Swing back into action as everybody’s favorite Spider-Man in this second installment of the series.
Activision’s and Beenox’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” brings Spider-Man back into the crime-infested city of New York, continuing the story from the last game while introducing new villains to encounter as well. With the first “Amazing Spider-Man” videogame being a huge success, most would expect another great game. Unfortunately, this game is lacking in some aspects that its predecessor excelled in.
The main storyline of the game revolves around Spider-Man discovering the identity of the brutal “Carnage Killer” who is murdering other criminals in the city. Throughout the story you will encounter popular villains to fight in the Spider-Man universe such as Kraven the Hunter, Kingpin, Black Cat, The Shocker, Green Goblin, Electro and, you guessed it, Carnage. Having this many villains in one game seems like a blast, but none of the villains really tie into the main story at all. Villains seem to show up just for the sake of fighting. Don’t get me wrong, finally fighting Carnage in a videogame was great, but it’s just a five minute fight. It’s Carnage; it should take more than one short beat down to take him out. The game was not very challenging at all on the normal mode setting. I found myself effortlessly beating the boss fights, since the bosses only require one specific strategy to beat them.
The controls of the game were surprisingly very difficult to get accustomed to. The main problem I had with the controls is the new web-slinging mechanism. The game tries to bring in a more realistic aspect to web-slinging in which the webs will only latch on to buildings or objects higher up than you. I found myself constantly swinging into walls and swinging in the opposite direction I wanted to go because it was the only thing my webbing could attach to.
The “Amazing Spider-Man 2” game did bring some new content to players, but with great content, comes great responsibility (sorry I had to). The game has a free roam style with side missions to help the public of New York, similar to the highly acclaimed 2004 “Spider-Man 2” videogame. Beating up gang members, saving people from burning buildings and throwing active bombs into the river are just some of the ways to save the public from evil. Developers also added a new “Menace or Hero” scale to Spider-Man. Certain side missions will blink red, meaning that you have a certain amount of time to get to the actual mission and help the people in trouble. If you complete the mission, your heroic level will rise, making the public see you as a hero. If you chose to ignore the mission however, your heroic level will decline, making the public see you as a menace. If your menace level is high enough, the Oscorp Security Forces will attack you until you are seen as a hero again.
The game also contains many collectables for you to find such as concept art, new costumes, and over 800 comic pages scattered around the city. Collecting a certain number of comic pages will unlock a full Spider-Man comic book that you are able to read. Some of the comics include: the first appearance of Black Cat, the first appearance of Shocker, and many others.
Although the “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” video game was enjoyable, it was not as impressive as the first game. The lacking storyline and confusing controls set the game back, but Spider-Man fans will enjoy playing as their favorite superhero fighting popular villains and fighting crime.
Written by: Zack Myers
+ Great cast of popular villains
+ New content/unlockables
– Difficult controls
– Sub-par storyline
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