“One of the best comics I’ve read in the past few years was J. Michael Straczynski’s The Amazing Spider-Man No. 500. An anniversary issue that transported present-day Spider-Man to all of the benchmark moments from his past, forcing him to relive each one more time … and triumph, even as he grew more exhausted following each battle. The issue allowed us to revisit the seminal chapters in Spider-Man’s rich history, and never once did I feel, “Bah, we saw this already!” The moments were part of a different narrative quilt, and it was exhilarating to be able to see them from a fresh perspective, all over again.
That’s what Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man is, to me. A fresh perspective. It’s another artist taking a stab at a classic character. And I adore it. There are subtle creative differences, but the joy comes in absorbing the nuances of this alternate Spider-Man universe. Some think Steve Ditko’s version is Spider-Man. Others prefer John Romita Sr., Todd McFarlane or even Brian Michael Bendis. But they’re all drawing our beloved Spider-Man, who’s back on screen in a thrilling new adventure. And that’s reason to celebrate”
- Sean O’ Connell
Spiderman has always been my favorite comic book character (next to Batman)- mainly because of his humor. Batman is the more realistic hero because he has no superpowers and relies mostly on his cool gadgets that he can afford to build because of his wealth. But he is just too serious just like what the Joker said “Why so serious?”
Spiderman is “your friendly neighborhood” kid next door type, though he has superpowers, what I like about him is the humor the he expresses while fighting the bad guys….and how he is still able to let out a joke eventhough he’s already being beaten up or pounded to a pulp.
But did we see that in the latest movie reincarnation, or as they say, reboot entitled The Amazing Spiderman? Maybe a little, but most of what I noticed was just a lot of arrogance and self-pity.
I think most of the comic adaptation nowadays depicts our heroes in more darker and gloomier characterizations. Having a more drastic and painstaking origin, love life and experiences is so important now that it has lost the original intention of why comic books were created.
Correct me if I’m wrong but ain’t comic book superheroes suppose to be for kids (and the kid in heart). But right now every story arc is becoming more “emo”.
Or has it evolved because the kids nowadays are have evolved as well?
But maybe we’ve learned that “funny” no longer translates well in comic book heroes. Take a look at the movie adaptation of the Green Hornet – poor Seth Rogen.
But regardless of how the movie adaptation was recreated, Spiderman would still be my forever favorite because the mythos that I knew during my childhood days still lingers in memory, and that’s enough to immortalize him as the wacky web swinger.
Usually there’s a game released for every comic book superhero movie-adaptation that comes first before the movie. This time The Amazing Spider-Man video game doesn’t recreate the events of the upcoming film, but rather is an ” epilogue story” with an all new narrative. The game story happens months after the events in the movie.
Gwen Stacey and Peter Parker sneak into Oscorp a few months after the events of the movie, after Gwen learns that the genetic testing that Dr. Curt Connors was working on gave Peter his abilities and turned Dr. Connors into the Lizard. Those experiments that Dr. Connors have been working on are still on the loose. Peter and Gwen run into Alistaire Smythe, who is now the lead scientist of Oscorp. He believes that machines are the answer to everything and will lead humans into the future. Smythe assures Gwen that soon all of Dr. Connors’ experiments would be destroyed because they can infect others. Many of the creatures start going out of control, and Gwen realizes it’s because of Peter that they are starting to go berserk. As all the scientists start to evacuate, Peter sees Gwen get kidnapped and bitten by the mutant. He changes into his Spider-Man outfit and rushes Gwen to quarantine.
All hell has broken loose as the mutants escape from Oscorp and Alistaire Smythe releases his robots that only attack the infected. Sadly Spider-Man is classified as an infected and has to not only face infected mutants, infected humans and crooks, but also robots designed to take down the mutants. His only hope lies in the person who originally started everything: Dr. Curt Connors, who is locked up in a mental asylum. Whats a guy to do? Peter sets up home base with Dr. Connors at Stan’s apartment (Stan Lee), as the two race against time before all of New York becomes infected.
The game is pretty short if you only do the main story, but the side missions add quite a few extra hours, and if you are a perfectionist, the couple thousand comic book pages will add quite a bit.
It is the return to an open-world, swing anywhere game design in the city of Manhattan. The combat is straight up just like the Batman game. There’s a melee button and a counter button. When you fill it up, you get to use special attacks like Batman’s in Arkham City. Spider-Man also floats with punches like Batman, but GI claims he’s far more acrobatic when he does it.
Combat is a necessity, but what about those enemies with guns? Spider-Man will have to find his way across each room safely, silently dispose of the rifle-toting bad guys before he’s free to leap into fisticuffs with the rest.
Web zip can be used to get out of a sticky situation and hide. So apparently there is some sort of stealth. There’s a typical experience system for leveling combos and you can find things called web techs that give you new abilities or upgrade them like being able to web people to the wall. Web rush slows down time as a sort of Spider Sense. It can be used for moving through Manhattan, but it can also be used in combat. The citizens will say things to you based on things you’ve done in the story. Some of the side content involves taking photos of locations, performing tricks for a videographer, and finding comic books. You can unlock full comic book issues to read in the game such as Amazing Fantasy #15 (Spidey’s first appearance), and also unlock different Spider-man costumes.
You get to fight with Black Cat, Rhino, Dr. Octopus, the Scorpion, Vermin and a lot of other villains.
Plus a bonus: Stan Lee, the iconic writer and creator of numerous Marvel properties – including Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, among many others, is also featured as a playable character.
As with most Spider-Man movie games, this title includes content not found in the film to flesh out more gaming hours than the film’s content might otherwise would provide. It is a solid game but not groundbreaking. It has equal parts greatness and problems. I appreciate it on the level of being a huge Spider-Man fan, but I have to wonder if someone who isn’t as into the character as I am would have gotten as much enjoyment out of it.
The game is available for the Xbox 360 PlayStation 3 3DS DS and Wii. A different version of the game is also available for iOS and Android devices.
I hope the PC version comes soon as I’m dying to try it out myself.Part two available at the next blog post.
