Marvel’s Spider-Man is a Spider-Man game developed by Insomniac. They’re a quality developer (most well known for Spyro the Dragon and Ratchet & Clank), so you know the character is in good hands. And first impressions are, the game is solid and polish, but ultimately lacks originality. The graphics are stunning and its depiction of New York is great, but it’s it combat and open-world gameplay that’s too predictable and stale.
First off, the great thing with this game is that it doesn’t deal with Spider-Man’s origin story. Thank goodness as that was already way overdone in the movies. Instead, Spider-Man is already a well-known superhero in New York, with his fair share of enemies and supporters. The game’s plot focuses on Fisk, whom Spider-Man had managed to help the NYPD capture, but he is still causing issues behind the scenes.
The gameplay is easy it pick up. You can’t help a Spider-Man game without the web-slinging and this is one area where the game pretty much nails it. There could still be improvements but it’s natural and flows well for a first try. You hold down the trigger button and this will have Spider-Man automatically swing through the buildings. Pressing X will allow you to speed up, and through a few other buttons you can him aim and shoot at a target to pull himself there, dive, and wall run. Once you get the hang of it, it's heaps of fun swinging through New York. Plus, Spider-Man actually shoots web at buildings, so he’ll naturally lose height if there are no nearby buildings that’s high enough. The animations are also another aspect that shines.
The other major aspect of gameplay is the combat and this is where the unoriginality lies. It’s basically the combat system from the Batman Arkham series, and this is extremely disappointing. Not because that combat system was bad, but because it so blatantly copies it. Spider-Man chains together combos using one button but then has other buttons mapped to his various gadgets and web-shooting abilities. Coupled with a combo meter that once full allows him to execute special takedowns and it’s effectively a carbon copy, just not as polished. Different enemy types will appear and requires different moves to beat them.
Furthermore, there are sections where Spider-Man can stealthily take down his enemies. Perched high above, he can hang someone up with his web, lure guards away and distract them or pounce at them from afar. Spider-Man gains experience points during all this, which give him points upon levelling up in order to unlock new skills and moves to use.
So barring the combat being familiar, the same thing goes for the open world gameplay. This time, it takes its notes from Ubisoft and Assassin’s Creed. You need to find towers to hack into them and uncover it on the map. This allows you to see the various activities and collectables in that area. There are various side missions to attempt and your standard collectables scattered in the environment, as well as collectables that are slightly more involving like taking a photograph. Again, this is very uninspired and it’s disappointing that it doesn’t attempt anything new.
While most of the game has you controlling Spider-Man, there will be times where you’re out of the suit. During these sections, they’re either exposition heavy scenes, or stealth sequences. The stealth sequences are generally quite easy and clear on what you need to do. That doesn’t stop it from being annoying and boring though. There seems to be just a tad bit too many of these stealth sections, where it feels like you are pulled out of what you want to do against your wishes. While useful to try and provide variety as well as telling the story from a different perspective, they drastically slow down the pace of the game… in a bad way.
With that said, once you get into the swing of things and more options unlock, both in terms of combat and side activities, then it all gels well together. Sure, it’s not ground-breaking but it is still a lot of fun. The swinging, and the satisfaction you feel when you get into the rhythm of when to jump off and gain speed is one of the highlights of the game. Even the side activities that constantly pop up and are the same few types of templates are forgivable just because of how quickly you can get through them and continue onto the next one.
As Spider-Man is already so well acquainted with his enemies, you can’t help but think this is a sequel and you had missed the first game. While at first you would have thought the game would take on a smaller scale and have a closer more personal conflict between Spider-Man and Fisk. It does that for only the earlier parts of the game and then introduces several more opponents. It builds up to a nice point in the second half of the game where you see the rise of a villain here, and the appearance of a villain there. It touches upon your nostalgia as the new designs are different yet familiar enough that you recognise them at first glance. It also helps that Peter himself has some great one-liners that isn’t afraid to reference other incarnations of Spider-Man.
The finale comes quicker than you’d expect. Even the build up to the climactic battle was much longer. You know the final two bosses were coming… but then they arrive sooner than expected and go down faster than expected, such that you’re seeing the credits before you know. The boss battles are more cinematic than ingenious in its execution. They look great, but they all devolve into dodging the boss’s attacks before counterattacking, so they all feel samey. It’s a good ending though, and comes packing with its last surprises.
After you finish the game, there are still all the side-activities left. The collectibles aren’t too bad if you had been collecting them as you play along with the game. The challenges are probably where you’ll spend most of your time in. None of these activities introduce anything new, but will satisfy any appetite you had for more content. Lastly, patches added in a New Game+ mode where you get to play through it again carrying over all your unlocked abilities.
Overall, Marvel’s Spider-Man is a fantastic action game, and one of the very best Spider-Man games we’ve had since the PS2 movie tie-in. The game nails the webslinging aspect, where it’s just pure fun swinging through the buildings. The combat is passable, it’s familiar but even with all its variations in the form of gadgets, can feel like there are not enough options and fights become similar to each other. Nevertheless, the game feels polished, with a great story, it is one of the best Spider-Man stories in a video game.
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