There's an unwritten law somewhere that games based on movies always seem to fail miserably at being games. So when this version of Spiderman, a game based on a movie based on a comic, came out, I had some misgivings about how good it might be. Based on the movie will a lot of additional villains and filler story to give the game extra depth, Spiderman: The Movie builds on the success of the previous Playstation titles.

Gameplay: Spiderman: The Movie is broken up into two major portions of the game. Part of your time will be spent swinging around town, fighting aerial enemies like the Vulture or Green Goblin. When not in the air, you'll crawl your way through warehouses, sewers and the like, beating up thugs and finding your path to the next area by way of keys or switches. Fighting consists of either using your punch or kick button in combos and you can unlock more combos by finding gold spider icons. Also, you can use your webbing as both an attack and defensive tool.

Graphics: For the most part, Spiderman: The Movie looks really good. The outdoor cityscapes are huge and look great. Reflective effects on the windows and effective lighting give the city a real-life effect. Also, you won't see a fog obscuring the city off in the distance, hiding pop-up. Once inside the buildings and sewers, you'll work your way through large areas that showcase some nice textures and a great array of lighting effects. Unfortunately, a lot of the furniture and debris seems rather blocky and could use a higher polygon count to make them feel more realistic. The CG cutscenes look good. While not as life-like as Final Fantasy (mostly due to the less than real body movements), they do add to the look of the game.

Audio: Both the voiceacting in the cutscenes (performed by Toby Maguire and Willem Dafoe) and sound effects are done exceptionally well. Bruce Campbell provides commentary in the training modes, which is well worth the time alone for the laughs. Some the lines in the game are cheesy and the thugs tend to same the same two or three lines over and over again. The music has the grand cinematic feel that successfully ties to the game to the movie.

The Bad: The biggest drawback to this game is the fact that the in-game camera is rather useless and provides more challenge than most of the game itself. And since the control is linked to the camera, you might find yourself running into walls or heading the wrong direction as the camera turns in mid battle. Also, a lot of the game is cut-scene driven, meaning you'll be fighting a few enemies, get a cutscene, then fight a few more, which cuts down on exploring. And since most of the combat boils down to wailing on thugs with an average attack system, you might get a little tired of fighting after too long.

While Spiderman: The Movie does a lot of things nicely, it still is nothing more than a rental. There are some things to unlock, but the game itself is fairly short. The game is good enough for a rental, but doesn't seem to have enough depth to be worth $50.

- - Vane