The Amazing Spider-Man review

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.

Beenox talks Amazing Spider-Man

"The Amazing Spider-Man" game has been released, the team at developer Beenox has some time to kill between projects, so I got the opportunity to talk with producer David Boudreault about the most recent installment in the Spidey franchise. 

[Ed. Note] This article will be presented in a question-then-answer style, with our question to Boudreault in bold text followed by his answer in normal text.

Spider-Man movie games have been coming out for as long as the movies have been, most of them not so good, but it seems that "The Amazing Spider-Man" is trying its hardest to break that stereotype, what drove you to make an (forgive the pun) amazing game?

At Beenox, everyone is a huge fan of Spider-Man so we dedicated all our passion and energy on making this a great game. The core team of "The Amazing Spider-Man" already delivered the awesome "Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions" two years ago, therefore we had strong and experimented resources working on this title.

 Because it is a movie tie-in game, were there any limitations that you had when creating the game?

Our main limitation was self-imposed . We wanted a great Spider-Man game, respectful of the source material and respectful of the movie universe created by Marc Webb.

With the game coming out a full week before the release date of the movie , should players be worried about any big spoilers in the game?

The game is heavily linked to the movie on some ways, but we made sure that we would not spoil anything too major.

Spider-Man is a little sneakier this time around.

On that note, did the team over at Beenox get a chance to see the film or at the very least read the script to help with the game?

Sony was really cooperative and they helped us tremendously in making sure the game would rock. We had the chance to read the script at the beginning of the project, and we were in constant communication throughout the course of the project. We received movies and images as references in order to make sure we were staying as close as possible to the movie universe.

You mentioned to me at E3 that the actor for "The Amazing Spider-Man," Andrew Garfield was too busy with the films shooting schedule to do the voice over for the game. Who did you get to replace him in the game, and do you think players are going to have a hard time reconciling the different voice actors?

Even though the game is an epilogue to the movie, we also made sure it was standing out on itself. Having a different actor won’t be such a big deal, especially since Sam Riegl did an awesome job in voicing Spidey/Peter.

The camera in this game has been brought to an over the shoulder position, which differs from many of the past Spider-Man games. What prompted this decision?

Spidey takes on Rhino.

We wanted to offer the most immersive experience yet for a Spider-Man game. To achieve this, the most clever solution, in our minds, was to bring the camera as close as possible to the character. That way, the player is able to experience the world as Spidey experiences it - from the sense of vertigo felt while web swinging to the pleasure of getting rid of opponents in close combat.

I recently just downloaded the "Amazing Spider-Man" demo for my 3DS and the villain of choice in the demo was Felicia Hardy, also known as the Black Cat. In the comics, she and Spider-Man have a little romance, so are we going to see that interaction as the story progresses?

You don't want me to spoil the story, do you?

The combat system has reportedly been built from the ground up replacing the old X, X, X, B combo style for a more free-flowing combat mechanic. What inspired this transition?

Spidey is a strong character, but we wanted to showcase his spectacular agility. We wanted the combat to be as acrobatic as possible. We feel our new, unique combat system will allow the player to experience that agility since you’ll see him execute moves never before seen in a Spidey game.

Beenox has become relatively well known for creating good Spider-Man games. Does the team still want to continue working on the franchise, or are they just fed up with the web slinger and want to move on?

Beenox thrives on challenges, be it with a character like Spidey or other characters. If fans like the game, we definitely would want the chance to give this game a great sequel. That being said, we might also have a surprise or two in our future.