The Amazing Spider-Man Review

The Amazing Spider-Man isn't a great game. Its villains are b-listers, its side missions are repetitive, and its combat/reversal/stealth system is pulled from Arkham City but without the sharp, fluid animations. But here's the most important thing: The Amazing Spider-Man is a fun game.

Set as an epilogue to the movie with the same name, The Amazing Spider-Man game will begin ruining plot points for the unreleased film pretty much as soon as you start it up. You find out which main characters lived and died, and a tale centered around the virus that made Curt Connors the Lizard getting released in New York takes off.

“ The Amazing Spider-Man isn't a great game, but it can be a great time.

Through more than 20 missions involving Rhino and the Iguana, you web and wail on bad guys. The movie's actors didn't lend their voices to this game, but the cast that is here is solid and actually delivers some cool moments for fans. Sadly, most of the plot points are ho-hum -- with the exception of a truly fascinating run-in with Felicia Hardy -- and it's all about the action, which rewards you with XP for spider-upgrades.

Much like the Arkham series of Batman games, Spidey can confront enemies head on or attack from the shadows. Engaging in some acrobatic fisticuffs raises your combo meter, and when the spider-sense goes off around Spider-Man's noggin, you know to tap the reversal button and stylishly take out the attacker.

The formula makes it easy to look like a superhero and take out a roomful of baddies with webs and signature moves for flair. If you're more inclined to crawl on the ceiling unnoticed, Spider-Man can execute stealth takedowns where he puts villains in web cocoons and brings them back to the ceiling (theoretically to leave there until they starve or the web dissolves and they plummet back to the floor breaking all their bones).

Spidey's suit takes damage as you stink up the game.

The camera can wig out when Spidey's on the ceiling and the action just doesn't look that hot as the animations and graphics aren't extremely polished (overall, the game doesn't look like a high-end HD title). But neither of those things kept me from slinking around and beating up bad guys over and over again. There's something intoxicating about zipping in, punching a sniper in the chest, and webbing his friends before kicking a dumpster into all of them. The fact that Spider-Man can "Web Retreat" whenever he's discovered and go back to being hidden even in a brightly lit room makes the stealth stuff a bit too easy, but it didn't stop me from enjoying the takedowns.

“ The Amazing Spider-Man speaks to that OCD tendency to get every last mission off the checklist -- to have a clean quest log.

But these thrills are the same thing over and over again, and the same can be said for life outside the storyline. Spider-Man once again exists in an open world version of Manhattan. You're free to web-swing from one end of the borough to the other and tackle the random crimes and activities you come across. From stopping robberies to rescuing infected civilians to participating in races for an extreme sports promoter, there’s a lot to do in The Amazing Spider-Man. But, be prepared to repeat these missions over and over again; you’ll hear the same one-liners from Spidey and the police you're helping over and over again. The first time you return an escaped mental patient to the police is going to be identical to the last time you do it.

Without a doubt, this diminishes the "Oh my god, I'm Spider-Man" feel the game is going for, but it doesn't make performing the actions any less fun. Like farming experience points in your favorite RPG, I dug swinging around New York City and knocking off the icons on my map. The Amazing Spider-Man speaks to that OCD tendency to get every last mission off the checklist -- to have a clean quest log.

That's one of the reasons the comic pages are so annoying/brilliant in The Amazing Spider-Man. See, there are collectable comic pages hidden all over the city that unlock real comic books for you to read in the extras menu. Trouble is, there are 700 pages to collect, and the locations are never added to your in-game map. I have more than 400, and now that they're getting harder to find, I discover my dedication to collecting them waning. Even if I had a list of where they all were, would I want to double back and check off the 300 ones I already have?

That said, I keep on collecting the comics because doing so is connected to the game's best aspect -- web-slinging. Once again, just getting out and moving between the skyscrapers of New York is exciting. Developer Beenox has created a Spider-Man that twists and turns through the air while the camera is anchored really close to his back. It is by far the most impressive visual aspect of the game.

Even better is the addition of Web Rush. By holding a shoulder button, time slows and you can see all the cool locations you can send Spider-Man to -- the top of a flagpole, the side of a building, etc. It's an elegant way to get Spider-Man around quickly in a way that isn't a disorienting mess, which the camera can still be reduced to indoors.

PlayStation Moving

If you're playing on the PlayStation 3, you can play with the PlayStation Move. Now, before you get images of two wands in your hands and you flicking your webbin' way across New York, dial it back. You hold a navigation controller or regular controller in your left hand and then the PlayStation Move wand in the right.

Basically, the Move puts a cursor on the screen and gives you a more accurate way to Web Rush or fire webbing. That is, rather than cycling through your options on where to zip, you can now just point. Flicking the Move does an immediate Web Retreat. It's a fine system, but I played through the game with normal controls on the hardest difficulty and never felt like more precise aiming would greatly help me.



Source : ign[dot]com