The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the latest movie tie-in from Gameloft, the company behind the recently released Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Players don the Spidey-suit as Peter Parker and web-sling their way through the streets of Manhattan while fighting thugs, hunting for collectibles, and taking down super-villains. Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($4.99) features fun combat, good in-game graphics, satisfying exploration and travel, and plenty of optional content and missions. Despite its strengths, The wall-crawler's latest iPhone( at Amazon) outing suffers from slowdown, horrific in-app purchase pricing, obnoxious online requirements, and basic control issues. When The Amazing Spider-Man 2 cooperates, it makes for a fantastic diversion, but, unfortunately, that isn't always the case.
Exploring Your Friendly Neighborhood
When you're not in combat, the UI is relatively spartan, with only a mini-map and health bar at the top-left corner of the screen, as well as a jump icon at the lower right of the screen. Swiping the left or right moves the camera in that direction. An invisible D-pad in the lower left side of the screen lets players move Spider-Man around the environment.
Tapping the jump icon causes Spidey to jump, obviously, but pressing and holding it makes him swing about in the classic, familiar style. Using the movement controls while swinging take a bit of getting used to, but once players familiarize themselves with how to time their jumps, swings, and dives, the web-swinging and platforming in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 can be quite fun.
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Once players complete the prologue chapter, they find dozens of scattered and optional missions throughout Manhattan, giving them plenty of content to sink their teeth into in-between story missions. These could be as simple as finding hidden Daily Bugle articles, giving loving fans your autograph, or stopping car thefts.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 also adds light RPG-elements with its skill system. As players explore and complete quests, they earn points that are used to purchase which skills or in-game items. Skills let you unlock new movement abilities and combos, as well as improve Spider-Man's strengths and defenses.
Street Fighting Action
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 goes to great lengths to create a fun, fluid action game. As players explore the city and progress through the story mode, they are forced to defend themselves against thugs and super-powered enemies. The interface changes slightly in combat mode. The jump icon shifts into a fist icon, and a webbing icon and counter icon appear alongside it. Though fairly basic, these three options make for very satisfying combat. Hammering the fist icon lets Spider-Man to perform his basic combo. Tapping the web icon fires a projectile that can stun and interrupt enemies. As players obtain more skills, they earn new combos that are executed by pressing combinations of the fist and web icons.
The counter icon serves as Spider-Man's defensive ability. A successful counter lets Spider-Man evade an incoming attack and counter with one of his own. Successful counters also let Spider-Man continue his combo, so players can rack up plenty of points while keeping their combo-score high.
Combat is simple, yet fast and fluid, and is the game's strongest asset. Beyond the game's story and missions, players can also test their combat prowess within Mysterio's Arena, which pits Spider-Man against waves of increasingly strong enemies for great point and item rewards.
Spidey-Sense Tingling
Unfortunately, The Amazing Spider-Man 2's biggest shortcoming is its controls. Combat works well because movement is not very important; Spiderman auto-targets the nearest enemy, and his counter works regardless of where he's facing.
Web-swinging and platforming on the other hand, are player-controlled. Players must aim Spiderman's swings and jumps, but they feel clunky and inaccurate because swinging movement speed is fairly slow. Poor camera control during swinging compounds the issue; it's extremely difficult to see anything below Spider-Man, so landing on buildings takes as much guesswork as it does skill.
The controls also suffer as a result of the game's inconsistent frame-rate and slow-downs. This is particularly apparent when players complete a mission and receive their in-game rewards, but it can occur at random during combat and exploration. It's difficult to forgive a shortcoming that quickly bogs the game down in this manner, as playing can devolve into a tedious slog at the drop of a hat. Slowdown during web-swinging and exploration typically results in failed jumps and missed platforms. Slowdown during combat makes it much easier to fail a counter, which means players will take needless damage. During unforgiving fights, like Mysterio's Arena, this can mean certain death.
The need for a dedicated internet connection hurts the game as well. It seems entirely nonsensical that a mobile game requires its players to tether themselves to an Internet connection. Players who do iOS gaming at home or at work needn't worry much about this issue, but for on-the-go players, it can be a deal-breaker. Even with a dedicated internet connection, time-outs happen often enough to be extremely frustrating, since a failed connection can easily result in lost progress.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 features in-app purchases (IAP's), but these are, for the most part, optional and out of sight. With that said, perusing the shop reveals some horrific pricing. As you can see in the slideshow, fifteen dollars for a costume in a game that only costs five is simply unacceptable.
Spider Senseless
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has its fun moments, but there are far too many factors that directly and negatively impact the game. Die-hard Spider-Man fans hoping for a light, fun action/adventure may be willing to overlook the glaring flaws, but it's difficult to recommend the game to anyone else.
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