Swing before dying.
In a hands-off demo, the statuesque real-time model of Spider-Man at the start screen of The Amazing Spider-Man stands against the expansive Manhattan cityscape. You move him into action. He falls, but it doesn't look in-game but a cinematic, which is exactly the point. Leaping from a high skyscraper, the staff member playing the game waited until he was about five feet from the ground to start web-swinging, which showed just how exhillarating the game could feel as the Manhattan streets blurred as they wooshed past.
This sense of realism is driven home numerous times. The suit is highly detailed, and Dee Brown of Beenox told us that as Spider-Man took damage the suit would rip and eventually reveal cuts and bruises to Peter Parker's skin below, and that Parker would have to go home and repair the suit to get it back into shape.
A new mechanic added to this Spider-Man game is Web-Rush, that shows off Spidey's incredible agility as you pick a destination and then watch as the web crawler dashes over obstacles. You can choose new destinations at will, during web rushes or swings, and Spider-Man will dash quickly to the targeted area.
In order to keep the game from having the curse of a standard movie tie-in, Brown told us the game is set after the events of the film, which allows for greater lattitude in story and characters, and also allowed for an open-world Manhattan for Spidey to swing around in.
Combat showcases Spider-Man's agility and speed, focusing on stringing combos into finishing moves that plaster thugs to the floor while encased in webs. The Web-Rush can be used as a sneak attack and features heavily in a showcased boss battle with Rhino, that used a traditional three-strikes-and-he's-out structure. Against heavies like Rhino, Spidey can't go toe-for-toe with the big villains and has to trick them.
This game is slick. It's got an incredible degree of polish to it already, a great sense of humor and a lot to explore. During the game, Spider-Man can find comic pages that unlock famous Spiderman issues from the ages that can be read in the game. A pre-order bonus has the player taking on the role of Stan Lee, searching for lost pages to a Spiderman script. Whatever else this game is, it certainly seems to have put the idea that it should be fun as top priority.
The Amazing Spider-Man arrives in several weeks on June 26, 2012, which is exactly a week before the movie of the same name releases in theatres on July 3.
