In contrast to the unexciting fluff in the gameplay, the art and design really take your attention and hold it. Both the art, as well as the design of the game do an excellent job of capturing the comic book style. The cut scenes and animation in the game really come to life with some amazingly drawn characters and vibrant colors. It seems as if the characters are leaping out of the comic book style panels towards you and the sound effects certainly help this illusion. The visual “BANG!” and “WHAM!” are still around and they tend to remind you of the TV show ‘Batman’ (minus the camera tilt). The graphics in Ultimate Spider-Man add to the success of the art and designs by providing the right look and feel to the game. The characters' literally feel like they are bursting out of the comic book frames. You will not be disappointed with the art and animation in this game.

Keep Venom away from small children.

Both Venom and Spiderman have unique control styles that go with their superhero characteristics, but the controls are rather clunky. Spider-Man is, of course, quick and nimble and uses his web to travel great distances. The controls for Spider-Man reflect this by providing you with the ability to perform quick combo attacks. Spider-Man is rather one dimensional in this way with only punch, kick, jump, grab, and web. Unfortunately not all of these controls are easily managed on the keyboard and mouse. For example, swinging through the city on Spidey’s web can be quite fun but it can be very tricky to try hold the swing button, pressing it more quickly, and simultaneously trying to climb the web to gain altitude. This can be a pain because movement as Spider-Man revolves around web slinging. However, you do have two pretty good choices for web fun in the standard web sling and the zip-line. Either of these web moves can quickly get you around the city. Here’s a hint though: if you’ve got a gamepad, spend the extra 5 minutes to set it up; the time is well spent, believe me.

On the other end of the scale is Venom. Venom is all about fury and using brute strength to crush his opponents. However, Venom’s controls still suffer the one dimensional problem; you are limited to punching and lashing the suit out as tentacles to attack enemies at a distance. Unlike Spider-Man however, Venom can completely manhandle his opponents by grabbing them and crushing their head against the concrete or breaking them in half over his knee. While Spider-Man must rely on quick combo’s to vanquish his enemies, either of Venom’s tactics will normally result in a quick death for your enemy. Movement as Venom is different; you basically leap great distances and heights. The longer you hold the jump button the further and higher you go. Believe me, a full force jump is more than enough to propel you across a good portion of the city. You really don’t get the same continuity you have with Spider-Man though. Playing as Venom is exciting, and having the option to play both characters really does add to the replay value of Ultimate Spider-Man.

Ultimate Spider-Man is an exciting game to play as either the webcrawler or Venom. However, the quests and controls could really use some work. The game could easily be improved by providing more depth in the storyline and adding interesting extra missions or special unlockables. Fortunately the art, animation, and graphics in Ultimate Spider-Man redeem the game slightly and do an excellent job of capturing the comic-book style.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 72%. The PC version of Ultimate Spider-Man finally gives Activision a chance to make up for Spider-Man 2, but it doesn’t quite live up to it’s ‘Ultimate’ moniker.

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