‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ AR Storybook Review

It’s been 10 years since the original Spider-Man hit theaters and helped kick off the superhero movie craze. Many older fans are wondering why we need a reboot of the franchise so soon, but for younger fans, this could very well be the first time they’ve seen the web-slinger on the big screen. And if they love the new take on Peter Parker’s adventures, they might want to check out The Amazing Spider-Man AR (Augmented Reality) Storybook for iOS.

The Story

I haven’t seen the movie yet – I’m more of a second weekend of release type of guy – but I have been reading some of the reviews, so I know the general gist of the plot. From what I’ve gathered, the AR storybook covers about the first half of the movie, ending with Peter saving cars full of people from falling over a bridge. There is a hint that something strange and nefarious has caused the cars to go over the side, but we don’t actually see what that thing is. I can only assume it’s the Lizard, but he doesn’t appear anywhere in the book.

On the one hand, this seems like an odd choice. The story seems to stop just as it’s starting to get good, especially for young, action-hungry fans. But on the other hand, maybe the Lizard would be just a little bit too scary for some really young ebook readers. I know that as the father of a 4-year old with a vivid imagination, seeing photos of the Lizard would probably result in a few late-night visits with stories of the bad green man in her dreams. So while I’d be disappointed if I was a seven-year old reading the book, but it’s probably wise for Marvel to err on the side of caution than face the wrath of sleep-deprived parents complaining that their ebook is too scary.

The Presentation

The story is presented in a pretty matter-of-fact fashion, with no real motion or animation other than a few slow zooms on stock photos from the film. Most of the time the photos help illustrate what’s going on in the narration, but there are a few instances when the two seem entirely unrelated. The photos, though, are generally nice to look at and some of the Spider-Man action shots are really great. I do wish there was more going on, though. Between the Lizard-less story and the lack of motion, there’s not much there to keep kids coming back. The music and sound effects are very effective and are probably a highlight of the book, while the narrator’s voice is pleasant and he does a nice job of acting the characters’ parts without overdoing it.

The Games

The real hook of the storybook is the augmented reality. I haven’t seen too many ebooks that include this sort of technology, so that alone is pretty impressive and can really blow a little kid’s mind. That being said, the use of AR, sadly, isn’t very inspiring.

The first AR toy is the ability to create an Oscorp ID badge using the iPad’s camera. What kid doesn’t love ID badges, am I right? Although it seems pretty lame, creating the badge lets kids personalize the book since it comes up on the title page to let everyone know that this ebook belongs to your little corporate drone. It’s one of those things you’ll use once and then never use again.

The second AR toy is a spider jar game. This is one of the more bizarre toys, in that it also uses the camera, but overlays a small mini-game on top of your image. The game has spiders coming down on thin strands of webs, and you have to tap them to make them fall into the open mouth of a jar at the bottom of the screen. It’s fun for a few minutes, but there’s not much to keep you coming back.

A similar game has the nightmare-inducing bonus of the spiders dropping down and crawling all over your face. If you don’t squish them in time, they’ll shoot patches of webbing on your face, which you’ll then have to tap a few times to clear away. As an arachnophobe, the game is by far the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen in a kid’s ebook. However, if you’re under the age of 10, you’d probably think it’s the coolest thing in the world.

Finally, there are a few dress-up AR toys that are mostly pretty cool. The most mundane, but also for some reason the most fun one has the camera track your face and display a pair of black, nerdy glasses over your eyes. So if you’ve ever wanted to be Hipster Mermaid or Hipster Gandalf, now’s your chance.

Another toy lets you wear Spidey’s mask. It sounds really cool, and it is, but it’s not quite as impressive as the glasses, simply because the mask has no personality at all (which is, admittedly, sort of the point of a mask meant to hide your secret identity). The mask also seems to consistently be just a little too big, so it has a slight college mascot look to it on the screen. I also don’t quite understand why there’s a picture of Spider-Man on the side that covers up part of the screen; it’s just weird.

The last one is probably the worst of all of the AR offerings – the Spider Sense toy. It features a Spider-Man mask that only covers one side of your face (and is way too big for some reason) while the screen throbs with a sort of strobe light appearance. I understand it’s a reference to how Parker’s Spider Sense works, but it’s a bit obnoxious here. I would have much rather seen the mask on one half of my face and those black squiggly lines coming from the top of my head than go into a Pokemon-like seizure.

If I were putting together an AR ebook like this (Marvel! Call me!), especially one starring Spider-Man, I think I would have liked to have seen more environmental AR toys.  Maybe let kids shoot webbing all over their house.  Or how cool would it be to have a small catalog of artwork that could be used as a photo overlay? Sort of like those great Colorfoms sets from our childhood, only in real-life? You could run around your city taking pictures of Spidey swinging from the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, climbing up the side of Hancock Tower in Chicago, or hanging from the bottom of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Instead, we get spiders crawling on our face. Ewww.

Conclusion

With only half the film’s story, presented in a virtually motionless way, I don’t know if there’s enough here to keep kids coming back for more. The mere inclusion of Augmented Reality technology in an ebook is pretty cool, but it’s not nearly as exciting in practice as it is in theory. Not yet anyway. I think the creative minds at the House of Ideas will be able to improve upon this first effort, so I’m excited to see what they can do in the future. For now, though, I’d say The Amazing Spider-Man AR Storybook is a bit of a let down.

The Amazing Spider-Man AR Storybook is currently available for $4.99 on iTunes.