There’s a lot that can go into being the Amazing Spider-Man. One must be dedicated, determined, have good morals, self-control and a strong motivation to choose and do what is right. The same level of complexity can go into making a fantastic Spider-Man game. Beenox’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 hits the mark on many aspects, but falls short from really sticking it.
With this being their fourth attempt into making a Spider-Man game, Beenox studios is the closest thing we have to Spider-Man game expects. Their expertise shows strong throughout the game, but sadly those very Amazing parts are counteracted with some low blows. The game is almost a perfect philosophical debate on Yin and Yang. Let’s break the game down and take a look at both sides.
Controls
The Good
On-screen, Spider-man moves as gracefully as, well, a Spider-Man should. The movements of Spider-Man’s web slinging and attacks are almost mesmerizing, with fluid motion, into fluid motion. One of the most Amazing things is the way Spider-Man moves around New York. Being in an open, there is a lot of retail space to practice Spider-Man’s moves. During web slinging, Spider-Man feels more natural with free-falling body movements, and not that false sense of flying or being jerked around like other Spider-Man games. To add to the realism of Spider-Man’s movements, Beenox did a great job making it feel like Spider-Man’s webs were attaching to objects instead of randomly attaching to the air. Each of the trigger buttons are attached to the concurrent hand. This gives great control and forces some skill to master.
Spider-Man’s fighting style pretty much copies the Arkham series, which is an ok thing to mimic. The Y-Button sends Spider-Man twirling around into movements of attack while the B button dodges with a similar indicator as the Arkham games. Using the A button unleashes Spider-Mans web attack that can pin baddies against the wall or tie them where they stand. The left bumper is used to disarm enemies while the right is for web rush.
Web rush is a special attack that sends Spider-Man flying at a determined location. This ability is used in a few different ways. Mentioned above, Web Rush is used during combat to target and grab enemies while pulling Spider-Man closer to the action. Web Rush is also used for precision movements. Taping the right bumper will quickly send Spider-Man in the direction he is pointing. Holding down the right bumper will activate a “focused” mode were the player can choose different landing spots of the web rush. This becomes useful in controlling Spider-Man as he sneaks around without detection. It also helps to easily reach certain locations while moving around the city.
The Bad
There’s a lot to controlling Spider-Man, and rightful so. The battle controls were simple enough to not have any issues with. The real problem came with everything else. In a perfect situation, Spider-Man controls very smoothly. But there will be times that the quickness of Spider-Man comes across as twitchy. Spider-Man can easily end up stuck upside-down or confused to spider crawl around a corner or continue going up. The fast pace of Spider-Man’s movements will cause a few glitches in the game. Not enough to become a huge annoyance, but enough to notice and sometimes cause issues.
Story
The Good
The story vaguely resembles the movie by the same name, which to me is a relief. The story itself offers a few twist and turns, but that’s about all I have positive to say. Basically the story is a convoluted storyline mixed with aspects from the movie.
The Bad
The story had me interested for about the first act. After that, everything crawled along like a radioactive spider. The game tried to be different by offering conversational chooses, which have no consequence to the outcome of the game. Choosing all the conversation options will add a little more depth to the characters thinking, but like the story, I found myself after a while not caring and skipping to the last question to move things along.
Gameplay
The Good
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 swings around an open world of New York. There are some cool side quests in the city, like collecting comic book pages that are available to read at a Comic book store owned by someone I am sure we are all familiar with (I will give you a hint. He is in every Marvel product). The comic book store also offers figurines from the game that come with some history about that character and an arcade were the player can test their combat skills against waves of baddies.
Like most open world hero games, the city is full of side missions to help build stats, and in this game’s case, reputation. This is where the gameplay falls horribly apart.
The Bad
I am sure you can tell the common theme to this review. Everything starts well, until about the second act. There is variety to the side missions; like beating up thugs, destroying bombs, rescuing people from a fire or a kidnapped car, to helping the police during a shootout. At first, the game treats these like real side missions, as options to add to the game. It’s not until the story moves in a direction that forces the player to do these repetitive missions that these missions become a nuisance.
Not to give too much away from the little story there is – New York comes under a type of corrupt police force martial law. At this point the player has already been introduced to the hero/menace bar. The better Spider-Man does to clean up the city, the higher the praise by the Daily Bugle and the citizens of New York, the more Spider-Man is viewed as a hero. Until this point, the hero/menace bar had little effect on how the game plays. Once this martial law takes over, Spider-Man becomes a top priority by this new force. To help from being constantly attacked, Spider-Man needs to complete the previously mentioned tasks to raise the bar into hero status. This is all good and dandy until the game constantly forces doing these tasks, which quickly become repetitive. For no reason, the game will lower the bar deep into the menace level. Players have the option to ignore this change and venture around the city patrolled by flying robots and an army of men constantly attacking, or take the time to raise the meter back into the hero range. On top of that, ignoring any of the events, which are marked on the map, will lower Spider-Man’s level. This happens all the time! Just traveling from point A to point B, half way across the city, can cause Spider-Man to miss two or three events, causing the Hero/Menace bar to plummet. To keep this bar in the hero range, at least two side missions will need to be completed between the main story marks.
On a side note, this constant battle of being a hero and a menace and trying to help everyone is something that Spider-Man struggles with. This struggle fits perfectly in Comic books and movies, but was over-done in this game.
Conclusion
It’s really hard to give The Amazing Spider-Man 2 a score. Bennox did some of the most Amazing things that I have seen in a Spider-Man game. But for every Amazing thing, there is a negative counter part. A fair score could be to give this game a 5/10 but the real question is; “does the Amazing things outweigh the negative?” The answer is yes, a little. While the Amazing Spider-Man has negatives, the positives are something truly Amazing. Spider-Man fans could find enough to carry them throughout the game.
