Thus far, Beenox has proven their love of working on the Spider-Man franchise between Spider-Man: Edge of Time and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. Between the alternate versions of Spider-Man and the original takes on some of his villains, Beenox has shown a deep understanding and respect for the character. Now, they face a new challenge with the tie-in to the Amazing Spider-Man movie. While some major points of their story are often dictated by the events of the movie, Beenox has chosen to open the world up to players much like the previous developer Treyarch had done but has taken steps to improve on their much beloved formula.

In previous titles when a player shot their web, players were forced to let the game instinctually choose an appropriate target for them to sling off of. This was also the case in combat where the foe most often closely centered in the screen became the default target for Spidey to aim at. Now, Beenox has decided to give this control to the player instead with the feature they call the Web Rush for the Amazing Spider-Man game.

Using the Web Rush, time slows down for players, presumably to represent Spider-Man’s hyper-fast reflexes like it was seen in Sam Rami’s Spider-Man film where Peter Parker dodged the bullying of Flash Thompson. During this slow down, players are given all possible targets on screen where they can aim themselves. This can be a great resource for strategically setting themselves into different combat situations.

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When Activision and Beenox announced the Rhino would be one of Spider-Man’s foes in The Amazing Spider-Man, it didn’t really shock or surprise anyone. It was almost a no brainer. The Rhino has been around since Spider-Man’s earliest days and has appeared in thirteen separate Spider-Man games. The Iguana on the other hand. That choice is a whole other story.

The Iguana is at best a footnote in the Spider-Man lore. Only ever appearing in Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #32 back in July of 1979, the Iguana was an experiment gone wrong by Doctor Curt Connors (a.k.a. The Lizard and the main antagonist of the upcoming summer blockbuster film which this game ties in to). The Iguana would only make a singular appearance in comics before returning to his original, non-super powered iguana form.

Though incredibly obscure, the character choice does actually make sense. There are few, if any, characters with a more direct tie to the Lizard in Spider-Man’s rogue gallery. Instead of shoehorning in other purely “evil” villains, the concept behind the Iguana is one that makes sense for him to be intertwined in the events of the movie game.

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One thing Spider-Man has always had going for him is an iconic rogues gallery rivaled only by that of DC Comic’s Batman. Though some started out with simple or silly premises like an evil doctor with extra appendages or an old bald man who liked to fly around town, years of phenomenal writers have given these characters unexpected levels of depth and personality. One such character is the Rhino. One such character is The Rhino.

Starting off as a common thug, the Rhino, especially in recent years, has become an incredibly interesting character. Having tried to rid his life of his crime ridden past, Aleksei Sytsevich was pulled back in unexpectedly after the tragic death of his wife Oksana was killed during the recent “Gauntlet” story arc by a new criminal trying to don the mantle of the Rhino. Most recently, the Rhino was found as a part of Doctor Octopus’s latest incarnation of the Sinister Six.

It looks like now Rhino will be making his way to the Spider-Man video game based on the newly relaunched Amazing Spider-Man movie franchise. Unrestricted because of the comic’s longstanding continuity, the team at Beenox was able to create their own mythos behind Aleksei and how he came into this Spider-Man’s world.

Check out the reveal trailer full bio, interview about this new Rhino and screen shots after the break for the Rhino coming to the Amazing Spider-Man for XBox 360 and PlayStation 3.

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Saturday night, Spike TV held its annual Video Game Awards show which, as promised, gave the first looks at some huge trailers for 2012′s gaming landscape.

Naughty Dog gets to step away from their blockbuster Uncharted series to work on a new IP titled The Last of Us. This new title takes a different approach from the recent string of zombie / infected scenarios where it looks like it can be a game of stealth and horror mixed together. It isn’t a world like Dead Rising or Left 4 Dead where the creatures flood the street and makes the possibility of combining the stealth and horror genres pretty intriguing.

This has the possibility of becoming a fantastic PlayStation exclusive franchise. The trailer for The Last of Us is definitely one of the great surprises from the VGAs this year.

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Normally a video game tie-in to a feature film is horrible. It is rare that one of these games is even half decent, and you can probably count on one hand how many of these games have been legitimately good. So a fair amount of skepticism will always follow the announcement of a new tie-in game, and no doubt The Amazing Spider-Man will face the same.

Funny thing about that though, now that we know some information about this game it actually sounds pretty good. Activision has just released the first details about The Amazing Spider-Man in advance of it’s trailer world premiere at this week’s VGAs. Smartly the game is set up as an epilogue to the events in the film, with an all new story set around the characters we will be introduced to in the film. The game is also being developed by Beenox, the guys who gave us the great Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and the OK Spider-Man: Edge of Time.

“The Amazing Spider-Man is in development at veteran game studio Beenox, and features an original narrative crafted by Hollywood writer Seamus Kevin Fahey (episodes of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena and the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica) that continues young Peter Parker’s adventures following the events of the new film.”

More details after the jump.

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Last year, Beenox took a drastic departure from the Spider-Man video game experience by not only taking the open world sandbox enviroment out of play, but also for the first time creating a game that had multiple Spider-Men at the player’s fingertips with Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.

This year’s iteration of the Spider-Man franchise brings a different experience as well. While the Spider-Men in Shattered Dimensions all shared a common goal, their actions were independent of each other.

Now, in Spider-Man: Edge of Time both Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099 must work together to save the past as well as the future from a mad scientist who has interfered with the time stream by causing the death of Spider-Man.

Gameplay:

Much like the previous Spider-Man title, Spider-Man: Edge of Time focuses on contained levels instead of a free roaming city. The story is kept fairly on rails with little room for full exploration, though there are hidden collectibles that can be used to upgrade the powers of both Spider-Man and his 2099 counterpart throughout the game. As a result, the focus on much of the game revolves around combat.

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With today marking the release of Spider-Man: Edge of Time, Activision released a trailer focusing on the games combat system, as well as an official launch trailer.  The combat trailer highlights the agile, acrobatic-based fighting style of The Amazing Spider-Man, as well as the technological gizmos used by Spider-Man in 2099. Focusing on plot, the launch trailer delves a little deeper into the story of the highly anticipated Spider-Man game.

From the official press release:

“Spider-Man: Edge of Time challenges the player to take on the roles of both classic Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099 to correct a timestream gone awry and prevent a catastrophic future brought on by the early and untimely death of Peter Parker.

The game features all-new “cause-and-effect” gameplay, where players will see how the immediate and sometimes unexpected effects of their actions as one Spider-Man changes the timeline of the other Spider-Man.”

Check out both trailers after the jump to see both Spideys in action, and keep an eye out for our review coming soon!

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Last time we got behind the scenes with Val Kilmer and Laura Vandervoort about their roles as Spider-Man: Edge of Time’s top baddy and Mary Jane, respectively. Now, Beenox has released a special interview with the voice of Peter Parker a.k.a. The Amazing Spider-Man, Josh Keaton. Fans of Spider-Man will recognize Josh as the voice of Ultimate Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions as well as Spider-Man in both Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and the Spectacular Spider-Man animated series. Also in this series of interviews is Katee Sackhoff who voices the Black Cat.

Along with its latest set of screen shots from PAX, Josh talks briefly about the encounters of Spider-Man: Edge of Time and how it will effect gameplay. As has been emphasized, actions taking place in the modern day will affect the world of 2099. He also talks about how the game is a race against time and if players don’t succeed, Spider-Man will die.

One piece of information that is news to everyone from Katee Sackhoff’s interview is that the Black Cat appearing in the game isn’t everyone’s modern day Felicia Hardy, but instead is a future version of the Black Cat that has been cloned over and over. Visually, she doesn’t seem to have as drastic a visual change as the Spider-Men of each time period does. The cloning process has shattered some of her personality which keeps some aspects like the sexual tension between the two present but on top of a splintered psyche.

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Sixteen years ago, Joel Schumacher took the man who had stolen the show in Heat and Top Gun and transformed him into Batman. Val Kilmer was at what should have been the pinnacle of the super hero movie world. Instead he is remembered for being in one of the most poorly received super hero films that strayed so far from the original vision of the character that many will still shed a tear of sorrow for Batman Forever.

Now, Val has turned to the dark side as he becomes Walker Sloan, an evil scientist of Alchemax. In Spider-Man: Edge of Time, Sloan will become the bane of existence for both the modern day Amazing Spider-Man as well as Spider-Man 2099 from his own time. Take a peek below at Kilmer’s behind the scenes interview as he explains the motivation behind Sload and how he becomes a man who might unmake the world in his own image.

In addition to Val Kilmer, Beenox has released a behind the scenes video with Laura Vandervoort talking about her role as Mary Jane. Vandervoort herself is no stranger to the super hero or sci-fi world after her role as Kara / Brainiac / Linda Danvers on Smallville or Lisa on V. A number of actresses have tackled the Mary Jane role including Kirsten Dunst in the most recent film trilogy and singer/songwriter Lisa Loeb in MTV’s animated version.

Take a look below at Vandervoort’s thoughts on the character as she talks about her respect for Mary Jane. Also get a quick peek at how the story itself not only crosses through time between Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099 but the characters themselves even cross eras.

Make sure to stick right here for more on Spider-Man: Edge of Time coming out October 4th for the XBox 360 and PlayStation 3.

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At the Activision event here at Comic-Con in San Diego, I had the opportunity to speak with Dee Brown of Beenox. You may remember Dee from last year’s where we talked to him about Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. Now, a year later, Beenox is getting ready to unleash their latest Spider-Man title known as Spider-Man: Edge of Time.

Dee tells us in the interview below that 11 years ago, he and the Beenox team set out to take over the world and from the looks of things, Spider-Man: Edge of Time looks to be another step in the process. We take the time to discuss with Dee the choices of this upcoming title including the decision to place Anti-Venom, a “good guy”, as one of Spider-Man’s antagonists as well as the announcement of the Black Cat in the game.

Activision and Beenox were also pleased to announce that Spider-Man: Edge of Time would be coming to both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on October 4th of this year.

Check out the interview after the break. Be sure to let us know your thoughts on Spider-Man: Edge of Time.

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As expected, Activision made a strong showing at this year’s E3. Of course, they headlined with their premiere franchise Call of Duty with Modern Warfare 3. But they didn’t forget about the rest of their games.

One of the games right now being most closely followed by us is Spider-Man: Edge of Time.  The followup from Beenox from Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Edge of Time tells a story about time being ravaged by the untimely death of the modern day Peter Parker and the ripples it sends in to the future.

In the latest trailer and screen shots below, one of the game’s first major villains is revealed with Anti-Venom. Anyone reading the current Amazing Spider-Man arc will be familiar with Anti-Venom who fancies himself as a cure on society’s cancers. Much like Eddie Brock’s former lethal protector mentality as Venom, Eddie’s personal delusions get in the way of his motives and inevitably put Spider-Man in the sites as one of his targets.

How this will play out in the game remains to be seen but it is refreshing to see Beenox putting newer characters in to their game instead of just rehashing the most famous of Spider-Man’s rouges over and over again.

Take a peek below at Spider-Man: Edge of Time featuring Anti-Venom, Spider-Man 2099 and of course everyone’s favorite modern day Spidey. Stick to The Flickcast for more on Spider-Man: Edge of Time as it becomes available.

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This past weekend at WonderCon, Activision and Beenox gave the world its first look at their latest Spider-Man title, Spider-Man: Edge of Time. As we discussed last week, Spider-Man: Edge of Time is a concurrent storyline between two versions of Spider-Man, Amazing in the present and 2099 in the future.

Visually, there are a lot of similarities that can be seen in the trailer between Spider-Man: Edge of Time and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. It looks like even gameplay will be similar as well, as can be seen from the return of Spider-Man 2099′s freefall combat section shown in the trailer.

It has been revealed that two of the voice actors from Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions will be returning to Edge of Time as well, but strangely neither will be reprising their previous role. Sadly, Neil Patrick Harris will not be returning to the role of Amazing Spider-Man as it will be voiced by Josh Keaton who played Peter Parker in the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon and the Ultimate Spider-Man in Shattered Dimensions.

Spider-Man 2099 will be voiced by Christopher Daniel Barnes who voiced Spider-Man in the 1990′s animated series and Spider-Man Noir in last year’s game.

Take a look at the screens and trailer after the jump and be sure to check back right here for more on Spider-Man: Edge of Time.

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