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Publisher Activision
Developer
Released: June 26, 2012
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Genre: ActionPlayers: 1 Also on: 360, PS3, Wii, 3DS Supported Features:
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What We Liked: What We Didn't: The Final Score: (?) |
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The Amazing Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man is essentially a dumbed down take on a 2D metroidvania style game, except the city acts an hub world with doors that lead to new missions. These missions usually consist of fighting minions until the door to the next room is unlocked, and then end with a cutscene that advances the story. There is a map occupying the top screen pretty much at all times, while the rest of the gameplay happens on the bottom screen. I am someone that loves these style of games, but The Amazing Spider-Man does itself a huge disservice by taking out the exploration and progression that defines the genre, and what you’re left with is a bare bones beat-em with some mild platforming.
I haven’t played the 3DS version of the game, so I can’t speak to how that one compares in structure and quality, but I will say if you have your mind set on buying The Amazing Spider-Man, the handheld version is probably not be your best bet. And lastly, if you are really anxious to play something on your DS, there are already plenty of great games out there to choose from. I suggest taking a pass on The Amazing Spider-Man and spending your money on one of the many other great DS games that came out over the past several years.
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There hasn’t been too many regular old DS games coming out for a while now with the next generation 3DS taking its place, but surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly, I can’t really decide which) the movie tie-in game for The Amazing Spider-Man is indeed coming to the DS. Just because this means there’s a new game available for those that haven’t upgraded to the 3DS, doesn’t mean that anyone should be itching to get their hands on this game.
I will admit I was not expecting much from this movie tie-in, especially not the handheld edition coming out on a previous generation’s hardware. In any case, I usually like to be as neutral as possible going into any game that I need to review, so I wasn’t simply going to write this game off before playing it. However, once I did start playing my original expectations were pretty much dead on. That’s not to say the game is horribly broken or offensively bad, but generic and dull are two words I think adequately sum up my experience with this particular version of the game.
The fact is the game just wasn’t fun. Pretty much every mission had me swing around some buildings, or climb up some walls while I looked for all the enemies in a room to beat up until I was able to move onto the next room where I did the same thing. As I progressed through the game I unlocked some new abilities to use in combat, but the game didn't really change all that much throughout. The entire time I was still doing the same boring, unoriginal thing I had been doing from the start. There were even points where I would start it up, play for about 60 seconds, and then turn it off and walk away out of pure boredom.
As I said before, the game isn’t completely awful. It controls nicely and does a pretty good job of emulating the city swinging experience you associate with Spider-Man even though it is only a 2D game. It looks just as good as you’d expect for a DS game, and the story isn’t all that bad if you care about Spider-Man and the story in the movie. In fact, I’m sure there would have been a time in my childhood that I would have enjoyed this game simply because it’s Spider-Man and you get to swing around and beat up bad guys, but that doesn’t mean this game is worth buying, even if you are getting for a kid that doesn’t know better.