Since the Amazing Spiderman is hitting theaters today and The Amazing Spiderman game has been getting decent reviews, we here at GoGamingGiant.com would like to take you back to a simple time. A time when Xbox was without the 360 and Playstation 2 was king of the mountain. When Sam Raimi and Toby Maguire would make a major comic book splash with the summer blockbuster; Spiderman. The movie was great, but the game was…not very good.
Spiderman: What do you mean they reboot the series in only 10 years!?
Now I’m not saying that Spiderman was bad because it was a movie licensed game, in fact Spiderman 2 was a great video game and Batman has had more than a few good movie/video game tie-ins. Yet this Spiderman fell flat because it failed to capitalize on the feel of Spiderman. Sure, web swinging was fun, but Peter Parker was confined to rooftops and swinging between buildings, he couldn’t touch the city floor to save his life! Of course Spiderman 2 took care of that problem, being a sort of “sandbox” superhero game, but Spiderman the movie game was too two dimensional for a 3-D game.
Ah yes, a cramped sewer is perfect for a game with poor camera angles.
Next was the voice acting dialogue. This isn’t a knock towards Toby Maguire or even Bruce Campbell for their work on the game; I believe they did the best they could with that material (especially Bruce Campbell with his hilarious tutorial voice over). However, the banter between Spiderman and his foes was so cheesy that it failed to be funny. Spiderman fans will know that Parker is known for his wit and sly remarks, but the game reduced him to repeat boring one-liner after another such as asking robots “are you guys recyclable?”
Activision: the father of shamless self promotion.
And finally, the controls: which drove me nearly to a breaking point when I played this game. Web swinging is simple, but ground movements are too jerky and sometimes Spiderman moves so fast that he can disorient the camera. Now this wouldn’t be a problem if Spiderman the movie game had the sprawling streets of New York to fight on, but couple poor controls and bad camera angles with endless cramped warehouses and you get the perfect storm of bad gaming. The game does have some redeemable value but not enough to look back on this game in fondness. If you’re looking for a good vintage Spiderman video game fix, check out Maximum Carnage or Spiderman 2. Then check out the Amazing Spiderman and see if the hype holds up.
