Other Ocean’s spider-senses tingle again

Spider-Man is back on the big screen, which means a St. John’s company has another video game swinging onto shelves.

Other Ocean Interactive has produced the Nintendo DS version of the video game accompanying “The Amazing Spider-Man,” the latest entry in the webslinger’s film franchise. Designed as an epilogue to the movie, the game explores more of New York as Spidey continues the story in the film. It’s the second Spider-Man game produced by the St. John’s company, following “Spider-Man: Edge of Time” last year.

Other Ocean producer Paul Schiavone told The Telegram on Monday game publisher Activision — as well as comic publisher Marvel — liked the work Other Ocean did on “Edge of Time,” leading to work on the new title.

“They needed somebody in a very quick turnaround to be able to put together a Nintendo DS game for the upcoming movie release, so they asked us if it was something that we’d be interested in,” he said. “With the lessons that we learned from the first game, the “Spider-Man: Edge of Time” release, we were able to make a few changes and adapt to the schedule and were able to get the game out in time for the summer’s blockbuster release.”

It took about three months to produce the Nintendo version, said Schiavone, and its previous work made Other Ocean an obvious choice.

“Having that close relationship already with Marvel and with Activision was a big bonus for us. We were able to piggyback on a lot of our existing digital assets, as well as the programming and tooling that we needed, so we had a lot of the equipment and assets and the right communication in place, which really did help us.”

The game’s lead designer, Marc McGinley, said Other Ocean’s version has to be in line with the movie and what the console versions of the game were about.

“The PS3 and XBox versions of the game have this new feature, which is the ‘web rush,’ where you can zip around and traverse the environment, so we had to bring that into our game and look at exciting ways to take the game that also tied into the movie, and the 360 and PS3 versions,” he said. “So we developed this web rush feature where you have an ability bar and you charge up your special meter, and you basically unleash it all at once with the press of a button. You can take five or six enemies out all at once; Spider-Man zips all around the screen taking out enemies in short succession.”

With the film franchise having recently been revamped — Andrew Garfield taking the Spider-Man role over from Tobey Maguire — Other Ocean’s hoping there are more Spider-Man projects in its future.

“We will never turn down a Spider-Man title,” he said. “Working with that franchise is pretty great for us to be able to do. It’s not every day you get to work with giants like Activision and Marvel, so when the opportunity’s there, it’s really not something you can turn down. We’re all huge fans of the franchise.

“They’ve influenced our lives growing up, so it was a no-brainer for us.”

dmaceachern@thetelegram.com

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