The Amazing Spider-Man

Spider-Man has been a mixed thing in games for a long time. His earliest efforts on consoles such as the NES and SNES have either been good or horrible and it wasn't until Spider-Man 2 on GameCube, PS2 and Xbox where the web slinging hero found what can make an enjoyable game; Web Swinging. Other than the Web Swinging, Spider-Man 2 was an awful game, but the excitement of swinging around New York City like only a Spider can was enough for people to forget the rest of the game. Fast forward to the seventh generation of consoles and the new film, at the time, The Amazing Spider-Man. Activision is not one to rest on a property they have the rights to so a game was made, several versions actually. While the many versions came out in 2012 along with the movie, the Vita version, which I am reviewing, didn't come out until 2013 making it completely irrelevant, just like it is today. With the console versions not doing too well on it's own, was the Vita version worth it at all? Can it do anything a Spider can? Or is it all out of web?

Resident Spider

The plot of the Amazing Spider-Man game is actually NOT the movie's plot, it's technically a sequel to the movie which is an interesting way to go about it. A viral outbreak, caused by the misuse of Doctor "The Lizard" Connors' research in creating cross-species, has occurred in Oscorp Tower and Gwen is infected. Peter, dead set on saving her, dons the Spider again and breaks into the facility Connors is being held at in order to break him out. Why is he breaking out the person who almost destroyed the city? Connors would be the only one able to find a cure as that was his intent all along. The new head of Oscorp Tower, Alistair Smythe, is dead-set on saving the city in his own way, by sending his killer robots out that are set to kill anyone that's a cross-species. Obviously this is not a plan that Spider-Man can allow to actually succeed, so he battles both the Cross-Species AND Alistair's robots. The plot is not terribly in-depth, but it's actually an entertaining plot and a good way to handle a movie game. It's always annoying when the movie game is just the movie plot, making the developer's job trickier as they have to force a game inside an hour and a half of actual content.

Big, Web-Covered Apple

Like a lot of Spider-Man games, this one is Open-World. New York City is used as a hub world and you move around it to find the main story levels or one of the many side-quests scattered around the city. The city is quite large and it has a lot to collect. As you travel the city, you'll find Comic Book pages that act as collectibles, there are 700 in total and they all add to your experience meter, also collecting them all awards a trophy. While the huge Open-World really has nothing more to do than be a hub, it's pretty cool they managed to get it up and working on the Vita, which is obviously not as powerful as a PS3 or 360. What there is to do in the world is pretty limited, there are around 5 different side-quest mission types, but it still has a lot to do.

I am the Spider

They always say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, if that's the case then Batman: Arkham Asylum and City must be pretty flattered right now. Well, sort of anyway. The combat in Spider-Man 2 was actually sort of like the Arkham games and it came out long before, but there is no mistaking the similarity. When in combat, which you'll be engaging in quite often, the Square button punches, X button jumps, the Circle button shoots web and the Triangle button Dodges or Counters. Just like in Batman you punch to start a combo count which lets you do what's called a Signature Attack which finishes off enemies instantly when they are dazed. Just like in Batman, Spider-Man launches over to the enemies when you attack in their direction and when an enemy is about to attack, there is an icon above Spider-Man's head. If the icon is red, pressing the Triangle Button will dodge, if it's white Spider-Man will counter attack the enemy attacking. Shooting webs at the enemies is a handy trick as it causes them to become trapped stopping them for a short period. If you hold the Circle button, you'll grab and throw the closest enemy which can hurt multiple enemies. When enemies are downed, press the Circle button to trap them on the ground, ending them. It's an enjoyable combat system but it is a tiny bit harder than Batman's as the Spider Sense icon makes it harder to tell which enemy is attacking. It's also more simple than Batman's but it works all the same.

Other than combat, you'll be exploring the area which you'll be doing in a couple of different ways. Not only will you be exploring on foot, but Spider-Man IS Spider-Man and Spider-Man web swings. When in the Open-World, Web Swinging is very fast and actually being able to Web Swing depends on if there are buildings nearby. It works just like you'd expect and it's fun swinging around just by holding the R Button. When in buildings, you can web swing freely but it's much slower and lower to the ground. Holding the X Button while Web Swinging in buildings causes Spider-Man to start swinging up. This is used mostly in traversal, but it can be used to dodge some enemies, mostly bosses. Another aspect of gameplay is the stealth gameplay. Like in Batman, Spider-Man can't deal with guns meaning you need to play stealthily when enemies have them. Since you can crawl on walls and ceilings, you can be truly hidden but enemies will actually look for you once they know you are there. If you are caught, you can press down on the D-Pad to zip your way to a wall to loose your enemies, which usually works. The last part of stealth is the stealth takedown. The stealth takedown you start with is pretty garbage as it gives you away but you can eventually get the takedown you'd think Spider-Man would have. Combining the takedown with the Web Escape allows you to dominate most encounters without even fighting which is cool.

The last ability that Spider-Man has is called Web Rush. This is actually one of the most used abilities in the game as it allows Spider-Man to zip to wherever you are looking. It's used in traversal in the open world and it's used to get to better angles and spots in the levels. It can also be used to attack enemies making this a very important ability. The last aspect of gameplay is leveling up and upgrading. You gain experience for fighting enemies and gathering the many collectibles around the Open-World or the levels and leveling up lets you pick a major power-up and you gain tech parts by destroying robots or by finding tech pieces around levels. These let you make your webs stronger which always helps. Overall, the game is fun to play but nothing special at all. It works, but it's standard stuff.

Broken Apple

It's time to talk about the visuals and performance. I have purposely ignored this in other sections just so I can get what is actually good out of the way. The visuals are pretty poor, but what else would you expect on the Vita in a game this large? Spider-Man's model is actually very good and he gets damaged as you fight just like in the HD versions but that's about it. Every other character model looks like it's from the PS2 and some models look like in-between the PS1 and PS2. The city is covered in flat textures and looks very bland. Boss fights look worse as the destruction doesn't translate very well and the car chase side missions look even worse when you are ground level as it's speeding by. Things also aren't paced very well as Spider-Man either clips through things or things stutter or jump to weird positions making things look pretty awful.

Poor visuals can be stomached, especially since it's on a handheld console like the Vita, but what cripples the game? What can make what's okay almost unplayable? Performance. Out in the Open-World the game performs well enough, but as soon as things start happening out there the game starts going to hell performance wise. It's not even all framerate problems. Sometimes the game seems to skip frames, it keeps it running at a good framerate, but it skips forward a little making things look worse. Sometimes when there are a lot of enemies on screen when fighting the framerate dies making it hard to react to attacks. This is one that's hard to properly state without playing for yourself, but this is probably the worst running game I've actually played, even worse than Blighttown in Dark Souls. This is how a good game falls.

Failed Responsibility

The Amazing Spider-Man on PlayStation Vita is not a good game. It plays fine gameplay wise, but it's performance is so bad that it makes it almost unplayable. I enjoyed my time with it mostly, getting all the collectibles wasn't too fun, but the performance makes it something that's impossible to ignore. It's great they got the Open-World to work on Vita and the combat works and is fun, but that performance. A broken good game will always remain broken. They probably should have skipped on the Vita version of this game, no matter how much fun I may have had with it, it came with so much pain and suffering due to how it performs and so many unfair deaths thanks to it I could have lived without this one. It's technically playable, but barely.