Marvel's Spider-Man On PS4 Appeases Comic Book Fans and Gamers Alike
By Kyle Schmidlin ·
Insomniac Games has a hit on their hands, and it's covered with webbing. Marvel's Spiderman hit PlayStation 4 and everyone loves it. But, what do the comic book fans think?
Insomniac’s Spider-Man has arrived on PS4, and it more than lives up to the months of hype it received. Gamers are enthusiastic, awarding the title an 8.8 User score on Metacritic and heralding it as “Everything it set out to be and more” and “a masterpiece.” As a lifelong Spider-Man fan myself, the game gives me virtually everything I could have wanted.
It’s already become cliché to say the game makes you “feel like Spider-Man.” It might be more accurate to say that the game puts you in complete control of the most articulated and fun Spider-Man action figure ever created, with massive playsets and a big roster of bad guys to go up against. What the game really makes you feel like is a kid, swinging Spider-Man all over the place with fluid and forgiving controls.
These characters we all grew up with have been joyfully reimagined in a unique Spider-Man universe. Unlike the travesties that were Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 and the Amazing Spider-Man duology, this universe is respectful of the source material while making necessary changes so we don’t feel like we’re retreading familiar ground.
Take the introduction of Dr. Otto Octavius as mentor and employer to Peter Parker. It’s a dynamic that’s been explored in other continuities, but here Octavius serves almost as a surrogate father figure. As players, we know more about this guy than the in-game Peter Parker does, and it’s always tense watching and wondering whether the transformation to archenemy Dr. Octopus will come.
Miles Morales and Mary Jane side missions fill in the story in fun ways, too. Open up any classic Stan Lee-era Spider-Man comic to see tons of this sort of thing. One of the reasons Spider-Man became so popular is because his strong supporting cast always had something to do. Mary Jane was an actress, Flash Thompson went to Vietnam, and Betty Brant married the Hobgoblin. This game keeps that intact.
Plenty of gamers and reviewers have pointed out how smooth and natural the web-swinging feels. Insomniac simply nailed the controls. Spider-Man is light and maneuverable, and the game is filled with gadgetry inspired by Insomniac’s biggest franchise, Ratchet & Clank.
Spider-Man has a Nintendo-like sense of fun. Many gamers have soured on the collect-a-thon genre as a relic from Nintendo 64 platformers, but Spider-Man gives it a refreshing twist. There’s a lot to collect, but it’s varied. Like the moons in Mario Odyssey, collecting landmarks, backpacks, research tokens, and other items in Spider-Man does unlock new items, but it’s also a reward in and of itself simply because it’s fun to do.
The focus of this game is on the “neighborhood” in “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.” You occupy a living New York City, with dozens of landmarks and citizens to save from car accidents, muggers, and even pollution. Insomniac wisely pulled its inspiration from the fan-favorite Spider-Man 2, giving the many fans who cherish that game nothing but make improvements to that its open-world formula. As exhilarating as web-swinging and fighting bad guys are, it’s just as fun to stroll around and hang out with New Yorkers.
Much of the content on gamers’ lists was met by Insomniac and then some. Spider-Man has plenty of gadgets to use and gamers aren’t subjected to yet another rehash of the origin story they already know so well. Instead, we pick up with Spider-Man as an already established guardian of New York City and are invited to dive right in with him, tackling one of his longest-running and deadliest archenemies in the game’s opening sequence.
It’s hard to imagine a Spider-Man fan being disappointed by Insomniac’s efforts here. Some fan-favorite villains might be missing, but that should only be taken as a positive sign that there are sequels in the works. If Insomniac keeps putting out games of this quality, they’ll keep fans entranced and engaged for generations.
Speaking of speaking to the fans, Insomniac brought on some of the big guns for this game in villain form. Check out the (very spoilery) list of all the villains in the game.