This game was another one of Sony's major first party games that I was interested in trying, but never got around to playing until recently. While I don't necessarily feel like it's a masterpiece, it was definitely a consistent good experience with very fun gameplay.
The story's direction is a bit interesting to me. Rather than an origin story like the first of many in a new Spider-Man series, this game skips pretty much all of it. I'm not new to Spider-Man stories and world so I'm not particularly bothered about the lack of an origin story here. I just have to wonder how people completely new to this franchise feels about it.
There might have been some references here and there regarding the origins to Peter's powers, his family and with Mary Jane, but the game doesn't spend all that much time on them. Peter starts out as a veteran superhero, his name and presence are already widely known in the city, he has dated Mary Jane in the past and they start off already in a broken relationship. At times, it feels like this takes place in the middle of some sort of Spider-Man game series and instead of focusing on origin stories, it just deals with the current crisis.
With the origin story stuff aside, the story here is an interesting one and feels like a very long Spider-Man movie with many iconic (and not so iconic) villains and characters making their appearances. The story was solid and kept me interested throughout, but it's fairly predictable even rehashing some old Spider-Man story elements. It does have a few development twists that took me by surprised though.
The characters are pretty good across the board. The voice acting is stellar as expected and I really enjoyed Peter here and his Spider-Man persona. I'm not usually big on frequent use of quips, but the execution here really was great so that I found them enjoyable. Even with Spider-Man's other humor (Spider-Cop).
The graphics aren't really a powerhouse, but overall looked great on the PS5. Character models in particular are a standout.
The gameplay was excellent overall. The combat was very enjoyable and the websling/shooting adds a ton of variety to how you can approach it. It also does aerial combat really well. The added tech weapons also brought things to a new level.
The combat can be surprisingly challenging even on Normal difficulty. Spider-Man can't take much hits before it's over for him. Enemies with high tech weaponry are a pain to deal with. They are also annoyingly accurate with weapons as well particularly snipers.
Mission variety feels the same after a while especially when taking into consideration the numerous side criminal activities. Yet, I somehow was never bothered by it and enjoyed every car chase and enemy shootout with the police.
Web swinging across the city is amazing and is one of the best method to travel through an open world. I always wondered how it would work in the game, but they made it worked pretty much perfectly.
The DLC that comes with the Remastered/Game of the Year version of the game are also solid as well. The three campaigns are all tied together in the same overarching story. The new side activities in them are okay since they are just like the ones in the main story except harder. The story itself is interesting. Each part is about 5 hours, probably shorter if you rush the story and don't do any side stuff.
Looking forward to Spider-Man 2 and see what new gameplay that brings.
The story's direction is a bit interesting to me. Rather than an origin story like the first of many in a new Spider-Man series, this game skips pretty much all of it. I'm not new to Spider-Man stories and world so I'm not particularly bothered about the lack of an origin story here. I just have to wonder how people completely new to this franchise feels about it.
There might have been some references here and there regarding the origins to Peter's powers, his family and with Mary Jane, but the game doesn't spend all that much time on them. Peter starts out as a veteran superhero, his name and presence are already widely known in the city, he has dated Mary Jane in the past and they start off already in a broken relationship. At times, it feels like this takes place in the middle of some sort of Spider-Man game series and instead of focusing on origin stories, it just deals with the current crisis.
With the origin story stuff aside, the story here is an interesting one and feels like a very long Spider-Man movie with many iconic (and not so iconic) villains and characters making their appearances. The story was solid and kept me interested throughout, but it's fairly predictable even rehashing some old Spider-Man story elements. It does have a few development twists that took me by surprised though.
The characters are pretty good across the board. The voice acting is stellar as expected and I really enjoyed Peter here and his Spider-Man persona. I'm not usually big on frequent use of quips, but the execution here really was great so that I found them enjoyable. Even with Spider-Man's other humor (Spider-Cop).
The graphics aren't really a powerhouse, but overall looked great on the PS5. Character models in particular are a standout.
The gameplay was excellent overall. The combat was very enjoyable and the websling/shooting adds a ton of variety to how you can approach it. It also does aerial combat really well. The added tech weapons also brought things to a new level.
The combat can be surprisingly challenging even on Normal difficulty. Spider-Man can't take much hits before it's over for him. Enemies with high tech weaponry are a pain to deal with. They are also annoyingly accurate with weapons as well particularly snipers.
Mission variety feels the same after a while especially when taking into consideration the numerous side criminal activities. Yet, I somehow was never bothered by it and enjoyed every car chase and enemy shootout with the police.
Web swinging across the city is amazing and is one of the best method to travel through an open world. I always wondered how it would work in the game, but they made it worked pretty much perfectly.
The DLC that comes with the Remastered/Game of the Year version of the game are also solid as well. The three campaigns are all tied together in the same overarching story. The new side activities in them are okay since they are just like the ones in the main story except harder. The story itself is interesting. Each part is about 5 hours, probably shorter if you rush the story and don't do any side stuff.
Looking forward to Spider-Man 2 and see what new gameplay that brings.