The Amazing Spider-Man Review (PS3):
Now I have been a huge fan of the comic book hero since I was young. Collecting the comics, watching the 90′s Saturday morning cartoon religiously as a kid. I also played several of the games and experienced many of the ups and downs the character has had in this particular medium.
Many people cite the movie licensed Spider-Man 2 as the highlight because of how well it handled the
mechanics of web swinging. Despite that, I’m still of the opinion that there has yet to be a truly perfect video game experience for the character. Unfortunately, Spider-Man’s latest game does little to rectify that.
Beenox’s game is set up to be a sort of sequel to the recent movie, picking up sometime after the closing events of that story. I will try not to go to deep into anything that might spoil the movie, but be warned as some spoilers will be inevitable.
The plot to the game is completely nonsensical, especially in context of the movie it’s based on.
Curt Connor’s research was being continued, leading to the creation of several cross species monsters. The monsters break out and become walking plagues. Apparently, the genetic mutations that Oscorp’s scientists designed to create the beasts are contagious. Spider-Man ends up breaking Connor’s out of an asylum in order to enlist his aid in curing the infection.
The monsters I mentioned are new takes of several classic villains from the comics, such as Rhino and Scorpion. Disappointingly, what these re-imaginings boil down to is turning these characters into mindless creatures, serving as little more than wild carriers of the plot’s gene virus.
We are also introduced to Alistaire Smythe, Oscorp’s new lead scientist and former rival of Curt Connor’s who specializes in the field of robotics. He ends up being the second major threat of the game along with the cross species outbreak. Several boss battles are dedicated to his enormous death machines.
There are some interesting ideas in the plot that hint at deeper elements to be explored, such as Gwen Stacy’s obvious reservations about Spider-Man working with the Lizard. However, none of the actual good ideas are explored in much depth.
As far as gameplay is concerned, this game desperately wants to be Batman Arkham City and it is painful to experience how poor of a job it does at it.
You can almost hear the pleading voices of the game designers crying, “Look, we can do it too!” From the combat mechanic, to the upgrade system, to the rooms of enemies dedicated to stealth takedowns. Sure, it copies plenty of details but truly misses the soul of what made Arkham City so good.
None of these elements feel particularly polished. Even the combat, which can be fun when you get a good flow going, is just not tweaked enough to really give the satisfaction of the system they ripped off.
The boss fights in particular are a tremendous let down. There isn’t really any sense of excitement or weight to the battles. They’re just boring, tedious and lacking in a real challenge. They basically come down to 2 flavors with few exceptions.
You are either fighting an opponent around your own physical size … you spend most of the time dodging then hitting a few times before dodging again or you fight giant robots with obvious weaknesses that you web rush to for a quick time event. Bland and utterly boring.
Traveling around the city is fun to watch but nowhere near as satisfying as in previous games. All you do is hold down one button and guide him through the city. The closer camera to give a sense of motion does not fix the fact that you don’t really feel like you’re the one controlling the web swinging. This is what people loved so much about Spider-Man 2.
One of Spider-man’s biggest enemies also resurfaces in this game: the camera. Climbing inside a room can lead to some very disorienting moments because of the camera’s refusal to comply.
It also does a lot to work against you in certain boss fights where there are lesser enemies swarming you but the camera wants to stay fixed on the boss character. It’s always a bad sign when you have to figure out a way to work around the camera in any game.
The big new feature of the game is a mode called Web Rush. This is a mechanic that allows you to slow down time in order to careful choose where Spider-Man’s next point of travel is. It’s a cute gimmick that obviously is trying to give you the illusion of the quick response and split second acrobatics that Spider-man actually has.
What it actually does is slow down the gameplay in an annoying way. On occasion it can be useful, particularly for flying comic pages in the middle of Manhattan, but it’s largely unnecessary.
Side missions are as basic as they get in most cases. Grab a citizen and take them to another place, beat up muggers, take down escape vehicles and so on and so on. There is a guy in a blimp who continually gives Spider-Man challenges of either speed or acrobatics because?… Well I guess he has got nothing better to do.
The challenges are incredibly dull, you are either zipping from one point to another in an easy race against the clock, or controlling a camera to keep Spider-Man in frame while he does stunts.
The closest things to interesting side missions are a bank heist that introduces Felicia Hardy (aka Black Cat) and camera challenges. The camera challenges are another obvious attempt at copying Arkham Asylum. Some of the missions are actually for you to take pictures of events that hint at the presence of other popular villains from the comics. It’s actually an interesting enough idea but not utilized to its fullest.
Once again revisiting my earlier comment about how this game misses the point, Arkham City is a celebration of the character of Batman, every bit of the game oozes the setting and characters.
The Amazing Spider-Man is not a celebration of all things Spider-Man and honestly you cannot capture a true essence of a character from the comics in a movie licensed game. It’s cool to take pictures of the damage left in the wake of a character like Hydro Man, but being set in the movie universe limits what you can do with that.
Spider-Man has not met most of his rogues in this universe, so hinting at characters that you will never come across doesn’t really have the effect thematically one would hope.
There are some neat touches, such as unlocking comics that you can read through collectible comic pages. Audio evidence litters certain areas that reveal behind the scenes workings of Oscorp and Alistaire Smythe. I also liked the internet postings of people in New York responding to the increasingly more insane events outside their windows. It was cool to read reactions of people unsure of what to believe and reacting as how one might expect the internet would.
There are good ideas in the game, they just are not fleshed out enough and the actual game itself ends up being monotonous. The story is largely uninteresting.
The gameplay is derivative and poorly implemented. Even the basic demand Spider-Man fans have of web swinging through New York is just not very satisfying, which is a sin for the fans. There is little motivation to complete many of the sides quests.
In the end, the very core of the game is just painfully mediocre, aspiring to be grand but failing miserably. I won’t go as far to say it’s an utterly terrible game, but it is an inept attempt at bringing Spider-Man back to a sandbox.
Now I have been a huge fan of the comic book hero since I was young. Collecting the comics, watching the 90′s Saturday morning cartoon religiously as a kid. I also played several of the games and experienced many of the ups and downs the character has had in this particular medium.
Many people cite the movie licensed Spider-Man 2 as the highlight because of how well it handled the
mechanics of web swinging. Despite that, I’m still of the opinion that there has yet to be a truly perfect video game experience for the character. Unfortunately, Spider-Man’s latest game does little to rectify that.
Beenox’s game is set up to be a sort of sequel to the recent movie, picking up sometime after the closing events of that story. I will try not to go to deep into anything that might spoil the movie, but be warned as some spoilers will be inevitable.
The plot to the game is completely nonsensical, especially in context of the movie it’s based on.
Curt Connor’s research was being continued, leading to the creation of several cross species monsters. The monsters break out and become walking plagues. Apparently, the genetic mutations that Oscorp’s scientists designed to create the beasts are contagious. Spider-Man ends up breaking Connor’s out of an asylum in order to enlist his aid in curing the infection.
The monsters I mentioned are new takes of several classic villains from the comics, such as Rhino and Scorpion. Disappointingly, what these re-imaginings boil down to is turning these characters into mindless creatures, serving as little more than wild carriers of the plot’s gene virus.
We are also introduced to Alistaire Smythe, Oscorp’s new lead scientist and former rival of Curt Connor’s who specializes in the field of robotics. He ends up being the second major threat of the game along with the cross species outbreak. Several boss battles are dedicated to his enormous death machines.
There are some interesting ideas in the plot that hint at deeper elements to be explored, such as Gwen Stacy’s obvious reservations about Spider-Man working with the Lizard. However, none of the actual good ideas are explored in much depth.
As far as gameplay is concerned, this game desperately wants to be Batman Arkham City and it is painful to experience how poor of a job it does at it.
You can almost hear the pleading voices of the game designers crying, “Look, we can do it too!” From the combat mechanic, to the upgrade system, to the rooms of enemies dedicated to stealth takedowns. Sure, it copies plenty of details but truly misses the soul of what made Arkham City so good.
None of these elements feel particularly polished. Even the combat, which can be fun when you get a good flow going, is just not tweaked enough to really give the satisfaction of the system they ripped off.
The boss fights in particular are a tremendous let down. There isn’t really any sense of excitement or weight to the battles. They’re just boring, tedious and lacking in a real challenge. They basically come down to 2 flavors with few exceptions.
You are either fighting an opponent around your own physical size … you spend most of the time dodging then hitting a few times before dodging again or you fight giant robots with obvious weaknesses that you web rush to for a quick time event. Bland and utterly boring.
Traveling around the city is fun to watch but nowhere near as satisfying as in previous games. All you do is hold down one button and guide him through the city. The closer camera to give a sense of motion does not fix the fact that you don’t really feel like you’re the one controlling the web swinging. This is what people loved so much about Spider-Man 2.
One of Spider-man’s biggest enemies also resurfaces in this game: the camera. Climbing inside a room can lead to some very disorienting moments because of the camera’s refusal to comply.
It also does a lot to work against you in certain boss fights where there are lesser enemies swarming you but the camera wants to stay fixed on the boss character. It’s always a bad sign when you have to figure out a way to work around the camera in any game.
The big new feature of the game is a mode called Web Rush. This is a mechanic that allows you to slow down time in order to careful choose where Spider-Man’s next point of travel is. It’s a cute gimmick that obviously is trying to give you the illusion of the quick response and split second acrobatics that Spider-man actually has.
What it actually does is slow down the gameplay in an annoying way. On occasion it can be useful, particularly for flying comic pages in the middle of Manhattan, but it’s largely unnecessary.
Side missions are as basic as they get in most cases. Grab a citizen and take them to another place, beat up muggers, take down escape vehicles and so on and so on. There is a guy in a blimp who continually gives Spider-Man challenges of either speed or acrobatics because?… Well I guess he has got nothing better to do.
The challenges are incredibly dull, you are either zipping from one point to another in an easy race against the clock, or controlling a camera to keep Spider-Man in frame while he does stunts.
The closest things to interesting side missions are a bank heist that introduces Felicia Hardy (aka Black Cat) and camera challenges. The camera challenges are another obvious attempt at copying Arkham Asylum. Some of the missions are actually for you to take pictures of events that hint at the presence of other popular villains from the comics. It’s actually an interesting enough idea but not utilized to its fullest.
Once again revisiting my earlier comment about how this game misses the point, Arkham City is a celebration of the character of Batman, every bit of the game oozes the setting and characters.
The Amazing Spider-Man is not a celebration of all things Spider-Man and honestly you cannot capture a true essence of a character from the comics in a movie licensed game. It’s cool to take pictures of the damage left in the wake of a character like Hydro Man, but being set in the movie universe limits what you can do with that.
Spider-Man has not met most of his rogues in this universe, so hinting at characters that you will never come across doesn’t really have the effect thematically one would hope.
There are some neat touches, such as unlocking comics that you can read through collectible comic pages. Audio evidence litters certain areas that reveal behind the scenes workings of Oscorp and Alistaire Smythe. I also liked the internet postings of people in New York responding to the increasingly more insane events outside their windows. It was cool to read reactions of people unsure of what to believe and reacting as how one might expect the internet would.
There are good ideas in the game, they just are not fleshed out enough and the actual game itself ends up being monotonous. The story is largely uninteresting.
The gameplay is derivative and poorly implemented. Even the basic demand Spider-Man fans have of web swinging through New York is just not very satisfying, which is a sin for the fans. There is little motivation to complete many of the sides quests.
In the end, the very core of the game is just painfully mediocre, aspiring to be grand but failing miserably. I won’t go as far to say it’s an utterly terrible game, but it is an inept attempt at bringing Spider-Man back to a sandbox.
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