Spidey tries to revisit his former glory in the free-roaming movie tie-in, The Amazing Spider Man
I tried remembering the last time I played a movie tie-in game and enjoyed it, and, needless to say, it took a while. However, while going through some old games, I happened to find, ironically, Spider-Man 2.
Based on its movie counterpart, Spider-Man 2 wrote the book on how to make a good, “based on the major motion picture” game. It really let the player feel like a tight-wearing crime fighter (with a few less wedgies of course). Also, Spider-Man 2 became one of the most successful last gen free-roaming games due to its creative feel of swinging across New York City.
Beenox, a studio very experienced in making games based on movies, has decided to revisit the free-roaming formula and once again let Peter Parker suit up and take on NYC. The game is set to release on June 26, slightly before the movie, which could be a problem for anyone worried about spoilers, because, well, the story is set after the movie’s. Now, lets be honest, any of you comic book connoisseurs won’t be terribly surprised by the outcome of the movie, but for the rest it might be a problem. Beenox claims that it specifically wrote the story in a way to not spoil the movie, but Game Informer’s Ben Reeves got his hands on the game and it shows the fate of some of the main characters in the movie.
Even though outdoor Manhattan is the focus of the game, a large part of the story will be played out inside buildings like Oscorp.
Even though this game borrows a lot from Spider-Man 2, it certainly has no shortage of new features. While swinging around New York, you’ll have more to do than just sightseeing. Expect seeing the occasional car chase, robbery, maybe even a damsel in distress or two. Nothing quite scares a criminal to death than seeing a man in tights land on their roof. Also, there is a new feature called web rush that allows Spider-Man to slow down time and zip to one of many nearby locations that show a Spidey silhouette. The web rush feature is very useful in both combat and transportation, allowing you to hold it down and quickly change positions to avoid enemy attacks or just simply move along quickly.
All of this looks very promising, but will it deliver? The Amazing Spider-Man ships June 26 so its unlikely to take a wrong turn from here, but until I have my hands on it I’m not making any promises. Should you be excited? In a word, yes.
