They even managed to sandwich the upgrade system from Hero of Sparta II in that nearly everything in the game drops orbs of various colors which are then used to upgrade Spider-Man’s various abilities. Spider-Man is host to the same wall climbing and rail sliding sections as nearly every other 3rd person action Gameloft game, and just like almost all of their other titles, the voice work is laughable at best and face palm worthy at worst. A lot of the combat feels like a mix of James Cameron’s Avatar and Iron Man 2.
Like all Gameloft games, many parts of Spider-Man are clearly borrowed from other titles of theirs, and Total Mayhem is no different. This is true to some extent in Spider-Man: Total Mayhem, but the whole package is comprehensive enough that it doesn’t even seem to even matter. Unfortunately, many fall in to the same pit that movie games fall in to where they lean far too heavily on whatever intellectual property the game is based on instead of actually having good gameplay.
Sure, there are some absolutely fantastic comic book games such as the quarter-sucking X-Men Arcade Game, and a few others over the years. Games based on comic books have been almost as hit or miss as games based on movies in the past, so I think my cautious optimism for Gameloft’s recently released Spider-Man: Total Mayhem was well deserved.
