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1 Jun 2015 - 19 Jun 2015
Closely mirroring both the first game and the second movie in the new franchise, Spider-Man must save New York City from new hybrids created by Oscorp.
OK, the plot's a little thin. Essentially, this game uses a very similar battle mechanic as the Arkham games, where your Spider-sense goes off before someone lands a blow, so you have plenty of time to react. The plot itself is just the background, though entertaining: it does a lot of things that the writers probably wish were in the live-action movies, and stays true to a lot of characterizations that are in the original comics.
Swinging through the city is fun; it's not on the level of that Spider-man game everyone likes talking about where you have to find a ledge to swing from yourself; the magic of video games overrides that. Yes, it's a little silly that you can swing so high over the park. But mechanically, if you couldn't, you might as well just be Peter Parker in a silly costume.
Beating up the regular mooks present little in the way of challenge. I think I was only killed a few times, though I think you should also consider the difficulty level I chose (which is probably a lot lower than most). Just like in the Arkham games, though, there are special mooks that require a little bit extra to take out, and, if anything, these guys just add to the frustration level, but not the difficulty.
Still, though, it's a far better selection of advanced mooks than the first Amazing Spider-man game, which was just a series of robots that made it difficult to tell which ones were "special" and which ones could just be beat up. In this game, it's pretty clear, and the Spider-vision lets you plan your moves before you get too involved.
Maybe it does pull a little too much inspiration from the Arkham games, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Good games take from great games, and that can only serve to elevate the gameplay. Did it sometimes feel like maybe Parker wanted to be like Wayne? Not quite. The inspiration was there, but it felt different. Batman has his own feel, but Spider-Man never feels dark or brooding. He's generally a light-hearted, fun guy who's dealing with the absurd, and that comes through in the game, too.
I had fun with it, and I hope they keep iterating on the ideas presented here. Now that the Amazing Spider-man movie franchise is being rebooted again, maybe they can get away from the movie tie-ins and create their own game and plot, which they've largely done anyway.