Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Almost, but not quite"

The Good: Fast paced fun combat, gets across the Spider-Man vibe, varied levels, you get to fight famous Spidey villains, web slinging sections are fun

The Bad: Combat is repetitive, no in depth upgrade system, not enough web slinging sections, unbalanced difficulty, graphics are lacking

While Gameloft continues to pour out mediocrity Total Mayhem is a decent Spider-Man game, and captures the feeling of the web slinger, but doesn't do enough to make it stand up to the best console games. The story is lacking with Spidey running around different levels killing various super villans, but the story is about him stopping the symbiotes from destroying Manhattan. We've seen this story before, but at least the voice actor for Spidey is decent and they get his sense of humor across nicely.

The combat is what we're looking for and it feels fluid and fast paced thanks to three action buttons. One if for jumping, shooting webs, and punching. You can combo any of the three for large devastating combos, but you will die a lot until you can level up enough to beat the tough bosses and enemies. The game some times throws way to many at you at certain points so you feel very overwhelmed. Thankfully you can counter this with a dodge button that uses his Spider Sense so when it flashes you quickly press it and it dodges. There are a few issues with this thanks to clipping issues so some times you will dodge, but you will still get hit.

You have one super meter you can unleash and this is great to kill large crowds or bosses. However, using your web attack will use up this meter which I found odd. When you run around the levels the game is very linear so the free form Spider-Man games you're used to isn't here. The game does have obstacles to go over, and some pretty neat web slinging sections that make you feel like Spider-Man so don't feel you stuck to strictly the ground. When you fall off a ledge you have a chance to save yourself with a quick time event and if you catch it you won't lose health, but just reset to the last safe ground spot.

Overall the game gives you the feeling of being Spider-Man, but the combat does feel repetitive and the game is just extremely linear, and highly unbalanced. There's not enough of the fun web slinging sections, and some levels are just extremely difficult. The combat feels repetitive as well and I wish I could buy new combos, moves, or powers. If you want a decent Spider-Man experience on your iPhone Total Mayhem is it, but don't expect it to live up to the better console versions.