REVIEW : Marvel’s Spider-Man (PS4/ PS4 Pro)
I have enjoyed playing most of the Spider-Man games I have got my hands on with my favorite being Shattered Dimensions but none of the Spider Man game have done justice to our favorite wall crawling hero. Well, until now. Insomniac Games with their rich history of games featuring smooth movements and stylish animations have delivered the definitive Spider-Man experience.
First of all, they have nailed the swinging mechanics. The swinging is so good that you would prefer it to fast travel. The physics-based swinging mechanics have some weight involved which makes timing the next swing immensely satisfying. Plus, there is lot of variety too in swinging, like web launching, gaining height, gaining speed by diving towards earth. Learning curve is there but you will start feeling right at home within an hour or so. There is depth to swinging and you will be improving, throughout the game.
Marvel’s Spiderman has an original story which has not been featured anywhere. Peter Parker has been Spiderman for 8 Years now and has gained expertise in locking away bad guys. The game starts off by you fighting Wilson Fisk. The initial mission is very well laid out and introduces the controls smoothly.
Spiderman takes lot of inspiration from Batman Arkham games and it is not a bad thing. The combat flow feels more natural for acrobatic Spiderman. The Combat is similar but vastly different at its core with variety of move set available from the get go. Early on you will easily be overwhelmed by smaller enemies but you will soon get hang of the combat and start dominating even large group of enemies. You will be swinging, webbing and dodging a lot in this game as it only takes a few hits for Spiderman to fall.
Gadgets help out in tough situations a lot but they are limited in supply. Gadgets stock refill by defeating enemies and you can upgrade gadgets abilities by collecting tokens throughout the city.
Even though the game has stealth it is quite frustrating at times in certain missions. Since your options are limited in stealth, it limits your experience as Spiderman. You can earn base tokens by taking out enemy bases and crime tokens by solving crime throughout the city.
The game has lot of variety when it comes to suits, 27 in total to unlock. Most suits come with a special ability and are immensely detailed. Most suits will be unlocked by doing story missions and side quests.
You can also earn research tokens by completing tasks for oscorp which have a large amount of variety in them. Each side missions offers sufficient amount of variety, so there is lot to do and keep you occupied.
The open world of Spiderman also borrows a lot from other open world games, especially Ubisoft towers to unlock any area and discover missions, challenges, collectibles etc. Most side missions are QTE heavy but that offers variety and change of flow, so they are welcome in this scenario.
Spiderman is filled to the brim with Super Villains and each of the super villains are spaced out well with the pacing of the story. The character development and voice acting are spot on with you feeling attached to most of the characters even if they are villains.
There is surprisingly good amount of lore in the game and I would suggest reading them to get a sense of the world and overall Marvel Universe. The story though packing a sufficient amount of length branches some the missions into DLC which is a tad disappointing.
