The Amazing Spider-Man

The Amazing Spider-Man falls just short of amazing. It is a very good game but unfortunately there is nothing in the game that we haven’t seen before. The game itself is a blend of the Batman and Prototype / Infamous games with the Resident Evil theme. Despite that, it is very good, so good in fact that I can’t put it down.

Before you play the game, I strongly recommend that you go see the film for two main reasons. The first being that the film is brilliant and secondly, the game is not a “play-through” of the film, it is in fact a continuation. So if you haven’t seen the film and you want to, I warn you now that the following paragraph contains spoilers.

After the beautiful opening cinematic sequence, Gwen meets Peter in the Oscorp building, having discovered that despite the imprisonment of Dr. Connors, his experiments of cross-species genetics have continued. Gwen sneaks Peter into the Bio-lab, where one of the hybrid creatures detects Parker’s cross-species blood which sends it into a violent rage, escaping confinement and then going on a rampage, unleashing other cross-species. It is then revealed that should one of these cross-species scratch / bite a human, a virus will be passed on causing the human to mutate into a cross-species as well. During the rampage, Gwen is struck by a cross-species and Parker decides to break out Connors from his cell in order to develop a cure.

The game is set on the Island of Manhattan, New York, and it is divided up into what I like to call “Spidey Quests.” The quests at the start are limited regarding their nature, but as you progress through the game you unlock a variety of missions which range from taking photographs to moving infected civilians to a hospital… they do get a lot more exciting – trust me! The more exciting ones involve car chases, helping the police in a standoff against armed thugs and thrashing the infected beyond help into a webbed pulp. Completing each of these quests rewards you with experience points. When you do level up you get a single ability point. These points are used to give Spidey new abilities, such as cocooning your enemies. By doing special stunts and finding “Tech Boxes” in the world, you also gain Technical points. These are used to increase the webbing and Spider-Man’s suit, such as improving damage resistance.

If you have ever played the Batman games, then you will be familiar (to a degree) with the battle system. It consists of mashing the Square button, which is your basic attack, and watching out for the Spider-Sense by pressing the Triangle button, which evades certain attacks, maintaining your combo. Once your combo chain exceeds a certain value, you are then able to press the Circle button when standing next to a dazed enemy. This knocks them out using a “signature move,” not only do these look awesome, they also give bonus experience.

In battle, you will need to make use of “Tactical Time,” if you press the R1 button, time slows down momentarily, which allows you to make your next move. Whether this is looking for a cabinet dumpster or a gas canister to throw at a group of enemies, web swing into attack, stealthily taking out enemies or using it to attack certain points on a boss, you will no doubt find this feature indispensable – especially if you are playing on the harder difficulties. Spider-Man isn’t exactly robust when it comes to damage taking.

I can’t emphasise enough how beautiful the game is, it is possibly one of the most stunning games I’ve played on the Playstation 3. No expense has been spared when it comes to graphical quality. I was very impressed with the presentation; I’m not really sure what else I can say about it. It is beautiful. For instance, as you take damage, your suit rips and tears. So what? Well, as the suit comes off, you can see the cuts and bruises on our poor super hero, and he’s sustained quite a few injuries whilst I’ve been playing!

One of the truly unique things that I’ve seen from the game, is that in between chapters, while the system is loading the next portion of the game, not only do you get a rundown of what has happened and useful hints, there is also what can only be described as “Tweets” from the citizens of New York! That made me smile to no end.

I’ve got one last thing to say before I wrap this up, and you NEED to listen to the dialogue. I’m not talking about the general dialogue of the story; I mean the bits while you’re running about. Not only are there some  amusing one liners, there are also  hidden references to Star Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other equally awesome things.