Hey-o kiddies! My name’s Josh, folk’s ’round these parts call me Joshiebear. Haven’t made a post in awhile, and since I just finished binging off the latest comic book oriented video game titles, I thought I’d pop in to give you this Southern Californian’s well-earned opinions of them.
First up on the list is Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. I’ll open with a summarization. This game has it’s flaws, but I’d still call it the best Spidey game made to this date. Ok, let’s take a step back and I’ll give you the real review treatment.

Oh No! Manhattan has been taken over by symbiotes! Everyone’s….a symbiote! Ok it’s more complicated than that, but in Spider-Man: W.O.S., you play the titular and oh-so-marketable hero going through another symbiote-fueled romp around New York city. When I first heard of this game, I somewhat dismissed the thought of playing it. The last few Spidey games have been phoned in to say the least. What’s worth getting excited over in this one? Well for starters, there’s a Fables-esque ‘choose your own adventure’ approach where you can follow the path of the your standard Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, or the seedy Black Costumed (not to be confused with the cinematic Emo portrayal here,) brooding and Vigilante-esque Black Costumed Spidey.
Both to satisfy my curiosity and to report faithfully to you readers (that’s right, all 3 of you), I completed both versions of the game, which is to say, making all heroic choices, and all bad meany mcpoopypants choices. The difference between the two of them wasn’t very jarring. It’s all a question of who you want to report to, in one section of the game you’ll either get your missions from Moon Knight or Black Cat. Most the other differences are just in the cut-scenes and your bench-warmers. That’s right kids! This game hearkens back to those snes/genesis days of Maximum Carnage where you’d call in a hero to whup some ass for you when things were a little too tough for your liking. Depending on your heroic alignment, you’ll either have a rogues gallery (Black Cat, Electro, Vulture and Rhino) backing you up or some fellow Marvel Knights (Wolverine, Moon Knight and Luke Cage) coming to your aid. The choice comes down to this? Do you want to save the city, or rule it? That’s the choice you make when you bet on red or black. I must admit, it hurt my soul to betray Mary Jane and have my fellow heroes look at me in shame when I took the darker path, haha.

Story be damned, the gameplay here is super fun. You have 2 different fighting styles, the nimble, acrobatic stylings of the red and blue suit, or the rough and tumble heavy hitting of the symbiotic black costume. I went all the way through both times, one primarily using the red and blue, the other black, and both systems are fun and enough to carry a game. The fact that you can juggle them just makes it sweeter. Do some DBZ style punching on one symbiote baddy, then turn around, change suits with the click of a button and start whipping around tendrils reminiscent of the chained blades of Kratos to smack around anybody standing withing a 20 foot radius of you, all in one combo. Then there’s the whole concept of fighting on the sides of buildings and mid-air combat. While somewhat limited, it’s a vastly improved…scratch that, supremely gutted and overhauled fighting system that works very, very well.
If you’re a spidey fan and you have a 360 or PS3, at least rent this game and play it. Not sure about how the gameplay follows through on the Wii (FYI, a good rule of thumb that’s served me well is that you don’t play it on the Wii if it wasn’t designed for the Wii, learned that the hard way with Spidey 3, blargh). The mini-games here are actually good, not repetitive stupid B.S. like they usually are, and the story is original, with no preconceived restrictions on what you can and can’t do, and it isn’t cannon, so they can do whatever they want. Thus, they had lots of room to write things out the way it would be the most fun. Get out there kiddos, good or bad, Venom’s making all sorts of awful baddies for you to conquer! And doing it is fun! I give this game a solid 8 out of 10. It’s a vast improvement over the last few games and a solid improvement on all the good things they’ve done so far.

MORTAL KOMBAAAAAAT!!!!!
(dun-dun-dun-dun-dundun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dundun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dundun-dun-dun-dun-dudun-dun FIGHT!) Ugh, that was stupid. Anyway, when I first heard about this game I was somewhat outraged. There are so many things that make this stupid. Take someone out of the DC Universe. Anyway. No really. Who do you want? Ok I’ll pick for you. Flash. Flash is in this game. Do you think ANYBODY from the Mortal Kombat universe could take Flash in a fight? If you said yes, you don’t belong on this site because you’re not nerd enough (Just kidding, stay, I kid, I kid). Ok fine. Not flash. Pick somebody else out. No wait, I’ll just give you the run-down. Here are the DC characters in this game: Superman, Batman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Darkseid, Joker, Deathstroke, Cat Woman, and Lex Luthor. Out of all of them, there are really 3 that are fair contenders. The last 3 listed. They’re all regular Joe’s with a little extra. Of course so is Batman, but c’mon, nobody can beat Batman, ever. But that’s a Nerd converstation you’re welcome to message me about if you’d like. Regardless, despite this thing that pissed me off, the game’s pretty good. All the power differences are squirreled away with one simple word. Magic. Don’t think about it, just swallow that pill, soldier, and start marching to the beat of a surprisingly entertaining, well thought out fighting game.

I won’t make this long because, really, it’s a fighting game, what do you need to address other than story (which, to be fair, isn’t important, really) and the fighting. So, story is weird but fine, fighting is good! And really, that’s what counts. Most the characters are pretty good in terms of what they have to offer, moves-wise. There are a few characters that are somewhat lacking, but most are worthy combatants….jeeze…..I don’t know what to write actually. It’s fun, you beat each other up, there’s characters you probably like, give it a shot if you like fighting games! Call this 1.5 reviews, because that’s all I really have to say about that! I give this a 7 out of 10. Not too shabby. Fun times to be sure.