From the moment it was announced that Insomniac Games were working on a Spider-Man game I was excited. Not because I love the character, truth be told I am actually not too bothered about superheroes in general. Instead I was excited because of what I thought Insomniac could do with this world.
I have always enjoyed their games, dating back to Ratchet & Clank on the original Playstation in the late nineties. More recently they had worked on the underrated Resistance franchise while branching out to their one and only Xbox exclusive Sunset Overdrive. It was a critical success but didn’t find much of an audience on a console that struggled out of the blocks this gen. So how would the jump to an open world superhero game go? Let’s delve in!
I don’t think I can ever recall a games graphics being more scrutinised pre-release before. Sure the original Watch Dogs was dissected post release, but this was thousands of people screaming abuse at each other over the internet about puddles. There were less of them apparently. Unfortunately what really happened was this game, due to the nature of it’s exclusivity, became the centre of the war between Playstation and Xbox fan boys.
Playstation fans were revelling in another one of the biggest games this year being exclusively available on Sony’s platform while die hard Xbox fans so badly wanted the game to under deliver. I have no dog in this fight, I am just a rational gamer who loves games. The truth of the matter is, the game looks gorgeous! The screenshot that got passed around pre-release did look like it had been downgraded but I can assure you spend 10 minutes inside the game and in photo mode and you will agree it is stunning.
Sure the citizens walking the streets aren’t as detailed as the main characters, but this is something that is true of all open world games. New York is wonderfully detailed and while having never visited myself and being unable to vouch for the 1:1 likeness, I can say that tourist attractions like Times Square look near perfection. In-fact I have a canvas on my living room wall of Times Square and when I placed Spidey right where the picture was taken to check for accuracy it was crazy to see how close it was.
The voice acting is all performed to a really high level. So much so that Insomniac actually recorded Spidey’s lines TWICE. One in a rested state and another with a heightened heart rate and implemented WWise (a development tool) to allow the audio to switch states from sentence to sentence in order to keep things as authentic as possible. This is a seriously cool addition and one that shows the level of detail that went in to this game.
Also the frequent radio shows by J. Jonah Jameson where he twists every good deed that you do and lambastes any caller who tries to remotely stick up for you are absolutely brilliant. It may sound like a small thing but it is a great break from the norm while swinging around New York.
Graphics and audio are all well and good, but gameplay is where this game was really going to live and die for most people. Shortly after the first gameplay trailer had been released many assumed that the game was destined to become one big quick time event. This was in large part due to how slick, fluid and cool the combat looked. Well, it turns out Insomniac are just really good at making games.
Sure, during car takedowns and a few moments here and there we do have quick time events, but for the most part you have full, glorious control over Spider-Man. Before this game released many people including myself pointed to Spider-Man 2 as the blueprint for how to make a game like this fun. Insomniac cleverly agreed with this but also must have admired Rocksteady’s work on the Batman Arkham series. I say this because to me Spider-Man on PS4 feels like an amalgamation of the two.
Travelling around a city has rarely, if ever, felt better in a game. You could (I did) literally spend hours just swinging around weaving in and out of buildings. Climbing to the top and jumping off like a missile. There is even more advanced moves you can unlock as part of your skill tree that make traversal even more fun, intuitive and rewarding.
At certain points throughout the game you get to play as character other than Spidey for a short period. To me this was another clever move and was spaced out well enough that those sections always seemed to crop up just as you needed a break from the frantic, fast paced action.
I could see how to some die hard Spider-Man fans the story may be a little paint by numbers, but as a casual fan I really enjoyed it. All the main characters are voiced and performed to a very high standard. I have read some criticism about MJ not being a prominent enough character but you have to remember that this is clearly the first in what will become a franchise and it stands to reason that Insomniac would hold some stuff back for future games.
When you look back at the story after completion, without going too far into spoiler territory I feel like they struck a good balance between the length, the villains used and the side content. If you choose to ignore the mass amounts of collectables, side missions and misc objectives the story is shorter than most open world games, but the extra content is so well woven in to the overall narrative that it all gels into one.
In terms of value I highly recommend this game. As I said above this is shorter than most open world games, but it is a dense, well put together experience that with all extra content will keep you busy for for around 25 hours. Starting October 23rd there will be a DLC drop each month for three months which should keep those craving more entertained for the rest of 2018.
Spider-Man is one of the absolute best games of 2018. Heck, it’s one of the best games of this generation. Much like the Batman Arkham series it is a joy to play from start to finish. The combat and web slinging alone would keep you entertained for the duration, but a well acted and good paced story all come together in a magnificent package. Insomniac have proven themselves masters of their craft and I genuinely feel bad for gamers on other platforms that they might miss out on a game that will continue to be talked about for years to come. If for any reason you do not own a PS4 already, this is a system seller.
-VDZE
Reviewed on PS4.
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