Spider-Man
PlayStation 4
Nostalgia Factor:
Spider-Man has been on my “to play” list from the moment it first hit store shelves. I have heard absolutely nothing but good things about it. Now, thanks to the miracle of GameFly, I am finally able to see if it lives up to all the overwhelmingly positive reviews.
Story:
There is a lot to unpack in this game, but I am just going to give you the basics. First thing, this is NOT a Spider-Man origin story. Thank god, because after countless cartoons, movie reboots, comic books, and other video games, I am about Spider-Man origin storied out. In this game, Peter Parker is a high school graduate living on his own in a “hole in the wall” apartment in New York city. He is struggling to make ends meet, working as a lab assistant to Doctor Otto Octavius. When not at work in the lab, Peter prowls the streets and fights crime as Spider-Man. Having an adult Spider-Man is a good move on behalf of the game makers, because trying to balance Peter’s schooling with his Spider-Man duties, while also having a curfew and being under Aunt May’s watchful eye would have been hard to pull off.
The game begins with Spider-Man taking out crime boss Wilson Fisk, who I mainly recognized from the TV show Daredevil. I didn’t know that he was a Spider-Man villain as well, but I guess it makes sense seeing as how both this game and Daredevil are set in New York City. After Fisk’s fall, all the criminals in the city fight for table scraps, causing a spike in crime for Spider-Man to take on. Things get particularly ugly when a rally for Mayor (?!) Norman Osborn is attacked and dozens of innocent people are killed. One of the people killed is Jefferson Davis, a hero cop who assisted Spidey on one of his previous missions. Peter befriends Jefferson’s son, Miles, while also trying to rekindle his relationship with old flame Mary Jane Watson. Spider-Man is blamed for the crime, and a group of mercenaries led by the Silver Sable is called in to help enforce a militaristic order in the suddenly chaotic city.
As you play, a larger plot comes into focus. A group of criminals known as the Demons is after Norman Osborn because they want to get their hands on something called Devil’s Breath. Devil’s Breath is a biological weapon accidentally created in a lab by Osborn. Eventually the bad guys, led by Peter’s former good guy employer Otto Octavius, get their hands on the virus and release it into the air. To add injury to insult, a nearby prison sees a major break out, and incarcerated villains like Electro, Vulture, Scorpion, and the rest of the Sinister Six escape along with thousands of inmates. So not only does the city become a violent, dangerous cesspool full of criminals and super villains with a biological weapon floating around in the air, but Spider-Man also has to worry about Sable’s forces and the police coming after him because they think he is a criminal too.
The meat of the story is tracking down all the supervillains and eliminating them. There are lots of side missions to take on, some of which tie into the main story, some of which do not. The end result is a final, heart pounding battle with Doc Ock at the end of the game. Seems pretty straightforward, but there are many layers to the game’s story. Whatever you do, don’t dismiss Mary Jane, Aunt May, and Miles Morales as bit characters in this game. They all play a huge role in Peter’s journey. You really begin to care for all of them over time. I won’t spoil anything, but the end of the game had me in tears, which I was not expecting one bit. I thought this was just going to be a funny, action packed, comic book beat ‘em up. There is so much more to it than that.
Gameplay:
If you have played any of the Batman Arkham games outside of the first one, you should have at least an idea of how Spider-Man works. This game takes place from a behind the back perspective. You are dropped off in the middle of New York City. The whole map is available to you right from the get go. As you explore, you can you pause the game to check out the map. The more you explore, the more you’ll see it fill up with all kinds of collectibles and missions. Check out the city at your leisure. You can choose to ignore all the extra content and focus on the story-based missions if that is your thing, but where is the fun in that?
You traverse the city by swinging from building to building, tree to tree, street light to street light using your webs. All you do is basically hold the R2 trigger as you run, and Spider Man does the rest. I’ve seen the web slinging mechanic praised by other reviewers online, and I can’t say I disagree with them. There is something so much more exciting about swinging through the city at high speeds, rather than simply driving from point to point.
Combat took me a while to get used to, but once I got the hang of it I was a pro. During battle, you can run, roll, evade, punch, jump, and use gadgets to take down your enemies. My favorite thing is using the trigger buttons to grab things with my web slingers, and then swinging them around and heaving them at my opponents. So satisfying! Spider Man also uses his spidey sense in battle, which to me was very reminiscent of Batman’s intuition in the Arkham games that let him dodge and counter enemy attacks. It doesn’t work quite the same though, and it was throwing me off for a while. Spidey doesn’t counter-attack when you use his spidey sense to dodge attacks, he simply dodges them or rolls to the side. I found myself getting beat down regularly, because I’d try to jump right back into attacking after dodging an attack, thinking Spidey would counter-attack like Batman. He doesn’t. Oftentimes I would find myself walking right into a punch in the face. You have to regroup after dodging and play a lot more defensively in this game than the Arkham games.
There are no health items in Spider-Man, nor does health simply regenerate over time. You have a Focus gauge that fills when you swing around the city, or when you dodge attacks or hit enemies. If you let this gauge fill up, the game allows you to one-hit kill a few enemies before the gauge drops back down to zero again. Otherwise, you can use this gauge as a backup health meter. Just hit the down button on the D-pad to transfer energy from your Focus gauge to your health bar. I like this system a lot. If you are in the middle of a challenging fight, simply run away, swing around on your webs a little bit, and use that energy to fill your health meter.
Spider-Man gains EXP as you play. The more you level up, the stronger you become. Each time you level up, you gain a skill point that you can use to upgrade your abilities. In addition, there are several collectible items and challenges located around New York City. Collecting things or completing challenges gives you tokens that you can use to buy and upgrade new items, weapons, or suits for your character.
You don’t only play as Spider-Man. There are sections of the game where you have to take control of either Miles Morales or Mary Jane Watson. I wasn’t a huge fan of these segments, as most of them are stealth-based, and I have always lacked the patience to excel at stealth. You also have to do lots of laboratory-based mini games, that play out similarly to hacking in Bioshock. Again, I wasn’t a huge fan of these. They aren’t too difficult, they just take a lot of trial and error. And there are certain areas of the game where you have to do this SO MANY times. I could have done without them at all. I think the game gives you the option to skip some of them, but I didn’t want to do that and then risk possibly missing out on getting a platinum trophy on the game because I skipped over content.
Anyway, I am only scratching the surface at what Spider-Man has to offer. There is a lot of stuff crammed into this game, and honestly, it was a bit overwhelming for me at first. But no fear. The more I played, the more I realized I had nothing to worry about. The game is very user friendly. Things became second nature for me very quickly.
Graphics:
This game looks really good. I’ve never actually been to New York City, but things seem to be faithfully recreated for the game. I recognized a ton of historic locations, like Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, and the Brooklyn Bridge. The game even gives a shout out to other Marvel heroes, as Avengers Tower, the Sanctum Santorum, Alias Investigations, and many other New York City based Marvel characters have their haunts featured here.
Not only is New York faithfully recreated, it looks really beautiful too. I always loved climbing the highest buildings just to take in the sights from above. The view looks photo-realistic at times. The characters are amazing too. Spider-Man and all his villains are instantly identifiable. I loved the cartoon-looking Spider suit that I unlocked about halfway through the game. It was a cool feeling being able to control a cartoon character walking and swinging around in a world full of “real people”.
Little details really make the game come to life. There is diversity among NPCs you see walking around on the streets. There are realistic looking store fronts, reflections on windows, graffiti on the walls, personal clutter when you enter indoor locations, and so much more. This is a big game, and it is very evident that the people who made it really went all out to give players a visual feast they would never forget.
The game’s music, sound effects, and voice acting are on par with the visuals. Play this with headphones on, and you will not only see, but HEAR New York City come to life, bustling crowd noise, beeping car horns and all. The voice acting is terrific. I can’t complain about a single member of the game’s voice acting cast. I can give a shout out to Spider-Man himself, as the voice actor really gives this character a fun, vibrant, and relatable personality. His one-liners are quite good. I am not generally someone who laughs a lot, but this game had me chuckling on many occasions.
I loved the music too. Nothing compares to that feeling when you are swinging through the city, and that familiar epic tune crescendos in your ear. It is classic Spider-Man at its best.
Overall:
I’ve heard nothing but good things about Spider-Man since it came out in 2018, and I can tell you that it deserves all of the good reviews it has received. Whether you are advancing the storyline, doing side missions, collecting things, completing challenges, or just swinging around the city, you are going to have a good time with this game.
I did have a few gripes. Mainly, I did not like the stealth missions and all the lab work you have to complete. But I touched on those already. There were other things too. I’d often be listening to J Jonah Jameson’s radio show while swinging around, only to have it cut off when I would near a mission point. Same thing with character conversations too, such as phone calls with Aunt May or Spider-Man’s assistant, Yuri. I was interested in these conversations and wanted to hear what the characters had to say. But the problem is, if I wanted to hear them I’d have to stop short of the mission marker and hang out, doing nothing, while listening to the characters talk. I feel that this could have been handled slightly better.
As far as originality goes, this game isn’t exactly groundbreaking. We’ve seen open world games set in big cities before (Grand Theft Auto, Infamous). We’ve controlled a superhero who swings around from building to building (Batman). The combat system seems like it borrows heavily from other titles like the Arkham series or God of War. The game makers did NOT break the mold with Spider-Man, but they did make it better than pretty much every game that inspired it.
So those are my complaints. Take them with a grain of salt, because the game is freaking fantastic. Spider-Man is so easy to pick up and play and instantly fall in love with. Graphics, music, storyline, gameplay, voice acting, controls, everything comes together perfectly. New York City is massive, and bustling with personality and life. I enjoyed webslinging my way across the city and taking in all the sights. The game's map is loaded with content, from collectables to side missions to challenges to the main story missions themselves. This game is the ultimate "let me just check out this one thing nearby, and then I will stop playing" game. It is so addictive.
There is not one category where this game doesn't excel. Combat is great, the storyline is great, the graphics are great. It is a ton of fun. There is no other way to say it. This could possibly be the greatest superhero game of all time. Congratulations to Insomniac Games, as they have created a modern day masterpiece.
Overall:
A+
If you liked my review of Spider-Man, check out some of my other game reviews:
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