Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The Amazing Spiderman : Arkham Asylum (360/PS3) review

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    The Amazing Spiderman : Arkham Asylum (360/PS3) review

    I've got the house to myself this weekend so I thought I'd get the snacks in and treat myself to an impromptu game purchase.

    I'd not really seen much of the game at all, but what I will say...

    HOLY **** there are a lot of jaggies. Seriously, it's like playing Riddick on the Xbox at times.
    It's particuarly noticeble on the intro sequence, which is an on rails lab First person lab tour, ala Deus ex or Half Life.

    The game seems to be set directly after the events of the film, so is possibly quite spoilery, although I've played enough film tie ins to know that the plot of the games is often so far removed from the film it's unrecognisable. Only time will tell.

    Soon you are getting to hop around inside, it's clear that spiderman is better suited to large environments than the interiors as he moves a tad too fast, despite them clearly having scaled up the inside of the buildings.

    After a little while I'm swinging furiosly around a giant robot, which although it looks pretty cool I get the impression I'm not really having to do much in order to kill it, as you'd expect from a game like this, plenty of button prompts are flashing up on screen.

    I'm forced into another interior mission, when I damn wanted to do some free roam! I'm now in an asylum, fighting straight jacketed mental patients, the combat system has clearly been inspired by Arkham asylum, with Spider senses allowing you to dodge and counter attacks in the exact same fashion as batman.

    Some interior fighting later I'm in a room with guards with guns, I have to stealth kill them one by one, that's right, but sneaking into rafters and crawling around the room via tunnels and air vents, alerting them usually results in my insta-death. Sound Familiar? It is eerily familiar.

    Shameless rip off or "homage"?
    I suspect it's the former.

    After a few of these missions which are essentially a prolonged tutorial the free roam happens. I get to jump uncontrollably around the jaggy city of Manhatten. Spiderman has magic web that can stick to thin air, but it's only active when you are near enough to a building, which works well enough. my main problem is that so far i don't feel like I'm able to get any decent forward momentum (maybe some upgrades later will fix that?) most of the speed comes from the free falling.

    #2
    I'm playing this tonight and just over 2hrs in I seem to be halfway through story mode. Like the reviews say, there's tond of collectibles but it's purely padding as is the open world. In fact there's little reason for the open world to exist as almost everything occurs in seperate linear levels. It's like it tries too hard to replicate Spiderman 2. I've enjoyed it enough but they could have done more with it.

    Comment


      #3
      It's odd though, because you start what seems like shortly after the film, yo feel half way through the story straight away, it's kinda confusing.

      Comment


        #4
        Thanks for the first impressions evil overlord, this does some what confirm my initial fears that it borrows a lot from the Rocksteady Batman games. Not the worst thing in the world granted but it doesn't seem to bring much new to the table and the web swinging looks far too simple and boring compared to Arkham Citys gliding.

        Comment


          #5
          One thing I've started to get the knack of better is the use of the "Web Rush" feature.

          You hold down RB and it goes first person and time grinds almost to a halt, in first person you can aim spidey at an object or a person, when you let go he zooms straight to the point or goes straight into the attack, this makes collecting comics mid swing much easier.

          I do think this is there as a remedy to the lack of prescison you have controlling spiderman though

          Comment


            #6
            This doesn't have the same story as the film then? I'd like to play this but don't know if you're suppose to watch the film first or not?

            Comment


              #7
              I've already said twice that it's set straight AFTER the events of the film

              Comment


                #8
                There appears to be no AA at all on the PS3 version. Pc version delayed till August too. I still think its a good game for spiderman fans. I can see the quality in the Arkham games but I prefer spiderman to batman myself.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by EvilBoris View Post
                  I've already said twice that it's set straight AFTER the events of the film
                  Thats why I was asking, I was wondering if it could potentially spoil the film.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    The characters are talking about some of the things that have happened before the events of the game. This might not mean anything though as often these game tie ins are made without knowing the intricate details of the plot

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by davek22 View Post
                      There appears to be no AA at all on the PS3 version. Pc version delayed till August too. I still think its a good game for spiderman fans. I can see the quality in the Arkham games but I prefer spiderman to batman myself.
                      360 version is a jaggy mess, kind of silly considering the the game consists of mostly straight edges
                      It's not a bad game by any means, it's a spiderman game and there is something enjoyable about being spiderman. This is not the definitive spiderman game by a long shot though

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Originally posted by rmoxon View Post
                        Thats why I was asking, I was wondering if it could potentially spoil the film.
                        Heavy heavy spoilers beware

                        Comment


                          #13
                          I'm now on Chapter 11 out of 12 and I'm ready for it to end. If there was any point to the open world other than for collecting it would have helped the game out but the linear levels can get dull. It's strange that Spiderman seems to have less animation in him at times than the PS2 games had. The cloud swinging doesn't bother me but it would have been a better game if it didn't have it, it's a shame it's been rushed to meet the film. If the devs were given room to craft a fuller experience they could have nailed this.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Is there a demo for this (360)?

                            I think I'd get all my web-slinging thrills from just a few minutes in this and keep replaying those bits!

                            Comment


                              #15
                              I doubt there would be if the full game takes less than 5 hours to beat.

                              Then again, you do get some weird ass developers who make a 5 level game and release an entire level as a demo.

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X