Ever since the Batman Arkham series of games were done, other superhero centered games certainly had a bar to hit. The concept of "making you feel like the title character" was something that everyone wanted to have. ESPECIALLY when it comes to portraying someone that they've essentially grown up with whether it be through stories told or movies done. Insomniac Games (the studio behind Ratchet and Clank, Spyro) had pretty high standards to meet when it came to working with Marvel on adapting one of the most popular heroes of all time. By now you've probably heard the amount of insane praise and positive remarks Spider Man for the PS4 got since its release back in 2018. I decided to pick this game up late last month since I wanted to experience this for myself, even if I watched a full let's play of it on Youtube XD. Plus, I've got a pretty hilarious Black Friday story surrounding this game when it launched.
You start the game off doing a takedown of Wilson Fisk after having massive amounts of evidence exposed from years of his crime empire. You're instantly thrown into New York's massive city scape and start swinging towards Fisk Towers. This whole sequence serves as your tutorial on maneuvering both outdoors and indoors. You instantly swing with the press of the trigger button and clip off at the height of your swing. This really encapsulates the feeling of swinging through rooftops that many have stated wasn't done since Spiderman 2 for the PS2 many years ago. Zipping to points, launching off to keep momentum, you have a wide variety of techniques to move around like crazy. Combat is a different story, though it can be vastly familiar to those that have played the Arkham series.
Combat is done with simple presses of the square button and you do much more acrobatics rather than the brute force of Batman. Also, Spidey's not really equipped to counter so instead you dodge whenever an indicator flashes over your head. Keeping up the dodging and stringing a long combo helps build up a meter. This focus meter can be used to do automatic takedowns and even restore health. The enemy variety also quickly expands within that first tutorial so you have to switch up your tactics if you hope to gain the upper hand. Things like shields, electric rods, and even swords!
Aside from the main story, there's also a huge amount of side quests you can do to keep yourselves occupied. Manhattan is a giant city so it turns into almost a collectible trove of items, from backpacks to clearing out remaining hideouts. These generate tokens which you can spend to unlock suits (fan-service ahoy for longtime Spider-Man fans), and upgrade your gadgets. You also level up and gather skill points which can be used to unlock new abilities across three talent trees. Course I told myself to take my time with the game even if I managed to clear the main story.....I didn't listen to myself XD. The voice acting in this game is phenomenal, Yuri Lowenthal does an incredible Spider-Man and the writing with his quips made me laugh multiple times throughout my play-through. The story was definitely engaging and even though I had seen it all previously, it certainly brought out some emotions for me personally.
The music is also spectacular, I remembered hearing how the sound both lowers and raises as you dip up and down swinging. That attention to detail done by Insomniac Games is incredibly refreshing to see. I get the strong sense that developers over there really have a love for Spider Man as it shows in this full adventure. One other gameplay aspect I forgot to mention is that like the Arkham games, there are some parts which require stealth mechanics and that was easy enough for me to slip into. It took a bit to get used to this style of combat overall (multiple deaths in the very beginning of the game for me) but soon I found myself feeling really confident and powerful as the webslinger.
Should you Play this Game?
Absolutely! Spider-Man is a must have for PS4 owners as it's sprawling world, captivating story and lovable characters hooks you in instantly. There's so much to do aside from the main quests so you'll be sure to keep yourself busy. Longtime fans of the characters will find that great care was taken for the Spidey and it's just so much fun zipping around and beating up thugs in New York City.
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