Game Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

I know what you're thinking: why the hell isn't this a Max Payne 3 review? And you'd be right. With such a span between my reviews these days, I should really pick my reviews a bit more according to popularity. But, y'see, that's not how this works. Had I the time, I'd probably review every damn game out there. But for now, focusing on a popular game without having something significantly good or bad to say about it is just reviewing for revewing's sake, and I'm not inclined to do this at the moment. Hence, the Amazing Spider-Man review.


Now, if you're regulars of this here blog, you probably know how I feel about games based on films. For those of you who don't, here's a crash course: I deeply, deeply dislike them. If I may, I'd like at this point to repeat a few select passages from this post, way back from April 29th 2011.


"I honestly do not know why that is. I mean, I have a solid idea why games don't make good films, but why films can't make good games eludes me. It may have something to do with all of these examples being released simultaneously or, very close to, the film's release. Could that mean that the film hasn't had time to entrench itself in our taste and one look at a mediocre game will suffice? Could it mean that getting that game out is more in keeping with a marketing schedule rather than working on the game itself? I don't know. What I do know, is that those games were bad. "


"Yes, there are great games based on films. But, they are all based on some aspect of the world in the film, not the plot of the film as is."


"It's true. Some worlds lend themselves for games more readily than others. It's no accident there's so manyStar Wars games out there, only some of them bad. However, all of the above examples have something in common: the acting technique known as "yes, and".


"Yes, and" assumes the actor, be that in improv or legitimate acting, accepts what his or her partner gives them, no matter what that is, and adds to it. It's what makes you bark when someone tells you "do like a dog" instead of going "no, that's stupid, you be the dog, I wanna be a cat".


All of these games accepted the world as it was and added to it, sometimes for better (looking at you, good ending of Force Unleashed), sometimes for worse (looking at you, evil ending of Force Unleashed)."

"Please, developers, keep that in mind next time you want to adapt a film. Gamers, sooner or later, get a brain, and we hate being taken for fools."

Now, it looks like Beenox might have actually been paying attention! Remember their last two games, Shattered Dimensions and Edge of Time? As well as their previous one, Web of Shadows? While all three were based on the comic book version of Spidey and the Marvel universe in general, only WoS was actually a free roaming game that really made you feel like Spidey. It was, in fact, my guilty pleasure game: a game I knew perfectly well was superbly flawed in many ways, yet I couldn't dislike no matter what my rationale was saying. SD was slightly more rail-roaded, albeit with better mechanics and gimmicks, and EoT I really can't comment on, having steered clear away from it. But the free-roaming swinging through a virtual city is and always should be the focus of a Spider-Man game. I thought WoS unsurpassed. I was wrong.

Now, the Amazing story is not, forgive the unoriginal pun, amazing. Nothing to write home about, really. Thankfully, it doesn't follow the film's story. Rather, it's set a few weeks after that. Akin to WoS, it deals with a virus outbreak, villains we're seen before, villains that are completely new to the games/films-only Spidey fans,a lot of story-unrelated side missions, a conspiracy, redemption, obsession. In short, cliche. The redeeming factor, though, is that it doesn't feel like it has to adhere to a film set to come out simultaneously with it. This allows room for change, improvisation, freedom to where the story will go. A story created within a sandbox, if you will. While not great, the story isn't bad either.

The mechanics, on the other hand, are probably the best Spidey ones to date. Seemingly borrowing quite a few ideas from the recent Batman games, this Spidey focuses on dodging, counter-attacking and, when possible, prefers to strike from the shadows. Even straight out combat seems to take its cues straight from Batman: Spidey focuses on a acrobatic, almost ballet-like fighting style that favors counter attacks, surprise flurries, building up combos and finishing foes off with devastating and spectacular finishers. As well as he should, seeing that unlike previous iterations of the Spidey games, this one can't take it as well as he dishes it out, which encourages playing a bit more thoughtfully than previous games. A CoD-style health system means one too many hits at any given time equals to an undignified game over.

A shame, then, that this fun combat system gets wasted on most boss fights that work in more or less that same principle. It's all fine and dandy beating up soldiers/inmates/whatever in this fashion, another entirely when some of the boss fights require the same implementation. Others...are more flashing, larger-than-life fights that, while not particularly complex, are slightly more traditional "boss fights". Notable exceptions are the mechanical bosses, one of the Rhino fights and perhaps parts of the Black Cat chapter.

Which leaves the side missions and the free roaming. Most of the side missions will be simple races, saving civilians from thugs, stopping getaway cars, taking specific photos around the city, investigating Oscorp laboratories, breaking police deadlocks and the like. Not a great variety of side-activities, really, and sadly, not really enough of them. 

Still, swinging and zipping around the city to get to them, gather all the collectibles or simply to unwind is better than it ever was, partly due to the sweet graphics, the nearly-perfected swinging animations, the "bullet-time" web-rush. It's genuinely a rush swinging through this NYC, shame there's not all that much to do in it. The game shouldn't take more than 10 hours or so to finish, assuming you do or at least try to do side-activities and not just story missions.

Which is kind of a bummer. Beenox, had they come up with a better story, might have produced the greatest Spidey game of all time. Had they worked on and enriched the game mechanics a tad, might have produced the best super hero game since Arkham Asylum. As it stands, they've produced a welcome surprise in a niche usually populated by sub-mediocre examples. There's hope on the horizon yet.