When it comes to games based on movies, the rule generally is that the game isn't going to be very good. In fact, the game is usually going to be bad -- a poorly created rush job with nothing but money in mind.

There are exceptions, however, and in the past the "Spider-Man" series has been part of that.

I'm divided on "Spider-Man 3," however. It's fun, but it feels like a slightly changed version of "Spider-Man 2," and it has a few major issues.

The first thing I noticed while playing the Xbox 360 version is that the graphics are weak beyond belief. The city looks decent and Spider-Man himself isn't too bad, but none of it is on the level of a 360 game.

What bugged me most was the people in the city. When they're in a cutscene, they look bug-eyed and unnatural -- downright scary, even. When they're walking around, they're stiff and fake, and Spidey can't even interact with them. I tried punching them, and they just slide over slightly and keep walking. They also don't respond in the slightest to actions going on around them.

The same goes for the vehicles. They drive around on their set line, and you can't do anything to alter that. For something funny though, hitch a ride on a police car on its way to an emergency. It amused me more than anything else in the game to watch the police cruiser avoid cars in front of it by smashing into other cars in the next lane. If that's how the police drive, I don't want to ask them for help!

I also had big problems with the camera. It doesn't auto-center behind you, making it difficult to get your bearings when you're climbing around upside down or, worse, finding the guys you're supposed to be fighting. It also has a habit of swinging around crazily at the worst times.

The game isn't totally lost, however. It's a lot of fun to swing around the city (which is much bigger than in "Spider-Man 2"), something the series has always done very well.

New combat moves also have been added, including using your "spidey sense" to slow down the action. You also can tap into the spidey sense outside of combat and it will show you hints for what you should do next, such as footprints that you should follow. I would have liked a target lock-on, though, so my attacks weren't jumping from bad guy to bad guy without actually finishing off any of them.

There's also a ton of things to do. In addition to the main missions that tie in to the movie, there are other missions involving villains from the comic books. You also can run around cleaning up crime, taking pictures for the Daily Bugle or collecting hidden tokens.

The best part is you can do any of these at any time; you don't have to do some inane crime mission before you can unlock a story mission. One problem, however, is that the story missions don't mesh well with each other, and even the movie-related ones aren't very well explained and seem like an afterthought.

The voice acting is done, for the most part, by the actual actors, which is a nice touch. Bruce Campbell is hilarious as the narrator (when is he not hilarious?).

So where do I land on "Spider-Man 3"? It's a tough decision. On the one hand, it's not worse than "Spider-Man 2," and I played the heck out of that game. But at the same time, it hasn't changed much, plus it has glaring flaws that really hurt the experience. I guess the bottom line is I expected more.

If you're looking for a significantly different experience from the last game, you're not going to find it. However, if you're just dying for some web-slinging action, you could do much worse than "Spider-Man 3." Just rent it before you buy it.

Bustin' out

For a change of pace from Spider-Man's crazy world, I busted out "Bust-A-Move Bash!" for the Wii. "BAM Bash!" is a puzzle game in which you shoot colored bubbles at other colored bubbles above in an attempt to group them together and make them disappear.

I've played similar games on the computer, and it works much better with a mouse than with the Wii remote.

There are two ways to aim. One requires you to point at the screen and move the remote back and forth to swing your reticule around a fixed point. It's difficult to be precise using this method because it's too sensitive. You'll constantly overshoot. The game quickly devolves into a chaotic mess of just shooting and hoping it hits something.

The other option has you hold the remote upright and tilt it from side to side, which feels more intuitive and is a bit more precise, but twisting your wrist back and forth so much physically hurts. And call me crazy, but I have an aversion to pain.

On the plus side, there are a lot of levels to go through (500 in puzzle mode), and you can play with up to eight players at the same time (using four remotes and four nunchuk controllers). The problem with the multiplayer, though, is you're all shooting at the same set of bubbles, which means it's hard to tell what's going on. You also don't see your scores in real time -- you have to wait until the game is over to see who won.

In the end, "BAM Bash!" shoots and misses. The controls just don't work well, the visuals and sound are ho-hum, and there's not enough variety in gameplay to keep anyone interested for long. The best thing to do is pass on this one and hope a better incarnation shows up later.