We saw The Amazing Spider-Man at the Activision booth on Wednesday. A free-roaming game set in Manhattan, the game takes place after the events of the upcoming movie, but Activision worked with the movie studio to ensure that any spoilers would only be minor. Despite working with the movie studio, they really tried to make the game a standalone game (rather than a supplement to the movie), and I got the impression that they succeeded. Although the development team tried to minimize the HUD as much as possible, it is possible to view a miniature version of Peter Parker’s smartphone map in the corner of the screen. We were really impressed with the web-swinging mechanics; as the PR guy told us, you really get a sense of acceleration and vertigo when he swings. He seems to do a variety of acrobatic flips at the peak of every web swing, which is cool, but maybe not necessary for literally every jump. We weren’t totally sold about some of the acrobatics, namely the low level lamp post to wall to lamp-post progressions. He seems to strangely scramble off of one surface and blast to another one, defying gravity, and it didn’t quite look like something spiderman would be doing.
The combat system is reminiscent of Batman: Arkham Asylum, as you jump or glide from one enemy to another. There is a new feature called web-rush, which can be activated at any time to freeze time. From this state, the characters can perform a number of unique and cinematic actions. In a number of scenarios, there seem to be a lot of quick-time events, which, in conjunction with the web rush ability, I’m concerned might make parts of the game too easy. I’m excited about the cast of characters- the main threat is an outbreak of human animal hybrids, so we’ll get to fight enemies like Scorpion and Rhino, as well as many others that you might recognize from the comics. We also saw Black Cat in the trailer, and there are also a number of robotic enemies designed to hunt down the hybrids that you will fight. The game will be out in stores July 3rd, 2012, for PS3 and Xbox 360.
