Still, it was fun to see what that power did to turn the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man into an inhuman ass kicking machine. The Black Suit variant's combos are much more lethal; juggling enemies by stair-stepping off them in the air, all punches land with more force, the area effect of jumping into the air and then slamming back down to earth is wider -- basically the Black Spidey enjoys messing up anyone he happens to run into, and it shows in how brutal the animations were.

In a mirror of what we've been seeing with a lot of cross-platform games so far, the PS3 version of the game isn't running quite as smoothly framerate-wise as the 360 at this point, and we were sadly limited in our demo to just beating up some thugs (though we did get to kick on the all new Spidey Sense to see through walls and view enemies or objects as cool little red slices or green hues), but it was more than enough to give us a taste of what wielding the suit will be like.

And, as mentioned before, the folks at Activision and Treyarch were keen to point out that there was far, far more in the game than what's seen in the movie, as well as a bigger sandbox feel to things. In games past, zipping around the city was the best part (and that seems largely unchanged to be honest), but there should be a greater variety in things to do rather than just catching effin' "ballooneys!" for hours on end. We saw some of the races from Ultimate Spider-Man in place, and there will be a system in place now to keep the warring gangs in Manhattan in check (one of the core parts of the non-movie storyline, as we saw in one mission where we had to photograph a gang deal), so solving crime will actually lower it in that part of the city and give you a bit of visual feedback on the overhead map.

The potential to really nail the feel of Spidey and the density of New York, as well as bring even more of the movies' animation and action sequences in to the game isn't something that Treyarch is blind to, but with about a month to go before the game hits right alongside the movie, we're hoping we get a better look at things soon. If we do, you'll find out about it pronto.