Treyarch

Kotaku's Luke Plunkett recently wrote an opinion piece entitled Why It's Stupid to Hate Call of Duty So Damn Much. Intrigued by the headline (and always a sucker for a well-considered opinion piece to counter the never-ending stream of gaming "list-icles" out there) I decided to see why people were stupid to hate on what is essentially the biggest game franchise in the world at this moment.

When Xbox Live's director of policy and enforcement, Stephen Toulouse, stridently vowed to ban any Call of Duty: Black Ops player who sports a swastika emblem online, I can't say I felt any particular way about it. As an fence sitter on the subject of censorship, I much prefer to let others do the hard work of untangling that Gordian Knot.

Mcnamara? Really? You Couldn't Throw Eisenhower or Truman in There?

HIGH: JFK spouting off one-liners while blasting zombies in the face.

LOW: The complete and total incompetence of my squadmates.

WTF: Why does the guy I'm torturing suddenly turn around and help me when the bad guys show up?

A measure of quality

HIGH Getting to have a 16-player deathmatch on a faithfully updated version of "Facility" from GoldenEye.

LOW There are stealth sequences. In a first person shooter.

WTF Why is the Golden Gun a rapid-fire grenade launcher?

According to ESRB, this game contains: Language, Violence

Game Description: In Ultimate Spider-Man you get an incredible opportunity to play both a hero and a villain. Control Spider-Man as he faces criminals with strange abilities to defend New York—then switch sides and become the deadly villain called Venom, smashing Manhattan and destroying everything in his path. This original storyline picks up right where the "Ultimate Spider-Man" comics left off, for an immersive adventure.

I would say that I'm a fan of Spider-Man, but I am usually not a fan of Spider-Man games. I have fond memories of web-slinging on the Genesis and Neversoft's entry on the PS1 is still the best adventure to be had with Peter Parker's alter ego, if you ask me. Besides those two outings, old Spidey has been stuck starring in a long string of unsatisfying, unhappy titles.

So I planned on taking Spider-man 2 (and Gene's review) to task here; planned to gripe about the repetitiveness of the street crimes, the flighty combat, the lousy camera, etc. But…I can't do it.