This review contains spoilers
Marvel’s Spider-Man is an open world superhero action game developed by Insomniac Games as an exclusive for the Playstation 4 console and distributed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Before I go into the origins of the game through the research, I wanted to tell you really where I was when this game came out. I remember seeing the E3 trailer debut in 2016 as I had just gotten out of High School that year, a time in my life that I extremely loathed and had just gotten into working. I didn’t really think too much about this game persay, I was more so into my edgy games back then (still am now of course), but I had remembered how I played Spider-Man 2 on Gamecube and Ultimate Spider-Man and other superhero games as a kid and had a sort of nostalgic feeling towards these type of games. I wasn’t as invested in exclusives as much back then, and having just gotten a job that’s when I truly delved into buying up consoles for games I’ve wanted to experience; I would later experience Infamous in 2017 as my first PS3 game ever with a sort of world building and tone that I heavily enjoyed. For a while that’s how this kinda went, I just forgot about this game, didn’t care as I had bought games like Until Dawn, Bloodborne, and Yakuza 0 before starting to officially build up my childhood. But still a piece of my childhood felt missing, for all the old games that I got I felt like I had missed something, especially with the MCU hype train around and with all my nerd friends going on about the recent spoilers and potential future of the franchise. This was at a time when it felt fresh and interesting to me as I had kind of ignored it and had a limited world view during my high school years, so when E3 popped in 2017 and showed the demo at the construction site (which was before I got my PS3 of course), I was a bit more on the hopeful and interested side but kind of shrugged. I didn’t really care about it much at all from then on until one day I was in Florida on vacation, and I decided to pick it up at a Target on the first week or so of release, then came back home and played it. All I had thought about was “How would this compare to Spider-Man 2’s web swinging?” and “How would this compare to Ultimate Spider-Man’s story beats?” or “Will this be just as good as Batman: Arkham’s combat?”. This was at a time when the recent Spider-Man games were mostly either based on movies and were considered pretty awful, or kind of one off multiverse games that I didn’t really care for.
What does this all mean exactly? It means that Insomniac had a lot to prove here, and went considerably against the grain compared to the constantly rushed games of previous years. Having read up on its history, it started after Sunset Overdrive (a game which I don’t like in a lot of ways) was released. Meetings had occurred between Sony Interactive Entertainment and Insomniac Games about developing a game based on a Marvel property. A lot of workshopping went back and forth, and it was decided that this would be its own original story with the approval of all involved. What ended up coming out was one of the best exclusives on the Playstation 4, one of the most acclaimed games based on a licensed property and I believe that it’s one of the best Marvel games of all time. There was also a prequel comic: Spider-Man: Hostile Takeover, that was released sometime around the game’s release but I never read it myself, so I’ll post the TV Tropes page in the comments section below. Truth be told I don’t really know much else about the game historically that could be really interesting, nothing crazy as far as I’m aware either as the game was rather successful and I feel the way that it was being built mixed in with the popularity of the Marvel formula almost guarantees instant success. However, what I can say personally is that the game does enough stuff that’s different from the usual formula and tropes of Spider-Man that it’s for the better. I ended up platinuming this game over a period of seven or so months including waiting for the DLC to release and finally wrapping up the New Game + stuff out of boredom for all trophies acquired.
The beginning is a bit of a cold open, a police raid on Fisk Tower to apprehend crime boss Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk, a behemoth of a man who controls the New York Underworld. A traversal through the headquarters leads to a battle between what seems to be a human tank and the eventual defeat of Fisk. However, what leads in the void is a power vacuum that leads to one of, if not the worst crime wave that’s happened in the city’s history that goes on for a while. A group of men in demon masks and suits begin to take over Kingpin’s property, all while mayor Norman Osborn runs in the background. Things aren’t how they seem however as a bank robbery by Herman Shultz, aka The Shocker, lead to the realization that the leader of the Inner Demons, named Mr. Negative, threatened him into committing robberies for them. Other villains like Tombstone, a biker gang leader/drug trafficker, works for Mr. Negative to build vehicles for them; meanwhile Taskmaster, a mercenary with the ability to copy other’s moves through sheer memory, puts Spider-Man through a series of tests that push him to the limits all for the purposes of studying him and defeating him for a mysterious organization that’s never revealed. This is only the side content however, as the main content hits the peak after Mr. Negative and his demons attack an awards ceremony for police officer Jefferson Davis (who helped Spider-Man thwart a Demons attack earlier), hosted by Norman Osborn, in an attempt to assassinate the mayor himself. However, while Norman manages to get out alive, Jefferson on the other hand does not. This is where I should bring up five different characters, each one important to Peter Parker/Spider-Man in their own way and are whom I consider the pillars of the game and are the other parts that are balanced in congruence with the story.
The son of Jefferson Davis, Miles Morales, falls into a slump after the death of his father; Peter’s Aunt May (who runs a F.E.A.S.T. shelter, led by Martin Li, a popular philanthropist) brings Miles on both to help the young man out and as a sort of parallel to Peter himself. Both Peter and Miles had their father figures killed by senseless violence, and Aunt May hopes to try to do the same for the boy as she did for Peter, and Peter starts a sort of mentor figure role for the young man. Those are two of the pillars, the other three include Peter’s ex-girlfriend: Mary Jane, who felt that Peter smothered her and didn’t let her help or engage in anything dangerous due to the factor of her safety. She helps throughout the story in her own way, gathering the intel and sneaking into certain locations to take pictures to expose the criminal activities. The relationship between Peter and Mary Jane are at first full of conflict and awkwardness, but over the time in the story lead to a growing respect and a willingness to work togethers as true partners, instead of just Spider-Man carrying all the weight. Yuri Watanabe is a police captain who works together with Spider-Man as a connection with the police force during the crisis ensuing and provides emotional support as well even though her presence is more up front in the DLC. The last one is one of the most important characters in the entire plot: Dr. Otto Octavius. I’ll disclose that role later on in the review but in the beginning, he’s Peter’s mentor and science partner whose attempting to work in creating artificial limbs leads him down the obvious path to villainy, not helped by Norman Osborn, his old business partner/fellow scientist who does everything in his path to screw Otto over in an attempt to strong arm him into working for Oscorp (which I don’t think is possible to be a public official and run a corporation but whatever).
Whilst at the awards ceremony, it’s revealed that Mr. Negative is actually Martin Li, the head of FEAST who clearly has an agenda against Osborn, going on a homegrown terrorist campaign in an attempt to ruin him. After he is apprehended and sent to The Raft, a giant prison located in the river known to hold super-villains, a giant breakout occurs and chaos ensues. Li escapes, but so do villains like The Vulture, Scorpion, Electro and Rhino break out as well. All of these guys have issues with Spider-Man but after confronting them all on the roof of the prison their leader is revealed: Dr. Octopus, aka Otto Octavius. Peter barely survives and starts an outbreak of “Devil’s Breath”, a biological weapon that infects a whole bunch of people and causes grounds for Norman Osborn to issue martial law, hiring mercenary Silver Sable and her group to help enact his plans.
Aunt May is revealed to be infected with Devil’s Breath and is working on limited time, and after some bombastic set pieces (a dual fight between Electro and Vulture is one of the highlights of the entire game and I believe was revealed in E3 as an example), each of the members of the Sinister Six, the group led by Li and Octopus, are arrested and brought in. It’s revealed down the line that the two have formed together in their mutual hatred towards Norman Osborn. Li was experimented on as a child by Osborn, and as a result of the failed experiment he gained both his abilities and a lifelong hatred of the CEO/Mayor after his parents died as a result. It was also revealed that Devil’s Breath is the result of a series of unsafe experiments meant to save Osborn’s son, Harry (an old friend of Peter who supposedly went overseas) from a life threatening disease after Mary Jane infiltrates Norman’s penthouse. In an attempt to gain the antidote to Devil’s Breath, Peter gets his ass squashed by his nigh bald headed mentor and Otto escapes with both the antidote and Norman as a hostage.
Miles sparingly appears in this game, I mean he appears but his role isn’t as prominent other than a stealth section in the latter part of the game but isn’t as important to the plot as much. This game spends the time developing the beginning of Mile’s legacy, his motivations and his character as he fights the lack of his father figure and his looking up to Peter. Everything comes to a head as he’s bitten by a genetically enhanced spider that MJ brought from the Osborn lab she snuck into. After healing up, Peter goes to the top of Oscorp Tower to fight Octavius, whose hatred for Norman supersedes his relationship with Spider-Man and it’s learned that he knew Peter’s secret identity the whole time. Feeling betrayed by his mentor, Peter unleashes his strength and brutalizes Otto to a pulp before leaving him for the police. This final section is to me what really seals the game for me, as choosing between saving Aunt May with the cure and synthesizing a vaccine for everyone else, Peter chooses to be selfless and accepts the death of the only mother figure he had left.
The finale reveals that both Mary Jane and Peter have started their relationship anew (with a cameo from Stan Lee of course), this time with a newfound respect for each other’s abilities and a willingness to work as equal partners. Miles gains spider powers and shows Peter, who also reveals his secret identity as Spider-Man. Yuri (for now) still remains the captain of the police force while Otto is in jail. However, the final stinger in the credits reveal that the lab in the Penthouse that MJ snuck into has a secret button in the back, which shows a young man revealed to be Harry Osborn, stuck in a tube full of green liquid and black goo, which reacts to Norman’s hand as it touches the surface.
I love this game, I’m mixed on the non Spider-Man missions but the characters are great and fleshed out, I appreciate the respect building between MJ and Peter (though I rolled my eyes at the break up angle, I just don’t like those kinds of plot lines). As I said before, Miles doesn’t really show up too much, but his importance as a background character shouldn’t be understated as the parallels between his father’s death and Uncle Ben’s for Peter along with the burgeoning powers show the birth of another Spider-Man (and he IS Spider-Man by the way). They’re both likable and work well with Peter himself, who has his funny moments but has moments of vulnerability too. Nothing shows this more than the final scene between himself and Aunt May, which perfectly embodies the qualities of what a hero should be: selfless and willing to put others ahead of himself. There isn’t a lot I can say about this plot and characters that others haven’t said before but better, and I did the best I could juggling them all even though I missed some spots, but the writing and the plot are fantastic. Insomniac did a good job with this and the character development of everyone, and even the main villains of Mr. Negative and Otto Octavius, both did heinous acts but both show depth in different ways: villainy through trauma, and blindness by hatred. Like I said, I can’t say enough good things about this, however the DLC on the other hand I have mixed feelings on.
The City that Never Sleeps is a DLC storyline that takes place AFTER the base game, and whilst there’s a lot of things I genuinely enjoy about this content, there’s some stuff I don’t like about this game. The gameplay is exactly the same as the original with side content structure involving new villains, but the only thing I don’t care for in this regard is that when you boot it up that it takes place in a different instance of New York, where I would’ve rather it have been seamless (though it makes trophy stuff easier with different instances). Other than that it’s pretty solid, and the plot only has one thing in it where I was mixed on it but I’ll address that later on but for now, I’ll go into recap mode. After the events of the base game, the criminal underworld is left with a giant void in power, a void in which the Maggia (Marvel Comic’s version of the Mafia, only named the Maggia because the actual Mafia had a stranglehold over newsstands and therefore not wanting to offend them, Marvel switched some names around. Look it up, it’s fascinating stuff) is more than happy to take control. I love some mafia styled content so I LOVE this aspect of the game, and the story is split into three separate chapters but I’m going to make this a brief recap. Spider-Man tries to stop one of the Maggia from stealing a painting when he encounters Black Cat who steals a USB hidden inside of one of the paintings. After a while of chasing her down, it’s learned that the man who hired her, Hammerhead (one of the heads of the Maggia and one of my favorite criminals in Marvel period), is coercing her into doing this by “threatening her son”. With Black Cat’s role in the comics as Spider-Man’s foil, one thing I kinda knew was going to be a bluff is that there’s this blatantly obvious hint that Peter is the father when really the role that the both of these people have in each other’s life kinda made me figure out this was a ruse to manipulate him so that angle kind of made this DLC get knocked down a bit. However they team up together after learning that this USB contains the fortunes of all of the families combined (a really stupid move for mafia families to do this lol) and they both go to raid a vault that Hammerhead owns in order to find “her son” but obviously it’s a betrayal as she locks Spider-Man in the vault and escapes with the USB. There is no son, and Hammerhead orders her death in an explosion, one which Spider-Man arrives too late as her apartment already exploded to smithereens. However, her body wasn’t found so there’s hope she’s still alive, and it moves into the next section: Turf Wars.
After the last section, the Maggia groups go to war against each other and Hammerhead is clearly in the lead. A raid with Spider-Man, Yuri and her police only lead the former two alive, leading to a mean streak and the beginning of an arc. I’m going to go out of my way to say this: this isn’t Spider-Man’s story, or anyone else’s but Yuri’s I feel, as the rest of the DLC starts to establish her future as a villain possibly in Spider-Man 2, or at least it should considering all of the hints. Besides the point, she develops a hatred for Hammerhead with the death of her officers and Peter tells her to take time off. Hammerhead steals weapons from Sable International however and ups his game even more, attacking police head on and kidnapping the other heads of the Maggia. Eventually, Yuri goes mad as it’s also revealed that she has a history with Hammerhead as well, and that the police massacre was only the straw that broke the camel’s back. Attempting to execute the other mob dons on Live TV, it’s revealed he stole one of Sable’s special projects: Project Olympus. This ends up being…an experimental exo-suit; however Spider-Man stops the scheme and foils Yuri’s assassination plot on Hammerhead, who later ends up in the hospital but is revived with a taser by one of his goons. This begins the last section: Silver Lining; which starts off as Yuri has gone off the grid and has murdered numerous Maggia gangsters and Silver Sable herself comes back to take down Hammerhead for stealing her stuff as the equipment that he stole is supposed to be used in the civil war back in her home country: Symkaria. I’m going to stop here and just be honest: I guess it’s possible that a lot of supervillains would want to be a cyborg but I don’t really like Hammerhead becoming a giant mobster in a mech suit? I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel right for me personally, but I guess it’s not out of the realm of comic logic. Stuff happens however, and after a battle Hammerhead kidnaps Sable, and Black Cat comes back to give Peter a USB containing the weaknesses of Hammerhead, having painfully and obviously faked her death. Truth be told, Spider-Man rescues Silver Sable and they work together to take down Hammerhead using his weakness: the metal plate in his head is weak to heat. After beating him, Sable leaves back for Symkaria and so does Mary Jane, who wants to report on the happenings over there. With this in mind, Peter trains Miles to protect New York on his own as he wants to join his girlfriend over there in her reporting. As I said earlier, towards the end it turns into a shoulder shrug for me, I love mafia stuff but truthfully I wish it kind of focused more on Yuri and her turn to being a villain for me personally but that’ll probably show up in the second game. To finish off here before going into gameplay for the game in general: the DLC has some extra content from looking for bombs to helping a cop look for the stolen paintings Black Cat’s father, Walter Hardy, hid around the city to the equivalent to Taskmaster’s missions: Screwball, who is a social media lover/psychopath, she starts up challenges for Spider-Man to obtain social media fame. It’s not a bad choice persay, though I found Screwball to be kind of annoying? I don’t know, nothing could live up to Taskmaster but it is what it is and that’s ok to be honest.
The gameplay for Spider-Man is rather simple, but effectively smooth and feels great; as Spider-Man’s power you get to swing on webs through New York, solving crimes by beating the shit out of criminals with police (lol), getting an assortment of collectibles and beating main/side missions in the open world. The fluidity of the web swinging feels amazing and ranks up there with Spider-Man 2/Ultimate as some of the best, if not THE best, mobility in my personal opinion which makes it feel even better considering unlike the other two games can actually swing in between certain objects (such as a water tower) or just zipping to the top of certain surfaces by pressing the L2+R2 buttons as to not lose momentum. Wall running and parkour are for the most part seamless though there are times where the wall running feels a bit odd to me but everything works in part to help you keep momentum. Of course there are fast travel points with the subway systems but I didn’t use those as everything just felt more natural and made sense using the swinging that was given to you.
Beating up criminals of course has random crimes pop out in the open from rooftop arms deals to segments specific to story bits like prisoner groups, or members of Mr. Negative robbing bank trucks; all of these feel good in-line with the combat given to you. This combat of course, like a lot of good open world combat games, takes heavy inspiration if not outright copying certain bits from the Batman: Arkham series (kind of like Shadow of Mordor/War did). You build up your combo via chained hits, special gadgets and doing it all while not getting hit in order to build up a sort of “Focus” meter, which when built up could be used to heal yourself or to permanently knock out an enemy in the middle of combat. Like Batman, a notification will appear warning you on who/when someone will be attacking you as well, and depending on the spider costume (unlockable through doing side quests and getting tokens) you’re wearing you get benefits helping you in combat like the Noir costume stopping enemies calling for backup or the Negative suit unleashing a shockwave of negative energy. While I only wore certain outfits (Raimi Spider-Man and comic Spider-Man for the win) for the cosmetic benefits, each of these outfits offer something fresh that could be used in the middle of combat, though like the Raimi suit, none of the free ones or the DLC ones offer much in the way of an advantage though you could play through the entire game without these so your playthrough isn’t dependent on certain suits. The gadgets in this game are pretty cool too, ranging from webs that’ll automatically knock someone out of the game by shooting an enemy to a wall with force, to trip mines that when people walk over it that it’ll web them to a surface to the Suspension Matrix, which keeps people in the air temporarily, setting them up for special attacks. It feels really good when you’re able to chain a bunch of these gadgets together to get an amazing combo and knock everyone out flawlessly, but it’s even crazier seeing people on Youtube chain stuff together and I also feel it’s relatively easy for almost everyone to do this sort of stuff with ease too. Regardless, though it’s not some sort of groundbreaking and fresh new combat system that feels like Arkham, it feels pretty damn good and the truth is that’s all that really matters. Other than that, it’s a simple gameplay loop whose combat is only as flashy and complicated as you want it to be, at least combat wise and I’ve seen people go fucking nuts on youtube with insane combinations.
The collectibles don’t just help unlock suits however, doing the collectibles/side quests help fill in a lot of the backstory for this new Spider-Man world (for example, Taskmaster’s side missions not only gives tokens but beating this side quests hint at someone hiring him to keep their eye on Spider-Man and through each activity you can actually see him watching you do the mission), divulge some lore pieces (like the Harry side quests involving a special side project going into Peter’s past with Harry Osborn, and old friend who he hasn’t heard from in a while), or are just doing the every day Spider-Man activities (one mission in particular just blatantly references Gta 4 with name drops of Niko, Roman and DeShaun (from The Lost and Damned DLC) and it’s strange but I love Gta 4 so whatever) and it all feels unique and interesting, a familiar but fresh interpretation of the Spider-Man universe and the city reflects that as well. You’ll find familiar landmarks such as the Avengers tower, a statue of Stan Lee (RIP), Uncle Ben’s grave site, a theater that in a meta context had a marriage proposal from a guy to his girlfriend before that got sadly got upended due to certain issues, Dr. Strange’s Sanctum Santorum, there’s all sorts of references to the greater Marvel universe that for the first time in a long time I’m actually really excited to see what or if there’s a greater Marvel universe that’s being planned or if it’s just Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine (though either way even if it doesn’t that’s ok too considering the superhero fatigue going on).
The gameplay section ultimately is going to be a bit on the short side, because it’s not an overly complex game and it’s not the most in-depth stuff to describe that requires pages upon pages, but it’s a pretty damn good system. The only times that I ever really sat down and felt that the gameplay was a bit on the iffy side was during the stealth sequences with Miles Morales or Mary Jane where you have to sneak around in a linear format with little stealth prompts to cause distractions. These sections, while they play just fine, are also the worst part of the game and frankly make you wish just to get back to the action like it should’ve been for the entire game. Nothing wrong with varying stuff up, but I felt like the gameplay loop of Spider-Man was fine on its own, that it didn’t need the stealth sections and that what they did throw in there we’re average, akin to a shoulder shrug.
The graphics looked fucking amazing back then, and still does now. Honestly when they decided to “Remaster” it, I was kind of surprised because of how good it looked before I came to my senses and remembered that it being remastered was not only to make the first game on the same console as the exclusive sequel-prequel Miles Morales, but also people like money and if the rumors of a Horizon: Zero Dawn remake are actually true I’m not even surprised that this came out. Sure it has its fair share of goofy moments, like looking inside of buildings from the outside reveals that it’s literally just a bunch of small rooms mapped together to make it look believable and managing to get out to the yachts will reveal a flat NPC, or the fact I somehow ended up under a subway station under the map (in the PS4 version) but the truth is everyone and everything looks great (side note, still not a fan of the Remastered Peter Parker but I guess everyone has their own feelings on it lol). I’ve played through lots of different versions of New York from previous Spider games to True Crime: New York City to god knows what else, but it feels like a good New York atmospherically. The sound design is also pretty good in that regard, with voice acting top notch as usual with hits like Yuri Lowenthal as Peter Parker (which apparently there was pushback on because he voiced the main character in Sunset Overdrive), William Saylers as Otto Octavius, I can’t really say that there’s a sort of standout performance as everyone just feels effortless in their role and it all seamlessly fits together. The soundtrack is good too, John Paesano did a good job at capturing the whimsical web-swinging music or breaking out the intense music when stuff is going bad. Overall, like usual I don’t really have anything bad to say with this as I’m easily pleased with this sort of thing and if you’re into good looking games this’ll be one of many that still look good even now.
To wrap up the review, it’s obvious that the game’s good and that I’m sucking it’s dick. Because it’s good, I would definitely say that you should pick it up, even if you’re not into superhero games or anything related to that for media in general (which I wouldn’t blame you for considering the oversaturation of it now). Since the release of this game, Insomniac has been a VERY busy company while developing games, so busy in fact that it’s basically become the most prolific company along with Naughty Dog as the top tier of Playstation Studios. Since this game released in 2018 they released Spider-Man: Remastered on PS5/Steam (happy for the Steam version though I never played the remaster on any console), Spider-Man: Miles Morales on both PC/PS5, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and the oncoming Spider-Man 2 as well as one of the next games in their new Marvel Games Universe (which I thought was gonna consist of a bunch of different games from different devs but I was wrong I think): Marvel’s Wolverine (which is rumored to be like God of War 2018 and Ragnarok in terms of gameplay style and scope). All of this without apparently going through crunch, and if this is true they run a tight ass ship and I’m happy to hear; most of the time I bitch at the end about “PLEASE REMASTER/RE-RELEASE THESE GAMES ON PC FOR PRESERVATION”.
I still will do that, but not for Spider-Man or it’s future releases because I have no doubt these will be put on PC. However, if they could remaster the rest of their back catalog (mostly seems to be Ratchet & Clank/Resistance/Spyro and hell any of their catalog which is bigger than I thought it would be) and maybe put them out somewhere I would be very grateful (especially cause they’ve been working with Nixxes, who makes great ports as opposed to Iron Galaxy with The Last of Us Part 1 on Steam). It seems that the future with this company is great, and I hope to see that continue on for the future. In any case, I’ll finish out this review with the fact that I’m going to Platinum/Review Spider-Man 2 once I’m done with it so I’ll be writing up one for Miles Morales here soon.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man_(2018_video_game)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5807780/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5807780/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv
https://marvels-spider-man.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel%27s_Spider-Man
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/SpiderManPS4
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/MarvelsSpiderManHostileTakeover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFxcUzE9rUE&t=22s&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfdJnPb5CyQ&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_kEHCMSkGU&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymU4sYlue9c&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeokpGh6Qaw&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOQm5yMQrMM&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vstNhm6LG8U&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://marvels-spider-man.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel%27s_Spider-Man
What does this all mean exactly? It means that Insomniac had a lot to prove here, and went considerably against the grain compared to the constantly rushed games of previous years. Having read up on its history, it started after Sunset Overdrive (a game which I don’t like in a lot of ways) was released. Meetings had occurred between Sony Interactive Entertainment and Insomniac Games about developing a game based on a Marvel property. A lot of workshopping went back and forth, and it was decided that this would be its own original story with the approval of all involved. What ended up coming out was one of the best exclusives on the Playstation 4, one of the most acclaimed games based on a licensed property and I believe that it’s one of the best Marvel games of all time. There was also a prequel comic: Spider-Man: Hostile Takeover, that was released sometime around the game’s release but I never read it myself, so I’ll post the TV Tropes page in the comments section below. Truth be told I don’t really know much else about the game historically that could be really interesting, nothing crazy as far as I’m aware either as the game was rather successful and I feel the way that it was being built mixed in with the popularity of the Marvel formula almost guarantees instant success. However, what I can say personally is that the game does enough stuff that’s different from the usual formula and tropes of Spider-Man that it’s for the better. I ended up platinuming this game over a period of seven or so months including waiting for the DLC to release and finally wrapping up the New Game + stuff out of boredom for all trophies acquired.
The beginning is a bit of a cold open, a police raid on Fisk Tower to apprehend crime boss Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk, a behemoth of a man who controls the New York Underworld. A traversal through the headquarters leads to a battle between what seems to be a human tank and the eventual defeat of Fisk. However, what leads in the void is a power vacuum that leads to one of, if not the worst crime wave that’s happened in the city’s history that goes on for a while. A group of men in demon masks and suits begin to take over Kingpin’s property, all while mayor Norman Osborn runs in the background. Things aren’t how they seem however as a bank robbery by Herman Shultz, aka The Shocker, lead to the realization that the leader of the Inner Demons, named Mr. Negative, threatened him into committing robberies for them. Other villains like Tombstone, a biker gang leader/drug trafficker, works for Mr. Negative to build vehicles for them; meanwhile Taskmaster, a mercenary with the ability to copy other’s moves through sheer memory, puts Spider-Man through a series of tests that push him to the limits all for the purposes of studying him and defeating him for a mysterious organization that’s never revealed. This is only the side content however, as the main content hits the peak after Mr. Negative and his demons attack an awards ceremony for police officer Jefferson Davis (who helped Spider-Man thwart a Demons attack earlier), hosted by Norman Osborn, in an attempt to assassinate the mayor himself. However, while Norman manages to get out alive, Jefferson on the other hand does not. This is where I should bring up five different characters, each one important to Peter Parker/Spider-Man in their own way and are whom I consider the pillars of the game and are the other parts that are balanced in congruence with the story.
The son of Jefferson Davis, Miles Morales, falls into a slump after the death of his father; Peter’s Aunt May (who runs a F.E.A.S.T. shelter, led by Martin Li, a popular philanthropist) brings Miles on both to help the young man out and as a sort of parallel to Peter himself. Both Peter and Miles had their father figures killed by senseless violence, and Aunt May hopes to try to do the same for the boy as she did for Peter, and Peter starts a sort of mentor figure role for the young man. Those are two of the pillars, the other three include Peter’s ex-girlfriend: Mary Jane, who felt that Peter smothered her and didn’t let her help or engage in anything dangerous due to the factor of her safety. She helps throughout the story in her own way, gathering the intel and sneaking into certain locations to take pictures to expose the criminal activities. The relationship between Peter and Mary Jane are at first full of conflict and awkwardness, but over the time in the story lead to a growing respect and a willingness to work togethers as true partners, instead of just Spider-Man carrying all the weight. Yuri Watanabe is a police captain who works together with Spider-Man as a connection with the police force during the crisis ensuing and provides emotional support as well even though her presence is more up front in the DLC. The last one is one of the most important characters in the entire plot: Dr. Otto Octavius. I’ll disclose that role later on in the review but in the beginning, he’s Peter’s mentor and science partner whose attempting to work in creating artificial limbs leads him down the obvious path to villainy, not helped by Norman Osborn, his old business partner/fellow scientist who does everything in his path to screw Otto over in an attempt to strong arm him into working for Oscorp (which I don’t think is possible to be a public official and run a corporation but whatever).
Whilst at the awards ceremony, it’s revealed that Mr. Negative is actually Martin Li, the head of FEAST who clearly has an agenda against Osborn, going on a homegrown terrorist campaign in an attempt to ruin him. After he is apprehended and sent to The Raft, a giant prison located in the river known to hold super-villains, a giant breakout occurs and chaos ensues. Li escapes, but so do villains like The Vulture, Scorpion, Electro and Rhino break out as well. All of these guys have issues with Spider-Man but after confronting them all on the roof of the prison their leader is revealed: Dr. Octopus, aka Otto Octavius. Peter barely survives and starts an outbreak of “Devil’s Breath”, a biological weapon that infects a whole bunch of people and causes grounds for Norman Osborn to issue martial law, hiring mercenary Silver Sable and her group to help enact his plans.
Aunt May is revealed to be infected with Devil’s Breath and is working on limited time, and after some bombastic set pieces (a dual fight between Electro and Vulture is one of the highlights of the entire game and I believe was revealed in E3 as an example), each of the members of the Sinister Six, the group led by Li and Octopus, are arrested and brought in. It’s revealed down the line that the two have formed together in their mutual hatred towards Norman Osborn. Li was experimented on as a child by Osborn, and as a result of the failed experiment he gained both his abilities and a lifelong hatred of the CEO/Mayor after his parents died as a result. It was also revealed that Devil’s Breath is the result of a series of unsafe experiments meant to save Osborn’s son, Harry (an old friend of Peter who supposedly went overseas) from a life threatening disease after Mary Jane infiltrates Norman’s penthouse. In an attempt to gain the antidote to Devil’s Breath, Peter gets his ass squashed by his nigh bald headed mentor and Otto escapes with both the antidote and Norman as a hostage.
Miles sparingly appears in this game, I mean he appears but his role isn’t as prominent other than a stealth section in the latter part of the game but isn’t as important to the plot as much. This game spends the time developing the beginning of Mile’s legacy, his motivations and his character as he fights the lack of his father figure and his looking up to Peter. Everything comes to a head as he’s bitten by a genetically enhanced spider that MJ brought from the Osborn lab she snuck into. After healing up, Peter goes to the top of Oscorp Tower to fight Octavius, whose hatred for Norman supersedes his relationship with Spider-Man and it’s learned that he knew Peter’s secret identity the whole time. Feeling betrayed by his mentor, Peter unleashes his strength and brutalizes Otto to a pulp before leaving him for the police. This final section is to me what really seals the game for me, as choosing between saving Aunt May with the cure and synthesizing a vaccine for everyone else, Peter chooses to be selfless and accepts the death of the only mother figure he had left.
The finale reveals that both Mary Jane and Peter have started their relationship anew (with a cameo from Stan Lee of course), this time with a newfound respect for each other’s abilities and a willingness to work as equal partners. Miles gains spider powers and shows Peter, who also reveals his secret identity as Spider-Man. Yuri (for now) still remains the captain of the police force while Otto is in jail. However, the final stinger in the credits reveal that the lab in the Penthouse that MJ snuck into has a secret button in the back, which shows a young man revealed to be Harry Osborn, stuck in a tube full of green liquid and black goo, which reacts to Norman’s hand as it touches the surface.
I love this game, I’m mixed on the non Spider-Man missions but the characters are great and fleshed out, I appreciate the respect building between MJ and Peter (though I rolled my eyes at the break up angle, I just don’t like those kinds of plot lines). As I said before, Miles doesn’t really show up too much, but his importance as a background character shouldn’t be understated as the parallels between his father’s death and Uncle Ben’s for Peter along with the burgeoning powers show the birth of another Spider-Man (and he IS Spider-Man by the way). They’re both likable and work well with Peter himself, who has his funny moments but has moments of vulnerability too. Nothing shows this more than the final scene between himself and Aunt May, which perfectly embodies the qualities of what a hero should be: selfless and willing to put others ahead of himself. There isn’t a lot I can say about this plot and characters that others haven’t said before but better, and I did the best I could juggling them all even though I missed some spots, but the writing and the plot are fantastic. Insomniac did a good job with this and the character development of everyone, and even the main villains of Mr. Negative and Otto Octavius, both did heinous acts but both show depth in different ways: villainy through trauma, and blindness by hatred. Like I said, I can’t say enough good things about this, however the DLC on the other hand I have mixed feelings on.
The City that Never Sleeps is a DLC storyline that takes place AFTER the base game, and whilst there’s a lot of things I genuinely enjoy about this content, there’s some stuff I don’t like about this game. The gameplay is exactly the same as the original with side content structure involving new villains, but the only thing I don’t care for in this regard is that when you boot it up that it takes place in a different instance of New York, where I would’ve rather it have been seamless (though it makes trophy stuff easier with different instances). Other than that it’s pretty solid, and the plot only has one thing in it where I was mixed on it but I’ll address that later on but for now, I’ll go into recap mode. After the events of the base game, the criminal underworld is left with a giant void in power, a void in which the Maggia (Marvel Comic’s version of the Mafia, only named the Maggia because the actual Mafia had a stranglehold over newsstands and therefore not wanting to offend them, Marvel switched some names around. Look it up, it’s fascinating stuff) is more than happy to take control. I love some mafia styled content so I LOVE this aspect of the game, and the story is split into three separate chapters but I’m going to make this a brief recap. Spider-Man tries to stop one of the Maggia from stealing a painting when he encounters Black Cat who steals a USB hidden inside of one of the paintings. After a while of chasing her down, it’s learned that the man who hired her, Hammerhead (one of the heads of the Maggia and one of my favorite criminals in Marvel period), is coercing her into doing this by “threatening her son”. With Black Cat’s role in the comics as Spider-Man’s foil, one thing I kinda knew was going to be a bluff is that there’s this blatantly obvious hint that Peter is the father when really the role that the both of these people have in each other’s life kinda made me figure out this was a ruse to manipulate him so that angle kind of made this DLC get knocked down a bit. However they team up together after learning that this USB contains the fortunes of all of the families combined (a really stupid move for mafia families to do this lol) and they both go to raid a vault that Hammerhead owns in order to find “her son” but obviously it’s a betrayal as she locks Spider-Man in the vault and escapes with the USB. There is no son, and Hammerhead orders her death in an explosion, one which Spider-Man arrives too late as her apartment already exploded to smithereens. However, her body wasn’t found so there’s hope she’s still alive, and it moves into the next section: Turf Wars.
After the last section, the Maggia groups go to war against each other and Hammerhead is clearly in the lead. A raid with Spider-Man, Yuri and her police only lead the former two alive, leading to a mean streak and the beginning of an arc. I’m going to go out of my way to say this: this isn’t Spider-Man’s story, or anyone else’s but Yuri’s I feel, as the rest of the DLC starts to establish her future as a villain possibly in Spider-Man 2, or at least it should considering all of the hints. Besides the point, she develops a hatred for Hammerhead with the death of her officers and Peter tells her to take time off. Hammerhead steals weapons from Sable International however and ups his game even more, attacking police head on and kidnapping the other heads of the Maggia. Eventually, Yuri goes mad as it’s also revealed that she has a history with Hammerhead as well, and that the police massacre was only the straw that broke the camel’s back. Attempting to execute the other mob dons on Live TV, it’s revealed he stole one of Sable’s special projects: Project Olympus. This ends up being…an experimental exo-suit; however Spider-Man stops the scheme and foils Yuri’s assassination plot on Hammerhead, who later ends up in the hospital but is revived with a taser by one of his goons. This begins the last section: Silver Lining; which starts off as Yuri has gone off the grid and has murdered numerous Maggia gangsters and Silver Sable herself comes back to take down Hammerhead for stealing her stuff as the equipment that he stole is supposed to be used in the civil war back in her home country: Symkaria. I’m going to stop here and just be honest: I guess it’s possible that a lot of supervillains would want to be a cyborg but I don’t really like Hammerhead becoming a giant mobster in a mech suit? I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel right for me personally, but I guess it’s not out of the realm of comic logic. Stuff happens however, and after a battle Hammerhead kidnaps Sable, and Black Cat comes back to give Peter a USB containing the weaknesses of Hammerhead, having painfully and obviously faked her death. Truth be told, Spider-Man rescues Silver Sable and they work together to take down Hammerhead using his weakness: the metal plate in his head is weak to heat. After beating him, Sable leaves back for Symkaria and so does Mary Jane, who wants to report on the happenings over there. With this in mind, Peter trains Miles to protect New York on his own as he wants to join his girlfriend over there in her reporting. As I said earlier, towards the end it turns into a shoulder shrug for me, I love mafia stuff but truthfully I wish it kind of focused more on Yuri and her turn to being a villain for me personally but that’ll probably show up in the second game. To finish off here before going into gameplay for the game in general: the DLC has some extra content from looking for bombs to helping a cop look for the stolen paintings Black Cat’s father, Walter Hardy, hid around the city to the equivalent to Taskmaster’s missions: Screwball, who is a social media lover/psychopath, she starts up challenges for Spider-Man to obtain social media fame. It’s not a bad choice persay, though I found Screwball to be kind of annoying? I don’t know, nothing could live up to Taskmaster but it is what it is and that’s ok to be honest.
The gameplay for Spider-Man is rather simple, but effectively smooth and feels great; as Spider-Man’s power you get to swing on webs through New York, solving crimes by beating the shit out of criminals with police (lol), getting an assortment of collectibles and beating main/side missions in the open world. The fluidity of the web swinging feels amazing and ranks up there with Spider-Man 2/Ultimate as some of the best, if not THE best, mobility in my personal opinion which makes it feel even better considering unlike the other two games can actually swing in between certain objects (such as a water tower) or just zipping to the top of certain surfaces by pressing the L2+R2 buttons as to not lose momentum. Wall running and parkour are for the most part seamless though there are times where the wall running feels a bit odd to me but everything works in part to help you keep momentum. Of course there are fast travel points with the subway systems but I didn’t use those as everything just felt more natural and made sense using the swinging that was given to you.
Beating up criminals of course has random crimes pop out in the open from rooftop arms deals to segments specific to story bits like prisoner groups, or members of Mr. Negative robbing bank trucks; all of these feel good in-line with the combat given to you. This combat of course, like a lot of good open world combat games, takes heavy inspiration if not outright copying certain bits from the Batman: Arkham series (kind of like Shadow of Mordor/War did). You build up your combo via chained hits, special gadgets and doing it all while not getting hit in order to build up a sort of “Focus” meter, which when built up could be used to heal yourself or to permanently knock out an enemy in the middle of combat. Like Batman, a notification will appear warning you on who/when someone will be attacking you as well, and depending on the spider costume (unlockable through doing side quests and getting tokens) you’re wearing you get benefits helping you in combat like the Noir costume stopping enemies calling for backup or the Negative suit unleashing a shockwave of negative energy. While I only wore certain outfits (Raimi Spider-Man and comic Spider-Man for the win) for the cosmetic benefits, each of these outfits offer something fresh that could be used in the middle of combat, though like the Raimi suit, none of the free ones or the DLC ones offer much in the way of an advantage though you could play through the entire game without these so your playthrough isn’t dependent on certain suits. The gadgets in this game are pretty cool too, ranging from webs that’ll automatically knock someone out of the game by shooting an enemy to a wall with force, to trip mines that when people walk over it that it’ll web them to a surface to the Suspension Matrix, which keeps people in the air temporarily, setting them up for special attacks. It feels really good when you’re able to chain a bunch of these gadgets together to get an amazing combo and knock everyone out flawlessly, but it’s even crazier seeing people on Youtube chain stuff together and I also feel it’s relatively easy for almost everyone to do this sort of stuff with ease too. Regardless, though it’s not some sort of groundbreaking and fresh new combat system that feels like Arkham, it feels pretty damn good and the truth is that’s all that really matters. Other than that, it’s a simple gameplay loop whose combat is only as flashy and complicated as you want it to be, at least combat wise and I’ve seen people go fucking nuts on youtube with insane combinations.
The collectibles don’t just help unlock suits however, doing the collectibles/side quests help fill in a lot of the backstory for this new Spider-Man world (for example, Taskmaster’s side missions not only gives tokens but beating this side quests hint at someone hiring him to keep their eye on Spider-Man and through each activity you can actually see him watching you do the mission), divulge some lore pieces (like the Harry side quests involving a special side project going into Peter’s past with Harry Osborn, and old friend who he hasn’t heard from in a while), or are just doing the every day Spider-Man activities (one mission in particular just blatantly references Gta 4 with name drops of Niko, Roman and DeShaun (from The Lost and Damned DLC) and it’s strange but I love Gta 4 so whatever) and it all feels unique and interesting, a familiar but fresh interpretation of the Spider-Man universe and the city reflects that as well. You’ll find familiar landmarks such as the Avengers tower, a statue of Stan Lee (RIP), Uncle Ben’s grave site, a theater that in a meta context had a marriage proposal from a guy to his girlfriend before that got sadly got upended due to certain issues, Dr. Strange’s Sanctum Santorum, there’s all sorts of references to the greater Marvel universe that for the first time in a long time I’m actually really excited to see what or if there’s a greater Marvel universe that’s being planned or if it’s just Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine (though either way even if it doesn’t that’s ok too considering the superhero fatigue going on).
The gameplay section ultimately is going to be a bit on the short side, because it’s not an overly complex game and it’s not the most in-depth stuff to describe that requires pages upon pages, but it’s a pretty damn good system. The only times that I ever really sat down and felt that the gameplay was a bit on the iffy side was during the stealth sequences with Miles Morales or Mary Jane where you have to sneak around in a linear format with little stealth prompts to cause distractions. These sections, while they play just fine, are also the worst part of the game and frankly make you wish just to get back to the action like it should’ve been for the entire game. Nothing wrong with varying stuff up, but I felt like the gameplay loop of Spider-Man was fine on its own, that it didn’t need the stealth sections and that what they did throw in there we’re average, akin to a shoulder shrug.
The graphics looked fucking amazing back then, and still does now. Honestly when they decided to “Remaster” it, I was kind of surprised because of how good it looked before I came to my senses and remembered that it being remastered was not only to make the first game on the same console as the exclusive sequel-prequel Miles Morales, but also people like money and if the rumors of a Horizon: Zero Dawn remake are actually true I’m not even surprised that this came out. Sure it has its fair share of goofy moments, like looking inside of buildings from the outside reveals that it’s literally just a bunch of small rooms mapped together to make it look believable and managing to get out to the yachts will reveal a flat NPC, or the fact I somehow ended up under a subway station under the map (in the PS4 version) but the truth is everyone and everything looks great (side note, still not a fan of the Remastered Peter Parker but I guess everyone has their own feelings on it lol). I’ve played through lots of different versions of New York from previous Spider games to True Crime: New York City to god knows what else, but it feels like a good New York atmospherically. The sound design is also pretty good in that regard, with voice acting top notch as usual with hits like Yuri Lowenthal as Peter Parker (which apparently there was pushback on because he voiced the main character in Sunset Overdrive), William Saylers as Otto Octavius, I can’t really say that there’s a sort of standout performance as everyone just feels effortless in their role and it all seamlessly fits together. The soundtrack is good too, John Paesano did a good job at capturing the whimsical web-swinging music or breaking out the intense music when stuff is going bad. Overall, like usual I don’t really have anything bad to say with this as I’m easily pleased with this sort of thing and if you’re into good looking games this’ll be one of many that still look good even now.
To wrap up the review, it’s obvious that the game’s good and that I’m sucking it’s dick. Because it’s good, I would definitely say that you should pick it up, even if you’re not into superhero games or anything related to that for media in general (which I wouldn’t blame you for considering the oversaturation of it now). Since the release of this game, Insomniac has been a VERY busy company while developing games, so busy in fact that it’s basically become the most prolific company along with Naughty Dog as the top tier of Playstation Studios. Since this game released in 2018 they released Spider-Man: Remastered on PS5/Steam (happy for the Steam version though I never played the remaster on any console), Spider-Man: Miles Morales on both PC/PS5, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and the oncoming Spider-Man 2 as well as one of the next games in their new Marvel Games Universe (which I thought was gonna consist of a bunch of different games from different devs but I was wrong I think): Marvel’s Wolverine (which is rumored to be like God of War 2018 and Ragnarok in terms of gameplay style and scope). All of this without apparently going through crunch, and if this is true they run a tight ass ship and I’m happy to hear; most of the time I bitch at the end about “PLEASE REMASTER/RE-RELEASE THESE GAMES ON PC FOR PRESERVATION”.
I still will do that, but not for Spider-Man or it’s future releases because I have no doubt these will be put on PC. However, if they could remaster the rest of their back catalog (mostly seems to be Ratchet & Clank/Resistance/Spyro and hell any of their catalog which is bigger than I thought it would be) and maybe put them out somewhere I would be very grateful (especially cause they’ve been working with Nixxes, who makes great ports as opposed to Iron Galaxy with The Last of Us Part 1 on Steam). It seems that the future with this company is great, and I hope to see that continue on for the future. In any case, I’ll finish out this review with the fact that I’m going to Platinum/Review Spider-Man 2 once I’m done with it so I’ll be writing up one for Miles Morales here soon.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man_(2018_video_game)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5807780/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5807780/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv
https://marvels-spider-man.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel%27s_Spider-Man
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/SpiderManPS4
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/MarvelsSpiderManHostileTakeover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFxcUzE9rUE&t=22s&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfdJnPb5CyQ&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_kEHCMSkGU&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymU4sYlue9c&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeokpGh6Qaw&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOQm5yMQrMM&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vstNhm6LG8U&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://marvels-spider-man.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel%27s_Spider-Man