Seattle Seahawks stud superstar running back Marshawn Lynch is brining his “Beast Mode” persona from the pigskin gridiron to the first-person shooter battlefield as a character Call of Duty: Black Ops III.

An article in ESPN the Magazine has the full scoop on Lynch’s day spent getting his face scanned and performing motion capture work at Activision’s studio. Details about his character and how large of a role he plays in the game are not clear at this time, but the ESPN article describes him acting out a scene in a Singapore tavern, apparently as a villain, where he chats a bit with some mercenaries before shooting the place up in an ensuing firefight.

Lynch, already a big Call of Duty fan, had this to say about his video game cameo:

“You’re shooting up everything but always fighting for a bigger picture. The whole game is Beast Mode.”

Obviously Lynch is far more comfortable playing make-believe soldier than participating in ultra-violent fisticuffs in Mortal Kombat X.

In other, non-Beast-Mode-related news, Activision has confirmed that Call of Duty: Black Ops III is now also in development for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360–but still not for Nintendo Wii U. While Treyarch is handling the new-gen versions, Beenox and Mercenary Technology have been tasked with keeping the last-gen fires burning. Naturally, the PS3 and 360 versions will have certain features dialed back, such as support for only two players in campaign co-op instead of four players on PC and modern consoles.

Source: ESPN.com

Superhero video games can be a dicey proposition. Prior to Batman: Arkham Asylum, superhero titles were typically nothing more than licensed cash-ins. After Rocksteady’s Arkham series, there is now a pretty good chance that any superhero title will do whatever possible to ape their winning formula. When it comes to Spider-Man games, Beenox has had a mixed bag of releases over the last few years. 2012’s first The Amazing Spider-Man was solid, but not exceptional. Edge of Time before it wasn’t a whole lot to write home about either. Beenox’s newest movie tie-in release, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, follows in the footsteps of the previous game, but stumbles in several areas and feels less amazing than its name suggests it should be.

I’ve never understood the need to retell an origin story upon each successive release. Yet the opening to The Amazing Spider-Man 2 shows Peter Parker purposefully not stopping a thief as he runs from a local convenience market. The thief (almost as a matter of consequence) ends up killing Uncle Ben, Peter’s sole father figure, thus setting Parker on a revenge tale through the first half of the game. To me, Spider-Man has never been about revenge, but this plot device allows Kraven the Hunter to become a new father figure of sorts to Peter, so I’ll reluctantly accept this interpretation.

As Spider-Man tries to find the man who killed Uncle Ben, it becomes clear that there is a much bigger serial killer on the loose, the Carnage Killer. Kraven mentors Spider-Man by teaching him how to observe and track bad guys, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. This, of course, ends up setting the scene for a showdown between Spider-Man and Kraven, which then leads to the next bad guy to go after. And that is one of my problems with this game. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 uses an old school design philosophy of needing boss battles through every stage of the game, which allows for an almost inconsequential laundry list of bad guys to be thrown at Spider-Man seemingly for fan service alone. Shocker, Kraven, Black Cat, Kingpin, Green Goblin, Electro and Carnage appear throughout the game, but the relationship between Spider-Man and all of these supervillains is woven together with so little interest, that the game simply feels like it is checking off a back-of-the-box marketing list. Even though I don’t necessarily like the idea of the story taking Peter Parker down a dark revenge path, I do at least like how it sets Kraven up to be more of a father figure. Unfortunately, that aspect of the story is tossed aside and diminished with each new boss encounter.

Most of the charm in a Spider-Man story comes from his relationships with characters like Gwen Stacy, Aunt May, Mary Jane, Flash Thompson and Harry Osborn. However, Gwen, Mary Jane and Flash don’t make any appearances in the game. Aunt May is a barely present character model that is basically only ever seen if you want to go back home to change costumes. The relationship between Harry and Peter is nothing more than a plot device that comes across like a cheap and wasted opportunity. Harry’s tragedy feels forced and there isn’t any story arch built into the game. It’s almost as if the game assumes players have watched the movie and doesn’t bother with trying to provide any sense of character development of its own.

Continuing down the marketing checklist, the game provides a large number of collectibles to find throughout the city, ranging from 300 comic book pages to photographing various points of interest. Other collectibles include performing tasks to unlock concept art, character figurines, and costume variations. The open world of Manhattan also feels more like a bullet point feature than a living, breathing city. Swinging through the city is fun and improved upon to some degree from the previous title as webs attach to actual surfaces and swinging is done by choosing to cast a web from either the left or right hand, allowing for a better control of navigation. With Beenox tweaking the swing mechanic from the previous game, it does take a little getting used to and can feel a bit clumsy if your timing is off, but by the end of the game I found the greater diversity and control more satisfying. Unfortunately, the open world itself is disappointingly bland. Every neighborhood feels clean and devoid of character or charm.

Overall, the biggest problem that plagues the open world structure is the artificial menace that is put upon Spider-Man. A Task Force of highly armored personnel (along with killer drones and turrets) is created to find and take out everyone’s friendly neighborhood spider. A meter is visible throughout the open world indicating whether Spider-Man is heroic or not. When the meter drops into the red and is no longer viewed as heroic, the Task Force kicks into gear. The only way to keep the Task Force away is to constantly perform mundane (and highly repetitive) events such as disposing of bombs left in various locations, or rescuing citizens trapped in burning buildings or carjacking victims. Gangs also blockade themselves in shootouts and can only be stopped with Spider-Man’s help. 

All of these activities push the Heroic meter into the blue which removes Task Force oppression, but also provides a bonus to whichever suit Spider-Man is wearing. Each suit offers a different set of three bonuses, including enhancements to attributes like defense, damage, rate of web shooter, rate of health restoration or ionic power based on the ‘Hero or Menace’ reputation. Keeping the threat meter in the blue for a bonus is key to ensuring a boost is available during story missions. Choosing the best costume is also key to playing through story missions; however, switching out costumes is a drag because having to go home to change leads to some horrible load times. I played a digital download version on the PS4 and the load times always had me dreading going into a new areas.

While combat is passable, there isn’t much to it. Mashing the square button to attack and pressing triangle to dodge enemy attacks, L1 to pull weapons away from ranged enemies, and circle to shoot webs all just feels very mundane given the lack of variety in each enemy encounter. “Speedies,” as the game calls them, are some of the most annoying enemies in that they zoom from one part of the map to the next with incredible speed, only to be stopped by a well-timed web pull. Black Cat is a boss “speedy” and is probably the worst video game encounter I’ve faced in a long time. Spider-Man can enable his Detective Mode—er I mean Spider Sense–to see that Black Cat is a level above and two rooms away. She is seemingly far enough to allow for a brief moment to heal, but the moment that the heal function is enabled, boom, Black Cat appears and hits Spider-Man to disrupt the recovery process. Moments like this suck all of the limited fun out of this experience.

One aspect that almost redeems the rest of the combat is Spider-Man’s ability to crawl on any surface and quietly sneak about the environment. This allows the webhead to repel from a ceiling and stealthily take out enemies like a preying spider. To accommodate this play style, there are Russian gang hideouts throughout the city designed solely for stealth action. While these are fun, the dumb enemy AI makes each challenge laughably easy. Set in a very programmatic pattern, gang members patrol certain pathways which cross in front of other gang members. The only way a gang member becomes suspicious is if they directly spot Spider-Man. They never go into a panic or alert other remaining members when they patrol and don’t see a fellow gangster that was previously standing in that pathway. Because of this rigid AI routine, these challenges make for dull, repetitive filler material.

Fans of Spider-Man may be able to find some love for this game, but it is not something to rush out and pay full price to play. While not a buggy, broken experience, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a jumbled mix of movie tie-in and an attempt to be its own thing. Borrowing from the Arkham titles and trying to spin those familiar mechanics into something that fits into the Spider-Man world is a noble effort that ultimately falls short due to overly repetitive missions, flat characters that don’t have any strong connective ties, and a storyline that is not so amazing.

Pros:
+ Open world web swinging is fun
+ Hundreds of collectible comic pages to read

Cons:
– Open world encounters are highly repetitive
– Combat doesn’t have any depth
– Boss battles feel inconsequential
– Flat characters and story

Game Info:
Platform: Reviewed on PS4, also available for PC, PS3, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Beenox
Release Date: 4/29/2014
Genre: Open world action-adventure
ESRB Rating: Teen
Players: 1
Source: Review code provided by publisher

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A common perception about games that are released in conjunction with any blockbuster movie is that they are often forgettable cash-ins not worth playing.  Shortened development periods constrained by the release date of the movie often leave a tie-in game relatively empty and unpolished.  While a plot in a movie may work as a two hour non-interactive diversion, that same plot often can’t be stretched into a six, eight or even ten hour game without feeling completely hollow and overly repetitive.  So what happens when a game released at the same time as a blockbuster movie takes the themes from the film but continues the story from where the movie ends?  Beenox’s latest release, The Amazing Spider-Man, manages to tackle the movie tie-in as sort of a spiritual successor and offer gamers an ambitious yet flawed experience.

I watched the latest Spider-Man flick a week before the game arrived for my review and thus had time to digest both what I had watched in the packed theater and ponder a few reviews of the movie from outlets I trust.  I mention this because when I left the theater I was caught up in the surge of excitement from a crowd that cheered and laughed throughout the show.  It wasn’t until a day or so later that I began to question the weak plot points and also how the film requires an awful lot of suspension of disbelief in order for it to be enjoyable.  I don’t mean, “a guy bitten by a radioactive spider develops super powers” either.  I’m referring to how utterly convenient it is that a high school student who happens to be the budding love interest of our web-slinging hero also happens to work in a high tech science research firm that also allows interns to tour without any sort of security or administrative oversight.  This aspect of the movie is seriously one of the worst plot contrivances I’ve seen in a long time.

Unfortunately this plot point is also what is used to start the events which make up the majority of the new Beenox-developed superhero game.  Gwen Stacy works at Oscorp and just happens to give Peter Parker a tour of some of the research that is being shut down due to the events of the movie. During the course of shutting down the research projects, things go awry and cross-species experiments manage to escape. Additionally, the same virus that caused the mutations starts to spread throughout the city.  As a precaution, Oscorp quarantines all employees exposed during the shutdown mishap, and thus Spider-Man has a major dilemma. Does he save all of the citizens of New York, or does he come to the rescue of his girlfriend?

By now you’ve likely heard that The Amazing Spider-Man game would seem to crib many ideas from Batman: Arkham City.  Combat feels very similar to Batman’s latest game, where Spider-Man has one basic attack, and then when his spider sense tingles, players need to hit the dodge button to spring out of harm’s way.  As enemies are defeated, experience points are earned to put towards unlocking bonuses to Spider-Man’s web shooters, his suit as well as his stealth take downs.  That’s right, Spider-Man performs stealth take downs just like The Dark Knight. Also like Arkham City (and some former Spidey games), this game has an open world which, while not an exact replica of Manhattan, is a fairly decent rendition and offers a large web-swinging environment to explore.

As it would seem with any other open world game these days, this title also offers plenty of collectibles. Seven hundred to be exact.  Well 700 comic book pages.  Fortunately the comics are relatively easy to find and eventually respawn in many of the same locations.  Collecting the comic pages unlocks full comics that are accessed from the game’s main menu, and each unlocked comic retells the first appearance of many of the enemies encountered within the game.  Having so many pages to collect initially seems daunting, but the rate at which rewards are earned kept me motivated to grab the full set. By the time I had collected half of the 700 pages, I felt like I was too committed to stop, and fortunately after I had 500 these little yellow dots appeared on the mini-map to help identify where the last 200 pages were located.

Comic pages are not the only items that can be collected in the game.  Each story mission also has either hidden audio files, Oscorp manual sections, magazines, tech pieces or objects within the environment that can be photographed.  Some of the story mission collectibles are easy to spot and don’t require going too far out of your way to pick them up; however, the story missions contain some of the weaker and more frustrating aspects to the game and aren’t necessarily worth playing a second time to pick up missed items. I found several of the missions to end with an almost anti-satisfactory “I’m glad I’m never going to play that mission ever again” vibe, only to see the mission summary page splash up that I had missed one or two collectibles.  While some of the collectibles aren’t necessarily important to the overall story (ie magazine covers or tech components), the audio files do help flesh out character relationships.  I’m guessing that I missed a few collectibles due to the frantic nature of some of the battles in any given area. Where the open city portion of the game is just that–large, open and expansive–all of the story missions take place inside somewhat narrow or confined interiors, and these areas aren’t as fun to play in.

Spider-Man has the ability to web “retreat” which quickly pulls him away from a large group of enemies. More often than not, those enemies have ranged attacks and can shoot either with guns, lasers or acid. Even during close combat, Spider-Man can only really attack one enemy at a time yet the other five, six or even seven other enemies will be shooting at Spider-Man, giving the combat a bit of an unbalanced favor to the enemies.  Which is unfortunate, because the combat animations are a lot of fun to watch and are obviously inspired by many of the the signature moves found in the comics.  Due to the overwhelming odds against Spider-Man, instead of enjoying Spidey’s signature moves as he brawls against a gang of thugs, you’ll often find that the easiest and least frustrating method of getting by is to retreat to the shadows and wait for the enemies to stop being in an aggressive alert stance so you can swoop back in and stealth take down one or two by surprise before retreating to start the whole process over again until all enemies are dispatched.  While this strategy works, it just doesn’t feel like how Spider-Man would tackle bad guys in the comics.

I have two other minor quibbles with the game.  The first has to do with Spider-Man’s costume.  While the main costume looks just like the one from the movie, the idea of Spidey taking battle damage is exacerbated a bit too much (both in the movie and in the game) by the unnecessary quantity of shredded skin that becomes exposed.  To make matters worse, the camera sits back just enough to keep the focus on the gnarly looking battle wounds.  I understand Spider-Man’s costume would easily tear if there were too many rough encounters with enemies, but the need for showing raw, bruised flesh underneath the shredded costume is one attention to detail I could do without.

My second quibble with the game concerns the long load times.  I understand going from a huge open world to a detailed, instanced story level requires a substantial amount of data and assets to be swapped in the console’s memory, but if death occurs, reloading to the last checkpoint takes just a smidgen too long, especially if the checkpoint then reloads to a long expository cutscene.  Sure the loading screen gives players a Twitter-esque stream of New York citizens’ comments on the events in the game, but these don’t rotate enough and eventually become overly repetitious.

Don’t take my criticisms the wrong way, The Amazing Spider-Man is a good game. Compared to Beenox’s previous two Spider-Man titles, this game clearly comes out on top.  The web swinging in the open world is fun and the quips from Spider-Man and the citizens at large are spot on in capturing the snarky humor of the comic books.  Combat is mostly satisfying, too, with the exception of the reliance on retreating and stealth and the long load times incurred from the occasional but inevitable death.  The weakest aspect of the game, in my opinion, is how closely it continues off of the plot from the summer blockbuster movie.  If the game contained a more unique story that perhaps didn’t focus so heavily on Curt Connors or Alistair Smythe (both of whom are just not interesting or likable–even as villains or potential villains) then Beenox would have a more compelling game on its hands.

I hesitate in fully recommending The Amazing Spider-Man because there are too few must see “OMG” moments in the game and a few too many niggling flaws to overlook.  In addition, I’d say the story in Shattered Dimensions was stronger (at least it was original and not just a continuation of a weak movie plot).  The high marks in this game are the incidental things such as the open world web swinging and the mini-missions to help restore order within the city. While this is definitely the best Spider-Man game in the last few years and fans of the web-slinging superhero will likely be pleased overall, by no means is it an exceptional game you should be rushing out to buy.

Pros:
+ Fun open city web swinging
+ Combat moves are well animated versions of the comics
+ Banter between Spider-Man and New York citizens is spot on

Cons:
– The main story and plot are too convenient and crib too much from the latest movie
– Combat relies too much on stealth for survival
– Long load times
– Almost too many incidental collectibles for the sake of replay value

Game Info:
Platform: Reviewed on PS3, also available for PC, Xbox 360, Wii, DS and 3DS
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Beenox
Release Date: 6/26/2012
Genre: Action
ESRB Rating: Teen
Players: 1
Source: Review copy provided by publisher

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Late Friday, Activision PR dropped a box art download into my inbox for The Amazing Spider-Man. I didn’t think much of it at the time because, well, it’s box art, and as much as I enjoy seeing what game covers look like, I had sorta checked out for the day and felt no urgency to download the goods right away.

But when I finally got around to popping open the box covers for the different versions–the game’s coming to 3DS, DS, Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360–I immediately noticed something different and exciting on the PS3 cover: That blue, half-circle emblem at the top-right corner indicating PlayStation Move compatibility!

As far as I know, Activision hasn’t officially announced such support nor does the press fact sheet included with the cover shots make any mention of how the game will use Move for motion control. The only detail to draw conclusions from is the imaging of two Move controllers and the lack of a Navigation controller graphic. That either means there will be some sort of Move two-player mode or, hopefully, a control scheme that allows for dual-fisting Move wands to web swing through the game’s free-roam Manhattan playground. That would be so sweet!

Worst case scenario, Beenox could simply be tacking on motion control Spidey mini-games. However, I tend to lean away from that idea since the Xbox 360 cover doesn’t show any support for Kinect.

We can only speculate for now, but we’ll be sure to update further as soon as Activision swings by with more details about The Amazing Spider-Man‘s PlayStation Move functionality. Stay tuned…

After a dismal showing in Edge of Time, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is heading back to the sprawling city of New York and returning to his open-world, web-swinging roots. He’ll even be doing battle with classic Marvel Super Villains, such as the recently revealed reptile mutant, Iguana.

Beenox looks to make things right in The Amazing Spider-Man, due out June 26th on Nintendo’s handhelds and the “Big Three” consoles (I’m crossing my fingers for a Vita version at some point, but no word yet). Watch the new trailer for a virtual tour of Spidey’s Manhattan Playground.

These Marvel Super Hero Articles May Also Be of Interest:

• Review: Marvel Pinball: Vengeance and Virtue (vgblogger.com)
• Review: Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (vgblogger.com)
• Marvel Pinball: Avengers Chronicles First Look (vgblogger.com)

From the opening cutscene you get the impression that you will be joining Bond as he completes the events in Casino Royale and then starts with the story of the new movie. The truth is that the game is a sort of mish-mosh of story elements from both films, and doesn’t meld well into a cohesive narrative. What is also obvious is that the developers have not made that their focus – from the start it is clear that this is an action game. Something else from the beginning – the cutscenes are merely ‘adequate’, looking no better than the in-game engine but differing in appearance enough that you wonder why they even bothered.

If you are a lover of the ‘classic Bond’ ideals of cool technology and gadgets and winner through intelligence rather than just run-and-gun brutality – then just skip this game. The pedigree of the engine and developer suggests a FPS-centric affair, and that is what the game delivers. Rather than a straight first person shooter you get a first person shooter with an integrated third-person cover system. You occasionally get to engage in hacking computer systems and picking locks, but that is just a matter of pressing and holding a button while a timer ticks away and hoping you don’t get killed while you wait.

Technically the game is a mixed bag – as you would expect, the graphics are pretty solid. They don’t live up to those of either Call of Duty 4 or World at War, but they look pretty good throughout. Strangely, the graphics in the opening area are not representative of the whole game – my initial thought was ‘the graphics are pretty weak’, but as I played on they got much better. Character models were all nicely detailed and featured fluid and fairly natural motion. The music and voice acting is a real highlight! Any fan of the franchise hopes for familiar themes, and they are featured throughout the game. The sound quality and placement of the themes is very nicely done, adding quite a bit to the authentic ‘Bond feel’. The developers have done a great job getting the main actors from the film to record the voices for the game – and also gotten very good performances from them. I think that more and more actors are getting a better feel for doing this sort of voice work, as we are having fewer occurrences of quality actors turning in abysmal game performances.

As I mentioned, the game is based on the Call of Duty 4 engine but plays largely as a hybrid first / third person shooter. This works as both a strength and weakness, and since the game is essentially a straight action game that is what holds the game back. As a straight-out shooter, things go along pretty nicely – your aim and control works just as you would expect from the Call of Duty games, and the levels are designed to make that style of gameplay fun. The problem comes in with the cover system. It is a hybrid wall-hug and cover system that allows you to lean out to take shots, but your range of view is quite limited and enemies can easily flank you and take you out while you are ‘attached’ to cover. Alternately, popping out of cover means making yourself vulnerable to everyone else. There is just no graceful way to manage the cover system that feels natural.

The enemy AI and difficulty settings create an interesting situation: enemies are smart enough to use tactics to take you out, but dumb enough to still keep running into your fire. There are four difficulty levels – New Recruit, Field Operative, Agent and 007. Playing as New Recruit feels like ‘god mode’ – you know you occasionally take damage, but it feels trivial as you mow down enemies easily. That is actually a good thing – that means that new players who don’t wanted to get frustrated and abandon the game (which happens too often with hardcore shooters) will have an option. Field Operative is sort of the ‘normal’ setting, but is perhaps a bit too easy as it feels simple to work through levels. Conversely, Agent feels a bit too hard – or at least it exposes the inadequacy of the cover system as a glaring flaw. Dying and retrying is part of any shooter, but when it feels like it is happening because of a flawed gameplay mechanic it sucks the fun out of the experience. I never tried more than a few minutes of continuous death in 007 mode.

The multiplayer levels are pretty solid and will greatly extend this rather short game. While it is nothing innovative, there are a load of modes that are fun and should satisfy fans of the series and shooter fans in general. They are a step back from the wildly popular rank increasing systems in the Battlefront and Call of Duty games, but they are quite fun. There are standard Deathmatch and Capture the Flag modes, and some interesting Bond-specific modes which are nice variants on ‘kill the guy with’ and ‘infiltrator’ and ‘king of the hill’ modes found in other games. The multiplayer benefits from solid level design that allows you to exploit a number of gameplay styles, and since all players face the same cover issues, it levels the playing field and makes it more fun. Sadly there isn’t much action on multiplayer due to a low volume of players. That leaves you with a too-short single player campaign with limited replayability, and multiplayer matches against the same few folks online.

It is interesting that there were a number of shooter games released late in 2007 that made me say ‘they should have held this until March rather than pitting it against a wide array of superior games’. That is exactly how I feel about Quantum of Solace: it is a decent game that is no shorter than the last two Call of Duty games, it has some interesting gameplay mechanics, and it has some fun multiplayer options. But it is just a solidly average game that would get little to no attention without the James Bond license attached. Every aspect of the game shouts ‘me too’, which is fine when you are part of the slow early spring release schedule, but not so good when you go up against the fall heavyweights. I imagine that it will sell better than it deserves due to the movie tie-in, but will be quickly forgotten well before the DVD release.

Pros:
+ Interesting cover system
+ Solid graphics
+ Excellent music and voice work

Cons:
– Too short
– Multiplayer is empty
– Flawed cover system
– Uneven Difficulty
– Nothing really stands out

Game Info:
Platform: Reviewed on PC, also available for PS3, PS2, Xbox 360, Wii and DS
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Beenox
Release Date: 11/4/08
Genre: FPS
ESRB Rating: Teen
Players: 1-16