The intro to this game is something of a slog admittedly, as it seems to just be tutorial-based gameplay interspersed with frequent cutscenes to drop the player into what appears to be the middle of a story. There's a lot of exposition to get through just to place the player in the middle of a tutorial boss fight, and while I appreciate that the game seems to skip a bunch of perhaps unnecessary introduction tropes, the beginning of the game is rather jarring to experience as a result.

Spiritually, the game feels a lot like Spider-Man 2 (2004), with a lot of the same controls, gameplay, and even sound effects. However, even though Ultimate Spider-Man was released second, it actually feels more basic in nature than Spider-Man 2. Where the latter could have been held back by being a movie tie-in game, it actually feels a lot more expansive than Ultimate Spider-Man, with a long runtime and greater mission variety. Along with this, the gameplay in Ultimate Spider-Man is a lot less smooth than in Spider-Man 2, particularly with reference to combat and web-swinging - the lack of a sprint function, and the one second delay on web swinging and web zipping all contribute to the game feeling harder to handle than its earlier counterpart. The art is certainly more stylised, and is perhaps the most unique element about Ultimate Spider-Man, in spite of this, it does also feel noticeably cheaper. There are also a ludicrous amount of tutorial pop-ups for the first portion of the game, that stop gameplay in its tracks to allow the player to read them; this is another feature that is noticeably worse than in Spider-Man 2, which was graced with the voice talent of Bruce Campbell to teach the player the ropes of the game in a way that is both educational and entertaining. By comparison, frequent, game-stopping text boxes are much less appealing.

The game features a rather large map that is fun enough to swing around in, unfortunately the game doesn't seem to do anything particularly interesting with all of this space. Between each short mission is a series of repetitive overworld tasks to complete to unlock the next mission, and very few of these actually require exploration, so one may find themselves treading the same ground or swinging between miscellaneous buildings to achieve goals before returning once again to the high school or to the Daily Bugle to trigger the next mission. In addition to this, Ultimate Spider-Man seems to take place in a larger universe that references and has cameos of wider Marvel universe characters, however they don't really play that much of a role in the overall story so I can't exactly say that the game is better off for having them, they really just appear for fan service purposes and then they're gone.

Overall, Ultimate Spider-Man is pretty good for what it is, but it is absolutely ripe with missed potential. A longer story campaign, a higher budget, and more imaginative missions would have made this game not only more enjoyable, but far more fondly remembered today - as it stands, the game is neither good nor bad enough to be of particular note in the pantheon of Spider-Man games.

Ultimate Spider-Man is probably the most polished open world Spider-man title of it's era, with a box art illustration by the comic artist Mark Bagley and a cel-shaded art style in-game to match - a game that manages to have a pretty sensible story without any encounter feeling forced just for the sake of fanservice but somehow managing to fit in a roster like Venom, Wolverine, Silver Sable, Johnny Storm and Carnage alongside some recurring Spidey villains like the Rhino and Electro in one title. Some witty dialogue here and there as well.

It's interesting how early on they actually managed to nail the web swinging aspect of the series, all they needed was to start polishing it up from here but the farther ahead the games went on, the more that didn't happen until Insomniac's Spider-Man on the PS4. Webs actually attach to buildings, the game has incorporated momentum and so on. Movement as a whole feels ultra smooth and satisfying.

As for the combat... it's there? Lol.
It's serviceable enough for what the game focuses on, which is mainly it's movement, a lot of challenges, races and chase missions based on web swinging.
But it does have a degree of jank to it, and the combos are relatively uncontrollable, while I'm alternating between punches and kicks, Spidey will sometimes do a Wall bounce into a kick that does a good amount of damage, and I swear I've tried everything to do it manually, but the game just does it whenever it wants as I combo near a wall. Pretty useful when it happens though

I wish the collectibles were implemented better and weren't just random tokens spread across the city in random locations. However, the Comic tokens are pretty neat, as they unlock cover illustrations from the comics, if you like Mark Bagley's art that's one incentive.

Overall, it's a pretty enjoyable experience though with a few flaws.

I knew the ultimate version exactly for this game, being able to play with his archenemy Venom giving a different gameplay that transitions throughout the campaign is one of the best additions ever made in a hero game (well that could happen again, no?) besides the comic book style and cell-shading graphics that make this one age well. Considering that it came after Spider-Man 2, there was a certain limitation on the combat (even with some extras) web-swing and the open world itself, I think more variety would make Ultimate Spider even better.

I feel a lot of people forget about this entry when the discussion of best Spider-Man games gets brought up. It might not have broken ground that the Spider-Man 2 tie-in did but I feel it drastically improved on the gameplay mechanics while having an infinitely better art direction and overall experience. The addition of Venom here is a fun gameplay gimick, but him being locked off until the game is finished sucks the fun out a bit. Overall, the game feels more fluid and natural to a Spider-Man experience and the fact you get to eat a child may or may not bump the score up a notch.