Game Review: The Amazing Spider-Man
-A movie game that is good and enjoyable... That's AMAZING!-
Story and Atmosphere: First of all let's get it straight that this is a review of the game and not the movie. I haven't even seen seen the movie yet due to a belief that movies shouldn't really be rebooted or redone. However apart from this game continuing on from the movie, that did not cause any problems as everything is neatly explained throughout through a mixture of cutscenes, common sense or a trip to Wikipedia.
The basic story is that following the Lizard in the movie, many half-species are released into Manhattan and with clearly evil corporation Oscorp sending robots to cover it all up and shut it down, something must be done. So it is up to our friendly neighbourhood superhero to clean up the mess, stop the robots and mutants, cure all of the infected citizens, do random challenges for folks and take photos. A normal day then...
The story appears to fit perfectly into the universe of Spidey and while it can be enjoyable at times (Black Cat mission is fantastic and wonderfully interesting), it never excels and enters the realms of a certain other superhero game involving a bat.
However on the bright side the atmosphere of the city is created almost perfectly and while the city doesn't really feel too alive, swinging around has never been better and makes you feel the adrenaline rush you would feel if you were the titular superhero.
Characters: The characters in this game mainly consist of random civilians, B-list supervillains like the Rhino, characters from the movie and the actual Spider-Man himself.
The civilians and supervillains are disappointing at best and the characters from the movie are ok at times and annoying at others. Girlfriend
Gwen Stacy is cute throughout but is nothing more and former Lizard scientist Curt Connors provides background and some amusing comments. However these characters are not really what you are here for.
The Spider-Man is a good superhero. Not a great one like Batman or Iron-Man and not a morally confused badass like Alex Mercer (Prototype game-review a some point) or Ghost Rider but a good one. His powers are fun and effective and his outlook is consistently positive while his motives are never anything more than pure. But all of this is irrelevant as he is exciting to play as and provides entertaining commentary throughout the game; albeit slightly repetitive by a few hours in.
So all in all the characters are adequate and provide a good track for the rest of the game to ride on. Nothing special but damn ok.
Gameplay: Playing this game is fun. Web-swinging is fun. Fighting acrobatically is fun. Boss fighting is fun. Wall-crawling is... well, mostly fun. Although the gameplay is nothing special (kind of a mantra for this game really), it is fun and completely enjoyable.
Almost 100% of the gameplay works and with only a few niggles in wall crawling and the camera controls, this game is a joy to play from start to finish. Period.
Graphics: As previously mentioned in my Introduction, in this age I believe that there is no excuse for poor graphics letting a game down in the looks department. Now this game's graphics are ok. Not near what they could be but ok. The city looks good in motion and the indoor locales look decent in combat but, once again, it doesn't excel or impress.
However due to how fun the game is, I don't really care. Graphics can be looked past... not really... But you know what I mean.
Sound: Music and voice acting can make or break a game in my book (How to Make or Break A Game by Daniel Wright- look it up and you won't find it) so I pay close attention to this in games.
The music I cannot comment on because I could hardly hear it in motion and I wasn't impressed with it in combat. However, I can comment on the voice acting. In this game, the voice acting of the main characters-especially Spidey and Curt Connors-is good and strong. Although the movie cast doesn't lend their talents, the actors are strong and provide a colourful and correct commentary on the actions in the game. The voice acting and script of Spider-Man himself is especially good with some of his comments actually drawing laughter from me.
The main example of this would be an infected civilian saying 'I am gonna drool on your lovely suit if you don't slow down dude' when being carried by the hero to safety. Ok so not hilarious but funny all the less! No? Maybe I am telling it wrong then...
Lasting Appeal: The lasting appeal of this game is mainly in collecting comics so poor do if you hate cold tables as there are over 500 of them here. The main story will take around 10-12 hours to complete and the side missions an extra few hours if you are doing all of them but around 5 extra hours can be added just in web swinging and collecting. Great for OCD collectors like me but awful for many others.
Replayability is there as missions can be replayed but there is really no reason apart from achievements to do so. But I do believe that there is lasting appeal here and for a decent price you will get a decent amount of time and fun.
Final Comments: The Amazing Spider-Man is a very fun game. Almost every single aspect creates enjoyment and for pure, childish fun there are few games which can equal the fun of exploring the city. Sure the missions are nearly all indoors and there are some flaws in sound and graphics but all of this can be overlooked.
The Amazing Spider-Man is fun to play; nothing special but good. And when you count it as a movie game- it goes from good to great at whatever speed a web swings.
-Please like and comment with thoughts and improvements or even your own take on the game or movie-
Thank you.
Farewell for now.
Kate
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