Maybe not Amazing, but better than usual.

We usually don’t expect much from movie tie-in games, and I went into The Amazing Spider-Man with the same expectations, but I was pleasantly surprised with this new effort from Beenox. It isn’t perfect, by any means, but The Amazing Spider-Man reminds me more of the Spider-Man games from the last generation than it does of your typical movie tie-in. Whether you’re a fan of the new movie or not, The Amazing Spider-Man, the game, is enjoyable.

Single Player

The Amazing Spider-Man, the game, takes place after the events of the new film, The Amazing Spider-Man. If you haven’t seen the film, there are going to be spoilers. In the interest of those who haven’t seen the film, I’m not going to go into detail, but the story of the game isn’t such that you’ll be lost if you haven’t seen the film.

You’ll start the game in a series of confined levels that will show you the ropes, or webs (good one!), but aren’t a good representation of what most of the game is like. Spider-Man can climb walls, zip from one location to another, and swing through the city. The combat system is fairly basic, as most attacks are mapped to one button with finishers on a different button, but the engine will automatically vary the actual action Spider-Man takes in combat. This keeps things fresh in an otherwise basic combat system.

Does the sort of things a Spider will do.

When you get out of the first section, The Amazing Spider-Man becomes an open-world game, where you’ll be free to swing around the city. Aside from the standard story missions, you’ll be able to hack the police radio system to gain access to side missions and collect comic book pages. The web-swinging system works quite well and will alert you when you are near a collectible, so you can then hold RB to enter a slow motion mode from which you can zip to a number of different points, including the collectible. If you can find it before you smack into the ground.

Boss Fights in The Amazing Spider-Man are quite enjoyable and they are often quite different from one another. During combat, however, is where you will notice that the  engine isn’t very tight. I often found myself zipping across the room and sticking to the wall when I meant to do the ‘web strike’ that flashed up on the screen. The wall climbing system is also a little overzealous, as all you’ll have to do is walk into a wall to begin climbing.

Rhino. Still a jerk.

A lot of the missions can start to feel repetitive after a while, but the experience is enjoyable, overall, and the boss fights break things up nicely. The Amazing Spider-Man isn’t literally amazing but it is a bit of fun.

Multiplayer

There are no online modes in The Amazing Spider-Man.

Closing Comments

If you were expecting the typical movie tie-in game with the Amazing Spider-Man, you’ll be getting a little more than you bargained for. The control scheme isn’t quite as smooth as other action games, but the open world and varied boss fights keep things interesting.

Score: 7/10