Spider-Man 3 - the game

A couple of days ago, I blogged about the new Spider-Man 3 film. Having enjoyed the film, I was really looking forward to playing the video game version (I know, I know - this is game related but bear with me as there is a wider point to this post).

I really enjoyed the Spider-Man 2 game on the old Xbox. With the Spider-Man 2 game, Treyarch (the developer) had managed to create a really good control system whereby it really felt like you were swinging around Manhattan. Even though the reviews were mixed (some didn't like it while others loved it), all of the reviews were in consent that the web swinging portion of the game had been done brilliantly.

Which really made me look forward to the Spider-Man 3 game. Also developed by Treyarch, I figured that the additional experience of having made several Spidey games, together with the additional power of the next gen systems would give us a really good game. Unfortunately, based on the reviews, that doesn't appear to be the case.

Although the web swinging is still stellar, apparently the game is quite buggy (I'm guessing they had to release the game before it was fully ready in order to cash in with the movie release date). Although the Spidey 2 game also had some bad reviews, the key difference this time is that all the major review sites have panned it whereas with the Spidey 2 game, only some of the major review sites panned it (sorry if that doesn't make much sense - its late and I'm tired).

Which finally brings me to my wider point (remember, I mentioned at the start that I had a wider point?). I'm really disappointed that this game got rushed. In my experience, anything which is rushed is generally of sub-standard quality. As far as I can tell, this applies to everything - my work, work which I have to review, products which I have to use etc etc.

Now here's the thing, I don't believe that rushing work leads to a bigger pay-off. I know that some argue its important for the game to come out at the same time as the movie - that way, you can cash in on the Spidey sentiment and get more sales. However, I think this is a bad strategy in the long run.

I can't remember where, but I recall reading that although the sales of a rushed game may not be affected (ie Treyarch will still sell loads of Spidey 3 games), future sales by may well take a hit. Basically, the argument is that the poor buggy game resulted in a loss of faith in that developer from the gaming community - resulting in people not being willing to buy future games.

This argument was based on a very small sample analysis of poor sequels - the writer had found that when a developer released a hit game, it was the second game from that developer which sold really well regardless of how good that game was. However, if the second game was a pile of cack, then sales of the third game would drop severely even though it was a good game.

Anyway, we will see whether Treyarch regret this (although tbh, they probably didn't have any choice and were forced to release by the publisher). As for me, will I buy it? Probably not yet - I may but it second hand in future (hence cheaper) but will probably pass for now.

One last parting comment - my favourite quote on this topic comes from Tim Buckley, author of the Ctrl+Alt+Del webcomic. He says ...

"In 2004 Treyarch proved to me that a movie and/or comic book license video game could be good. And now in 2007 they've reminded me that slaving your release date to marketing does nothing good for a video game. Just release it when its ready."