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If you think Spider-Man 3 for Wii is a quick and dirty port of the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 game of the same name, you've got it all wrong. What most people don't realize - not even die-hard Nintendo fans - is that software house Vicarious Visions has designed the Wii build totally separately from the others and it is more or less a ground-up project complete with original content, unique controls, and individual mission structures. In short, it's different and it actually has been tailor-made for Wii.
This bodes well for Nintendo especially when you look at how the changes are implemented.
Original Content:
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But whereas the other titles set you on a somewhat linear story path and only enable you to wear the black suit during certain missions, you can go dark at any point in the Wii version of the title. There will, however, be consequences, which we'll get to below. In addition to the primary story arch, the Wii game boasts three additional tales with more enemies. In one, you'll fight against Morbius and in another you'll come face-to-face with Shriek. Oh, and the Lizard is waiting to eat Spidey for lunch, too.
Unique Controls:
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To send a web bursting from Spidey's left hand, you hold down the Z button and gesture in the general direction you want to swing with the nunchuk. To release his grip on the web, you simply depress the B button. The same action is performed with the Wii remote to control Spidey's right-handed webbing. It's an ambitious undertaking because to glide acrobatically through the city in true superhero fashion, you will have to learn to swing and release with careful precision. What this technique affords you over the other versions, though, is much more flexible control. There are no pointer-based actions in the swing process - the accelerometers measure your gestures and accurately translate them to the screen, whether you're executing over-the-top motions or simple wrist-flicks. Flick forward with the nunchuk and Spidey will shoot his webbing forward. Flick all the way to the right and you can send the superhero swinging at a near-90-degree angle. You can also dual-swing by motioning with both controllers, which is not possible in any other iteration. People assume Wii controls will be easily accessible and in our experience the opposite is true in Spider-Man 3. We picked up the dual-control configuration in about a minute, but we saw others fumbling with it for a great deal longer. Many forgot completely that they could dual-swing and still control Spider-Man with the analog stick as he soared between skyscrapers. Once you finally do get the hang of it, though, you will find it to be a very rewarding and highly accurate component, especially after you master swing boosts and web zips.
Individual Mission Structures:
*Note: This was kind of touched on in the quote I used for Original Content, in the part about a less linear game than it's "Next-Gen" couterparts, but I also found this part interesting*
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The dichotomy between red and black Spider-Man suits plays an integral role in the Wii build of the game. As we stated, you can don the stealthy black suit at any point by pressing the D-Pad, but you have to be wary of it, too, because it effectively acts like a drug on you. It offers immediate enhancements to strength and agility, all of which are represented graphically in the game. The black suit Spidey is just plain meaner and more confident in the way he moves and fights. For instance, after leaping from a building, he will cause the pavement to crack as he lands heavily on the ground. But these immediate enhancements come at a price, which is that Spidey risks going into full-blown rage mode and blacking out entirely, at which point you'll have to restart from your previous checkpoint. The rage is represented on-screen by black tentacles from the symbiote suit. The longer you stay in rage mode, the bigger your suit's presence on-screen becomes, literally narrowing your gap of vision. The only way to escape the suit's grip is to switch back to the red suit with the D-Pad, at which point a mini-sequence that challenges you to perform a series of Wii-mote gestures is executed. The longer you wait, though, the more challenging the sequence becomes.
IGN also states in the article that the graphics lacked polish and that the camera needed work. However, they also mentioned that in a recent chat with Vicarious Visions, VV said that they have spent ample time polishing both since IGN played the game.
I would also like to note that this show on G4 called Attack of the Show had an exclusive preview of Spiderman 3, in which they brought in the game and played it for us the viewers to see how it was shaping up. I'm not sure which system they were playing, (definitely not the Wii because although I could see the controller he was holding it in the "standard" way) but it was also very unpolished. A lot of the action was jerky, you could see some graphical flaws and also animation hiccups, but they were quick to point out that it's an early build and there will still be a lot of work done to the game. So on no system has the game been completely refined.
If Spiderman 3 for the Wii can fully deliver on it's potential, It will be the first movie-game I can remember (I think I may have bought the Die Hard game, but I also may have just borrowed it, it was so long ago).
Even if it doesn't turn out to be spectacular, just the fact that Vicarious Visions has implemented so many extras into the Wii version pleases me greatly. There's something that I read about a long time ago that adds some seperation between the PS3 and Xbox360 versions but I can't remember what it is, and I can't find it either. In an
earlier interview Executive Producer Chris Archer stated that the PS2, PSP, and Wii versions would have 2 extra missions, so I'm not really sure what that means with this more current one saying that there are 3 unique missions for the Wii.