Ultimate Spiderman [Xbox]

It bears saying that Activision arguably has the best Spiderman games to date on any console. For that matter you would think that each succesful entry in the series would offer somethign new. Sadly the only thing new in this incarnation are the graphics. What they have done with the cel shading process actually came off better than I thought. The look of the comic book comes to life and fans of the Ultimate Spiderman comic series will sometimes forget they arenyt reading the comic itself (umm..except when the pictures start moving). Unfortunately for me the "wow factor" stopped there. Not to say the game is horrible its just more of what Spiderman and Spiderman 2 The Movie The Game offered me. About two to three hours of the game is actual story. After that you get to roam the city free using Spiderman or Venom (you can change between the two on the fly) to find tokens or rip through hapless victims and incite the rage of the government as Venom. I wished the story mode had been a little longer and a little more fleshed out. Most of Spiderman's scence invovled chasing some villiam through thew winding streets of NYC (note to Activision: ELIMINATE THESE IN THE NEXT GAME). Venom's on the other hand involved beating up a certain number of special agents until a boos fight occured. Those fights usually ended quickly. Most of them could be won by simply using Venom's tentacle attacks and hurling cars. After finishing the main story like there really was no motiviation to find tokens. Extra costumes are cool but if it doesnt change the mediocre gameplay in the game what is the point? Kudos to Activision for finding a formula to make a Spiderman game work. Now lets see if they can find something to improve upon it before it goes the way of the GTA series.