Marvel's Spider-Man, commonly referred to as Spider-Man, is an action-adventure game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4, based on the Marvel Comics superhero Spider-Man. Released worldwide on September 7, 2018, it is the first licensed game developed by Insomniac. The game tells a new story about Spider-Man that is not tied to an existing comic book, video game, or film, and covers both the Peter Parker and Spider-Man aspects of the character.
Synopsis
Characters
In addition to Peter Parker / Spider-Man (Yuri Lowenthal), Mary Jane Watson (Laura Bailey), and Miles Morales (Nadji Jeter), Aunt May Parker (Nancy Linari), Norman Osborn (Mark Rolston), Harry Osborn (Scott Porter), Yuri Watanabe (Tara Platt), J. Jonah Jameson (Darin de Paul), Jefferson Davis (Russell Richardson), Rio Morales (Jacqueline Pinol), Black Cat (Erica Lindbeck) and Silver Sable (Nichole Elise) appear in the game as well as Morgan Michaels (Phil Morris), a renamed version of Morbius, the Living Vampire as hinted in his bio. Stan Lee cameos as a short order cook.
Enemies originating in Spider-Man and other Marvel comics also appear, including Martin Li / Mister Negative (Stephen Oyoung), Wilson Fisk / Kingpin (Travis Willingham), Herman Schultz / Shocker (Dave B. Mitchell), Max Dillon / Electro (Josh Keaton), Aleksei Sytsevich / Rhino (Fred Tatasciore), Mac Gargan / Scorpion (Jason Spisak), Adrian Toomes / Vulture (Dwight Schultz), Taskmaster (Brian Bloom), Screwball (Stephanie Lemelin), Lonnie Lincoln / Tombstone (Corey Jones), and Otto Octavius / Doctor Octopus(William Salyers).
It also contains numerous cameos, references, and mentions of other characters from the Marvel Universe, such as Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and the Avengers.
Setting
Peter Parker is 23 years old and has graduated from college. Peter has been Spider-Man for eight years and has settled into his role as protector of New York City. Assisting in his crime fighting is NYPD captain Yuri Watanabe. In addition, Peter is working as a lab assistant for Dr. Otto Octavius as he tries to perfect artificial limb technology. However, Mary Jane Watson, now a reporter for the Daily Bugle, has broken up with Peter. Finally, Aunt May is working as a volunteer for the homeless assistance group F.E.A.S.T., led by Martin Li.
Plot (SPOILERS)
Peter Parker / Spider-Man has spent the last eight years fighting crime in New York, particularly against Wilson Fisk / Kingpin who has always managed to avoid arrest due to his power and influence as New York's most powerful crime boss. After listening in on NYPD radio communications, Peter races to assist Captain Yuri Watanabe and the NYPD in arresting Wilson Fisk, with the authorities finally having enough evidence to serve a warrant. After a fierce battle, Spider-Man defeats Fisk and hands him over to the authorities, though the latter warns him that his absence will only bring about chaos. Peter soon returns to his job at Octavius Industries, where he and Dr. Otto Octavius work to develop advanced prosthetic limbs. After suffering technical difficulties with their equipment, Otto and Peter are confronted by the Grant Committee led by Norman Osborn, who are less than pleased with their lack of progress and disregard for safety protocols, and shut down most of Otto's funding.
After Otto lets him off early, Peter goes to visit his Aunt May at her place of work, F.E.A.S.T., a non-profit organization dedicated to helping New York's homeless. The organization, led by distinguished humanitarian Martin Li, has succeeded with getting a majority of the City's homeless people off the street and into their shelters where they are fed and housed comfortably. There Peter helps Li surprise May by throwing her an anniversary party with the help of Li and F.E.A.S.T. staff, celebrating her five years of service to the organization.
This peace does not last long however, as a new mask-wearing gang known only as the Inner Demons soon move in on Fisk's criminal activities in an attempt to take control of the former crime lord's assets. Peter combats the Demons and discovers that some of their members have the power to utilize energy, making them difficult to handle. After receiving an alert that someone has broken into Fisk's auction house showcasing his own personal artifact collection, Peter goes to investigate but finds the Demons have gotten there first. After subduing them he is confronted by his ex-girlfriend Mary Jane Watson, who is now an ambitious reporter for the Daily Bugle. Looking to do a story on Fisk, Mary Jane arrived at the auction house under false pretenses until the Demons arrived in search of a file pertaining to something known only as "Devil's Breath". Mary Jane manages to get to it first and offers to help Peter in uncovering the Demon's plans.
Meanwhile, the Demons continue to attack Fisk's properties and holdings. After several victories against them with the help of Officer Jefferson Davis, Peter attends a rally for Osborn's re-election with Davis, Mary Jane, Miles Morales, and Rio Morales also in attendance. Davis is awarded a Medal of Honour by Mayor Osborn, however Osborn receives an anonymous threat, promising to destroy him and his city, causing him to leave the rally early. The Demons then attack the rally with suicide bombers, killing many of the attendees including Davis, who is Miles' father. Peter witnesses Li, taking the alternate form of "Mr. Negative", leading the attack on the rally. However, he is knocked out by the blast before he can take action.
In the aftermath of the attack, Miles joins F.E.A.S.T. as a volunteer, meets Peter, and quickly befriends him. At the same time, Osborn hires mercenary Silver Sablinova and her PMC, Sable International, to take down the Demons. Sable doesn't trust Peter and constantly makes things difficult for him. Peter continues to pursue Mister Negative and the Demons, discovering that Li has a grudge against Osborn and seeks to steal the Devil's Breath, a bioweapon Osborn inadvertently created while searching for a universal cure for genetic diseases. Li manages to steal the Devil's Breath and attempts to deploy it in Grand Central Station, but is foiled by the efforts of both Peter and Mary Jane. He is subsequently arrested and sent to the Raft, a high-security prison. Meanwhile, Octavius becomes more obsessed with getting revenge on Osborn and begins further developing his artificial arms, turning them into large tentacle-like constructs and controlling them via an untested neural implant. Peter quickly grows concerned that the implant may negatively affect Octavius' mental state.
With his new arms, Octavius attacks both Ryker's Island and the Raft as "Doctor Octopus", releasing all of the prisoners within including Mister Negative, Electro, Vulture, Rhino, and Scorpion, with whom he forms the Sinister Six. He also steals the Devil's Breath from police custody and releases it in Times Square, infecting hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, including Peter's Aunt May. With the combination of the outbreak and the mass escape of criminals, New York quickly falls into chaos, and Osborn declares martial law. Peter goes to apprehend his escaped enemies, quickly rounding up Electro, Vulture, Rhino, and Scorpion while Mary Jane searches for the Devil's Breath cure Oscorp is seemingly working on. She breaks into Norman’s penthouse and learns that his son Harry (who is also Peter's and Mary Jane's close friend) is terminally ill and that the Devil’s Breath was actually designed as a cure for his condition. After discovering his secret lab, Mary Jane learns that Li was one of the test subjects for the Devil's Breath which granted him his powers. This however ended in tragedy as Li had accidentally killed his parents, sparking his grudge against Osborn. Mary Jane soon learns the location of the cure and informs Peter. After convincing Sable that he's trustworthy, Peter heads to the lab and defeats Li, but Octavius arrives and takes both Osborn and the cure, leaving Peter critically wounded.
With no other choice, Peter builds himself a new armored suit and goes after Doctor Octopus, who reveals he knew Peter was Spider-Man, defeating him atop Oscorp Tower while saving both Osborn and the cure. The amount of cure recovered, however, is too small to save everyone infected and Peter is faced with the choice of either using the limited amount to save Aunt May, who is on the verge of death, or allowing the doctors to study it and mass produce a cure to save everyone else. Peter ultimately chooses the latter and has a tearful farewell with Aunt May, who reveals she already knows he is Spider-Man before passing away. Silver Sable leaves New York to rethink her life choices following her encounter with Peter. Meanwhile, Miles is bitten by a spider that escaped Osborn's personal lab when Mary Jane broke into it. A funeral is held for Aunt May, who is buried next to Uncle Ben, and Octavius is thrown in prison at the Raft. Three months later, New York has largely returned to normal and Peter and Mary Jane decide to rekindle their relationship.
In a mid-credits scene, Miles reveals to Peter that he has gained spider-like powers, prompting Peter to reveal that he is Spider-Man. In a post-credits scene, Osborn returns to his lab where he has Harry kept in a holding tank with a black web-like substance until a cure can be found for his condition. As Norman places his hand on the tank, the substance reacts and copies him.
Downloadable content
On September 3, 2018, Insomniac released details about three story DLC episodes under the banner of "Spider-Man: The City That Never Sleeps" would be released in the three months following Spider-Man's launch.
- The first DLC episode is called "The Heist", and will be released on October 23, 2018. It introduces Felicia Hardy/Black Cat into the game, focusing on how her return to New York impacts Spider-Man. Although Hardy's presence can be felt during the base game, the developers noted that players would not actually be able to encounter Black Cat without purchasing and playing "The Heist".
- The second DLC episode, "Turf Wars", is projected for release in November 2018.
- The third DLC episode, "Silver Lining", is slated for a December 2018 release.
The Verdict
Note: This review is on the initial release of the game from launch. I haven't played the game following it's recent update for New Game+ content and the addition of the first DLC episode.
From the moment, you start up the game, you're going to feel like Spider-Man. Peter grabs his breakfast and throws on the classic costume with the red and blue motif before racing out of the window to catch the bad guys.
Gameplay
I know a lot of people (me included) will be making comparisons with this game to Spider-Man 2 (the movie tie-in video game) and the Batman: Arkham series right off the bat. You have an open world representation of New York City to explore and navigate at your own discretion as you complete story missions, unlock side missions, stop local crimes, pursue some research activities, complete challenges (offered by Taskmaster in a clever sort of pun), and even hunt down collectibles (including backpacks scattered throughout the city, lost pigeons belonging to a homeless man that seems more like something Hey Arnold! would be assisting with, and even newspapers to boot), and even taking photographs in typical Parker fashion of popular landmarks across the city from both reality and the comics continuity that I'm sure a lot of people are going to enjoy hunting down. Not to mention that there's even "hidden" spots throughout the city to take "special" photographs for those looking to go the extra mile on stepping into Parker's shoes in terms of being a freelance photographer.
Yes, there's a Part 2 of this, too.
Gameplay is always fast and fluid, but I did manage to run into a few glitches, but nothing as hilarious or extreme as the two videos above. First of which, I had my game completely crash from doing one of the OsCorp Research activities. Another crash I had was towards the end of the game and it completely crashed after the one of the story missions wrapped up (one of those MJ/Miles stealth sections) and gave me control back of Spider-Man in free roam.
Yes, there's a Part 2 of this, too.
Gameplay is always fast and fluid, but I did manage to run into a few glitches, but nothing as hilarious or extreme as the two videos above. First of which, I had my game completely crash from doing one of the OsCorp Research activities. Another crash I had was towards the end of the game and it completely crashed after the one of the story missions wrapped up (one of those MJ/Miles stealth sections) and gave me control back of Spider-Man in free roam.
I think the coolest selling point on the game, even if you weren't a fan of the new costume was that you didn't have to use/wear it the entire game. The means to create and acquire different Spider-Man suits comes very early into the game and each one has their own unique skill/ability. One thing that I wish that they mentioned though (or maybe I didn't get the memo) is that those abilities aren't limited to JUST that particular suit. You can create and swap the abilities around at your leisure to customize your Spider-Man as you see fit to your unique playstyle. I honestly kept the fast Focus build-up ability throughout majority of the game, coupled with the slotted abilities for experience bonuses from combat and cutting down the amount of damage from enemy gunfire and explosions.
Out of all the costumes that were included in this game, I was shocked to see that the Spider-Man Unlimited costume wasn't in this. C'mon I KNOW I can't be the only one who thought that suit was cool.
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| Maybe we'll get this one as DLC down the road? Who knows... |
Webswinging/Traversal
It takes a little getting used to, especially if you're used to the older Spider-Man games where you simply either spam the buttons or hold it down, but the webswinging in this game is the best that it's ever been. It's hard to describe, but webswinging has a "rhythm" to it (as it should) that has to be picked up on by the player. That rhythm reminds me of so much of the movement of how Spider-Man traversed New York City in Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
Then there's moments like the freefalls/dive mechanic (used primarily to pick up speed for webswinging) where I immediately think of the first time I saw the webswinging in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy. Say what we want now about those films, but goddammit the cinematography on following Spider-Man's movements in those sequences was stellar. The game manages to capture that exact feeling of being in a roller coaster when pulling off these stunts during gameplay.
I've seen people comment and review the game stating that they enjoyed the webswinging so much to traverse the city that they never used the fast travel points. I loved it but I'm not that crazy about it, y'know? I always get to a point in these open world games where I'm like "enough and let me finish this game and let me get from point A to point B without any extra BS" so bam, fast travel it is for me.
After games like Red Dead Redemption where traveling from different parts of the game to the next took anywhere from 20-30 minutes of real-time gameplay, I value that option for fast travel in these open world games.
Combat
Everyone is going to make the comparison to the Batman: Arkham series in terms of combat right off the bat. As someone who even went as far as writing guides and in-depth analysis on the combat for the Batman: Arkham series, I think this game does combat well in some areas akin to those games and not so well in others. I wouldn't attempt this game on higher difficulties just from the sheer frustration that crowd control is in this game at times. Plus Spidey never seems to target the right opponent when you do particular attacks (web zips to deal with gunmen immediately come to mind), unless it's a perfect dodge and counter situation. Even in those situations, I found Spidey prioritizing dealing with some random thug/bad guy next to him. It's hard to explain but the Batman: Arkham series' combat always had a sense where you always targeted the biggest threat or you always had the means to do so manually.
That being said, there was rarely times where I felt the combat was completely unfair in a sense. Maybe it's just me coming from playing the Batman Arkham games on the highest difficulty and my reactions are still tied to those games, but the lack of iframes (invincibility/recovery) on dodges irks me so damn much in this game. You can perfect dodge something and someone will still hit you regardless during that animation. Everything seems to come down to either perfect dodging and countering at the best moment while simultaneously using your gadgets and ground pounds to wheedle down the mobs' numbers. You always have the means to launch enemies up into the air for air combos/juggles, which is the best option against large number of enemies as there's little room to maneuver and/or means to breathe in a sense as you can't reliably count on Spider-Man's auto-targeting, especially against the tougher foes you fight towards the end of the game, like the powered up thugs working for Mr. Negative or Silver Sable's private army of futuristic soldiers and mercenaries. It's more annoying than flat out frustrating when it only takes a shred of stray gunfire from firearms to render Spider-Man to Swiss cheese, especially in the early moments of the game. It becomes tedious towards the end of the story campaign where almost every group of enemies has gunmen armed with rocket launchers (complete with homing missiles), machineguns, or futuristic energy rifles that don't take much to kill you, even with most of the health and armor upgrades. The perfect dodge and counter takedown on gunmen is a godsend in that aspect, coupled with the ability to throw rockets right back to the sender(s), but nothing is more annoying in this game than getting that perfect counter, only for Spider-Man to stand around like an idiot when you hit the corresponding button to follow up with the takedown. I've had that happen more times than I care to admit and it's just so annoying that something so minor in terms of combat aspect of gameplay was overlooked here. A simple fix/patch to prioritize follow-up on specific target after perfect dodges would be great in that regard.
I don't want people to get the wrong impression that I think the combat is horrible. Far from it actually, but I have gripes with it that I described above that prevent it from being a far cry from the excellence we've come to see in other action games, like God of War, Devil May Cry series, or especially the Batman: Arkham themed games. And good Lord do they give you far more skills and gadgets than you actually need. Spider Drones (these drones assist you in combat to keep thugs distracted while you focus on the biggest threats), Impact Webs (Instantly KO/takedown an enemy by webbing them to a surface), Trip Mine (instant takedown once triggered to web up an enemy to a nearby wall), and Web Bombs (instantly web up a group of enemies; sometimes sticking them to walls or the ground upon impact) do the trick against mostly everything you run into the game as long as you're quick to web up the opposition once you have them down on the ground or against the wall. Electric Webs are good too, but I honestly didn't gravitate to that gadget as much as I should have outside of the required uses in Story Missions or the bloody obvious moments where there's water on the ground as a clear clue for using that gadget to dispose of the opposition with ease. Those gadgets combined with your suit powers and basic combat takedowns should get you through the bulk of the game without much problems. I found the Concussion Blast and Suspension Matrix both fun to use but the tools required to upgrade them to max level are going to have you grinding sidequest activities for a while. It's worth it though as being able to instantly take Brutes off the playing field (by levitating them in the air with the Suspension Matrix, allowing for easier Focus build-up from aerial combos) in fights with numerous foes at once is a godsend, especially knowing how hectic those ordeals can be. I mostly found the Concussion Blast an asset on missions and sidequests/activities on rooftops as you can just run around, shooting this at your leisure to instantly knock foes off rooftops with ease. With all of those random activities around New York that have bonus objectives for knocking foes off rooftops, this is easily a go-to gadget for that aspect instead of relying on Web Swing Kicks.
Speaking of knocking the bad guys off rooftops... I'm glad that this game didn't take itself seriously in the regard of trying to act like Spider-Man isn't killing people. It's a freakin' video game. If I had a complaint on the Batman: Arkham series as a whole in terms of gameplay, it was really limiting itself in that regard in terms of worrying about whether or not the Dark Knight was actually killing his adversaries in combat. Rocksteady really went out of their way to make excuses about that once you got the Batmobile added as the main feature of that game and could EASILY run over villains in your way or shoot them down with the cannons or minigun. Both of those weapons were explained as "non-lethal" rounds while contact to the Batmobile was explained as "shocked into submission" by a non-lethal anti-personnel device surrounding the vehicle... What did I think of that? Complete and utter... BULLSHIT. Insomniac didn't write themselves into a corner in that regard. What happens, happens in terms of combat in this game and that's perfectly fine. As long as Spider-Man isn't raining corpses down from the heavens and there's not a ton of bloody corpses in the streets below, I'm completely fine with how they handled that subject manner in terms of gameplay.
Boy, did this game have some underwhelming boss fights though. Outside of the final confrontations with Doctor Octopus and Mr. Negative, The Shocker boss fight, Taskmaster and Tombstone's optional encounters, almost every boss sequence in this game comes down to web throwing environmental objects at said boss until he's stunned/dazed (just like the game taught you how to do in the initial boss fight against The Kingpin). Once stunned, you web zip towards him and unload on him for massive damage, then rinse and repeat. You could tell that they tried to make these fun though with some obvious references/influences from the Batman Arkham games. You cannot tell me that Spider-Man's hallucination sequence from being poisoned by the Scorpion wasn't influenced by either the Mad Hatter sequences in Arkham City or the Scarecrow segments in Arkham Asylum. I'll still give Insomniac an A for the effort though. To be fair, given all of the Spider-Man games that we've had over the years, it's hard to do something new with these various villains that hasn't been already in previous games. C'mon, like how many times can we fight Shocker, Electro, Vulture, Rhino, Doctor Octopus, etc. in video games? I honestly groaned in disgust when I saw that the game was gearing up for a confrontation with the Sinister Six during the game's climax. I thought it wasn't fair to pull the rug out from underneath Mr. Negative in that regard, especially when he's the only one of those villains who haven't been done to death in a video game over the years. Not to mention, this was video game debut here.
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| There were moments I could've sworn the Perfect Dodge mechanic was borderline broken... Sadly, this isn't one them. |
That being said, there was rarely times where I felt the combat was completely unfair in a sense. Maybe it's just me coming from playing the Batman Arkham games on the highest difficulty and my reactions are still tied to those games, but the lack of iframes (invincibility/recovery) on dodges irks me so damn much in this game. You can perfect dodge something and someone will still hit you regardless during that animation. Everything seems to come down to either perfect dodging and countering at the best moment while simultaneously using your gadgets and ground pounds to wheedle down the mobs' numbers. You always have the means to launch enemies up into the air for air combos/juggles, which is the best option against large number of enemies as there's little room to maneuver and/or means to breathe in a sense as you can't reliably count on Spider-Man's auto-targeting, especially against the tougher foes you fight towards the end of the game, like the powered up thugs working for Mr. Negative or Silver Sable's private army of futuristic soldiers and mercenaries. It's more annoying than flat out frustrating when it only takes a shred of stray gunfire from firearms to render Spider-Man to Swiss cheese, especially in the early moments of the game. It becomes tedious towards the end of the story campaign where almost every group of enemies has gunmen armed with rocket launchers (complete with homing missiles), machineguns, or futuristic energy rifles that don't take much to kill you, even with most of the health and armor upgrades. The perfect dodge and counter takedown on gunmen is a godsend in that aspect, coupled with the ability to throw rockets right back to the sender(s), but nothing is more annoying in this game than getting that perfect counter, only for Spider-Man to stand around like an idiot when you hit the corresponding button to follow up with the takedown. I've had that happen more times than I care to admit and it's just so annoying that something so minor in terms of combat aspect of gameplay was overlooked here. A simple fix/patch to prioritize follow-up on specific target after perfect dodges would be great in that regard.
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| When things go your way in combat, it's a thing of beauty like this sequence above. |
I don't want people to get the wrong impression that I think the combat is horrible. Far from it actually, but I have gripes with it that I described above that prevent it from being a far cry from the excellence we've come to see in other action games, like God of War, Devil May Cry series, or especially the Batman: Arkham themed games. And good Lord do they give you far more skills and gadgets than you actually need. Spider Drones (these drones assist you in combat to keep thugs distracted while you focus on the biggest threats), Impact Webs (Instantly KO/takedown an enemy by webbing them to a surface), Trip Mine (instant takedown once triggered to web up an enemy to a nearby wall), and Web Bombs (instantly web up a group of enemies; sometimes sticking them to walls or the ground upon impact) do the trick against mostly everything you run into the game as long as you're quick to web up the opposition once you have them down on the ground or against the wall. Electric Webs are good too, but I honestly didn't gravitate to that gadget as much as I should have outside of the required uses in Story Missions or the bloody obvious moments where there's water on the ground as a clear clue for using that gadget to dispose of the opposition with ease. Those gadgets combined with your suit powers and basic combat takedowns should get you through the bulk of the game without much problems. I found the Concussion Blast and Suspension Matrix both fun to use but the tools required to upgrade them to max level are going to have you grinding sidequest activities for a while. It's worth it though as being able to instantly take Brutes off the playing field (by levitating them in the air with the Suspension Matrix, allowing for easier Focus build-up from aerial combos) in fights with numerous foes at once is a godsend, especially knowing how hectic those ordeals can be. I mostly found the Concussion Blast an asset on missions and sidequests/activities on rooftops as you can just run around, shooting this at your leisure to instantly knock foes off rooftops with ease. With all of those random activities around New York that have bonus objectives for knocking foes off rooftops, this is easily a go-to gadget for that aspect instead of relying on Web Swing Kicks.
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| (Laughs) I would be shocked if that dude isn't dead after that... |
Speaking of knocking the bad guys off rooftops... I'm glad that this game didn't take itself seriously in the regard of trying to act like Spider-Man isn't killing people. It's a freakin' video game. If I had a complaint on the Batman: Arkham series as a whole in terms of gameplay, it was really limiting itself in that regard in terms of worrying about whether or not the Dark Knight was actually killing his adversaries in combat. Rocksteady really went out of their way to make excuses about that once you got the Batmobile added as the main feature of that game and could EASILY run over villains in your way or shoot them down with the cannons or minigun. Both of those weapons were explained as "non-lethal" rounds while contact to the Batmobile was explained as "shocked into submission" by a non-lethal anti-personnel device surrounding the vehicle... What did I think of that? Complete and utter... BULLSHIT. Insomniac didn't write themselves into a corner in that regard. What happens, happens in terms of combat in this game and that's perfectly fine. As long as Spider-Man isn't raining corpses down from the heavens and there's not a ton of bloody corpses in the streets below, I'm completely fine with how they handled that subject manner in terms of gameplay.
Boy, did this game have some underwhelming boss fights though. Outside of the final confrontations with Doctor Octopus and Mr. Negative, The Shocker boss fight, Taskmaster and Tombstone's optional encounters, almost every boss sequence in this game comes down to web throwing environmental objects at said boss until he's stunned/dazed (just like the game taught you how to do in the initial boss fight against The Kingpin). Once stunned, you web zip towards him and unload on him for massive damage, then rinse and repeat. You could tell that they tried to make these fun though with some obvious references/influences from the Batman Arkham games. You cannot tell me that Spider-Man's hallucination sequence from being poisoned by the Scorpion wasn't influenced by either the Mad Hatter sequences in Arkham City or the Scarecrow segments in Arkham Asylum. I'll still give Insomniac an A for the effort though. To be fair, given all of the Spider-Man games that we've had over the years, it's hard to do something new with these various villains that hasn't been already in previous games. C'mon, like how many times can we fight Shocker, Electro, Vulture, Rhino, Doctor Octopus, etc. in video games? I honestly groaned in disgust when I saw that the game was gearing up for a confrontation with the Sinister Six during the game's climax. I thought it wasn't fair to pull the rug out from underneath Mr. Negative in that regard, especially when he's the only one of those villains who haven't been done to death in a video game over the years. Not to mention, this was video game debut here.
From all of my gripes with the combat at times, I'll admit there wasn't a second during gameplay whereas I DIDN'T feel like I was Spider-Man. That aspect in gameplay Insomniac definitely made a home run on across the board.
Missions
These come in two flavors, story modes and side (optional) missions. I enjoyed the story missions for the most part, with the exception of the ones where the game switches you out from playing Spider-Man/Peter Parker to do it's best imitation of Metal Gear Solid with either Mary Jane Watson or an unpowered Miles Morales (later in the game) sneaking around to avoid detection. These sections are hit or miss at beset and ultimately ruin the excellent pacing of this game's narrative in my honest opinion.
I found the various sidequests in the game ranging from fun to downright tedious. I thought the combat challenges in the various criminal hideouts/strongholds were the best of the bunch, while the ones where you're simply chasing pigeons around New York to catch them or tracking down missing Empire State University students from a lone picture of a random location on the map was downright tedious. The latter kind of missions were few in number while the combat/stealth-oriented ones that I found myself getting the most fun out of my time with the game are plentiful in number. There's a bit of "hide and seek" of sorts in a diversion involving Black Cat, but she's nowhere to be seen in the main game until the Heist DLC drops (or already dropped by the time I post this review). At least you get a sweet looking costume for your efforts and you get to raid her hideout to see everything that she's been stealing as of late.
Once you get further enough into the game to trigger the Taskmaster activities/sidequest, then those missions will range from combat trials or simply tests of how well you can traverse New York in pursue of a specified target. The latter comes down to mostly how well you have a grasp on the webslinging mechanics at that point of the game. In the combat sections for the Taskmaster activities, I never ran into anything that I felt that I couldn't handle as they were either entirely pure combat or half-combat, half-stealth sections.
The Octavius Industries laboratory activities open up early into the game but they all won't unlock until you've completed majority of the game's story missions. It's a nice little diversion with these "science projects" of sorts for easy experience for solving these puzzles. I cannot recommend to players effort that they should get these done as soon as they pop up as you're missing out on quick and easy experience for upgrading your skills and gadgets from this. There's also OsCorp Research side missions too, but these vary in content. It's the only thing that I didn't bother finishing during my Redbox rental of the game, especially after being "scared off" from that complete crash of the game after completing one of them.
On top of the various sidequest/side missions, there's optional activities as well, including the random crimes that occur throughout New York that Spider-Man is able to detect from the police communication network that he's hacking into regularly. Yeah, there's even an activity/sidequest to activate all of the police radio towers to uncover the entire map of the city. I never see any harm in doing quests like these as it's in the same vein as those type of quests in the Assassin's Creed games, where you navigate to the top of a look-out point or enemy tower, synchronize the location with the Animus and it opens up all of the sidequests and points of interest in that immediate vicinity. Besides, it makes traveling throughout the city towards the end of the game much more easier when you have all of the fast travel points unlocked.
Visuals
This game is a literal "marvel" (no pun intended) to look at and watch in action. Everything from landscapes and skylines in the distance look absolutely stunning. Even though I was a little freaked out at how scary detailed that the realistic models for the unmasked Peter Parker and his entourage of friends and colleagues that make up his universe look in this game, I got used to it over time and embraced this look for the character models.
From the initial E3 trailers for this game about a year or two ago, I'll admit that I wasn't too thrilled about the new costume for our Friendly, Neighborhood Spider-Man. I warmed up to it over time after seeing that Parker dons the traditional Spider-Man costume for the opening chapter of the game. Thanks to the narrative, it makes perfect sense why he had to upgrade his costume on two separate occasions and I was completely fine with that. Besides, if you don't like the new costume(s), you can swap them out at any time for any of the unlockable suits that can be acquired over the course of the game.
The game's Photo Mode fits into this visuals category as another showcase of this game's visual excellence. I was glad that a lot of attention to detail was put into that mode, along with the landmarks (as well as the "special" photograph locations) across New York. I didn't play around with the mode much in the early moments of the game, but once I got into the thick of things, I really made a habit of going into Photo Mode after missions, snapping a photo of my handiwork and swinging off into action to stop more crime.
This isn't visuals-related per say, but can we talk about the "social media" tab on the options menu? That was pretty awesome to have like hundreds of Twitter-style comments buzzing about Spider-Man's activities and the effect of his good deeds throughout the city. Stuff like that, coupled with a 3-D look at each of the individual backpack collectibles, adds a layer of believability and immersion to this game's world.
From the initial E3 trailers for this game about a year or two ago, I'll admit that I wasn't too thrilled about the new costume for our Friendly, Neighborhood Spider-Man. I warmed up to it over time after seeing that Parker dons the traditional Spider-Man costume for the opening chapter of the game. Thanks to the narrative, it makes perfect sense why he had to upgrade his costume on two separate occasions and I was completely fine with that. Besides, if you don't like the new costume(s), you can swap them out at any time for any of the unlockable suits that can be acquired over the course of the game.
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| Screenshot taken from my PS4 after clearing one of the many hideout side missions scattered around New York. |
This isn't visuals-related per say, but can we talk about the "social media" tab on the options menu? That was pretty awesome to have like hundreds of Twitter-style comments buzzing about Spider-Man's activities and the effect of his good deeds throughout the city. Stuff like that, coupled with a 3-D look at each of the individual backpack collectibles, adds a layer of believability and immersion to this game's world.
Narrative (**SPOILERS**)
I loved that Insomniac weren't tied to following a story from the comics nor basing this around a film/TV show. They created their own world here and it just works to reinvent/reintroduce the Spider-Man mythos. There were some parts to the story that I can easily nitpick for being for being bloody obvious, such as Otto Octavius' transformation into becoming Doctor Octopus and Martin Li's transformation to being "Mr. Negative" as how J. Jonah Jameson dubs him on his radio show. Even those points I can forgive them on as this game was entirely their own creature without having to tie to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or anything that came before it. I thought this game served as an excellent formal introduction to Mr. Negative to a mainstream audience. He's one of Spider-Man's more modern rogues in his entourage of villains, so he's not that well-known, unlike his older adversaries.
I thought it was one hell of a ballsy move for them to kill Aunt May during the game's finale though. I know that the comics did that on a few occasions before rebooting his canon, but damn, that was a shock for the first game in what I'm going to believe as a franchise for Insomniac Games. I felt that Miles' backstory was a little rushed and a bit too predictable here. When the cop was killed and it was revealed that he had a son named Miles, I knew exactly where they were going with this narrative. Someone needs to explain to me how that spider stayed on Mary Jane for so long without biting her first and giving her superpowers instead? That was downright insane that it was clung to her for that long after Spider-Man came to her rescue to pull her out of the hot water she found herself into after sneaking into Osborn's penthouse. Harry Osborn being out of the picture gave Norman a rare opportunity to come off as a father who actually cares about his son (there's a lot of clever clues and evidence about this in his penthouse from the lengths he's going to keep his son's true condition a secret), rather than the arrogant prick that we have all come accustomed to from films, cartoons/animated television series, other various Spider-Man-themed video games, and comic books have painted the picture of him as across other media. Osborn is still hated as a corrupt politician in this game (Isn't that hitting home a little hard there from America's current political landscape?) and that's rightfully justified given his actions in this game, once they brought to the surface.
My biggest complaint is that majority of the Sinister Six outside of Mr. Negative and Doc Ock just felt like minor roadblocks than actual "major" threats in the narrative. It just came off too convenient that they were all in the Raft at the same time as the Kingpin at the start of the story and just fit nicely into the timing of the story for Doc Ock to break all of them out to assist with his schemes. Not to mention that they were coupled up in tag team style boss fights that didn't do much in terms of gameplay that regard either. Insomniac could have easily adjusted the narrative to say that Mr. Negative used his powers on all of Spider-Man's villains that were imprisoned in the Raft and manipulated them in that fashion. The whole twist about Otto Octavius and Norman Osborn were former colleagues and actually founded OsCorp together was a nice diversion from the traditional mythos, but was still predictable enough to see coming that Octavius' obsession with his technology was going to lead to him becoming Doc Ock by the end of this game.
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| Insomniac had balls to do something not even any of the Spider-Man films has had the balls to do. For that, I tip my hat at Insomniac. |
I thought it was one hell of a ballsy move for them to kill Aunt May during the game's finale though. I know that the comics did that on a few occasions before rebooting his canon, but damn, that was a shock for the first game in what I'm going to believe as a franchise for Insomniac Games. I felt that Miles' backstory was a little rushed and a bit too predictable here. When the cop was killed and it was revealed that he had a son named Miles, I knew exactly where they were going with this narrative. Someone needs to explain to me how that spider stayed on Mary Jane for so long without biting her first and giving her superpowers instead? That was downright insane that it was clung to her for that long after Spider-Man came to her rescue to pull her out of the hot water she found herself into after sneaking into Osborn's penthouse. Harry Osborn being out of the picture gave Norman a rare opportunity to come off as a father who actually cares about his son (there's a lot of clever clues and evidence about this in his penthouse from the lengths he's going to keep his son's true condition a secret), rather than the arrogant prick that we have all come accustomed to from films, cartoons/animated television series, other various Spider-Man-themed video games, and comic books have painted the picture of him as across other media. Osborn is still hated as a corrupt politician in this game (Isn't that hitting home a little hard there from America's current political landscape?) and that's rightfully justified given his actions in this game, once they brought to the surface.
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| Even though I loved a lot of Insomniac's redesigns for most of Spider-Man's noteworthy rogues/villains in this game, I gave a groan of boredom when I knew where the plot was going in terms of involving the Sinister Six towards the game's final moments. |
My biggest complaint is that majority of the Sinister Six outside of Mr. Negative and Doc Ock just felt like minor roadblocks than actual "major" threats in the narrative. It just came off too convenient that they were all in the Raft at the same time as the Kingpin at the start of the story and just fit nicely into the timing of the story for Doc Ock to break all of them out to assist with his schemes. Not to mention that they were coupled up in tag team style boss fights that didn't do much in terms of gameplay that regard either. Insomniac could have easily adjusted the narrative to say that Mr. Negative used his powers on all of Spider-Man's villains that were imprisoned in the Raft and manipulated them in that fashion. The whole twist about Otto Octavius and Norman Osborn were former colleagues and actually founded OsCorp together was a nice diversion from the traditional mythos, but was still predictable enough to see coming that Octavius' obsession with his technology was going to lead to him becoming Doc Ock by the end of this game.
Outside of those very minor gripes, I'm glad that this game didn't feel compelled to stay one hundred percent faithful to the Spider-Man comic book mythos and/or the canon of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It seemed like they had free reign to do their own thing here with this game and that was a good thing.
Play It or Don't Bother?
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| Spidey approves of this game. |
If you want to check out me playing the game, feel free to check out the Twitch Collection that I posted here.
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