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Let’s face it, video game adaptations from films don’t have the best reputation with players--and it’s usually for good reasons. Many are vapid, shallow experiences created on the cheap to profit from unsuspecting suckers with an interest in the original source material. So you can imagine our surprise when, during a demo for the upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man, we saw a film-tied game that wasn’t about turning a quick buck, but rather celebrating the history of one of Marvel’s most recognisable faces. Here are five things we think this upcoming superhero game is doing to stand out from the crowd of mediocre cash-ins.

Strong ties to the source
Framed as an epilogue to the events of the upcoming cinematic reboot, the game takes place after the credits of the movie have rolled, but will continue the game’s biological augmentation story. Where character, Rhino, first appeared as a guy in a suit, here he’s the real thing as a genetic hybrid of man and animal. This adherence to the Sony universe canon rather than Marvel’s comic rules gives developer, Beenox, a chance to work closely with Sony Pictures to dovetail the two products together and in some cases, even feed new ideas back into the film’s world.

Fan service
The Amazing Spider-Man game builds on, and nods to the game’s rich comic legacy. Due to licensing issues, or other extenuating factors, some superhero games have been forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel with unlockable in-game collectibles. The result in the past has been 3D character models, concept art, or soundtracks. Marvel’s new-found interest in digital comics has sparked the generosity torch, and because of this, The Amazing Spider-Man will offer fans 10 full, free, digital comic books to collect page-by-page over the course of the adventure. Some can be found discarded on the streets of the city, while others float through the sky, requiring you to use all the abilities in your arsenal to locate and acquire them. The result is nearly a dozen full issues that can be read cover-to-cover through game, and possibly online.

Let players be Spider-Man
Developer Beenox feels that the distance between the world and the character model made for a disconnected, puppet-like experience. Their solution to make this a more intimate experience is to considerably increase the amount of the real estate Spidey takes up. Player information on-screen has been kept to an absolute minimum, with only a simple reticule used to mark your targets. Players who are after maximum immersion can remove this completely for a totally HUD-less look. There are no web resources to manage, and that means Spidey can keep doing his thing wrapping up bad guys and swinging without ever having to consider reloading ammo or stopping for a rest.

Does whatever a spider can
The game’s new Web Rush ability works two ways: it mimics Spider-Sense to draw attention to points of interest around the city that are perfect for those classic comic and film poses. Once engaged, players go into first-person mode and have the environment overlayed with orange locations marked. Selecting one performs a flashy set of leaps and swings to automatically take you to where you wanted to be. Web Rush can also be used to slow down time, and give you a chance to react in the heat of combat.

Spider-Man is a swinger
Lastly, is swinging. While it might seem an obvious point, it’s such an intrinsic piece of Spider-Man's look and feel, that it’s surprising it has taken this long to get such a solid implementation. There are no anchor points to search out and latch on to, and watching Spidey swing like a pendulum from the top of skyscrapers all the way to street level was slick and smooth; helping to convey a genuine sense of locomotion. Add this to Manhattan’s open-world gameplay, and quests to discover, and the city felt more like a playground than a setting waiting to be conquered.

We're impressed with what we’ve seen of The Amazing Spider-Man so far. More importantly, it gives us hope for major publishers to put the same resourcing and care into its licensed properties as it does its own IP. The game will be webbing shelves in late June, early July to coincide with the film’s release.

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Beyond: Two Souls made quite an impression at Sony's E3 2012 press conference, but there was one question on every GameSpot editor's lips--what's it like to play? While we didn't get to answer that directly at our behind-closed-doors appointment, we got a decent second-best--more than 40 minutes of gameplay shown off by the game's creator, David Cage. The section took place some way into the game and showed off drama, action, and even driving.

Ellen Page plays the main character, Jodie Holmes.

In Beyond, Ellen Page stars as Jodie Holmes, a girl with a link to an invisible entity she calls Aiden (pronounced "eye-den" by Jodie). She doesn't know whether it's a spirit or a ghost, but ever since she was a kid, she's had this connection. The game will take place over 15 years of Jodie's life, and we're not sure why at this stage, but Jodie gets into trouble with the law and becomes a fugitive, which is where we find her at the beginning of the E3 demo.

Both Jodie and Aiden are playable characters in Beyond: Two Souls. The demo starts with Jodie trying to sleep on the train, so you get to control Aiden and cause some mischief. You can fly around the train using Sixaxis motion controls, which causes fellow passengers to get a chill. You can even interact with objects using the two thumbsticks, such as knocking over a coffee cup or pulling down a rucksack from the overhead rack. The latter is particularly useful when police officers board the train, because you need to wake Jodie so she can make her escape.

In the first instance of what David Cage called "direct control," the person playing the demo was able to control Jodie's movements, while Heavy Rain-style button prompts popped up when she needed to open doors or dodge obstacles. Aiden helps Jodie break through a hatch in the ceiling of the bathroom and onto the roof of the train, where she avoids police officers and occasionally beats them up, before launching herself off the train. Thankfully, she's protected by a shield provided by Aiden, although she still lands battered and bruised in the forest below.

Jodie ends the demo with a threat to the surviving police officer.

From there, Jodie makes her way through the forest in an effort to escape the police. It's a tense and confusing few minutes of gameplay--it's not obvious which way you have to go, and the police constantly seem to be closing in. Eventually, she comes across three patrolling officers who are in possession of a car and a motorbike. Aiden is able to possess one of the officers and then make him drive the car back and forth into the roadside barriers, distracting the two other officers. Jodie then jumps on the bike and makes her escape, leading to a short vehicular chase, with Cage once again emphasising the "direct control" on offer.

The final section we saw had Jodie arriving in a town besieged by even more cops, at which point Aiden was really let off the leash. He went round turning over cars, possessing snipers and opening fire on fellow officers, and even throwing a grenade into a nearby petrol station. After all the ensuing destruction, she threatens one of the injured cops with the line we'd seen from the trailer: "Tell them to leave me the fuck alone, because next time, I'll kill everyone."

At the end of the demo, we were able to glean some interesting facts from David Cage about the production of the game. We found out that the Kara tech demo was made last year as a proof of concept for the facial animation tech that would ultimately be used in Beyond. Ellen Page also came on board a week before E3 last year, when Cage pitched the project to her as "like four movies or something." There's no plan for a Vita version of the game, nor has Move support been confirmed, although Cage claims the team has been working on using the latter tech in the game. Beyond will also have a branching storyline--not 26 different endings like in Heavy Rain, but you will still have major decisions to make that will affect the outcome of the game.

Beyond has split opinion among some editors at GameSpot, but the reaction has been mostly positive, especially from those who enjoyed Heavy Rain. There's no doubt from the demo that Beyond will be more action-based than Cage's previous game--as the man himself says, "Whereas Heavy Rain was close to something like Seven, Beyond is different in style and tone and genre."

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