This cover was made using canva and bitmoji, the pictures in this post were taken directly from the game by me.
One of my biggest regrets at the moment is the fact that I don't have a Playstation 4 or 5 to play the Spiderman titles developed for Insomniac, and while our favorite arachnid has accumulated a large number of decent games since his birth in 1962, with a few very specific exceptions, it's clear that none of them reach the level of production and quality of those games.
Still, sometimes FOMO gets the better of us, and that's why it seemed like a good idea to look for alternatives that were capable of replicating the experience with the highest level of fidelity possible, that's how I came across the mobile version of The Amazing Spiderman 2, a rather humble game developed by Gameloft that we can no longer play (officially) but that has a couple of modded versions on the internet.
And while this game has all the flaws you'd expect from a mobile title of that time (it was released in 2014), I was surprised by how many things it got right, although it's more exciting for its potential than for what it actually offers.
You see, like its counterparts for home consoles and PCs, The Amazing Spiderman 2 is a loose adaptation of the movie of the same name that adds new narrative elements and readjusts the story of the film to make it work in a playable format. It offers a more or less accurate replica of the map of New York that we can freely explore, and there are several objectives that we must complete to advance in the story.
As a direct consequence of the simplicity of using touch controls, I regret to admit that there isn't much variety between the different types of missions and objectives that exist, limiting them to heading to a specific area, hitting a couple of enemies or saving civilians and taking them to a safe zone. From time to time things change a bit with quick time events, especially when we have to face a “chapter” boss (the system that the game uses to divide its story).
This gameplay scheme is a double-edged sword, which on the one hand is quite repetitive, but on the other hand knows how to segment itself very well into game sessions that will be as long or short as we want, limiting us to acquiring coins and other items that will facilitate our progress.
We appreciate the addition of additional suits, which do not fundamentally change the gameplay (beyond having better statistics), but they give us an incentive to advance in the story and collect the coins that we are given for completing each mission. Most are quite visually pleasing and are undoubtedly one of the most carefully crafted aspects of the entire game.
Graphically The Amazing Spiderman 2 is nothing out of this world, although this is largely due to the fact that more than 10 years have passed since its original release, and obviously, the capabilities of our smartphones have increased considerably since then. Personally, I'm not bothered by the game's graphics, but rather by the lack of a more focused visual and aesthetic direction. TASP2 feels like a Roblox minigame with little personality, beyond the Spidey model.
Regarding the story, there's not much to say, there are a lot of elements that are omitted and several things don't make sense, however, I don't feel that the main focus of the game is its narrative, but rather the ability we have to freely walk around New York.
It's a game that has little to offer today, and of course it didn't satisfy my desire to try Imsonmiac's Spiderman 1 and 2.
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