Spider-Man Unlimited review

I’ve never been much of a mobile gamer, sure I’ll play Angry Birds every now and then, and maybe anything else that’s popular until I get bored five minutes later. But the news of Spider-Man Unlimited excited me, I’ve enjoyed previous endless runner games like Temple Run and Minion Rush, but after a while I began to lose interest like with every mobile game. However Spider-Man Unlimited looked like it was going to change all that, so has it actually?

Well the first thing that is immediately noticeable is just how fantastic the whole thing looks, the departure from real-life looking CGI with the decision to, instead, opt for cell-shaded comic book style graphics is a stroke of genius on Gameloft’s part as it sets the game off on the right foot from the very start. Endless runners have previously gotten a bit tedious because up until now they’ve not had too much visually to keep people invested. Spider-Man Unlimited does!

Another method they’ve used to combat the tedium of an endless runner is to introduce a few different and exciting game-play features that we haven’t seen before in similar games. The first being that you can fight enemies whilst running with a simple swipe up or down you’ll smash away an array of thugs that range from normal, shielded and flying, some of them even shoot at you. The second thing being the often quite sudden change to web-swinging, wall-climbing or free-falling that add a nice variation to the standard running and keep you entertained as you’re playing.

More from Spider-Man

The course itself is also fairly dynamic which is great. As you’re running water towers will fall over, barriers will drop from the sky, cranes will create pathways and you’ll find yourself moving up and down different levels regularly. If you run for a while you’ll smash into a building like Oscorp and run around inside for a bit which is also really cool. All of this helps to make the actual process of endlessly running as entertaining as possible, and that’s kind of the point isn’t it!

But Spider-Man Unlimited isn’t just an endless runner, it’s an amalgamation of endless running and the classic mobile card-trading games that you get like ‘Deadman’s Cross’. For a start there’s a campaign and storyline where you fight the Sinister Six who have opened a dimension into your world allowing a stream of villains to pass through. Each chapter has a different villain boss that you eventually stop by launching projectiles that are on the course into them as you chase them.

Then there’s the ‘catch ’em all’ aspect of the game as you collect Spider-Men. You can spend in-game resources (that you can also buy with real money) on ‘recruiting’ a Spider-Man from a portal. You can then level up your Spider-Men by ‘running’ or fusing other Spider-Man cards to it. This is great because it adds another element to what would be just an endless runner but it has its drawbacks. Most of the Spider-Men you’ll be able to get at the start will be capped at low levels. This is a problem because the storyline progress requires that you have a Spider-Man who’s at least a certain level meaning that at some point your progress is going to be halted.

There are other elements like ‘Events’ where you play the game to reach certain bespoke goals whilst competing with other people to win prizes that mainly consist of the in-game resource, or a shot at recruiting another Spider-Man. There’s ‘Spider-Ops’ that lets you send off your unused Spider-Men on missions to earn prizes and finally there’s the simple endless runner option if you can’t be bothered with the storyline. So there’s a lot to do and a lot of playability.

My main issue with the game is the Spider energy mechanic. I can’t help but smirk to myself at the irony of a game that literally calls itself Spider-Man Unlimited actually limiting it’s game play. If you play a run it costs you one Spider energy point, which are capped at five and take ten minutes to get back, meaning it takes 50 minutes until you can play five times again. This really is a rather bizarre choice that will irritate most people. I don’t mind too much as I’m only a casual gamer who plays these things as a means to pass a few dull minutes, but those who can devote more time to the game will be frustrated for sure.

All in all Spider-Man Unlimited is really good, I’ve been playing it on and off for the last few days and I’m really enjoying it which is the main thing. I love trying to get all of the Spider-Men and trying to ‘catch’ rare ones (Bullet-Proof Spider-Man, six stars!!) and you get three options of what to do, events, storyline or endlessly run to keep you going. If you like Spider-Man, or endless runners, or both I’d recommend it! Besides, it’s free!

Want more Spider-Man news? Subscribe to the Whatever A Spider Can newsletter to get the latest news and rumors about upcoming movies, TV shows and comics before anyone else. Or you can follow us on Twitter @WhatASpiderCan or like us on Facebook.

Home/Spider-Man