It took Spider-Man himself a lot of practice to get the hang of his new powers, and that was a reassuring thought when I started playing The Amazing Spider-Man 2, from Activision. The game introduces a new web-swinging mechanic that takes full advantage of controller buttons that might otherwise be overlooked: Pressing the left trigger causes Spidey to fire a web-line from his left hand, while the right trigger fires from his right-hand web-shooter. There’s definitely something intuitive about this, but try relying on intuition when your Spider-Avatar is plummeting down into a digital rendition of Manhattan! The trickiest part of web-swinging is figuring out at what point in his upward trajectory to release the web-line and spin another, all the while steering the character. After 15 or so minutes, I started wondering if Spider-Man’s greatest challenge early on wasn’t The Lizard, or even a complex love life, but trying not to do face-plants against the sides of buildings. Luckily, the controls do evolve as the game’s storyline progresses.
The first few levels recap Spider-Man/Peter Parker’s origin and early adventures, as he tracks down the person who murdered his uncle Ben. Along the way, the player gradually learns all sorts of new Spider-Skills, such as using web-shooters to fight, how to descend slowly from ceilings on a web, and the most useful, firing a web-line and then slingshot-ing himself straight ahead. Spider-Man’s a pretty versatile superhero, and doubtless, players and Spider-Fans will want to feel what it’s like to have his entire repertoire at their disposal. Nevertheless, with every button on the game pad seemingly involved, there are moments in which it’s possible to be overwhelmed by sheer choice. But even if players can’t sprout a few extra limbs, they can always master a few moves and then work their way up to the rest. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 offers an expansive, open-world environment in which players are free to run, jump, web-spin around, and otherwise be as heroic as they want. They can also choose not to do any of those things, which brings its own unique consequences. So go follow in Spidey’s footsteps: Get in the swing of things, and let your momentum carry you as far as it will.
