Just because there wasn't a big-screen Spiderman film this year is no reason for Treyarch to hang up their superhero costumes. For the latest Spiderman game, instead of setting it within the films that drew inspiration from the comics, the developer skips the middleman and goes straight to the source. Based on the comic series of the same name, Ultimate Spiderman sets out to reinvigorate the franchise as Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction had accomplished earlier in the year by doing away with its movie ties, and succeeds for the most part, barring a few snags along the way that prevents it from being, well, the ultimate Spiderman experience.

The comic influence becomes apparent as soon as you begin the game, with a superbly produced in-game introductory sequence that literally sees the panels from the comic book come to life. Featuring striking cel-shaded characters, vibrant backdrops, exceptional animation and clever visual effects and transitions that improve upon the source material with ample style, the sequence not only serves to introduce players to the world of Ultimate Spiderman, but also sets the bar very high for the rest of the game's visuals to match. Fortunately, it does so with aplomb. Combined with the superlative voice-acting and sharply-witted dialogue, it's hard to believe that this isn't an animated series.

Delicious candy-coated trappings aside, the game's plot also sees a marked improvement as it doesn't have to keep up with a script penned for a non-interactive medium. Ultimate Spiderman casts Peter Parker as your average teenager having to contend with the toils of school, budding teen romance, a job at the Daily Bugle, radioactive spider induced super powers, and a childhood friend-turned beast, Venom! It is this conflict between Spiderman and Venom that drives the surprisingly engaging narrative, and in fact, you will get to play as the tentacled menace for a considerable portion of the game and go to town on' well, the town. As an extra act of fan service, many Marvel superheroes make cameo appearances that, while adding little to the plot, serve as nice distractions ' who could possibly turn down an invitation to race the Human Torch around NYC, or going head-to-claw with Wolverine in a bar?

Inspecting under the hood, the game brings back the open-ended scope of last year's Spiderman 2 and you will be able to sprint, jump and websling around the city of New York to your heart's content with nary a load screen in sight. While the size of the city seems reduced this time round, it allows the developer to add more character to each neighbourhood and the game is all the better for it. Combat also sees a few tweaks and it's easy to pull off some neat tricks such as webbing up an opponent and hang them from a lamp post. Also back is the much-praised webslinging mechanics that was the saving grace of Spiderman's previous outing and it is just as easy and exciting to zip around the metropolis as before. That's just as well, because you will be spending a considerable portion of your time in the game doing just that.

Possibly in an effort to stretch out the game time that would've otherwise run for no longer than a few hours, Treyarch has seen fit to dictate that you must accomplish a number of repetitive races, 'combat tours' or 'city events' before you unlock the next story mission. Races see you following a plotted course as fast as you can to earn medals and combat tours has you running around beating up mobs. City events are definitely the most varied of these, requiring you to engage in a bunch of heroic acts such as rescuing injured citizens or preventing robberies and car thefts. But even these become tedious rather quickly, especially since they stand in the way of the much more compelling story missions and boss battles.

As a reward for persevering through the repetitive 'goals', you will unlock story missions that usually end up with you trying to prevent a supervillain from, err, villainy. These missions are usually broken up into a couple of segments, with chases, mini-games that require you to dodge attacks while figuring out how to beat each boss using sometimes objects in the environments in addition to your superhuman strength and reflexes. These levels are a lot of fun and much less frustrating than you'd think, with well-placed retry points if you get squashed while trying to glean a foe's weak spot.

Some of these story missions stuffs you into the Venom suit so you could see how the other side lives. Playing as Venom can be quite an exciting affair, for even though he is a hulking beast, he can quite literally leap over tall buildings and can give even our teenaged hero a run for his money when it comes down to a race. Venom has several attacks that can do a great deal of damage to those foolish enough to pursue him, including the ability to throw nearby vehicles, beat up enemies with tentacles, and consuming the life of nearby bipedal snack-packs to replenish his own. Unfortunately, this latter power is so useful that playing as Venom regularly turns into a hugging contest, with added expectorating of spent human husks afterwards. As such, playing as Venom isn't as satisfying as it sounds, at least not after you've swallowed your nth victim.