As Respawning’s “resident Spider-boi” I felt as though I needed to air some thoughts about Insomniac’s take on the friendly neighborhood superhero and give the game a fair and just review whilst trying not to come from a fanboy perspective at the same time.
Then I played the game and I decided to say fuck that because there is no way I can play this without coming at it from a perspective of a huge fan of the hero.
This review is spoiler free.
With Spider-Man, you can tell that Insomniac took so much care when approaching the hero – knowing full well that huge fans like myself will come at the game with any skepticism that there would be no way it could possibly live up to the expectations I had in my head for the hero. Leading up to the launch my hype for the game was more than over the top which had me worried: How would the game be able to nail how I FELT that playing as Spider-Man should feel, How could they possibly live up to the idealism of Peter Parker which I had built up in my head as a kid – the perfect blend of being this nerdy, bullied child who rises above it all showing me that anything was possible.
Well, spoiler alert – it did.
Everything about this game lived up to my expectations, from the very first moment of Peter putting on the suit to when it gave me control to swing around the city right through to the end I had the biggest grin on my face the entire time.
I won’t go into it too much but as far as I am concerned the story was absolute perfection, not too long and not too short and it felt like as much of a Spider-Man story as I could of ever hoped for, it felt like if I read this on the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man I would be happy with it as a 6 month arc bringing with it a range of emotions from Joy to “right in the feels” to anticipation for a sequel the story brought everything to the table with satisfying pay off that also left me simply wanting more.
As mentioned the story, to me, was the best part of the game which says a heck of a lot because the gameplay featured in Spidey is absolutely perfect as well. The combat system feels perfectly fine tuned somewhere in the middle of the satisfactory punches of the Arkham series and the bounciness I would expect of my friendly neighborhood hero.
There are A LOT of collectibles in Spider-Man but for the first time in any game I have actually gone through and collected/done everything – I can’t quite put my finger on why but there is something different in Spider-Man that makes doing every little thing just incredibly fun. At one point I found myself chasing pigeons around the city and just having a blast with it.
That is the main thing I gleamed from my 30 odd hours with Spider-Man, it’s just a lot of fun all the way through and not once did I feel the game overstayed it’s welcome or threw something pointless at me, some people will probably disagree with me with the level of crimes happening in the city that can interrupt the story but for me that really helped to sell the FEELING of Spider-Man, the feeling that I would stop regular Crimes around the city and it wasn’t ALWAYS about fighting the big bad villains that Spider-Man has on his roster – although there were more than enough of these to keep me happy as well… I won’t say but one side story featured one of my favourite villains and felt like how I wished the Death Stroke missions went in Arkham Knight.
So do I recommend Spider-Man? With my whole heart I say that it is probably my favourite game out on PS4 at the moment by a long shot, if you are a fan I suggest picking this up as soon as possible however if you aren’t as much of a fanboy of the series as I am there is still plenty to love with Spider-Man and you will be hard pressed to find another game on PS4 with such an engaging story and incredibly fun gameplay.
For Spider-Man Fans I give this game a 10/10 for the feeling of being Spider-Man and all the incredible nods and Easter eggs there situated for the fans, for Non Spider-Man Fans I give this game a 9/10 as there is still an incredible amount of content to love but some of the Easter eggs may feel just put in for no reason.
For Josef I give this game an 8/10.