The plot of the game starts us off with the recreation of Uncle Ben's death as seen in the movie. Peter walks off the store, the thief with the star tattoo steals the store's cash, Peter doesnt stop him and then a gunshot is heard and we reach Uncle Ben. Years later(supposendly after the movie and the first game) Peter seems to be obsessed with the
thief and goes on a rampage to find the star thief. He begins by hunting different gangsters in hopes of finding clues. He soon find clues that lead him to the person he was after BUT he is found Dead with a weird Symbol on the wall called the Carnage killer. At the same time, Fisk AKA KingPin seems to be collaborating with Oscorp in order to make New York
more secure. Peter tries to find clues that will lead him to the Carnage killer, but an attack on oscorp will lead him to encounter Shocker. Spiderman is once again searching for clues whilst taking down thugs which seemed to have attracted Kraven the Hunter.
Before approaching the hunter, Peter uses his daily Bugle pass in order to meet with Kraven and interact with him to see what he is like. Then he makes his appearance as Spiderman. Kraven wishes to teach Spiderman the fun of the hunt since he has no sons of his own to leave his legacy and knowledge. The two temporarily team up in order to take down the weapon market following a lead.
Their truce though doesnt last long as a few missions later the two come to a dissagreement of believes. Kraven believes a criminal should die if it means saving the lives of many, where as Spiderman wants criminals behind the bars. What follows after is Peter trying to get information on Kingpin's evil schemes and also keeping New York safe. We re also introduced to Harry Osborn and his condition
indicating that unlike before this game continues from the last game completely ignoring the movie. Soon later the game turns into a boss rush with Spidey going up againts Kraven, Fisk, Black Cat, Electro etc.
Straight up the story is rushed and all over the place. Why are we back on chasing the Star tattoo criminal given how the movies and the previous entry completely forgotten about him. Where is Gwen Stacey? We spent alot of time with her in the first film and game and now she is nowhere. Not even a single reference to her. Additionally the characters of Electro and Green Goblin rely on the fact that you watched the films otherwise nothing makes sense. For example, we do get to see Max in one mission where we rescue him and then he dissappears or 80% of the game to come back as Elector and simply hates Spiderman. Atleast with Harry we get a few glimpses of him before getting the serum. Did Kraven and Spiderman truce legit lasted 1 mission and then finished right after? Many things were just rushed and thrown in the game in order to have Objectives without considering the plot. The Carnage killer, appears as early as mission 1 but then is forgotten(used as plot convenient to "search clues") before remembering that he was meant to be the bad guy of the game. It was honesllty all over the point and was filled with many plot holes for the sake of having a game out as soon as possible.
The gameplay has polished the original, made some good changes on existing mechanics and added zero new things whilst also doing the minimum in other cases. Given that is a Spiderman game, the first thing that needs to be covered is Traversal. The amazing Spiderman 2 had one of the best web swinging mechanism prior to Insomniac based on
my experience. Spiderman is swinging faster and smoother than its predeseccor. Beemox also had the idea of using both back triggers when swinging, each representing spiderman left and right hand. They also made it so that Spiderman's web are sticking on the nearby walls an not on the sky. By holding down both triggers, the hero will launch himself
up in the air. Web rush returns once again which allows spiderman to launch himself forward in order to reach the area marked/popped when the player clicked the appropriate button. Sometimes with the tap of the button, you will see the web slinger launch a web, run on the wall and then leap to reach the rooftop mapped. Holding the web rush button will
turn the game's camera into first person and golden spideys will appear in various locations indicating the available options to web rush too. The web sling and web rush can both be upgraded from the skill wheel.
The combat of the game is straight up bad and boring without any sense of progression what so ever. In fact some of the animations that would otherwise be praised for their aerobics are taken straight up from the amazing Spiderman(2012). The combat is the definition of reperirive and uninspiring. All the player has to do from start to finish is tap the attack button
and only click the dodge button when the spider sense is tingling to trigger the dodge animation. If the dodge animation takes long, the enemies can shoot you or grab you if its a boss fight. Webs can be used but most re pointless, as mashing the attack button will be the goto unless you do the highest difficulty. The webs can be used both offensively and defesnively.
Offensively Spidey can web towards enemies closing the gap between them and allowing him to start his combos. in defence, the webs can be used to remove weapons off the enemies hands or pull them towards spidey. Similarly, webs can be used as projectiles to stunt enemies. Web Blast can be unlocked which simply pushes the enemies down or stunts the heavy ones.
Spidey's healthbar is down in the corner. When its low, go away from the enemies and heal.
Thats pretty much all about the game's combat. There's no deep combos or unique enemies to interact with. Although to be fair, Web blast is needed to take down heavy thugs and you need to throw the webs on certain enemies to drop their armor or lower their speed. Spidermans Spidey sense can be used outsite of combat. Using the Spidey sense, the hero
can see enemies through the walls and move acordingly in order to do some Stealth take downs. The environment can be used to help the hero as he can pick heavy items and launch them towards his enemies. For example you can pick a trashbin and throw it near enemies to knock them down. Knocked down enemies with spinning web halos on their heads can be
defeated by pressing a button which will use a cinematic takedown.
Boss battles felt short and underperformed with the exception of two which did not do something extrodinary but played way different than all the others this game had to offer, nevertheless none caption my hype as much as the Amazing Spiderman(2012) Big spider robot. Pretty much all the enemies here are battled just like any other thug. For example, Shocker
is mash the attack and dodge when he does the AoE. Kraven, mash the attack and dodge when Kraven or "phantoms" attack. Black cat, mash the attack and dodge her attacks with the exception of using spider sense when she hides. Kingpin, use web blast to make him attack for him to hit the wall and then you guessed it, mashed attack until he is back. The exceptions here
are two movie bosses as they have chase sequences and unique gimicks. Defeating them is not satisfying nonetheless.
First words that came to my mind? Boring and repeated. I found my self doing the excact same thing from start to finish without feeling any progression. The webswinging was good. It was fun see how Beenox upped their game from the prior entry when it came down to the swinging. Similarly combat in comparisson to the first one was more responsive and the acrobatic finishers looked better than before. However, the hero doesnt get any meaningfull abilities which makes the entire skill board useless. The enemy variety is unispiring and boring. Battle againts thugs with guns, close combat weapons or heavies. As mentioned the same mechanicks used by heavies are similar to the bosses. Fisk's heavies near the 50% of the game has the excact same AoE Shocker had. Stealth felt like a downgrade in comparison to the first and unless im wrong i believe most if not all the stealth animations were taken from the first one. The product showed potential here and there but in the end the deadline caught up to it. And if that wasnt enough, the post game should prove it.
The games post content is unfortunately the most boring thing in the game. Similar to the first game, Spiderman can find comic books scattered around new york. Each comic represents a page in a book. The player can read the comic by going to Stan Lees comic store. In my opinion this is the best usage of Stan Lees character i ve seen. He is rescued as the first mission and Peter drops by
his comic store. There Stan seems to be having a friendly conversation with Peter as his "local" comic seller to hiscostumer. Inside his store, we can see Collectable Figures of the games cast. We can interact with the Comic Books and read a small story. Moreover, in the poster section we can seeConcept art of the game. Last but not least, inside Stan's store there is an arcade Spiderman machine
with enemy waves challenging the player back to back. This was the fun part.
New Yorks post game content consist of taking pictures to stop the crime. The task requires Spiderman to photograph the suspicious activity. The problem is that its always the same three things. The two men in black, the police officers laptop and the Carnage Killers logo on the wall. Nothing else. The other activity is stopping violent crime. This is a quick encounter with a small team of criminals. The annoying part comes
with the fact that you see an unskippable cutscene before and after the "quick" encounter. The same problem exists with Human rescue and Fire rescue. The player will have to spot the injured/in danger civilian, rescue them and take them to the hospital before we get the cutscene. Car chase sequences have the hero leaping on the officers car, to trigger the cutscene, to then press web rush once, to do the mash to stop
the crime. The same 2 animated cutscenes happen before and after the encounter followed by another cutscene praising your heroic act. Ecnounters can also be triggered whilst swinging because the police thing of you as a mennace despite having a good-bad moral bar. The bar was meant to triggered less encounters if you re consider good and more if you re bad, however the story 90% of the times will make you the bad guy. Additionally the player can
do Time races. The idea is, Spidey has X ammount of times to go through all the rings. The problem is, 90% of the time, the player taps the web rush and points the camera to the ring. In my case, tap R1 15 times. Last but not least there are
Russians bases which uppon a stealthy takedown will reward you with a new suit. Each suit has its own status but they add nothing to the overall game.
In my opinion, this game looks worse than its predeseccor. Its new art direction and style didnt land with me when it comes down to the hero and enemy models. New york on the other hand looks better than the original. Some new locations like Fisks party, Kravens house and Stan Lee's comic store were very good and grapped the essence of how that location should and would look like. Kraven's house made you feel like this character is someone
you should fear as his house had corpses of the enemies fought in the first game, like the scorpion halfbreed and Inguanna. The battle damage, is portrrayed on the hero's suit but not as detailed as in the first game. Finaly, as mentioned alot of the animations were taken directly from the first entry with them adding almost none original.
Audio wise the game does a mediocre job. The cast acting seems off and audio balancing is terrible. In multiple cutscenes you will hear the background sounds louder than the characters. For example a fire in barel can be heard louder than the thugs convo. In a scene after defeating a boss, you could hear his hard breathing much louder than Spidermans talk. Some acting doesnt match the face or act being shown and in general things sounds rushed.
Makes you wonder if it was the time that preassure them or if they had time and chose not to fix it.
Overall, The Amazing Spiderman 2 is a game i couldnt recommend unless you want to see things with your own eyes and given you can find a physical copy as the game has been delisted from the online stores years ago. The plot does not retell the events of the movie although knowing the film, The Amazing Spiderman 2, will give you a better context for the behaviors of certain villains. Furthermore, unlike its predeseccor it does not pick up from the events of where the movie left. Instead, it tries to tell its own narrative by continuing form the events of the previous game, add a certain ammount of heroes for the hero to fight and bring back plot points that didnt need. For example, Peter is now once again after the thug who killed his uncle and has a noticable hates towards him. His quest to find him will lead him to a great mystery about a serial killer known as Carnage Killer. Kraven the hunter will also temporarily group up with him as he also wishes to end the murders. This is the main plot but for some reason the devs threw in the movies' main two villains and three more for content whilst also removing Gwen Stacey who had a big role in both previous movie and game. The gameplay was a polished version of the previous one with zero new additions and infact removing some of the original. The combat barely changes throughout removing any sense of progression. The boss encounters are dull and unispiring since most of them feel like the average thug with reskins on their projectiles. The post game content is also boring as they felt rush and added as a last minute thought. The visuals is a hit or miss, however for me comparing it to the original was a miss in most cases. Same goes for the audio as there were sections where background noices were louder than the vocals of the heroes. The one thing i believe the game did amazingly and is yet to be beated, is the usage of Stan Lee. He pretty much gets rescued and we show up in his comic store where our collectables can be seen. Aside from that he has two dialogs with Peter and both are in my opinion the best exchanges in the game as they showed the care Stan had for Peter instead of simply throwing a funny phraze or being your average Stan Lee Cameo. The game can be completed in less than 6 hours and around 10 if you try to go for the platinum trophy.
This is a video of me playing the game.