing something naughty. Spider-Man gets to go toe-to-toe with a lot of classic baddies, including Scorpion, Venom and Rhino. These fight scenes are by far the best parts of the game, and I would strongly recommend that Activision make a fighting fame in a 3D environment similar to how the Spider-Man game plays.

This is not to say the other parts of the game were lacking, however. The only level that made me frustrated was the second part of the Helicopter Chase level, where you had to scale a building as a helicopter fired missiles at you. The only way to get to the top of that really, really tall building was through trial and error: the missiles always hit in the same place, but you didn’t know where that would be until you were there, and by then it would be too late. It took me quite a few tries, and a few expletives, to make it to the top. The rest of that level is a lot of fun, however, racing across rooftops as the police chopper follows you, peppering the ground with machine gun fire and occasionally blowing up a building.

The web-swinging parts of the game are fantastic, though a little tricky to get the hang of. But once you do, jumping off the side of a building and catching yourself 15 stories later becomes quite exciting. Once again, the point of view is maintained excellently, though I still haven’t gotten used to blindly jumping off the side of a building.

Play control is similar to Dino Crisis and the later Resident Evils. This is definitely not a fighting game; there is a fair degree of puzzles, and even the bad guys take thinking to defeat. It helps if you are familiar with Spidey-lore. Spider-Man has a nice selection of moves to pull off, from the standard punch and kick to the impact web ball - essentially a medicine ball made of webbing that knocks the weaker bad guys off their feet. I would have liked to see a few more henchmen to Spidey-bitchslap, but I’m willing to take the trade of fewer bad guys for such great game play. And actually, there are certain levels where there are plenty of villains, but Spidey doesn’t have time to smack them around, because he’s busy with more important things. A nice alternative to the usual military mentality of "kill everything that moves" usually found in video games. Plus, some of the stuff Spider-Man says after knocking out cronies is pretty dang humorous, just like the Spidey-wit we’ve come to know in the comic books.

The cinematics are a little weak graphically; the lack of moving mouths annoys me, and the animation is a touch wooden. Also, the rendering of some of the characters, Peter Parker in particular, is pretty blocky. In a lot of ways, the cutscenes were reminiscent of some of the first games to use 3D rendered cinematics, and surely could have been done better. But this is made up for by even more superhero cameos, like Black Cat, Human Torch (who looked really, really cool) and Daredevil. The voices are superb, and it’s great to have Stan Lee narrating. While younger gamers might not appreciate that, anyone who is over 20 will understand. Right, true believers?

The music score is not attention grabbing, but in a game like this, it shouldn’t be. There were some moments, like when you had to deal with a bomb at the end of the first level, when the soundtrack definitely lent itself to the overall atmosphere.

The game is just a hair on the easy side; expert gamers will definitely want to play on the Hard level, but its not too easy. The continues are unlimited, but you have to start at certain points, some of which are a little far apart. There is a Kid mode which not only provides easier game play, but also an easier controller configuration, which I thought was very cool.

Overall, this game is fantastic. Spider-Man takes the third-person shooter format and all the strengths that go along with that popular style of games and adds to it one of modern society’s favorite characters. The combined result is terrific, and Spider-Man should set the standard for comic book based video games for a while. I can’t wait to see what they do for a follow up. My money’s on Wolverine.