The City of New York. The Island of Manhattan. Central Park. The Empire State Building. It surrounds you. Encompasses you. Even as you rest atop a sky-scraper, with Central Park to the right of you, your senses are telling you that this beautifully crafted city is ripe with crime and riddled with criminals at every turn. It is your job, no, it is your duty, to clear these streets and defend those that are too weak, or unwilling, to fend for themselves. Are you up to the task? Are you ready to defend the defenseless? Are you ready to don the suit and wear the mask? Are you ready to be Spider-Man?
The Spider-Man story goes back many years and has graced the inside of comic books, movie screens, and video games since its creation in 1962. After being bitten by a radioactive spider, our soon-to-be super hero acquires super strength and the ability to stick to and climb walls. He soon learns that with great power, comes great responsibility. This latest release will occur as an epilogue to this coming Summer’s movie release by the same name.
As Spider-Man, you can switch over to Web Rush mode, slowing down time, and giving yourself ample time to survey the area. Web points are visible and web slinging has never looked more fun. Dropping off the edge of your perch, you allow yourself to fall 100 feet. 200 feet. Quickly into WR mode, and you sling your web at a distant building, your momentum sling shots you towards your destination. The new rush effect blurs your peripheral vision, but allows you to focus on the task at hand. Moving from point A to point B has never looked more fun.
Spider-Man also has some new tricks up his tightly worn sleeves. Since we last saw him he has spent time studying the art of parkour. His ability to wall run allows him to change directions on the fly and adds to the series by breaking what could be a monotonous path around the city. Spidey can also go into WR mode while mid-swing, find another trajectory that might cut a bad guy off, and turn 90 degrees in mid-air with the flick of a wrist.
He has also studied the art of WWE Wrestling. Wait, is that an art? Either way, his hand-to-hand combat skills include the suplex and body slams, among other things. If at any time you feel overwhelmed or outnumbered, the new Web Rush Back feature allows you to slink off into the shadows and tend to your wounds. This is a great way to re-evaluate the situation and come up with a better plan of attack. Hand-to-hand combat isn’t always your best choice. Stealth attacks are a great way to take out isolated bad guys, and bringing the odds more in your favor. Spider webbed wrapped bad guys tell no tales.
Manhattan Island isn’t always a sunny place. The mood of the island can be gauged by the weather. When all is well, sun bathing in Central Park would be a great way for the citizens to relax and tweet about what they have seen you do. Once the bad guys start doing their dirty deeds, though, the weather will turn dark and overcast. Can you bring the sunshine back?
We catch up to Spidey now just as he uses his Spidey hearing to learn about a bank robbery gone wrong. The bad guys have jumped into a couple of cars and are terrorizing the streets with their erratic driving. Spidey throws caution to the wind and rushes to stop them. He swings from point to point, wall walking when needed, spinning around flag poles, and zeroing in on the high speed chase. He spots the car behind several police cruisers. He lands on a cruiser a couple cars back, and shoots to the next car, leap frogging onto the getaway car’s hood. using his web shooter, he starts covering the windshield and blinding the driver. LOOK OUT! A shotgun comes out of nowhere and Spidey has to quickly dodge the blast. Spidey quickly shoots a huge web between some buildings and, in one quick move, the car is launched into it. These bad guys are done, but another car is speedily escaping. No rest for the Spidey, and it’s on to the next car.
Spider-Man isn’t always Spider-Man, and when he’s Peter Parker, he needs somewhere for R&R. Staying in Jersey wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice if they work in Manhattan, so Peter somehow manages to snag some highly sought after realestate. The back story for how he managed to acquire an apartment in Manhattan has yet to be revealed, but knowing how hard they can be to acquire, we can’t wait to find out.
The Amazing Spider-Man video game is set to release on June 26th, just prior to the release of the blockbuster movie. While we didn’t get to play any hands on, what we did see was very impressive, and points to a bright future for everyone’s favorite web crawler.
