Spider-Man: Total Mayhem Review: Awesomesauce
| App Name: | Spider-Man: Total Mayhem |
| Platforms: | iPhone, iPod Touch |
| Publisher(s): | Gameloft |
| Version Reviewed: | 1.0 |
| Genre(s): | Action, superhero |
| Release Date: | September 1, 2010 |
| Price: | $6.99 |
| Download |  |
The sometimes maligned but never disputed king of iPhone console-quality games, Gameloft, has just released their take on the web-headed wall-crawler Spider-Man, with Spider-Man: Total Mayhem. This rock-em, sock-em action game is an awesome take on the source material and one of the best Gameloft titles to date.
In Spider-Man: Total Mayhem, you play through a day in the life of the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler. On this day, the Triskellion building has blown up – the building that had been incarcerating many of Spidey’s most dangerous enemies. One by one, you have to help Spider-Man beat them down so that they can be returned to prison, while also discovering just what caused the explosion in the first place.
Spider-Man: Total Mayhem starts off on the right foot by basing itself not on the classic Spider-Man comics, but on the Ultimate Spider-Man comics – an epic series shepherded for so long by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Mark Bagley. The Spider-Man leaping around this game is Bagle’s lithe, agile young adult, and the villains are the modernized, generally darker interpretations that Bendis conceived for the Ultimate universe. This was a great choice.
It’s all brought to vibrant, comic-book life by Gameloft, a company who has been known primarily for its imitations, but who finally may be coming into its own as a developer of original titles. The game is primarily a button-masher. Spider-Man hops, jumps, and flings himself around each level, letting the fists, feet and webbing fly with furious abandon as you tap punch, jump and shoot web repeatedly. It’s actually a really good approximation of how Spider-Man might fight — using speed, agility, and sheer volume of punches to overwhelm a foe. Gameloft strikes a great balance between furious button-mashing and actual strategic combat.
Part of the great balance is provided for by the “spider sense” button. True to form, Spider-Man can sense danger in this game, and reacting to the spider-sense button at the right moment will trigger a dodge and a counter-attack. It’s a neat feature, and one that is perfectly designed in the context of the character.
Other features are less novel. Like some minstrel of old, Gameloft has perfected tried and true game components with their previous titles, and now they’re just stringing them together to form a new melody. There are glowing orbs to collect, both to heal you and to upgrade your abilities. There are action moments where a well-timed swipe can save you from a nasty hit or fall. There are completely customizable control buttons. It will all be familiar to anyone who’s a Gameloft regular; but that’s not a problem here, because it’s all put to really good use.
The whole thing is pulled off by some of Gameloft’s best visuals to date. They’ve really created a comic book feel to this, with bright colors and crisp edges. Heck, they’ve done a fair bit to recreate Bagley’s Ultimate Spider-Man look, and they succeeded. The animations, the textures, the SFX – it all looks great. The sound effects and music are mostly incidental, but they don’t distract.
This being a Gameloft title, there is the usual flaw in voice acting. With their great success, one would think that Gameloft could stand to hire slightly better vocal talent, but the people here are mediocre at best. The worst is Spider-Man himself, whose delivery isn’t atrocious, but whose weasely voice is absolutely NOT Spider-Man material. Something a little more heroic next time, eh, Gameloft? The cutscenes are also a little choppy in their animations. They serve their purpose, but they’re generally forgettable.
Then there’s a couple of power curve issues. Some of the bosses are a pain – more so than one would expect. This is especially true of the second boss, the Rhino. I actually had to start the game again in Easy mode just to figure out what, exactly, it took to beat this guy. He’s Hell on wheels in Normal and Hard modes. And he’s only on the second level!
The flaws here are relatively minor, however, and you’ll forgive them quickly. Spider-Man: Total Mayhem is just a fun, fun game, exactly the sort of title we all hoped it would be. Gameloft deserves a lot of credit for making a Spider-Man game so note-perfect and so thoroughly enjoyable. I can’t wait for the sequel. And in the meantime, I suddenly have a hankerin’ to read through my Bendis & Bagley again …
Our Score: 5/5
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