With the release of the new movie, so too must come a tie in game. Amazing Spider-Man 2 is here and it does a great job capturing the fun of web slinging through New York. And while there is fun to be had in this game it also has some issues that keep it from the top of the super hero genre.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a standalone game, so it basically is a branching story from the movie which is good because the first game had major spoilers from the film,there are mild spoilers in the game but it won’t ruin the movie if you haven’t seen it. The bulk of the story concerns Peter tracking down his uncles killer only to have been beaten to the punch by someone the cops have dubbed the Carnage Killer. Any Spider-Fans will dig this story as it deals with a cool villain from the comics. At the same time a powerful crime lord known as the Kingpin is making his present felt and it’s up to Spidey to figure out who he is and bring him to justice.
Beenox has been the developer for Spider-Man games for awhile now and their ability to showcase Spider-Man’s abilities is great. Swinging through New York is a blast. One slight change to the controls is now the R1 and L1 triggers represent Spidey’s hands, meaning you have to press the buttons to fire a web from his left or right side. That is easy as the controls for web slinging are silky smooth.
The controls to falter however when you try to climb a building and make precise web rush commands. Also the fighting tries to mirror the awesome Batman: Arkham controls and you can’t help but feel that it is a stripped down version of Batman’s fighting ability. And just like the Arkham titles instead of detective mode we get Spider-Sense mode which allows Spider-Man see his enemies and grapple from flag poles and web them up, every aspect of combat has been lifted from Batman’s world but not as effectively as I would have hoped.
The graphics are hit or miss. Spider-Man looks great. The details in his costume and his movements are spot on. On the new consoles I was hoping for a huge improvement in textures and lighting and it just wasn’t there. Some of the areas look great but others like when you go into the sewers do not offer anything “next gen”. The lighting looks like PS3 as well, Where games like Tomb Raider upped the look of all aspects it seems that Beenox just smoothed out some textures. The main villains look great but the thugs and gang members all look the same and are rather ho-hum plus they all where bandannas over their mouths, weird. There are also a lot of technical missteps, in a scene where you are talking to Harry Osborn his drink distorts the whole screen with a polygon that is as wide as the screen, it just looks bizarre and not the kind of graphical hiccup you would expect from a marquee game.
The sound is pretty good. The music does a good job giving you the sense of adventure and excitement. The voice acting however is hit or miss. Spider-Man is good but not great, the voice just doesn’t seem to work at times. Kraven is one of the best in the game, he is menacing and understanding at the same time. The biggest disappointment is Cletus Kasady AKA Carnage, he tries to be scary but he comes across as a bad B-Movie villain. It doesn’t help that the dialogue he is given is average at best, again Beenox tries to infuse Arkham into this by having you recover audio files of Kasady’s ramblings but it comes across as a poor mans Victor Zsasz. Speaking of the super villains all their fights are pretty much the same, dodge, punch, dodge, repeat, nothing too exciting or unique.
The game does have a lot of fun diversions though. Once again you collect comic pages to unlock a bunch of goodies at Stan’s Comic Store, yes run by Mr. Stan Lee. There’s also races and other little distractions to have fun with while you are on your way to the next chapter in the story. Plus there is a ton of content to unlock, character bios, awesome Spidey outfits and more, the game will keep you busy if you try and unlock 100% of it.
Another Spider-Man game that doesn’t quite live up to the wall crawler. The story is fun and web slinging is a blast but clunky fight controls, average graphics and tons of Arkham rip offs keep this from swinging high.
Graphics 3.0
Spider-Man looks great and so too do the main villains everything else looks last-gen
Controls 4.0
Web slinging is great, fighting not so much
Sound 3.5
Music is not bad, and the voice talent is good at parts horrible at others.
Fun Factor 4.0
Even though the game is a little uneven there is still fun to be had, collecting comics and unlocking suits is a blast, if Beenox can ever lock down the fighting engine they would have a must buy