If for nothing else, this has to be commended for so thoughtfully expanding on Spider-Man 2's legacy. Even as someone who doesn't care much for Marvel properties and feels constantly disaffected by Disney using them as a vessel to basically homogenize mainstream cinema, all it took to draw me into this is the promise of some great webslinging. It's clear that this was a primary focus of the devs: it's fluid, flashy, responsive, and it makes slipping into the suit and traversing around Spidey's NYC feel just as joyful as it should.
Unfortunately it's the world you swing around in that finds itself lacking, another of many victims to the major pitfalls of AAA open world design. Spider-Man is host to the endless barrage of meaningless side-activities that has become all the rage in open world games (as well as something of an ironic signifier that your game world just doesn't have that much depth). I'd say they should have scrapped this structure entirely and crafted a tighter, more narrowly focused experience, but that would also sacrifice the main case for making the swinging so good... tough tightrope, but either way, Insomniac do well enough with the toolkit they have chosen. This game is dazzling to watch in motion, the combat, despite taking a little too many notes from the Arkham games, feels great, its story and characterization is stock standard comic book fare (but well done) and the pacing feels pretty good other than a few forced stealth and hacking segments that are hard to take seriously. The game's true success though is its effortless embodiment of both Spider-Man and Peter Parker, and for that it's clear to see why it has won so many adoring fans. For me, it's very fun and compulsively playable, but inconsequential; in the end, I just wish it was brave enough to rise above convention.
Unfortunately it's the world you swing around in that finds itself lacking, another of many victims to the major pitfalls of AAA open world design. Spider-Man is host to the endless barrage of meaningless side-activities that has become all the rage in open world games (as well as something of an ironic signifier that your game world just doesn't have that much depth). I'd say they should have scrapped this structure entirely and crafted a tighter, more narrowly focused experience, but that would also sacrifice the main case for making the swinging so good... tough tightrope, but either way, Insomniac do well enough with the toolkit they have chosen. This game is dazzling to watch in motion, the combat, despite taking a little too many notes from the Arkham games, feels great, its story and characterization is stock standard comic book fare (but well done) and the pacing feels pretty good other than a few forced stealth and hacking segments that are hard to take seriously. The game's true success though is its effortless embodiment of both Spider-Man and Peter Parker, and for that it's clear to see why it has won so many adoring fans. For me, it's very fun and compulsively playable, but inconsequential; in the end, I just wish it was brave enough to rise above convention.