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We're coming up fast on the June 26th release date for Activision's The Amazing Spider-Man, and you know what that means -- you're running out of time to pre-order! Why would you want to do that? Playable Stan Lee, people. A new trailer for the game shows Stan the Man in action, swinging through Manhattan and taking down bad guys, all the while spouting catchphrases like they're going out of style.

Piling one chunk of "crazy" on top of another, the developers at Beenox have borrowed Bruce Campbell from the Sam Raimi Spider-Man universe to voice The Extreme Reporter, "a former mixed martial artist" who offers in-game challenges to the Webbed Wonder. A second The Amazing Spider-Man trailer has all the details.

To play as Stan Lee in The Amazing Spider-Man, players will need to pre-order either the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 version of the game from Amazon (GameStop customers get a different bonus, focused on The Rhino, while everyone else is flat out of luck). Frankly, that's a bummer. It certainly appears as if a fair amount of work has gone into making Lee's appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man something special, and the good natured goofiness on display in the trailer at the top of the page ("Ooh! I'm definitely gonna tweet about this!") is hard to resist. Perhaps at some point in the future, Activision will make Lee's missions available as DLC -- not really a perfect solution to the problem, but better than no access at all.

The Amazing Spider-Man Stan Lee Bruce Campbell

Access to The Extreme Reporter, on the other hand, won't be a issue. Campbell has appeared in all three of the film-based Spider-Man games, and he returns here with (potentially) his largest role yet. Check out what Campbell has to say about the game below.

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The Extreme Reporter hardly seems central to the events in The Amazing Spider-Man, which take place in the aftermath of Marc Webb's forthcoming film. In fact, the challenges showcased in the trailer -- races and tricks -- come off as open-world side-missions, which is probably for the best. Let's hope that they're several cuts above the infamous "Swing me higher, Peter!" side-missions from the Spider-Man 3.

Ranters, are you looking forward to The Amazing Spider-Man? Do you want to play as virtual Stan Lee? What do you think about Campbell's shirt? Leave those thoughts and more in the comments below.

The Amazing Spider-Man releases June 26, 2012, for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, 3DS and DS.

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