More Spidey, Less Spidey
When Spider-Man 2 came out for the original X-Box, I was so impressed by its communication of the kinesis particular to Peter Parker's Manhattan exploits, that I kept swinging long after I had completed all of the assigned objectives.
Since then, the most interesting thing about Spider-Man games has been the ability of Treyarch and then Beenox to lose the plot in new and astonishing ways. From poor mechanics in Spider-Man 3 to the mind-boggling many-Spider-Mans of Shattered Dimensions and Edge of Time, which eschewed the free-world web-slinging that laid a very promising foundation in Spider-Man 2, the wall-crawler has been maddeningly misused for years.
Beenox's movie tie-in, The Amazing Spider-Man was not a good game, but it did return to the open-world antics and "world rushing past" sense of speed that the first "new" Spider-Man game had offered. Again, a foundation was laid and there was hope that perhaps a second iteration would fix the problems.
That obviously didn't happen. The Amazing Spider-Man 2, far from fixing the problems of the first game, exacerbates them by adding a carrot/stick mechanic for doing a series of mindlessly repeating hero missions, once more neutering what should be the most exciting thing about Spider-Man, his free movement in the world. Instead of merely incentivizing side-mission completion, the game punishes players by putting up consistent electric walls in Spidey's path, demanding that the load-time intensive missions be competed. This would be less bad if Web-Head could just come upon the side missions, but instead he must load into a street-fight, burning building, or shootout, do the tedious mission, and then load back into the world.
The story is mediocre, though it does pick up threads from the previous game, effectively creating a parallel world around the films. It also has potential, and could have benefited from a few less super-powered boss fights and a more fleshed out Kraven the Hunter story.
Beenox added what I shudder to call "Batman" combat to the game. Rocksteady's fluid, reaction based combat system is far from perfect. Having sunk dozens of hours into both of RS's Arkham games to get perfect free flow achievements, I can testify to the need for improvement. However, Beenox's attempt to mimic a system with such precision, fluidity, and depth lacks any merit. The stilted movement, touchy controls, and often bewildering responses from the character imply a much more complicated combat system than the three button punch, dodge, shoot webs simplicity that TASM2 delivers.
When I collect my remaining four comic pages, and a few more photography assignments, I will have done everything in the game except replay old missions to get all of the photos and audio recordings, and the races. Then I will return the game to GameFly and be glad that I didn't pay for this game. But I also regret the fact that, as a Spider-Man fan from the 80's, the thing that excited me most, a genuine Black-Costume skin, was actually a $6.99 add on to a game that didn't deserve it. Thus, the thing that I've actually been hoping for from a Spider-Man game, to swing through the streets of Manhattan in the classic black & white, will have to wait a while longer until Activision either gives my Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man to another team, or gives Beenox enough time to create something genuinely up to date and worth playing.
