The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014 video game)

Morality is used in a system known as "Hero or Menace", where players will be rewarded for stopping crimes or punished for not consistently doing so or not responding. If the player responds to crimes and successfully stops them, their hero rating will go up, failing to do so will result in Spider Man's rating to decrease.[4] The player is able to upgrade Spider-Man's web shooters. During certain sections of the game, the player can control how it works.

Players have access to Peter Parker's home, and his room allows players to replay previous missions from the main storyline, purchase upgrades and equip the various costumes available.[5] Audio logs of many characters can be collected from around the city. Players can use the Metro to go back to Peter Parker's home.

Additionally, new enemy types have been introduced.[5] Armored guards can be taken down either with a stealth attack or by the Ionic Web upgrade, which allows players to break down armor, thus leaving the guard vulnerable to damage.

Furthermore, the city has been expanded to incorporate unique districts that allow for more open space to the player. The crimes from the first game have been expanded on, but it also includes new crimes such as arson and hostage situations. Unlike the previous game, there will be constant random side activities. Additionally, the use of the Web-Rush system returns and has been expanded on from the previous game, now allowing for critical strikes, dodges, and rolls. There are also new upgrades and abilities introduced into the game, some of which have been expanded on from the previous game.

The player can, as before, use their in-game smartphone to access the map, which provides the player with information of activities taking place in the area at the time.[5] Players can use the map to track current activities, main and side missions. Players will also use the in-game smartphone to manage in-game messages and upgrades for their suit and skills.

Missions have been altered to fit players' play style.[5] Rather than players navigating through a linear level, levels have been redesigned to be more open, allowing players to explore the map and providing them with different ways to approach the mission. Players can now choose between a stealth approach and a combative, open approach to engaging their enemies. Additionally, stealth-based attacks have been improved since the previous entry, players are now able to silently take down enemies from a distance. Players are able to silently take down enemies from any surface the player is on, whether it be the ceiling, the wall or the ground. Players are also able to repel from their webs and perform inverted takedowns on enemies.

Two years into his superhero career, Peter Parker/Spider-Man resumes his search for Dennis Carradine, the criminal who murdered his Uncle Ben two years ago and, thus, motivated him to become Spider-Man in the first place. However, when Carradine is murdered by a serial killer known as the "Carnage Killer", who is murdering other criminals, Spider-Man makes it his own mission to apperhend the killer. Later, Spider-Man learns about an attack on Oscorp by both the Russian Mob and a street gang led by Herman Schultz, one of Carradine's contractors that Spider-Man interogated earlier to learn about Carradine's whereabouts. The two warring gangs plan to steal the advanced weapons kept at Oscorp, believing that it would help them kill each other and win the gang war, but Spider-Man arrives to stop them and saves several employees who were taken hostage, including an electric engineer named Max Dillon, who is very fond of him. Eventually, Spider-Man defeats the mobsters from both gangs, foiling their plan, but is then confronted by Schultz, who built himself a pair of vibro-shock gauntlets and is now calling himself the "Shocker". Spider-Man defeats Shocker, who reveals that every major gang in the city is now involved in the war and that they are all in fear of the Carnage Killer, before leaving him for the police.

Following the attack on Oscorp and the death of CEO Norman Osborn, his son and Peter's childhood friend Harry takes over, and announces that Oscorp and billionaire Wilson Fisk will begin working together to fund the Enhanced Crime Task Force, a privatized police force meant to contain criminals, as well as vigilantes like Spider-Man. After Harry refuses his offer to take Oscorp off his hands, Fisk decides to wait until Harry dies from the same genetic disease that killed Norman and take over Oscorp. While fighting crime in an attempt to rebuild his reputation, Spider-Man meets Kraven the Hunter, who came to New York to hunt Oscorp's failed cross-species experiments, and offers Spider-Man a chance to act as his protégé. After he accepts, Kraven teaches him some of his hunting techniques to make him a better superhero, and the pair work together to track down the Carnage Killer.

Deciding to use the Russians as their main lead, Spider-Man infiltrates one of their hideouts and finds a map of the killer's hunting grounds, in addition to the Russians' plan to assassinate Fisk at a fund-raiser that night. Upon foiling their scheme, Spider-Man finds the Russians' hideout at the docks, where he saves a man that they kidnapped, having mistaken him for the Carnage Killer. The man gives Spider-Man a descripiton of the killer, which he and Kraven use to finally track him down, discovering his identity: Cletus Kasady. Spider-Man defeats Kasady, who claims that they are very alike, but refuses to kill him when Kraven urges him to, leading to his imprisonment at the Ravencroft institute for the criminally insane, where Kasady becomes the test subject of experiments, supervised by Harry's assistant Donald Menken, with a red substance code-named "Venom", originally meant to cure Norman Osborn's disease. Meanwhile, the end of the gang war and the apprehension of Kasady leaves a power vacuum in the city's underworld, which is soon filled in by a new crime lord, known only as the Kingpin. After defeating bank robber Felicia Hardy (whom he already fought two years prior), now calling herself "Black Cat', during a museum robbery, Spider-Man learns from her that Fisk is the Kingpin and that he got her out of prison, only to make experiments on her that gave her super-powers and order her to kill Spider-Man. Spider-Man offers to help her, but Felicia refuses and flees.

The next day, Peter meets with Harry to learn more about Fisk, only for him to tell him about his disease and ask him for Spider-Man's help, believing his blood can help him find a cure. When Spider-Man refuses to help, out of fear that it could lead to another Lizard incident, Harry grows furious and anxious to develop his own cure. Spider-Man then learns that Kraven is working for Fisk, and goes to confront him, only to be tranquilized and forced to fight him in Central Park. Spider-Man defeats Kraven, who reveals he was hired by Fisk to kill him and trained him only to make him a worthy opponent, before telling Spider-Man how to get to Fisk out of respect. Spider-Man sneaks into Fisk's hideout, making his way past both Task Force officers and criminals protecting him, and defeats Fisk, before hacking into his computer for incriminating evidence. However, he is stopped by Max Dillon, now calling himself "Electro" after gaining super-powers in a freak accident, who has escaped from Ravencroft and cuts down the power in the entire city. Forced to leave Fisk victorious, as he couldn't get any evidence against him, Spider-Man goes to face Electro, who reveals that the doctors at Ravencroft made experiments on him and attacks Spider-Man, blaming him for not saving him, since they were "partners". Spider-Man defeats Electro, unwillingly causing him to explode, and restoring power to New York. As he begins to feel pity for Dillon, Spider-Man realizes that Ravencroft must be doing experiments on all patients and decides to put a stop to them.

Meanwhile, Harry discovers and injects himself with Richard Parker's spider venom - which gave Spider-Man his powers - hoping that it will cure him of his disease. However, due to the instability of the venom and the anger after learning the rumors about Fisk trying to take over Oscorp are true, Harry becomes insane and wreaks havoc in the Oscorp building. When Spider-Man comes to investigate, he finds the insane and grotesque Harry, who is now calling himself the "Green Goblin". Spider-Man is forced to chase his former friend, eventually defeating him on a rooftop. Shortly after, Spider-Man goes to investigate massive riots at Ravencroft, where he saves Menken, from whom he learns that the venom Kasady was injected with gave him powers, and he escaped, infecting other patients with his symbiote. After taking Menken and the rest of the staff to safety, Spider-Man makes his way through the institute, eventually facing Kasady, who fully bonds with the symbiote, becoming "Carnage". Spider-Man defeats Carnage, using fire to burn the symbiote off Kasady, after learning from Menken about the symbiote's weaknesses. Kasady begs Spider-Man to let him die, but he refuses, saying that, in the end, the two of them are nothing alike, and later takes him back to his cell, where the symbiote is completely removed.

Some time later, Peter visits family friend Stan at his comic book shop, who encourages him to be the man Uncle Ben would have wanted him to be. After this advice, Peter resumes his role as Spider-Man and prepares to save the day once again.

In a post-credits scene, Kingpin tells the mayor on the phone that he will continue to finance Task Force without Harry, before the Chameleon walks in, having posed as Menken all along to oversee Kingpin's experiments at Ravencroft. When he asks what their next plan is, Kingpin states that "now the real work begins".

The game was announced at New York Comic Con October 2013 slated for a Spring 2014 release. Beenox once again became the developer of the game.

Motion capture performances were provided by Aaron Schoenke of Bat in the Sun Productions, as well as Sean T. Krishnan and Alina Andrei.[6]

A small teaser trailer was released at the New York Comic Con in 2013 to support the first announcement of the game. The first trailer for the game was released to the public in January next year. The release date for the console versions was announced in March. The walk-through trailer was released on 27 March. The launch trailer for the mobile version was released upon the release of the game.

Reception
Aggregate score Aggregator Score Metacritic iOS: 58/100[7] PC: 57/100[8] PS3: 57/100[9] PS4: 49/100[10] WIIU: 58/100[11] X360: 55/100[12] XONE: 46/100[13] Review scores Publication Score Destructoid 6/10[14] Eurogamer 2/10[14] GameSpot 5/10[15] GamesRadar+ [16] GameTrailers 5.3/10[17] IGN 5.4/10[18] Joystiq [19] OXM (US) 7/10[20] PC Gamer (UK) 55/100[21] Polygon 6/10[22] TouchArcade iOS: [23]

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 received generally mixed to negative reviews upon release, with most of the criticism aimed at the graphics, story, and glitches. On Metacritic, the iOS version of the game has a weighted aggregate rating of 58/100 based on 14 reviews,[7] the PlayStation 3 version of the game has 57/100 based on 4 reviews,[9] and the PlayStation 4 version of the game has 49/100 based on 44 reviews.[10]

The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions were reviewed as "inferior" to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions, primarily due to the fact that the older console versions suffered from poor lighting, frame rate drops, and poorly detailed textures. The PS4 version of the game received a 5.4/10 from IGN.[18] The Xbox One version of the game received a 5.5/10 from Digital-Tutors stating the biggest issue was "...it just isn’t polished, and based on the many issues we found with the game it looks thrown together in a rush trying to get it out the door in time for the release of the movie". ABC's Good Game hated the game, both Bajo and Hex giving it a 4/10 with Hex saying: "This feels like a poor copy-paste job of The Amazing Spider-Man, with most of the good bits removed".

Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead scored the game a 2 out of 10, saying "it's like a part of me has died". Whitehead was very disappointed in the game because, as he is a big fan of Spider-Man, he felt that the game provided no significant fun for the player, whereas past Spider-Man games at least provided something. Whitehead stated: "Sullied by lacklustre gameplay and trampled by technical shoddiness, this time Spidey hasn't been done in by the Sinister Six, but reduced to a Terrible Two".[24]

Tom McShea from GameSpot scored the game a 5/10. McShea called the representation of Spider-Man "enjoyable", and liked the "satisfying" boss battles, but criticized the controls, side-missions, and combat. McShea summarized his review by saying: "The biggest failing of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is how familiar it feels. In fact, there have been other open-world games starring Spider-Man that walk a remarkably similar path. So there weren't many surprises, nothing that jumped out and made me take notice. Still, being able to spend time with Spider-Man was enough for me to stomach the various problems, just because he's a fun character to listen to. There's nothing majorly wrong with The Amazing Spider-Man 2, after all. There's just not a lot right with it, either".[15]

Richard Grisham of GamesRadar was more positive of the game, giving it a 3 out of 5. He called the combat "shallow" but "enjoyable", praised the collectibles, and liked the "entertaining, fun" story. He did feel as though the game was a dated experience, and disliked the controls and mission variety.[16]

In his review for Polygon, Justin McElroy scored the game a 6/10 and wrote: "I've accepted that there's probably never going to be a truly great Spider-Man game. If the dispiriting The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is any indication, Activision and Beenox may have reached the same conclusion. There have been many worse Spider-Man games than this. But I can't recall one that's swung so conceptually close to greatness only to let poor execution drag it back to Earth".[22]

• The Amazing Spider-Man 2 on IMDb