As surely as it’s going to rain all summer long here in Blighty, so there’s surely going to be a new super-hero movie with game tie-ins. This time it’s The Amazing Spider-Man, who will be slinging webs as only a tidy young actor – not a nightmarish twitchy arachnid half-breed – can. It’s a fancy-looking open-world type thing, and it really does look moderately entertaining. The men at Strategy Informer have used their release date-confirming powers to ascertain that the PC version will arrive on August 10th, a healthy month-and-a-bit later than its console cousins. So that’s great news. Just great.
Amiable developer-narrated trailer below, if you’re into that sort of thing. (You so are.)
Spider-Man really isn’t all that amazing in the grand scheme of super-heroes, but I suppose each comic needs its prefix.
Oh no, I am getting that thing where you read a word too many times and it looks weird. Spider, Spider! SPIDER!
27/06/2012 at 17:07 RaveTurned says:
So: Arkham City, more colourful, more webby. Also cars.
Not complaining.
27/06/2012 at 17:11 Alexrd says:
Arkham City? You wish…
27/06/2012 at 17:15 RaveTurned says:
Conceptually I mean. How that actually turns out remains to be seen.
27/06/2012 at 18:55 lordfrikk says:
If Spider-Man got the AC treatment it would be awesome. One can dream…
27/06/2012 at 19:45 adonf says:
That’s what I though of too.
Also, this: link to youtube.com
27/06/2012 at 17:11 Tom De Roeck says:
Spiderman holding a pole isnt as exciting as you thought of?
27/06/2012 at 17:12 dE says:
Tons of Fanfic incoming… *shudder*
27/06/2012 at 17:15 Aloshi says:
PLEASE BE LIKE SPIDER MAN 2 FOR THE PS2
ALL OF MY HOPE
27/06/2012 at 17:20 The Godzilla Hunter says:
That game was AWESOME, though it would have been much better if those little kids learned to get over their stupid balloons.
27/06/2012 at 17:32 sinister agent says:
This is a thing that you said and it is a thing I would also like to say. Hell, even if they just keep the wonderful sense of motion that game had. You could swing around for hours in that game, ignoring the plot and missions entirely.
28/06/2012 at 02:56 Hulk Handsome says:
I agree with the above posts. Unfortunately, it looks like this game lets you websling even when there aren’t any buildings to swing on. Swinging in Spider-Man 2 was fun because you had to actually pay attention to what’s around you instead of just pressing a button and letting the game do everything for you!
28/06/2012 at 03:25 Ancient Algae says:
Agreed. But ironic because near the end of the S2 movie, when Spidey and MJ escape the weird collapsing shipyard by the docks, it seemed they weren’t swinging from anything at all.
Also, the continuous windshield webbing just looks silly. Wouldn’t a single splotch of webbing be enough? Isn’t there a setting in his webshooter that determines the size of the spinneret?
28/06/2012 at 03:07 Ancient Algae says:
Yes! Spider-Man 2 was amazing! (ha, sorry) I spent hours sprinting off of rooftops and shooting out a web milliseconds before I become a red and blue smear on the street.
I had hoped the same from the Spider-Man 3 game… but the visceral feeling of swinging between buildings at top speed just wasn’t there for some reason. Maybe because they trashed the combat and some of the more “complicated” movement control schemes from Spider-Man 2 (which were brilliant) in favor of quicktime events and a new unresponsive control scheme. Hopefully this one’ll make me feel like I’m fully controlling Spidey again.
28/06/2012 at 09:36 Darth_Pingu says:
Spider-Man 2 for GOTY every year.
Did you ever try entering the Statue of Liberty?
28/06/2012 at 13:57 Tom De Roeck says:
Ultimate Spiderman aka Spiderman 3 was better.
27/06/2012 at 17:20 PJMendes says:
Spiderman doesn’t dodge a thug shooting a shotgun at him and then continue to web the car’s windshield. He either disarms the thug by pulling the shotgun from him, or webs the car against a few buildings or poles or the road, not even landing on it.
Get it right Blizz.
Also, the voice actor should probably be the dude who did Marty McFly in the Back to the Future games, the costume should be blue and red instead of black and burgundy, and not made of basketball, and spiderman should be able to enter every window and door of every building in the city.
27/06/2012 at 17:32 EPICTHEFAIL says:
Not sure if sarcastic, or raging fanboy.
*Looks at end of post*
Nevermind.
27/06/2012 at 17:22 kaffis says:
I miss the old days when Treyarch was actually making the web-slinging feel more immersive and engaging, instead of the webs just zipping up off the edge of the screen and presumably connecting to clouds or the sky since you’re roughly 2 stories below the tallest building in a 5-block radius, which just happens to be 3 blocks away…
27/06/2012 at 17:50 Wisq says:
Agreed. Plus, inbetween every swing, he looks more “out of control” than the “graceful” look they were presumably aiming for. And that landing felt more like something the Hulk would do.
27/06/2012 at 17:23 abandonhope says:
Guy sounds like John Boy Walton.
27/06/2012 at 17:23 db1331 says:
I didn’t even know this was coming to PC at all. When I look at a screen for this game, it looks great. When I see it in motion though, it just looks off. I don’t know if it’s the animation, or the combat, or both. I just wish someone would go to Rocksteady, hand them the Spiderman license, and get out of their way.
27/06/2012 at 18:25 Syra says:
It is just off in every way very slightly, you can see how the animations don’t quite line up and the sounds dont quite reinforce what’s going on. The combat is a blatant arkham city ripoff and that whole open world start a mission thing doesn’t quite seem to work very smoothly..
28/06/2012 at 07:19 MSJ says:
Rocksteady is owned by Time Warner who also owns DC Comics.
27/06/2012 at 17:26 Xocrates says:
Spider-man! Spider-man! Does releases on August 10
…
I’m so so sorry for that pun.
27/06/2012 at 17:32 aliksy says:
Looks interesting. Probably get it when it’s 75% off, just like the batman games.
27/06/2012 at 17:34 Dr I am a Doctor says:
“The Assphone”?
27/06/2012 at 17:34 sinister agent says:
Oh gosh, I hope those Pavlovian PRESS NOW, DRONE prompts are optional. That would get annoying FAST.
But! This looks like it’s borrowing heavily from Spiderman 2 on the PS2. I have absolutely no interest in superheroes, but that can only be a Good Thing for a game.
27/06/2012 at 17:38 woodsey says:
A camera that close in an open-world game will make it unbearable. Sometimes I really wonder what developers are thinking when they make decisions on this kind of stuff.
27/06/2012 at 17:48 db1331 says:
Well it’s made for consoles, where players have no concept of FoV.
27/06/2012 at 18:13 Giaddon says:
I actually really like the close camera, and I am always bothered by the distant cameras in Assassin’s Creed, Grand Theft Auto, etc. So I’m happy about it!
27/06/2012 at 17:38 Metalfish says:
This looks pretty good. But I do find the constant back flipping and flamboyant motions a little over the top -they look great the first time but it looks like it’s just the one animation, which starts to get silly real quick.
27/06/2012 at 17:41 Snegletiss says:
Why don’t the make the web ACTUALLY having to hit the buildings. Spiderman games have been going downhill since Spiderman 2…
27/06/2012 at 18:53 Steven Hutton says:
All games have been down-hill since Spider-Man 2.
27/06/2012 at 17:54 dontnormally says:
“Oh no, I am getting that thing where you read a word too many times and it looks weird.”
link to en.wikipedia.org
27/06/2012 at 18:12 LTK says:
There’s nothing better than learning that a psychological phenomenon everybody knows about has had science done to it. Thanks!
28/06/2012 at 00:57 sinister agent says:
C/o The Weekly (which shall return):
27/06/2012 at 18:01 dotslash says:
completely off topic for a game site, but I don’t get why they’re releasing a spider man movie again which tells the same/similar story as the one released not so long ago…
27/06/2012 at 18:04 Brun says:
There were two Spider-Man comic book series, the original Spider-Man (which was made into the movies with Toby McGuire) and The Amazing Spider-Man, which is what this year’s movie will be based on.
27/06/2012 at 18:57 Steven Hutton says:
That’s not strictly speaking accurate but hey, close enough.
The shorter version is “money” they’re doing it because money.
Also, a quirk of sony’s licensing agreement is that if they dont’ make a new spider-man movie within a certain time-frame the rights to the make spider-man movies revert to marvel. Since the previous Spider-Man actors are getting older and since the last Spider-Man movie was a MASSIVE turkey they’ve settled on doing a new franchise.
Why that necessitated retelling the origin is anyone’s guess. But hey, they’ll probably blow through the origin really quickly. Honestly, the new movie doesn’t excite me but this new game does a little, because it looks a bit like spider-man 2.
27/06/2012 at 23:19 Aatch says:
Other than the obvious “Money”. I’m geekily hoping for “sorry for butt-fucking one of your most loved superhero franchises”.
I’m a big fan of Spiderman, and I never really liked the films. The overplayed Parker’s geekyness and made him too much the stereotypically bumbling nerd. This made his transformation into the wisecracking Spiderman a little too much to take. While I understand that there is supposed to be an actual transformation, it was just too jarring to go from “can barely talk to anybody” to “Witty one-liner while dodging bullets”. Spiderman 2 was decent enough, but when they shot for “human” they hit “pathetic” when portraying the difficulties in being secretly a superhero. Spiderman 3 was well, yeah. Emo Parker, completely missing the point of the corrupting effect of the symbiote? It’s more that it taps into your own dark side, in the (older) cartoon, it goes so far as to almost make Spiderman kill Rhino, something that he would never normally do. Instead it was more “look at the silly nerd trying to be cool” and “rawr, I am ebil now”.
I’m not a rabid fan, I don’t care about what shade of red his costume is, or whether it was a genetically engineered spider or a radioactive one. I care about the story and characterisation, which Sony have previously fucked up. The recent Marvel movies up to and including The Avengers have shown that you can portray conflict and humanity in a superhero character without ultimately depowering them, either figuratively or literally. Ironman 2 is a perfect example, Stark is suffering but his pride causes him to push those who are closest to him away, instead of letting them help. I’m guessing that they did that side rather than the “Tony Stark is a massive alcoholic” side to keep it a bit more PG-13, though he does get pretty plastered at one point…
Anyway, back on (off-topic) point. I’m hoping that the reboot will fix the horror unleashed by the previous movies. But I am prepared to be disappointed.
27/06/2012 at 18:16 Syra says:
You get vertigo when you webswing?
So a dizzyspell and maybe you fall down?
27/06/2012 at 18:43 Mr.Dreadlock says:
I’m not familiar with Spider-man universe, but does every city there have a ceiling??
27/06/2012 at 20:23 Crane says:
Pfft. I don’t care unless it lets me play as Supaidaman.
(link to youtube.com)
Giant transforming robot spaceships make everything better!
27/06/2012 at 20:28 jvu123 says:
anyone remember Ultimate Spider Man, on the Xbox? this seems like a new version of that, anyone agree?
27/06/2012 at 21:16 Urthman says:
No, but I remember it on PC. I was overjoyed after the disappointment that was Spider-Man 2 on PC.
27/06/2012 at 22:05 InternetBatman says:
That was an awesome game. It was written by Bendis (the writer of Ultimate Spiderman), and that really improved the game.
28/06/2012 at 00:12 gummybearsliveonthemoon says:
And this new movie seems to be following the Ultimate storyline somewhat, what with Spidey’s parents having been in some secret science program that Curt Connors was in on… except it’s something related to the Lizard’s accident rather than Venom.
I got all that from the trailer to the movie, which left me feeling flat. Did nothing for me. Lizard looks like a Super Mario Bros The Movie goomba.
27/06/2012 at 20:52 Calcufactor says:
You could do all of the wall-running and flagpole-spinning he’s so excited about in Spider-Man 2…except it wasn’t just a cutscene then.
27/06/2012 at 22:08 Juan Carlo says:
I like how there doesn’t have to be any tall buildings near by for you to web swing. I guess he is web swinging off of clouds?
27/06/2012 at 22:53 wodin says:
Confused as o where he is attaching the web when he swings?
Also really didn’t like the animations when fighting, not fluid and smooth at all like Batman games.
Anyway I thought Spiderman has been killed off?
27/06/2012 at 23:27 kevmscotland says:
This looks almost exactly like Spiderman 3 game.
Nothing new here except a new camera angle. How disappointing.
28/06/2012 at 02:32 Urthman says:
What it looks exactly like is the Web of Shadows game (without the option of playing as Venom, and probably without the awesome swing-through-a-crowd-of-zombies and knock them over like bowling pins mechanic)