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The Amazing Spider-Man Review
The Amazing Spider-Man swung his way onto the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 back in 2012. Now with the help from Beenox, The Amazing Spider-Man has swung his way over to the PlayStation Vita.
Continuing on after the Spider-Man reboot with Andrew Garfield, Spider-Man is faced with a threat of “What If” Dr. Connors infection had spread throughout New York City. Spider-Man is forced to find help and bring the state of New York back to humanity.
Beenox did a great job of porting the PlayStation and Xbox version over to the PlayStation Vita. Spider-Man feels great swinging from rooftop-to-rooftop throughout New York City. Animations are good and the combat feels smooth and enjoyable. The most disappointing aspect of the game was the visuals for the Vita and the lack of touch functionality, something most don’t complain about when talking of a game on the Vita.
In large open scalable landscapes like the Assassin’s Creed series or previous Spider-Man games, I like to climb to the highest point possible and enjoy the view of the landscape. I was able to swing my way to the top of an aerial antenna where Spider-Man performs a beautiful animation, swinging his way around the antenna and hanging on the side perched overlooking the city, only to find disappointed visuals. The city appears flat with the lack of any textures on the buildings, the landscape is muted with dull colors and no distinct clarity of the horizon. I often felt as though I was peering back in time watching myself playing Spider-Man on the PlayStation 2, which at the time had incredible landscape visuals.
Texture pop-in when falling closer to the city is unforgiving. Trees will pop-in, people appear out of thin air and traffic isn’t evident until you near the cities empty streets. Creatures and other cast of characters appear block-like with rectangular arms and have unfortunately no depth to their facial animations. Bad guys are generic and have a repetitive use to them. With great looking games like Uncharted Golden Abyss, Killzone Mercenary and AC Liberation, The Amazing Spider-Man will hardly impress the visual enthusiast.
Spider-Man is handed a cell phone in the early stages of the game that will allow him to have access to e-mails, upgrades and act an on-screen map. Allowing the player to view a map of the city and scroll through other menus are done via the Left and Right shoulder buttons or the analog stick. I would have preferred the ability to scroll through those menus much like we do with our own cell phones. Sideswiping our way through menus and touching the items of choice to upgrade would make have made the use of the cell phone appear more believable. You are able to pinch the touch-screen for taking photos, but not much else is used with the Vita’s touch screen or rear touch pad.
Once you have forgiven the games visuals, there is lots of fun to be had for Spidey fans. Swinging through the city on the go is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game. With 700 comic books to collect, people to save and pictures to take, you will have lots of web slinging action to keep your spider sense tingling once you have completed the main story. If you have played The Amazing Spider-Man before, you will know what you are in for. If you missed out and are looking for some fun web swinging on the go, then I would recommend picking up Spider-Man on the Vita.
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