Ultimate Spider-Man for the Game Boy Advance is the latest traditional 2D platformer featuring our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, but unlike its home console or Nintendo DS counterparts, the GBA version of Ultimate Spider-Man isn’t exactly worth your hard earned money. The game feels like a Spider-Man game from the 16-bit era and while that old school feeling may be entertaining for a short amount of time, its appeal wears thin rather quickly.

The one thing I liked about this version of Ultimate Spider-Man was that the game’s controls where rather fluid and smooth. I loved throwing punches, wall crawling and web-slinging on a 2D plane. It controlled so smoothly that it made me think that this could outdo the classic 2D Spider-Man games I loved as a child on the Super Nintendo. Unfortunately, I was dead wrong...

Just as I feel about the home console versions of the game, being forced to play as Venom in any version of Ultimate Spider-Man is a chore that I would’ve liked to have skipped altogether. He can’t web-sling and that is part of what makes any Spider-Man game fun to play at all. Sure he can jump high but in 2D games the jump of any character is often over-exaggerated so it’s not like this is anything new or enjoyable. If this wasn’t enough, Venom’s health continously depletes as time passes and in order to keep the big guy going, players are going to have to feed on enemies to stay alive. Feeding and keeping Venom’s health up isn’t much of a hard task to do, but it become so easy to pull-off later on in the game that it just feels like busy work... Let me say this -- BUSY WORK SUCKS!

There’s not much else that is particularly commendable about the GBA version of USM. The game has an incredibly repetitive design that is likely to make some gamers drop the game the entirely after going through the first five or so "issues" (each issue is comprised of three chapters/levels). Of course, since this is indeed a handheld game, you could say that’s its repetitiveness could be ignored if played in short bursts, but the likelihood of you being encompassed with its gameplay for more than twenty or thirty minutes is incredibly slim.

The game’s level design is reminiscent to that of older Spider-Man and 2D games in which you often find yourself wandering through buildings that are constructed like mazes in which you have to navigate yourself through. Certain paths are blocked up by rubble, laser beams and other similar barriers and in order to find your way around, you’re going to have to "explore" the game’s levels for the right path. However, there isn’t much exploration since the game’s design is fairly linear. There isn’t much thought needed to find your way around or through these barriers since you’ll easily find you way by continously pressing forward, or backtracking a tad a checking areas you might have missed the first time around, where you’re likely to find a power switch to turn on the laser barriers or the correct path you must follow. This gameplay characteristic isn’t uncommon at all and it’s a staple trait of the GBA version of USM, but the unfortunate truth is that its used throughout the adventure, from beginning to end, and makes playing the game feel like a tedious chore.

If you thought things couldn’t get any worse then you apparently thought wrong... there are times when USM can actually become a frustrating experience that made me want to just toss the game’s cartridge into the nearest garbage receptacle. This frustration comes in the form of the game’s incredibly cheesy enemy AI. In the earlier half of the game, the game’s enemies are easily disposable and just placed in your way to slow you down, if anything... they’re not even a threat. However, later on the game’s AI develops into this ultra-cheesy monster that gives enemy characters Jedi-like reflexes that allow them to predict your movements and counter most of your efforts with an attack. This is annoying to say the least.

As an audio and visual package, USM isn’t the most spectacular of looking of GBA games. In fact, the game looks very bland, lacking any type of visual flair, and the game’s audio is poor to say the least. Sure, the game’s main theme is a simple melody that you’ll recognize playing throughout the entire game, but it’s completely forgettable the moment you turn off your handheld and/or GB Player. However, in regards, once again, to the game’s visuals, I was somewhat impressed by the amount of animations both Spider-Man and Venom have -- as a result both characters move quickly and smoothly across the screen and I commend this.

It’s a shame that Ultimate Spider-Man will probably be the final Spider-Man videogame developed for the Game Boy Advance, because truth to be told, the game isn’t worth your time and money. At first I was quite impressed by the fluidity of its controls, but the game’s tedious/repetitive gameplay and its cheesy AI really ruined the experience for me. The game’s a rental at best, since it could provide an hour or two of mild entertainment.