Customer Ratings: 
List Price: $39.99
Sale Price: $28.95
Today's Bonus: 28% Off
I was very skeptical about getting another Spiderman game until I took the time to learn more about Beenox's newest effort, which was 2 years in the making, so it's not a rush job.
That good news aside, this is without a doubt one of the best super hero games I've played. This game borrows heavily from Batman from Rocksteady, but to great effect. This has many moments where you feel like you're playing Spiderman with a Batman: Arkham City Template underneath. In an early mission, it even has a Correctional Prison Facility with crazy Asylum inmates. Rather than write a bunch of paragraphs to filter through, I'll save you some time reading and just mention some key highlights below:
-Positives:
-Controls are buttery smooth and responsive with plenty of freedom to swing, sprint up walls, evade, leap, freefall and more. Incredible job. No twitchy on foot as in Spiderman 2.
-The behind the shoulder camera view is excellent and for the first time in an open city Spiderman game, makes you feel like Spiderman, seeing things from a close but comfortable 3PV, increasing the intensity and the sense of "Being there", in the game compared to previous efforts where Spiderman was a tiny character onscreen. Think of the views from Batman Arkham City/Asylum.
-Fights are modeled directly after Rocksteady's Batman Games and are a blast because of it. Spidy is no push over with some amazing martial arts acrobatic fighting skills. Fast and action packed.
-The swinging skills are fast and fluid. Spidy's a pro from the start.
-Plenty of Batman-like upgrades for Spidy's skills to upgrade.
-Crackdown like leaping/jumping fun, collecting comics instead of orbs.
-Plenty of major villains with clever boss battles.
-Reasonable representation of NYC's Manhattan.
-interiors look good along with the main characters.
-Plenty of traffic, but needs Driver:SF dense pedestrians to feel like NYC streets.
-Manhattan is a very large playground with streets, parks, and plenty of skyscrapers to leap from and climb.
-3 difficulty levels. Casual, Medium, Hardcore. Decent options.
-Nice city sound FX for ambience.
-Very responsive and helpful look camera from all angles.
-Spiderman's trademark moves captured to near perfection with comic book style.
-Assassin's Creed like platforming/vaulting.
-Sight see easily on helicopters.
-Awesome sense of freefalling.
-Solid voice acting and interesting story.
-Plenty to see, do and explore with freedom and side missions.
-Home base is your apartment, and you can replay interiors.
-Great draw distance for the city as far as the eyes can see.
CONTROLS: Left analog move, right analog look, X is jump, square is punch/attack, triangle is interact with objects, circle is web shoot, Right shoulder is web target travel (very cool and intuitive), right bumper is web swinging, select is map/upgrades, start is pause menu.
-Negatives:
-Here's a big one for Spiderman Geeks who must have everything absolutely realistic and within reason: Remember in Spiderman 2, how you can earn the ability to sling a web ahead of you into the air, and then pull jump forward to it quickly? Just pretend you had the same skill here, to explain the fact that Spidy can fling webs into the air and swing from them, provided you're within distance of a building. Just pretend he's flicking up a web parachute and it's more believable. Once I got over this misrepresentation of believability, the swinging became a blast. I still say they should have Spidy hit the buildings and not the air above to swing on.
-Arkham City rules in terms of graphical power. This game is larger, but the city graphics, although with some nice, gritty details, garbage cans, litter and so on, could've been better. Think Driver: San Francisco city graphics for an idea. Decent at best. Interiors look the best. Characters look good, Spidy mostly.
-No day night cycle. Missions determine when daytime changes.
To say this is a drastic improvement over Spiderman 2 and 3 would be an understatement, as groundbreaking as Spiderman 2 on the PS2/XBox was.
If you ever wanted to feel like Spiderman exploring an open city at will, this is the closest you're going to get on current systems until the next game. Highly recommended and surprisingly a great licensed Movie Tie In game that feels like it's own game because it is. BUY IT if you want a great Spiderman Game, despite any ill will you might have towards Activision.
Click Here to Read More Reviews >>
Story Mode The best story in a Spider-Man game. It flows and actually makes sense. Spider-Man suit even messes up as you take damage. You will fight robots, infected people, cross-species, and thugs. The story is about the different cross-species getting lose and Spider-Man has to stop it after he kinda caused the problem to begin with. Spider-Man has to save the people of New York, find a cure for the infected and save Gwen, his love. Spider-Man can do what he can with the help of Dr. Connors who was also the lizard. The story for this takes place after the movie, which releases July 3rd in the United States. Overall, the story is fantastic and Spider-Man fans won't be disapointed. 100/100(A+)
Graphics Not spectacular. The framerate is fine. The environments look good. Spider-Man looks real. Some character details look bad, but not to the point where you can't stand it. At least they don't look cartoonish. 90/100(A-)
Gameplay The game plays well. It's an open world game. The combat is better than ever and the web swinging and camera makes me feel like I'm Spider-Man. You get to use special moves and upgrade Spider-Man. Web crawling is good. Throughout the city you'll see petty crimes going on that where you can choose to take action. There's this feature called Web Rush, where you can just swing fast to different areas by pressing the R1 button or holding it to slow down time and do attacks. There's also web retreat so you can get out the way when you're in trouble by pressing the L1 button. You can also take photos by pressing L2. You'll feel a lot of vibration through your controller in this game. You'll encounter a lot of action. You also get to play as Stan Lee with the Stan Lee Adventure Pack. 100/100(A+)
Multiplayer No multiplayer.
Playing Time/Content: This game should take you at least 20 hours to get 100 percent. Probably 30 hours. It's definitely worth $60. There's enough content in this single-player open world game to keep you satisfied. 100/100(A+)
Overall score: 97.5(A+)
+ Lengthy story
+ Side missions
+ Different costumes
+ Combat systems
Buy Amazing Spider-Man Now
Disclaimer: I am a spiderman fan, fav. spidey games were Spiderman 2 and web of shadows and overall, Beenox has disappointed me with their spidey games. That being said, i must say, i am enjoying this game. I've been playing it for a week and am now ready to review it;
There have been a lot of reviews that are extremely good and those that are extremely bad; I feel that this game is above average. This is no skyrim or arkham asylum. However, as a spidey fan, im finding many enjoyable elements of the game.
Pros:
--Controls
*Web swinging is amazing! As you swing, the environment has a
cool, motion blur effect that adds an organic feel to the swinging.
*Climbing/perch As you're web climbing, you can press your back against
the climbing surface, which is useful for taking pics, stealth take downs, etc.
*Web-Rush Stylized version of "zip-lining" (for those who are familiar with
the previous games.) Difference is: you have the option of choosing where u
would like to zip-line as time freezes, then slowly begins to move again.
--Production value (Style)
*Story -Takes place after the events that occured in the movie. Story is well done (by comic book
standards) again, I wouldnt compare it to the story in games like Metal Gear,
but that doesnt mean its a horrible story. Spider-man faces many ethical
challenges (within the script) that makes the story very interesting. There are some parts where i
expected the story (or scene) to be predictable, then something unexpected
would happen. Theres even an official OSCORP commercial with footage of real people that slowly transitions to computer animation.
--Story reminds me a lot of the spider-slayer episodes in the 90's cartoon.
If you enjoyed that story arch, you'll enjoy this story.
--Secret costumes There are different website that will tell you how to unlock most of the costumes. The suits are the best i've seen in the spiderman series.
*Camera Angles -In addition to the blur effect of the environment while
swinging, the "camera" placement is very tasteful. When you're high up, the
city looks beautiful. There are also a bunch of times where you'll see over the
shoulder camera shots (ala arkham city/asylum). Really makes you feel like
you're seeing everything thru spideys perspective.
--There are brief POV/FPS moments when web-rushing that also looks cool.
Very reminiscant of the metroid prime series.
*Combat system/boss battles/level design -For the sake of describing the production value, i put all of these in the same category. The free roaming aspect of spiderman 3 and web of shadows was a little under-whelming. I like it a lot better here. People have commented on the lack of population. In the story, a majority of the population is sick, and there are HUGE boss battles that take place in the city; it would make sense for the streets not to be heavily populated. Speaking of which....the boss battles...are epic! I was NOT expecting boss battles like this! I honestly felt like it was gonna be the usually, button mashing, pattern-fighting mechanic BS that the other games have suffered from. Fighting spiderslayers in the streets of manhattan is SO much fun. It feels slightly similar to certain God of War boss battles. The standard combat is very stylized. When ur fighting a group of villains, and build up the combo meter and correctly use your spidersense to dodge and counter certain attacks, its visually pleasing.
--CONS!(thnx for reading this far! :-)
*Inconsistancy!!!!
--Difficulty Game is way too easy. I had to up the difficulty to the highest setting. Sometimes its still too easy, other times its way too hard. [To give u a sense of my gaming capability, i play most games in normal. I've played devil may cry and arkham asylum in hard; and Ninja Gaiden in easy. (could never play it on normal -_-)]
--Combat even though the combat is very stylish, its no web of shadows. Before you up the combo meter, its very sluggish. Think of street fighter and constantly button mashing on the Hard Punch button.
--Mechanics Sometimes you can swing with no buildings around, sometimes you cant. For instance, I can be on top of the highest building and zip-line (or web rush) towards the air!? Vs. jumping off a building, pressing the web swing button and nothing happens until im closer to the ground. Might be for aesthetic purposes (motion blur effect of cars and static objects in the environment passing by you as u swing)
-spider-sense the spider-sense in Web of shadows and Spiderman 2 while not perfect, were in the right direction. This game took a few steps back from it. In the past games, you can use the spider-sense to scan for bad guys, dodge projectiles and look for items. All of that is gone here. U can only use it to dodge PHYSICAL attacks and as a WARNING for PROJECTILE attacks. You cannot dodge the projectiles. Also,there are certain times during boss battles where the spider-sense wont even activate??
-Lack of Control The controls for moving spiderman are for the most part fluid; however, there are certain moments where u just loose control. For instance, with arkham city, when going through the vents, you grapple the vent gate, then the controller vibrates. Then u must mash on the button to pull off the gate, while the controller vibrates harder. Here, its similar, but way too automatic. U just press a button, and he quickly shoots his web to the vent gate (or vent screen), zip lines to the gate, pulls it off and enters. ALL that happens after the push of one button. That automatic feeling is very random and also happens with the combat and swinging. ALSO, you have to press the buttons ALL THE WAY DOWN in order for it to register. And its not my controller, this happens with both controllers AND the PS move controllers i have. (Has anyone else experienced this?)
-Dialogue The acting is great, the story is great, the dialogue however, can get annoying. I wont get into it, it just sounds like bad, melodramatic TV at times.
Condensed ReviewThis game does feel like the developers started the production of this game while thinking "hey, lets make a spiderman game thats like arkham asylum" I dont think beenox are the best people to make a spiderman game. While the game has its flaws, its still a beautiful game thats loads of fun. I like having the option of continuing the story arch whenever I want or taking a break from the story (if im tired from work) and i might want to swing around, and do quick side missions (taking pics is fun in this game)
Furthermore Everyone has different tastes. I know people who have hated blockbuster titles like grand theft auto, call of duty and metal gear series. However, i do feel that the popular titles appeal to a much broader audience. This is not one of those games. Even though this game is for a specific crowd, it has enough charm to please most. Its a great game in general, (the best since spiderman 2). So if playing dress-up as spiderman, swinging around a well developed city and having epic boss battles sounds like a good time to you, then this is worth buying.
Thnx for reading
--KennyG
Read Best Reviews of Amazing Spider-Man Here
Ever since I was a little boy, Batman and Spider-man have always been my favorite super heroes and part of what came with that favoritism was playing the games based on said heroes. But as I grew older and my `tastes' improved, I realized that the majority of licensed games were mediocre at best, and downright poorly made trash at worst .
Well, that all changed for Batman back in 2009 when `Batman: Arkham Asylum' (Developed by Rocksteady studios), was released. Both it and its sequel,Arkham City(2011) are considered not only some of the best licensed games ever made, but two of the best games ever made that truly do justice to the dark knights legacy.
Well, unfortunately for Spider-man, the web slinger hasn't had such luck with his entries in the world of video games. But Benox studios attempts to change that with, `The Amazing Spider-man' (This being the third game the studio has developed for the Spider-man franchise; both of their previous installments received lukewarm reception.) But after playing the game to completion, my findings are far from amazing. (See what I did there?)
It should be noted that the game takes place about 6 months after the movie it is based upon. The premise is very simple and the basics are that the cross-species virus that infected Doctor Connors in the film is still being studied in secret and when a freak accident occurs, it is spread across the city. And the new head of Oscorp science division, Alistair Smythe, believes that the only way to cure the infection is to exterminate it by using his advanced nanobots/ robotics defense technology. (I.E. Give Spider-man an excuse to beat up lizard people and robots)
And the combat system with which you will provide said beat down is incredibly similar to `Arkham's' system in that it operates on a counter and strike system. When an incoming hit is about to strike Spider-man, a small indicator appears over Spider-man's head and you are given a window of time to dodge out of the way and return the favor. And just like in the Arkham games a little combo meter builds up as you deliver punishment which allows the player to unleash flashier moves to help finish the job. But Beenox's take on the combat that Rocksteady made perfect, is relatively sloppy. For one the indicator above Spider-man's is incredibly small and often hard to see when things get chaotic. It also doesn't help that the games camera focuses far too much on spider-man during combat and not enough on the whole environment. (The frustration on what you can and can't see increases when Spider-man takes too much of a licking, and the screen goes a hazy red.) This lead to me getting sucker punched by enemies I couldn't see or couldn't react to until it was too late. The small indicator, coupled with the bad camera, gives even the lowest of thugs the chance to make Spider-man look like a total chump.
Other than the combat, there is another mechanic in place that allows Spider-man to explore the closed levels or the open-world Manhattan with more ease other than his normal web swinging, know as the `Web Rush'. This ability allows the player to slowdown time and command Spider-man to go to a highlighted destination. When this works, it works well and looks impressive from a cinematic perspective since Spider-man leaps and bounces off of walls and buildings with the agility you would expect from the hero. But even in this aspect I ran into some hiccups. Like I said, when this works, it works great. But there are moments when it causes great frustration. Sometimes the ability is very finicky and will often either stop short of where you told Spider-Man to go and he will (On the very rare occasions that I saw. ) be stuck floating hilariously in mid-air, or end up in a different spot altogether. As you can imagine this is incredibly bothersome. Especially if you have to get to a specific area within a certain amount of time, or retrieve a certain item in a specific spot.
As you complete combat scenario's, explore the world, and finish certain story objectives, this net's the wall crawler experience points which can be used to purchase upgrades to improve his attack strength, resistance to gunfire, rate at which he fires his webs, etc. But besides the ones I just mentioned and a few others, I found that either certain upgrades they gave me were given to me too late in the game to be useful, or just weren't useful to begin with. This may just be my tastes coming into play but the game never gave me a reason to try another tactic or a new ability out when the best and easiest option was just to rush in and beat people up the same way I was during the games opening moments, all the way to its climax.
This brings me to the game's final and worst fault: Its repetitive nature. When you boil the game down it has three main pillars to the way it's structured: Go to a certain area, defeat the enemies that spawn there, and bring down some sort of technological obstacle through a button prompt. Rinse and repeat. Even its side-missions are many of the exact same sidemissions I have done in almost every single Spider-man in the past (Stop a mugging, disable a car chase by covering the suspects windshield in web fluid, and get an injured civilian to a hospital by web swinging them there.) What made the Rocksteady Batman games great is that they utilized the full facet of the hero's personality and abilities. Batman is a warrior who knows 127 different self-defense styles, a master detective, and a stealthy predator who strikes fear into the hearts of his foes. They mixed all three together into a near flawless experience and made sure to pace the game in a proper way to make sure the player was never sick of what they were doing. By the time they were finished doing one thing, they were off to do something different. Here it's just, "Like to beat people up using a combat system that isn't as good as the game that it's originally from? No? Well get ready to do it anyway." Now, I'm not a huge comic book guy but I'm pretty sure there are other things you can draw from in order to define Spider-man other than to beat people up.
I feel like I'm beating the game down a little too much but there isn't anything super noteworthy. I admit there are a couple cool set piece moments, exploring the city by web swinging is pretty cool, and Spider-man does have some cool animations (He's the height of the games visuals. The environments textures are a little `muddy' and the other character models are the epitome of the `video game person stereotype' from weird, twitchy, and robotic animations to zombie like, empty eyes) Heck, I'll admit I even had fun for the first couple of hours. But when you do the SAME things for 7 and half hours straight, it just stops being fun....
Want Amazing Spider-Man Discount?
As a longtime fan of all video games Spider-Man, I was eager to play this title right away. The previous movie-based installments in the franchise like Spider-Man 2 and 3 were pretty well done, and I enjoyed the new movie this game is based on. I was especially excited to hear that free-roaming around the city was back as it was missing from other recent Spidey titles.
The story caught my interest right away. I particularly liked how, instead of a loose interpretation of the film, it was a direct sequel, taking place right after the movie's end. I couldn't wait to extend the storyline and see what happened next. That being said, the story itself in this game was never really immersive, suspenseful or climactic. There is zero character development, and hardly any story beyond, "Oscorp hybrids have escaped and Spidey recaptures a few."
While the voice acting itself wasn't bad, I was still disappointed not to hear Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone reprise their roles. This is only a small hang-up that didn't make or break the game or anything. They were noticeably missed, though, especially since Tobey Maguire voiced Spidey in previous games.
The action takes a few notes from the Arkham games with a very similar combat style and emphasis on stealth. I found it to be more forgiving with not breaking your combo chain in between strikes, and I could get 40-50 hit combos without much problem. It was fun for a little while but didn't add much challenge, especially since you can "webretreat" at any time to safely sling to the ceiling out of harm's way. I found it more entertaining to stealth-KO all enemies as the fights themselves became tedious.
The selection of enemies for you to fight was pretty weak. I would have liked to see more villains than the very few they had as the boss fights were generally uninteresting. Of course, I do understand that it is probably because it is a sequel to the film and they are saving the better bad guys for the movies first. Still, for a Spider-Man game, their absence was felt.
Side missions were sprinkled all over the map, however they were mostly repetitive and redundant. There were blimp races, muggings in progress and getaway cars to stop. Unfortunately, they were incredibly easy and literally the exact same mission each time. There were also "infected" humans you can pick up and take to quarantine areas, but this was even more repetitious than the other side quests. Being the perfectionist I am, though, I still did them all. I did really enjoy the bank robbery side mission, though, but it was the only kind of it's type.
I guess that brings me to my favorite part about the game which is the web-slinging. There is something so incredibly fun about pretending to be Spider-Man and just flinging your away across Manhattan. You can find comic book pages on rooftops to unlock real Spidey comics you can read in-game (admittedly a very cool feature). Sometimes you can have difficult times with your landings, but this can be aided with the ability to momentarily stop time and choose your exact destination. This mechanic did help a lot with navigation, but sometimes it got a little annoying to have to break up your fast-paced gameplay to do it.
All in all, it did keep my interest until the end, but I am also a big fan of the Amazing one. Spidey aside, this game plays a lot like a budget title with some fun elements, but a lack of polishing which was probably due to a rushed release date to coincide with the movie. I would not recommend paying $60 for this game, but rather give it a rental, or at least wait for it to drop in price.
