Reviewed on PlayStation Vita
→ December 10, 2013The Amazing Spider-Man, you may recall, was a movie and video game released back in the summer of 2012. Over a year later, Activision has snuck out a PlayStation Vita version just in time for the theatrical debut of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but the only things added in that time are a few glaring bugs and some egregious performance problems.
Zipping around the Big Apple.
It’s at its worst when you’re outdoors. When swinging around the open-world Manhattan, the framerate often became so bad that it looked like trying to watch a YouTube video on a dial-up connection. It always seems to strike when something potentially exciting is happening, or worse, when there are multiple enemies on the screen, which led to more than a few cheap deaths when I was surrounded and couldn’t tell what was going on. Issues with the camera freaking out and pointing any which way but the right way, especially when crawling around on ceilings, didn’t help things either.
The technical issues don’t end there either. Audio pops in and out at random, and sometimes even stops playing entirely. There was also one cutscene that repeatedly froze half-way through, and the only way I could get past that point was to completely shut off my Vita and turn it back on.
The combat in The Amazing Spider-Man is similar to that of the Arkham games, in that you pound away at groups of thugs and dodge incoming attacks when your Spider-senses tingle, and tackling encounters with stealth is an option too. When it was working, things felt great. I built up some serious combos (my record is in the fifties) and I was impressed with the graceful carnage I was dealing out. Other times, especially in large arenas or when there was a heavy presence of on-screen baddies, the whole thing would just fall apart. Buttons would become unresponsive, attacks stopped snapping to enemies, or my combo would be broken by an attack from an unknown assailant.
Imagining that I had a mutant superpower that allows me to look past such unignorable technical difficulties, I found the story presented here to be a fun one that kept me interested the whole way – as opposed to some mindless, forced retread of the movie’s events. Through roughly eight to 10 hours of gameplay, Spider-Man must tackle robots (that’ve cropped up after the events of the movie) as well as a quickly rising population of humans infected with a strange virus. Expect to see plenty of familiar faces, and a hilarious cameo by Stan Lee, as you zip around Manhattan from mission to mission.
Pummeling nameless thugs is a great way to stay limber.
The Big Apple has tons of side missions and collectibles littered throughout. Swinging around is a great feeling when it’s not a slideshow, taking on quick side-missions and hunting for comic books between the main ones. After a while though, these diversions start becoming very repetitive due to the lack of mission variety, so they’re best served in small bites on your way to big events.
The voice cast may not feature the original film actors, but Steven Blum and Nolan North both turn in very good performances. During loading screens, there’s even a Twitter-like feed from the citizens of New York that reflects the events going on in-game. Hearing what the natives thought about the giant robotic snakes terrorizing their neighborhood was an interesting touch that made the world feel more alive.
Security guard #63 ponders the foot flying at his face.
More...
→ December 10, 2013The Amazing Spider-Man, you may recall, was a movie and video game released back in the summer of 2012. Over a year later, Activision has snuck out a PlayStation Vita version just in time for the theatrical debut of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but the only things added in that time are a few glaring bugs and some egregious performance problems.
Zipping around the Big Apple.It’s at its worst when you’re outdoors. When swinging around the open-world Manhattan, the framerate often became so bad that it looked like trying to watch a YouTube video on a dial-up connection. It always seems to strike when something potentially exciting is happening, or worse, when there are multiple enemies on the screen, which led to more than a few cheap deaths when I was surrounded and couldn’t tell what was going on. Issues with the camera freaking out and pointing any which way but the right way, especially when crawling around on ceilings, didn’t help things either.
The technical issues don’t end there either. Audio pops in and out at random, and sometimes even stops playing entirely. There was also one cutscene that repeatedly froze half-way through, and the only way I could get past that point was to completely shut off my Vita and turn it back on.
The combat in The Amazing Spider-Man is similar to that of the Arkham games, in that you pound away at groups of thugs and dodge incoming attacks when your Spider-senses tingle, and tackling encounters with stealth is an option too. When it was working, things felt great. I built up some serious combos (my record is in the fifties) and I was impressed with the graceful carnage I was dealing out. Other times, especially in large arenas or when there was a heavy presence of on-screen baddies, the whole thing would just fall apart. Buttons would become unresponsive, attacks stopped snapping to enemies, or my combo would be broken by an attack from an unknown assailant.
Imagining that I had a mutant superpower that allows me to look past such unignorable technical difficulties, I found the story presented here to be a fun one that kept me interested the whole way – as opposed to some mindless, forced retread of the movie’s events. Through roughly eight to 10 hours of gameplay, Spider-Man must tackle robots (that’ve cropped up after the events of the movie) as well as a quickly rising population of humans infected with a strange virus. Expect to see plenty of familiar faces, and a hilarious cameo by Stan Lee, as you zip around Manhattan from mission to mission.
Pummeling nameless thugs is a great way to stay limber.The Big Apple has tons of side missions and collectibles littered throughout. Swinging around is a great feeling when it’s not a slideshow, taking on quick side-missions and hunting for comic books between the main ones. After a while though, these diversions start becoming very repetitive due to the lack of mission variety, so they’re best served in small bites on your way to big events.
The voice cast may not feature the original film actors, but Steven Blum and Nolan North both turn in very good performances. During loading screens, there’s even a Twitter-like feed from the citizens of New York that reflects the events going on in-game. Hearing what the natives thought about the giant robotic snakes terrorizing their neighborhood was an interesting touch that made the world feel more alive.
Security guard #63 ponders the foot flying at his face.
More...
