Warning: This review contains spoilers for both “The Amazing Spider-Man” game and movie.
He sticks to the shadows while waiting for just the right moment to pounce on his unsuspecting target and rip him to the ceiling before anyone notices what happened. The other goons in the room are vaguely aware that they are now a man short, but the silent attacker is nowhere to be seen. One by one they are picked off by this invisible assailant. Is it a phantom? A giant, bat-like creature? No, it's a smart-mouthed, cocky teenager who calls himself Spider-Man.
“The Amazing Spider-Man,” developed by Beenox, is a game created as a direct sequel to the recently released movie of the same title. It's incredibly reminiscent of the “Arkham” series of Batman games, but without all the polish and engaging storylines or stellar voice acting.
Unfortunately, this most recent Spider-Man game falls in line with most other movie tie-in games, and ends up being pretty bad.
The gameplay feels like the "Arkham" games with its free-flow combat and stealth attacks, but lacks polish and consistency in attack effectiveness. Attempting to remain unseen while picking off enemies from ledges or ceilings is more tedious than exhilarating, and more time is spent running away from acid-spitting mutants and bouncing from wall to wall haphazardly than skillfully cocooning enemies and hanging them from ceilings.
Controls are finicky and the game's Web Rush mode, in which you can pause time momentarily and choose areas for Spidey to quickly move to or enemies to attack, sometimes doesn't respond to controller inputs. The Web Rush mode brings the fast-paced action to a halt over and over again. There were many instances where I intended for Spidey to zip away from an incoming attack, but instead saw him lunge directly toward it.
 |
| Sneaking up on baddies could have worked better. |
It seems like the developers devised Web Rush as a way to overcome Spider-Man's inability to swing in areas without high-rise buildings to anchor his webs to, which would have been clever. However, in this game, Spider-Man does not anchor his webs to anything. He shoots them directly into the sky. The player must be in the general vicinity of a building in order to swing, but there is no need to choose where to shoot webs for the best swinging routes.
Manhattan is fully explorable in the game, and there are several mini-missions to accomplish aside from the main storyline, but they becoming tedious and inane after saving random person #16 from random mugger #25 for the fifteenth time. Spider-Man can also end high-speed chases by entering a quick-time event or do stunts for a man in a blimp called the “Xtreme Reporter.”
The ability to swing freely and perform heroics throughout the city is the best part of this game. It brings back memories of “Spider-Man 2” from the original Xbox days.
The graphics are unimpressive aside from some reflections on buildings in Manhattan (which turn out to be static images of the same location on every reflective surface) and the characters look and act nothing like their film counterparts.
The story involves a massive outbreak of cross-species (half person, half animal) throughout New York which Spider-Man must take care of. Curt Connors, also known as The Lizard, plays a large role in the story, but the main villain is the newest head of Oscorp's science division, Alistair Smythe.
Smythe is voiced by none other than the seemingly omnipresent Nolan North, and is bent on saving the city from the cross-species epidemic by destroying everything with giant robots and introducing a nanobot-powered serum into the blood of all infected citizens that he claims will eradicate that cross-species threat.
As is the case in most super-hero stories, the villain goes mad with power and the hero is tasked with stopping him at any cost.
 |
| Spidey can swing through Manhattan freely. |
Spider-Man fights several cross-species baddies along the way including classic Spidey nemeses Rhino and Scorpion, but there are no stand-out baddies in the whole game. There's no sense of a master scheme from Smythe, but rather the story seems like a series of mistakes and coincidences that involves Spider-Man beating up a bunch of mutants and robots.
Boss fights in the game are very repetitive. Spidey dodges, punches and triggers a quick-time event. Repeat three or four times.
Nobody really ever expects movie tie-in games to be particularly spectacular, but a lot of people had high hopes for “The Amazing Spider-Man” because of Beenox's choice to return to open-world gameplay in Manhattan after years of linear Spidey games.
While this game does have several weak points, it still feels pretty good to just take some time to swing around town as the Web Slinger. I can't recommend picking this game up at full price, but it you ever come across it in a bargain bin, give it a shot.
