The amazing spider man 2
If you knew anything about me, you’d probably know that I’m a huge Spider-Man fan. I have several posters around my room, several Marvel movie ticket stubs, and heck, I’m even drinking out of a Spider-Man mug right now. Needless to say, I was pretty excited to play Beenox’s latest Spider-Man game, The amazing spider-man 2 for Xbox One. I’m usually scared to play a game related to a movie, but he’s my favorite hero. Even if it’s an average game, you should be able to look past its flaws, right? After playing through the rather short campaign, I have to say that this Xbox One iteration of the web-slinger should have been squashed.
When you first stumble upon the game world, the opening sequence is a recap of Uncle Ben’s death from the first movie. Of course, it can be hard to tell who the characters are just because of how different they look from the source material. Here, Peter Parker looks more like Charlie Day from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, especially with the jacket they’re wearing. The opening scene is total filler and adds nothing to the overall story.
Speaking of the story, it’s a complete mess. I get that this is related to the movie, and the developers may not get the full script for the accompanying movie, but at the end of the day, the plot here is just too hard to follow. The movie itself is already taken, but when the game adds its own comic book villains to the movie, the movie’s main antagonists take a backseat.
My main problem with the main story followed by the game is that it completely omits Gwen Stacy from the whole experience. Gwen is Peter Parker’s greatest ally, and in the Amazing Spider-Man 2 movie she plays a pivotal role. I don’t understand why we needed Uncle Ben, who’s not even in the movie, any more than we needed Gwen Stacy. Just a bit of a head scratcher there, but one of the many problems with the convoluted story.
Once you get used to the scrambled plot, you’ll realize how funny the dialogue is. Unfortunately, this is not a good thing. What I mean is that the dialogue could have been written by a four year old. My favorite exchange is when Peter Parker first meets the dangerous hunter Kraven in his luxurious New York apartment. Kraven explains how he fought a full-grown tiger and how angry it is to see endangered animals hunted and killed. Meanwhile, directly behind Kraven is a tiger skin adorning his sofa.
Fortunately, the game itself is not that hopeless. Spider-Man moves with incredible agility, and web-slinging is now mapped to the left and right triggers. There are minor issues, such as the need to be precise when traveling, but the game’s ‘Web Rush’ mode helps with that. The city feels more alive than in previous Spidey games, but ultimately it’s still a poor man’s GTA. Honestly, the most fun I had with the game wasn’t the combat, it was just swinging from one side of the city to the other.
When the fisticuffs finally start to happen, you’ll notice how clunky the entire combat system is. With Amazing Spider-Man 2, Beenox tries to copy the extraordinary melee combat of Rocksteady’s Batman titles. What you’ll get here is sloppy, broken, and flawed anarchy. He was fighting the camera harder than any of the bad guys. Even with the clunky viewpoints and hovering combat, the game was never challenging. Throughout the short six-hour campaign, I managed to die only once and that was due to my controller’s batteries dying.
When you’re not busy fighting random gang members on the street, you’ll have to take on some of the web-slinger’s most notorious adversaries. During boss fights, you will rarely have anything to worry about with its mechanics. It mostly comes down to dodging the incoming attack, then mashing the attack button until you win. Of course, like in Arkham City, once you defeat a boss, you’ll unlock new equipment for your hero. Ion Webs and Seismic Bursts to be exact, both abilities are just ways to take down cannon fodder later in the game and both are incredibly boring.
If the story and combat weren’t enough to make you turn off your console, the gruesome in-game visuals just might. While playing the game on Xbox One, I felt like this game was more on par with a PlayStation 2 launch title. The mouths don’t sync, the clothes have fewer pixels than Pong, and the environment resembles Rampage on the Nintendo 64. Visuals usually don’t make for a great game, but when the other aspects of this title are just as bad, the confusing graphics add up to the rest of the problems and the result is a game that is, in a word, rubbish. The first Amazing Spider-Man game that came out in 2012 looks better than this game running on Xbox One!
Like I said earlier, this game is a movie and we can’t expect GOTY stuff from it, but with a starting price of $60, I can’t find any reason to justify the price. The only positive thing I can say about The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is that the game includes a ton of unlockable costumes for Spider-Man and there’s a pretty diverse selection. Since developer Beenox is just making a serviceable Spider-Man game, it may be time for someone else to take the helm. Stay away from this Xbox One title.