I have made it clear in a previous review of my love for things "comic book," but to reiterate, I have been a fan since my youth and tend to migrate toward comic-oriented games when I can. Spider-man is in my top five superheroes of all time, and with the resurgence of comic-themed, live-action movies, I'm very happy. The games based on these movies have been somewhat of a mixed bag.

The overall plot of Spider-man 3 is closely related to the movie in some places and completely original in others. You find our friendly neighborhood wall-crawler doing battle with the New Goblin, Sandman and Venom, which closely matches the plot of the third movie, but you also end up fighting other well-known (at least for fans of the comics) villains, such as the Lizard and Scorpion.

The means to do battle with these foes are broken up into mission sets that are scattered around the city of New York. Like previous games, the world you exist in is what could be considered a sandbox-style game world. Spidey can run, jump and web-sling his way around a nicely detailed version of the Big Apple on his way to missions and races.

The various missions break up the plots of the different enemies into sets, and the means for finding these have been simplified by an overall city map function that allows you to highlight the mission, which sets an indicator on your screen for Spider-man to follow. Mixed into the main missions are such side tasks as beating various gangs of criminals or diffusing bombs set in a bank to the ever dreadful photography missions. These allow you to take a break from the main plots and do something else with your time; although, they seem more like an afterthought or filler than an integral part of the gameplay.

The sounds in the game are solid with one quibble. They tapped all of the actors playing the parts in the movie to do the voices for the characters in the game - with the exception of Kirsten Dunst. This seems to stand out when there is a scene with Mary Jane, because the actor playing her sounds similar but different at the same time. The other sounds are good and very immersive as running through the city prompts the sounds you would expect in a bustling metropolis.

As I have already mentioned, the city looks great. The buildings are well-designed and varied throughout, so it doesn't look like the same model and texture was used over and over. The character models are good but nothing special. The overall look, while nice, is not something you think of when showing off the next-gen graphical capabilities.

There are a couple of flaws that really detract from what is otherwise a good game. The biggest problem I have is the combat controls. These are simple yet complex at the same time. While traveling, things work fairly well, but when you get into combat, the moves are difficult to use. Many times, you find yourself waiting for the symbol to pop above an enemy's head to do what can be considered a finishing move as the other controls are all over the place. In addition to the standard combat, they have included movie sequences that involve interaction, as was seen in Shenmue and more recently God of War. These add some variety to the gameplay on a mission but can be mildly frustrating in that they force you to change pace midfight. The good part is that if you mess up, as I have done on just about every one, they only rewind back to the beginning of that part of the interactive cinematic.

The other sticking point is the camera. It tends to have a mind of its own in much of the game. Now admittedly, I would imagine that the camera for a character that can move like Spider-man would be difficult to get right, but it seems that it has taken a step back from previous games. There have been times that I have gotten so turned around that I had to stop and jump to the ground or the top of a building to get my bearings.

All in all, this game is good but not great. It doesn't innovate on anything that was in the previous movie-licensed Spider-man games, and the bugs can make for a frustrating gaming session. For fans of Spider-man and comic-related games, it is probably worth a purchase, although waiting for a price reduction might be in order. Others might want to look into a rental before making a decision.