Whilst The Amazing Spider-man Video Game may lack the all out ‘spit and polish’ of some premium titles it does bring something new to movie-game tie-ins of late; it is genuinely fun and exciting to play, is full of features and successfully regenerates the Spider-man franchise under software developer Beenox.
Excuse the pun but Spider-Man’s web franchise has been a bit of a sticky web in terms of quality and variety over the past number of years. When it has been good it has been great, but let’s face it when it has been bad, it has been crap. Beenox have been in-charge of the franchise since the highly acclaimed Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, a game that really showed what could be achieved when game’s developers who love the material actually put their minds into bringing the concept to life and who are willing to put in blood, sweat and tears so that new ideas become reality and that these ideas work well. It was for these reasons amongst others that Shattered Dimensions was so well received. Tragically though, the follow up – Edge of Time saw Beenox dropping the ball somewhat almost spectacularly by condemning our beloved wall crawler to confined spaces, changing the control system so that it was tricky to play and having a ho-hum storyline that did little to engage players.
Listening to the critics of Edge of Time and looking at the efforts put into what some would say the ‘all too soon’ reboot of the Spider-man franchise Beenox knew they had to up their game. Mentality wise, they had to approach this just like Marvel Studios were going to approach the movie – it was going to be a one shot gun; they knew they were either going to re-energise the title or kill it. Restore the hope to millions of spidey fans, or destroy it.
Games that successfully manage to re-create the magic of comic books and movies is no mean feat; superhero games especially have a hard time translating the mass of abilities with ease of control. With the exception of Rocksteady and their Batman franchise there are few others that actually do it well. Thankfully though, Beenox fulfilled what some would say is a tall order The Amazing Spiderman plays very well indeed, in places it is incredibly cinematic and having it linked so closely to a movie which is heavily anticipated does it no harm at all.
The story in The Amazing Spider-Man the video game takes place some months after where the movie ended. After the Dr. Connors’ incident, Oscorp Industries went on to create an army of robots that maintain peace inNew York, scanning and attacking infected life forms. Unfortunately Oscorp also continued Connors’ research into cross-species and in one of the opening stages these potentially walking infectious diseases attack and infect Parker’s high school sweetheart: Gwen Stacey and escape intoManhattan, infecting innocents on the way. This leaves Spider-Man with no choice but to break Connors out of prison and work together with him to come up with an antidote to cure the infection in the city and save his girlfriend Gwen.
Set in a free-roaming open-world you will protect innocents of the city, battle with the infected, come across and battle super villains, tackle muggers and other perps of criminal activity all with the ability to explore and swing to your heart’s content.
The mechanic feels great and both looks and works tremendously well. Out in the city whilst you are web-slinging the camera moves in nice and close, and there is this immense feeling of motion, propulsion, gravity, speed and not to mention impressive grace. Swinging through the city you can swing really low between traffic like the movie, you can also free fall and swing at the last second. If you have seen any of the previous Spider-Man movies, you’ll experience that same feeling Peter Parker did the first time he mastered his new abilities. Sometimes in the game you even hear the character whoop with excitement as he enjoys the rush of flying through the air. This helps bring the game to life and I thought a nice touch by the developers who obviously had the master of movement as one of their core angles for this title. It is something perhaps I might not get tired of for a while and in my view makes up for any lack of online multi-play which could have further benefitted this game.
Combat wise this title doesn’t disappoint either. Spidey can confront enemies head on or attack from the shadows. Much has been borrowed from the control method of the Arkham series of Batman games; a single button to initiate and carry out a combo which builds your combo meter with every successful hit, and when the spider-sense goes off around Spider-Man’s head, you know someone is about to attack you so you tap the reversal button to stylishly take them out.
I’ve heard some reviewers complain that it is ‘too borrowed’ from Batman (including the degradable suit) but how can you realistically complain when a formula works so well. It makes it easy to look like a superhero when you skillfully drop down above an unsuspecting enemy, web them into a cocoon and propel them to the ceiling. If you don’t fancy going down the stealth route then you can take them on one by one or in a group with webs and signature moves galore which can be upgraded. Very nice indeed.
New to this Spider-man game is the inclusion of Web Rush. By holding a shoulder button, time slows down and you go into Spider-man’s ‘eyes’ where you can look at and select locations you desire to zip-line to, interact with or attack. It’s an elegant way to get Spider-Man around quickly and in a room full of enemies it allows you to quickly see objects you can use to your advantage.
Of course, there are some areas in which this title falls short of the mark and whilst they are not in my opinion deal breakers (because they are common issues found in most open world games) they do detract from what would otherwise be a quality title. Firstly, whilst the model for Spider-Man is exceptional, there are ten times as many average looking character models in the game. So many people just look the same bar a few palette changes here and there and many sound the same or say the same things. This equally goes for many of the adventures you have around the city. The first time you stop a robbery and hear Spidey deliver a cool line like ‘Stay frosty’ you are going to be excited and the second time and the third but by the time you take out your 15th armed robber who looks or sounds the same or has stolen exactly the same car, stopping robberies wont be high on your agenda. There’s a lot to do in the life of Spider-man but be prepared to repeat these missions over and over again; you’ll hear the same one-liners from Spidey and help the same police officer over and over again. That’s one of the things I think LA Noire got right; each of the side missions were individual crimes in their own right. This is an area for improvement for any future titles. Secondly, Spider-man falls foul of another typical issue of open world titles which is of graphical dexterity. Some of the surfaces especially those which are indoor just lack that spit and polish and look gaudy up close. I found this more noticeable on the Xbox version than on the PlayStation 3 but really, should it be there at all? There are also some niggling camera issues especially when you are in combat or adopting a stealth approach to attacking enemies. Sometimes you’ll find yourself backed into a corner that brings almost certain death and inevitably, some frustration.
On the PlayStation 3 you can play with the PlayStation Move. Now before you get images of two motion controllers in your hands flicking your webs acrossManhattan, think again. You hold a navigation controller or regular controller in your left hand and then the PlayStation Move controller 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 with the right analogue stick you can now just point. Flicking the Move also does an immediate Web Retreat. Whilst it works o.k. and has some novelty value I found it by no means a necessity. I played through the game with normal controls and never actually felt like more precise aiming would greatly help me or make the game any easier; in fact using the move controller just made my arm tired for all the wrong reasons.
The Verdict
With stunning visuals, decent enough storyline and lets not forget incredible web-slinging, Spider-man might not be the best game but is probably one of the best movie tie-ins of late. Fair play some of the missions get repetitive and some of the graphics are rough around the edges but The Amazing Spider-Man is still fun to play and gets me really excited when I think about the movie release next week.
8.5 / 10