The Amazing Spider-Man was special to me as a teenager. I was a Nintendo kid, and back in 2012 my house was still over a year out from owning an HD TV — not to mention any consoles that could take advantage of such technology. to get my gaming fix, I had the Wii and all its access to Virtual Console games, and my beloved Nintendo handhelds. all this to say: I was used to getting the short end of the stick when it came to current gen games, and content to play watered down ports if they came over to the Wii at all. so when this game got a 3DS release — one which bore the weight of everything but the open world from its console counterpart — I was suitably amazed.
I bought The Amazing Spider-Man the day it released, a month before the movie came out, spoiled the hell out of the movie’s ending, and had a great time. then I gave myself that great time again, and again, and again. long car trips, at friends' houses, suspended above my head on late summer nights in my teenagerly loft bed; The Amazing Spider-Man went with me wherever I brought my 3DS. what the handheld port of this game was able to achieve is still impressive, and now after playing both the slightly upgraded Ultimate Edition on Wii U as well as its original release on the PS3, I can say with certainty that it is the ideal way to play. The Amazing Spider-Man benefits tremendously from the lower expectations that come with gaming on the go.
playing this game on a big screen, eight years later: its failures are impossible to ignore — and so are its petty thefts. The Amazing Spider-Man is a cheap Arkham clone through and through. normally I would hesitate to draw direct comparisons — I hardly think the Arkham games are great enough to cudgel other games against — but this game is blatant about lifting the design philosophy of that series. problem is, it lacks all of the polish of their combat and exploration formulae.
items are strewn across levels seemingly at random, often blending into the drab and forgettable environments. upgrades those items help you unlock are very clearly gated behind specific narrative points in the game, so it never feels like you’re any more powerful than the game intends you to be. there are only ever a few (if more than one) open upgrade tracks to apply your tech/level points to. the game could have rewarded the player with a new ability at the end of every story mission, and there would have been no difference in the pace of progression. there is no purpose to the EXP system, as a result. just a nice little bar-go-up animation, which sure feels like progress — until you think about it for any longer than it appears on screen.
as for the combat system, enemy attack animations are finicky and the reach of their attacks are never concrete, at some points allowing them to slide halfway across the floor to reach you. Arkham’s harder difficulties test the player by taking away attack indicators and shortening response time, while keeping animations consistent. if this game were to do the same, it would be virtually impossible, as attack patterns and animations are much too imprecise to telegraph anything to the player. you need that buzzing Spider-Sense to survive, no matter how skilled you grow to be at mashing the punch and dodge buttons.
all of this is made dramatically worse the second the game throws a giant robot at you. here's one way in which this game is genuinely unique from the Arkham series: Batman never got to swing around at mach speed fighting mechs.
with these boss battles, Beenox has offered an addition to the formula they spend the rest of the game ripping off, though much like WB Montreal broke the combat system's back with shitty additions in Arkham Origins, the folks at Beenox completely lose track of the design at the heart of their stolen combat system.
for context: this time around I played the game on the hardest difficulty. this was both an effort to speed up the acquisition of PSN trophies, and because I’ve played the game a dozen times in my life. the god darn robot bosses were the worst part of the experience. on every difficulty, they’re glorified quick time events. you wait around for them to finish whatever laser they’re blasting, maybe shoot them with some webbing, then press the Spider-Man Stuff button (R1 on PS3) and watch as Spider-Man does an attack for you. if you’re unlucky, that attack may require you to mash the circle button to make him punch/pull/web extra hard. riveting stuff. on Super Hero difficulty, the already repetitive boss fights become rigorous exercises in tedium and frustration, as said laser attacks —
(often undodgeable! by the way! you just have to hope and pray that Spider-Man is at the right point in his swing animation to avoid them. hope and prayer are two game mechanics I was not expecting to encounter)
— will kill you in one to two hits and force you to fight through all the phases of the fight again, pressing R1 and mashing circle until either your finger cramps, your eyes dry out, or you fall asleep. these fights weren’t designed for Super Hero difficulty. neither was the rest of the game. it’s clear the only consideration involved in difficulty settings was swapping around a few numbers on enemy health and damage output.
the game isn’t too visually impressive either. it is not as egregious as its sequel; I mean, textures aren’t disappearing in front of your eyes, and you never have to stare down a painfully off-model Peter Parker face — but it's still not worth celebrating. even keeping the limitations of the PS3 in mind, this game is hard on the eyes. a painful yellow/sepia filter is put on the city in an attempt to look more realistic, and while that impressed me as a young teen watching an E3 reveal trailer, nowadays it makes the game look completely washed out. doesn’t help much that all the level environments are grey hallways or brown/green sewers, wherein the only flashes of color are the visually grating lens flares leaping off of computer screens or florescent lights. I’m glad I wore blue light glasses while playing this game; I may have saved myself another year before all my screen-staring makes me go blind.
there are plenty of other nitpicks. the fact that traversing the city to find comic pages feels just a bit too slippery, that webs are back to attaching to nothing, that the writing is truly hack (they take away Peter’s powers and then don’t use that as an opportunity to explore how his sense of responsibility works without them! he just gets them right back after you finish the “no web swinging” bit! how lame!), that the voice acting is so subpar even Nolan North sounds asleep at the microphone; but at this point all those things are just ugly ornaments on a tree that’s already falling over. I can’t say I’d recommend this to anyone other than the most seasoned Spidey fan, but if they’re like me, they wouldn't have a particularly good time either. I should have left this in my memory as a wonderful 3DS experience.
I bought The Amazing Spider-Man the day it released, a month before the movie came out, spoiled the hell out of the movie’s ending, and had a great time. then I gave myself that great time again, and again, and again. long car trips, at friends' houses, suspended above my head on late summer nights in my teenagerly loft bed; The Amazing Spider-Man went with me wherever I brought my 3DS. what the handheld port of this game was able to achieve is still impressive, and now after playing both the slightly upgraded Ultimate Edition on Wii U as well as its original release on the PS3, I can say with certainty that it is the ideal way to play. The Amazing Spider-Man benefits tremendously from the lower expectations that come with gaming on the go.
playing this game on a big screen, eight years later: its failures are impossible to ignore — and so are its petty thefts. The Amazing Spider-Man is a cheap Arkham clone through and through. normally I would hesitate to draw direct comparisons — I hardly think the Arkham games are great enough to cudgel other games against — but this game is blatant about lifting the design philosophy of that series. problem is, it lacks all of the polish of their combat and exploration formulae.
items are strewn across levels seemingly at random, often blending into the drab and forgettable environments. upgrades those items help you unlock are very clearly gated behind specific narrative points in the game, so it never feels like you’re any more powerful than the game intends you to be. there are only ever a few (if more than one) open upgrade tracks to apply your tech/level points to. the game could have rewarded the player with a new ability at the end of every story mission, and there would have been no difference in the pace of progression. there is no purpose to the EXP system, as a result. just a nice little bar-go-up animation, which sure feels like progress — until you think about it for any longer than it appears on screen.
as for the combat system, enemy attack animations are finicky and the reach of their attacks are never concrete, at some points allowing them to slide halfway across the floor to reach you. Arkham’s harder difficulties test the player by taking away attack indicators and shortening response time, while keeping animations consistent. if this game were to do the same, it would be virtually impossible, as attack patterns and animations are much too imprecise to telegraph anything to the player. you need that buzzing Spider-Sense to survive, no matter how skilled you grow to be at mashing the punch and dodge buttons.
all of this is made dramatically worse the second the game throws a giant robot at you. here's one way in which this game is genuinely unique from the Arkham series: Batman never got to swing around at mach speed fighting mechs.
with these boss battles, Beenox has offered an addition to the formula they spend the rest of the game ripping off, though much like WB Montreal broke the combat system's back with shitty additions in Arkham Origins, the folks at Beenox completely lose track of the design at the heart of their stolen combat system.
for context: this time around I played the game on the hardest difficulty. this was both an effort to speed up the acquisition of PSN trophies, and because I’ve played the game a dozen times in my life. the god darn robot bosses were the worst part of the experience. on every difficulty, they’re glorified quick time events. you wait around for them to finish whatever laser they’re blasting, maybe shoot them with some webbing, then press the Spider-Man Stuff button (R1 on PS3) and watch as Spider-Man does an attack for you. if you’re unlucky, that attack may require you to mash the circle button to make him punch/pull/web extra hard. riveting stuff. on Super Hero difficulty, the already repetitive boss fights become rigorous exercises in tedium and frustration, as said laser attacks —
(often undodgeable! by the way! you just have to hope and pray that Spider-Man is at the right point in his swing animation to avoid them. hope and prayer are two game mechanics I was not expecting to encounter)
— will kill you in one to two hits and force you to fight through all the phases of the fight again, pressing R1 and mashing circle until either your finger cramps, your eyes dry out, or you fall asleep. these fights weren’t designed for Super Hero difficulty. neither was the rest of the game. it’s clear the only consideration involved in difficulty settings was swapping around a few numbers on enemy health and damage output.
the game isn’t too visually impressive either. it is not as egregious as its sequel; I mean, textures aren’t disappearing in front of your eyes, and you never have to stare down a painfully off-model Peter Parker face — but it's still not worth celebrating. even keeping the limitations of the PS3 in mind, this game is hard on the eyes. a painful yellow/sepia filter is put on the city in an attempt to look more realistic, and while that impressed me as a young teen watching an E3 reveal trailer, nowadays it makes the game look completely washed out. doesn’t help much that all the level environments are grey hallways or brown/green sewers, wherein the only flashes of color are the visually grating lens flares leaping off of computer screens or florescent lights. I’m glad I wore blue light glasses while playing this game; I may have saved myself another year before all my screen-staring makes me go blind.
there are plenty of other nitpicks. the fact that traversing the city to find comic pages feels just a bit too slippery, that webs are back to attaching to nothing, that the writing is truly hack (they take away Peter’s powers and then don’t use that as an opportunity to explore how his sense of responsibility works without them! he just gets them right back after you finish the “no web swinging” bit! how lame!), that the voice acting is so subpar even Nolan North sounds asleep at the microphone; but at this point all those things are just ugly ornaments on a tree that’s already falling over. I can’t say I’d recommend this to anyone other than the most seasoned Spidey fan, but if they’re like me, they wouldn't have a particularly good time either. I should have left this in my memory as a wonderful 3DS experience.
Anddo
2 years ago