YMMV / Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

• Complete Monster: Web of Shadows has, depending on the version, different components of Venom:
  • Windows; 360; PS3; Wii version: The Venom symbiote itself has grown so powerful that it has nearly completely overridden Eddie Brock's mind and become its own threat. Spreading symbiotes across New York while gorging itself on innocents and threatening Spider-Man's loved ones, the Venom symbiote transforms most of New York into an apocalyptic wasteland where almost all citizens have been turned into its symbiote zombies. Boarding a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, the Venom symbiote plans to traverse the globe and infect all life on Earth with its taint to assume absolute dominion.
  • Amazing Allies Edition (PS2 and PSP): Eddie Brock himself is nothing like any of his usual incarnations. Hating Spider-Man for untold reasons, Venom allows Jackal to experiment on him in order to speed up his symbiote suit's growth rate, then spreads his symbiote across Manhattan, infecting hundreds of people, including Spider-Man's friends, and turning them into mindless, hate-filled zombies. After manipulating many of Spider-Man's foes into assisting him in destroying the Wall-Crawler, Venom reveals he plans to allow his symbiote to spread across the planet, infecting every human around the world once Spider-Man is dead.
• Critical Dissonance: It's considered to be one of the better Spider-Man video games by fans, but critics gave it much weaker reviews.
• Evil Is Cool: The black suit Spider-Man, for lots of reasons. Many players agree that the black suit's combat feels more powerful than the red suit, enough to be tempted to stick with it for the entire game. Then there are the black choices throughout the game that players consider cooler than the red ones, including tearing Symbiote Wolverine in half. And there are the endings where Spider-Man forgoes his usual friendly neighbourhood tendency and becomes what is basically a symbiote overlord. Oh, and the best part, you can get Black Cat on your side too!
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the game, Black Cat shows concern when Spider-Man shows willingness to harm innocent civilians. A few years later, the comics would controversially change her character into wanting to kill Spider-Man no matter the cost, including a willingness to kill innocent civilians if it helped her further her goal.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Almost everyone played the game and choose the evil options just to be with Black Cat.
• Memetic Mutation: The opening shot of Spider-Man sullenly walking across the rooftop as the world falls apart around him, all set to the Moonlight Sonata of all things, has become this recently. As well as an acoustic rendition of Unravel.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The seventh-gen version has Venom voiced by Keith Szarabajka, who is praised for having one of the best voices for Venom across media.
• Narm:
  • A sizable number of the QTE fails are fairly comical.
  • The intro of a depressed Spidey walking and web-slinging through an ongoing battle between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Symbiotes to a piano tone is pretty melodramatic yet sets the tone for the Darker and Edgier storyline. What doesn't settle well is when he helps one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to an ambulance in the aftermath — and then proceeds to lose his shit, yelling questions at surrounding agents about where Luke Cage and the volunteers like Mary Jane are, before immediately deciding they're useless because they didn't answer fast enough. He's supposed to be desperate for any good news, but instead comes off as aggressively whiny in the moment. Heck, the rapid fire In Medias Res story elements can come off as too quickly paced, as nothing makes sense until after the intro is over but the player gets no context for anything in the meanwhile.
  • While Venom's voice in the Wii/360/PS3/PC version, Keith Szarabajka, is pretty damn excellent, his voice in the Amazing Allies Edition (PS2/PSP) is vastly underwhelming. It's one of the rare instances where Venom does not have any filters added to his voice, thus sounding more human than he should. Compare this to the 2000 game — another game where Venom's voice was not digitally altered. However, while Daran Norris was able to create a legendarily memorable voice for Venom in that game with a goofy but threatening deep, growling voice, whoever voiced him in PS2!Web of Shadows wasn't even going for that: instead just spouting out his lines in what vaguely sounds like a commercial spokesperson impression. Not only does this voice not fit Venom's design at all, but it sounds much more fitting for J. Jonah Jameson rather than Venom, or any other villain for that matter. Even in the final boss fight, where Venom is now what only can be described as a gigantic blob-shaped Hive Mind, he still retains this entirely human voice, sounding even far more out of place. It doesn't exactly help that the PS2/PSP iteration of Venom does everything he did in this version of the game simply because he hates Spider-Man for no explained reason (see above), unlike the next-gen versions of the game where it's implied that Venom was very much Drunk with Power; and even realizes the damages he's done and atones for his commitments unlike PS2/PSP Venom. In comparison, the Amazing Allies Venom overall is just...pathetic.
• Narm Charm: The black suit option after beating Wolverine; Spidey tears him in half. It's an absolutely insane moment, but its sheer absurdity makes it a very memorable one.
• Nightmare Fuel: Venom, due to his deep, scary voice and the fact that he takes over the entire city with an army of symbiote creatures. Not to mention in any other game, the fact that his mouth doesn't seem to move in time with his lines would be Special Effects Failure. Here, it's downright creepy and the fact that only remnant of Eddie Brock seen in the entire game is his mouth doesn't help matters.
  • Wolverine Symbiote is as scary as it sounds.
  • The Venom hydra, which has a deep, booming voice and multiple heads.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: Fans consider this as one of the better Spider-Man video games.
• Older Than They Think: The game's main gimmick is the ability to switch between the classic red costume and the symbiote at the press of a button. The same thing was done in the Spider-Man 3 tie-in game on PS2 and Wii. However, it works much more smoothly and instantaneously in this game, since there is no Quick Time Event needed to transform from one suit to the other. Plus Spider-Man 3 would only let you use the Black Suit for a limited time before you ran the risk of dying; whereas Web of Shadows encourages you to just use whatever suit you like best indefinitely.
• Porting Disaster: Glows are broken in the PC port, which renders the Spider-Sense (which is supposed to highlight enemies, allies, and civilians in danger through walls and from a distance) entirely useless, as well as makes collectible spiders harder to spot.
• Tear Jerker: Venom's Heroic Sacrifice, when it's not a Moment of Awesome. With his Defiant to the End parting words with the symbiotic mass he had created, and the way he just tosses Spider-Man out of his way to ensure that he cannot be saved - it's very sad to see him go. Even despite him being the Big Bad, Spider-Man's rogues gallery will never be the same without him.
• Vindicated by History: While Web of Shadows has always been held in high regard by the Spider-Man fandom, the game saw an uptick in popularity thanks to Spider-Man (PS4), especially thanks to Whitelight's video essay. The combat systems especially are regarded as having aged exceptionally well.
• Waggle: The Wii version's Quick-Time Events forces you to use motion controls instead of buttons like the other versions. The motion controls for the QT Es can be pretty unresponsive as you have to wave the Wii Remote or Nunchuck in the direction shown with the quickest reaction time possible, otherwise you'll be stuck failing the same thing over and over again.

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