The Amazing Spider-Man

Film tie-ins have a sticky reputation of being rather rubbish. Most attempts at creating the grandeur seen on the silver screen usually fall flat, and provide little more than a few hours of hollow entertainment.

This isn't always the case, though. Some tie-ins manage to do the unthinkable - they produce a reasonably solid and enjoyable offering. Most of these games also manage to last longer than the films they're based on.

If you dream of zipping from wall to wall, climbing skyscrapers, and swinging in beautiful arcs across a vast cityscape, then you'll be bitterly disappointed with The Amazing Spider-Man for Nintendo DS.

While the limber-limbed wall-crawler is nimble and agile, as you'd expect, it's a chore to traverse the world thanks to constrictive level design and drab repetitive environments .

Even worse is the inclusion of an 'open' city to join missions together. In reality it offers no distractions, no hidden secrets, and nothing more than the tedium of moving from one dull mission to another.

Things don't get better when you move onto the combat side of things, either. Fights turn the game into a mindless button-masher, with you smashing the Y button over and over to stagger through most encounters.

Strangely, every enemy seems to take forever to kill. Picking up a strength-increasing power-up doesn't seem to speed this process up, as enemies seemingly become stronger whenever you do.

The real disappointment with The Amazing Spider-Man is just how much of a half-hearted effort it feels.

If it wasn't for the 3D environments, played out on a 2D plane, you'd be hard-pressed to realise this was a DS game and not an incredibly late release for the Game Boy Advance.

It doesn't even utilise the features of the hardware. The top screen is used for little more than a rather awful and vague level map, and touchscreen controls are only used to select options from menu screens.

The story is handled rather badly. Taking place after the events of the film, it doesn't bother to take major plot points into account. Furthermore, it doesn't introduce the antagonist properly, instead assuming you already know he is and why he's bad.