The Amazing Spiderman

So I generally have a major rule when it comes to movie to game adaptations: they're generally all pretty shit, and don't require a review to let people know how they fare. But Superhero movies, Spiderman in particular, seem to fare a little better than most. So does this hold true for this year's reboot's game? Allow me to explain.

STORY
The Amazing Spiderman is a direct follow-up to the movie (which is currently in theatres now), and it does it's best to not spoil too much (though certain details do get spoiled quite early on). Without wanting to spoil things too much; following the destruction that Curt Connors, as the Lizard, wreaked upon New York, Oscorp has decided to get rid of all the research and experiments that were related to his mutant disaster.
However, in the process of this research/evidence destruction, a breakout occurs, and multiple Human-Animal cross species subjects escape into the city, infecting the population and waiting for Spiderman to come kick their butts.

I just have to say, the story isn't the best thing that this game has going for it. It's a reasonable excuse to swing around the city, but beyond that, it's a lot of red herrings and bad choices by Spidey.

PRESENTATION
As far as the visuals go, this game is a mixed bag. The general graphics are pretty pedestrian, whereas Spiderman's animations are really fluid. The camera is also a mixed bag; in stealth sections (which are heavy in ceiling crawling) the camera is just another enemy to fight with. However, while free swinging through the city, the camera is one of the best things. Having anchored the camera closely behind Spiderman, the feeling of momentum and speed is quite realistic.

The voice acting fares quite well; Spiderman maintains his smartass personality, and many of his enemies sound exactly how they should. On the subject of the audio, the music is quite heroic sounding, and fits the free-swinging gameplay perfectly. Otherwise, it's generally quite forgettable.

GAMEPLAY
Here's the thing with Superhero games these days: they will always, whether they like it or not, be compared to the Batman Arkham series of games. And The Amazing Spiderman game will probably invite those comparisons more than most. You see, aside from the best part of the game (which I'll continue to gush about later) the majority of the game is made of stealth and combat gameplay.

Now, a lot of games feature these sorts of gameplay, but few copy Batman AC as much as this. Occasionally, Spidey will be dropped in a room with armed thugs (whom he can't take on face to face). This means that he'll have to silently take down everyone in the room before he can proceed. Unlike Batman, however, there is no strategy or variety in how you achieve this. Spidey just crawls along the ceiling, and can perform all his takedowns from there; using his web retreat to hide in a dark corner in case he reveals himself.

The combat also takes pointers from Arkham City, as there are no set combos, just a button for attacks, a button for counters and an evasion button. Sound familiar? Problem is, it isn't quite as fluid as the game it's clearly trying to ape, and there isn't much variety in the way of takedown animations.

Ok, so I've gotten stuck into Amazing Spidey pretty hard, but at the end of the day I did enjoy this game. Now, there's one major reason that this was fun for me. Web Swinging. It's a small thing, but considering that most of your time will be spent in the overworld, swinging between missions and grabbing collectibles, it makes a huge difference. This is the best that web-slinging has felt since Spiderman 2.
The combat and stealth are like sub-par copies of the Arkham games, but this mode of transport makes the experience wholly worthwhile.

REPLAYABILITY
Ok, if I was going to base this on the fun of the missions, or the great story, there'd be nearly no reason to play this over and over. But then the collectibles hit. There's a number of different collectibles to find, but the major one is 700 comic book pages. Yes. 700. Have fun with that. If not for the fantastic web swinging, this would just be tedious.

OVERVIEW
This is not the best game you'll play this year. It's not the best superhero game yet either. Hell, it's not even the best Spiderman game, but it is as close to that Spiderman 2 gold than it has ever been since that game. It's honestly the most fun just traversing a sandbox that I've had in a long time, and alot of the side quests are fun, even if the main aren't much to talk about. Is it worth a buy? If you like Spidey, then yes. If not, I'd say it's worth a rent at the very least.

Next week, I either go Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes, or Spec Ops: The Line.