Hey, Christine here! Did you miss me?
That was rhetorical; come on, even I missed me. But enough sentimentality — there are games to review! The steady influx of titles across all systems have made me a happy camper and we’re getting into those sweet, summertime triple-a kickoff titles, with Wolfenstein, Mario Kart 8 and Watch_Dogs waiting in the wings. For now however, let’s talk early May releases.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2‘s release was convoluted as hell. I know it released in late April, but I wasn’t able to pick up my copy until May 8th, the day most retail game distributors received the Xbox One discs, surprising everyone…
The game itself is pretty convoluted as well. Am I allowed to be critical even though this Spidey outing is saddled with the dreaded stigma of being a *gulp* movie-based game? Damn right I am. Starting with graphics, there is no extraordinarily distinguishable difference between Xbox 360 and Xbox One. The framerate as Spidey whipped across the city kept up the pace, which is commendable, however it would have been more of an accomplishment if the character models were a little more polished.
Web-swingin’ has been revamped from Beenox’s first Amazing Spider-Man and now requires you to have a realistic proximity to an attachable surface in order to continue traversing the city by web. Which is nice, I suppose. This Christ-ine would often get the unsatisfying click noise from not connecting with a building, and when I finally did connect, I just swung into walls. This is especially agitating when you’ve got city events that will ruin your Heroism provided you don’t make it across town in time, and particularly gruesome when combined with the egregious camera control.
Seriously, that thing whips around with reckless abandon and just left me with a feeling of inertia. I did not wish to move. I thought Spider-Man had just dropped me on the ground, but not in the cool, totally not-dead Gwen Stacy way. It’s much more fun (and less frustrating) to web rush across building tops.
Combat is still, for the most part, an Arkham clone. You’ve got the disarm, special moves, counters and dodges all mapped to the same controls, just not executed quite as smoothly as Bats. Pulling off high-counter combos is honestly entertaining, I love to pummel goons and see our favorite Webhead do a fun little finishing animation. He just needs to shut his mouth though. The voice acting in Amazing Spider-Man 2 is quite unconvincing, and the dialogue has the enthusiasm Andrew Garfield would give if somebody told him Tobey Maguire was a better Peter Parker.
Easily my favorite part, once you get used to web rushing and collect your fair share of comic pages irresponsible geeks lost across the city, you can visit the man, Stan Lee, at the game’s comic shop and read some awesome Spider-Man comics. The design of the shop is easily my favorite part, with a ton of unique covers worth taking your time to appreciate. There’s also a neat coin-op machine in Stan’s store, where you can attempt a series of waves of enemies in a sort of challenge mode.
If you have the choice between current and last-gen, save yourself the extra $10 and go with the Xbox 360 version. And that’s only if you’re a serious Marvel fan.
Activision’s Amazing Spider-Man 2 available now wherever webbed-up game are sold.
(Flip the page to see Peter Porker’s new ARCH-ENEMY!!! — least in the gaming world…)