Spider-Man has faced off against many a foe in his long and storied career, but none quite as sinister as the last two video games based on his adventures. After two excellent video game outings, the movie-based Spider-Man 3 was a bug-filled mess rushed to release, and Spider-Man: Friend or Foe grounded our favourite hero in favour of action of a more kid-friendly kind.

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The Black Widow is playing a role in Spider-Man Web of Shadows, Activision's latest and potentially greatest take on the web head, heading towards a store near you as we speak, but she isn't important. Some of you might be thrilled to see the mannish Russian lady-spy, but for me it's all about that white-clad guy you see about halfway through the clip, Moon Knight. He's the one I saw back at the Games Convention in August but wasn't allowed to talk about, and it killed me. Moon Knight is probably my favourite Marvel character, a fact that gets me no end of odd looks from comic book fans. What can I say? I'm a bit geekcentric.

There's plenty of good stuff to be had if you decide to pick up Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. You have some cover art chosen by fans, a very pretty Cylon lady doing the voice work for the Black Cat and all that's left is to wait until October 21st to get your hands on spidey's new adventure. Until then, we got a new launch trailer you guys can take a look at which kind of reminds us of the old Gears of War Mad World trailer.

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Anyone who watches Battlestar Galactica knows that when it comes to acting Tricia Helfer can hold a sort of creepy, mystical quality. So it makes perfect sense that she'll be lending her voice talents to the Black Cat in Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. Looking even more attractive, Helfer gives us the rundown on her character in the game and makes us wish the finale of Galactica would come sooner.

Web of Shadows will be hitting store shelves October 21st for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, DS, and PSP

Activision revealed more of the voice cast for the upcoming Spider-Man: Web of Shadows today, announcing that Tricia Helfer, who is pretty and best known for her work on Battlestar Galatica, will perform voiceover duties for the Black Cat. Helfer, seen being attractive in the above headshot, had previously played the role of Black Cat on the animated series The Spectacular Spider-Man.

Helfer's nerd cred was leveled up last month when she spoke at NVIDIA's NVISION 2008 conference. Things in this post not about Tricia Helfer and her physical appearance are new screens of Web of Shadows, including this poorly angled shot which should probably be the basis of a Kotaku After Dark Photoshop contest.

Web of Shadows Black Cat Gallery

Last night I got back from Activate Asia 08, Activision's annual Asia-Pacific conference for retail and media. The Activision Blizzard branding was in full force, from banners to name tags to bags. It was everywhere.

A few newsworthy nuggets emerged from the event, such as Activision Blizzard's risk/market chart, which the company's new senior vice president, the chocolate-coated Philip Earl, talked us through on the event's second day.

The chart shows how Activision Blizzard perceives its upcoming titles. I've made a rather crude rendition of it above, so I don't have to confuse myself trying to explain it. The diagram is a bit boring, but it's the contents that made it exciting.

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The votes have been tallied, and to my great surprise and dismay, the Spider-Man: Web of Shadows box art has been chosen by the fans themselves, and they chose...poorly. I suppose in all fairness the two choices we were presented weren't all that great in the first place - it was either Spider-Man holding a dome-less snow globe or Spider-Man with concept art for arms. I was leaning towards the snow globe myself, but Wolverine and Venom together on one cover is kind of hard to resist.

Besides, when you've got as good of a game inside as I played at the Games Convention in Leipzig, you could ship it in a plain cardboard sleeve and I'd still be there on launch day to pick up the special corrugated edition.

The highlight of day two at GC so far has definitely been the 45 minutes I spent playing Spider-Man, Web of Shadows while chatting with associate producer Brian Morrison about the game, games past, and all things Spider-Man. Brian is no stranger to the series, having worked on the excellent Spider-Man 2, the relatively amazing Ultimate Spider-Man, and...Spider-Man: Friend or Foe. The look I gave him as he revealed that last one prompted a quick "It's a kids' game" from Morrison, but as far as I am concerned the man should be in charge of anything Spider-Man related coming out of Activision from here on out. As I left the session I asked for his card, and the guy pulls out a battered Spider-Man Velcro wallet.

It's that kind of passion that is going into Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, which from what I saw will mark a rebirth of the franchise after the abysmal Spider-Man 3.

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In order, these are the thoughts that went through my mind upon viewing the Comic-Con trailer for Activision's Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. "Hmmm. Neat. Huh. Interesting. Oooooo. Cool! Woot, Wolverine! That's not good." Fighting alongside Logan is a good thing. Fighting against him, not so much. Fighting against a berserk, alien-infected Wolverine? In the comics world that would be at least a two-part story, perhaps even three if they decided to stretch it out a bit. Between this trailer and McWhertor's impressions of the game so far, colour me intrigued. Perhaps Web of Shadows will turn out to be the game we initially thought Friend or Foe was going to be before they went all kiddie on us.

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