Spider-Man 3 is simultaneously extremely entertaining and highly disappointing. Spider-Man 2 was loved for its sprawling city and web-slinging mechanics while being panned for its repetitive missions and lack of random crimes. Spider-Man 3 boasts a larger city to swing around, greater mission variety, and a larger pool of random events. As with every other game though, there are some bad points mixed in with the good. In the case of Spider-Man 3 those negatives are cheap bosses and poorly placed mission checkpoints.

Boss fights all boil down to one strategy; avoid the boss while your spider sense gauge refills, slow time, counter a move, lather, rinse, and repeat. For the first bosses, this isn’t so big a deal, but it takes over an hour to fight the Kingpin and boss fights are easy when they all play the exact same way. After slowly whittling away the health of your foe, a Shenmue-esque QTE begins and Spider-Man defeats the boss once and for all in a flashy display of physical prowess and quick web-slinging. Along the way to these various bosses there are both storyline missions and non-storyline missions, and many of these missions are made up of multiple segments. Under normal circumstances there is a checkpoint after each fight or major event. In one Apocalypse gang mission, there are checkpoints after the initial fight and after a bomb is disabled. This allows the player to attempt the boss fight at the end, fail, and try again without needing to reattempt all the portions of the mission that were successfully completed. In other missions, however, the developers completely forgot to insert checkpoints. In one photo mission, for example, Spider-Man must follow an impostor performing stunts while hanging from a helicopter. There are four photos to take, and all of them depend on following the helicopter and quickly getting into position. Fail the fourth photo and you’ll have to start over at the beginning. Few things are more frustrating than replaying the same section of a game over and over again in an attempt to move forward.

If all you’re looking for from a Spider-Man game is the ability to swing around a realistic New York City and complete the occasional non-storyline mission then Spider-Man 3 is easy to recommend. Web-slinging is fun; it’s fast, it’s easy to control, and the more you swing the more swing-related upgrades you unlock. And as you’re meandering about the city you’ll come across hurt cops, gang fights, random lizard-men, trick races, Mary Jane Thrill Rides, skydiving challenges, and four different types of collectible tokens. Those that ignore the story missions still have plenty to do in the world of Spider-Man 3.

Despite the larger metropolis, increased number of random acts of violence, and the plethora of optional side missions, Spider-Man 3 just doesn’t look like a 360 game. Spidey’s character model looks great, but everything else suffers from pop-in and pop-out – including buildings, cars, and random textures. Similarly, Spider-Man will sometimes dodge attacks by letting them fly right through him. Another issue related to the visual presentation is the lack of lock on and the shoddy auto-targeting. It isn’t uncommon for Spider-Man, despite the player’s best efforts, to attack a pocket of rather menacing-looking air instead of the gun-toting thugs.

Spider-Man 3 certainly isn’t without its flaws, but it satisfies my inner nerd’s desire to web around New York City and beat up gang members in an attempt to clean up the neighborhood. Spider-Man operates on a more personal level than many other superheroes, and it works to the game’s advantage. For some reason, it’s more satisfying to help the random New Yorker than to beat up on Sandman or New Goblin, and that’s Spider-Man 3‘s greatest strength. There’s plenty to do, and whatever part of the game you don’t enjoy can be safely avoided without impacting the fun to be had elsewhere in the title.