Genre: Action-Adventure
Year: 2018
Developed by: Insomniac Games
Published by: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platforms: PS4, PS5, PC
#66
Feeling Like: GET ME VIDEO GAMES OF SPIDER-MAN!
I’m not even a Spider-Man guy, and I love Spider-Man. It’s hard not to lately – he was one of the standouts in the Infinity War/Endgame saga in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Then, Miles Morales was front and center in two of the best animated movies ever made in Into the Spider-Verse, and Across the Spider-Verse. But this isn’t a movie blog, it’s a video game blog and, yes, those iterations have rocked too.
I haven’t got my webbed hands on Spider-Man 2 just yet, but hoping to knock that off before I choose a Top 10 for 2023. But Insomniac burst the door down in 2018 with Spider-Man and it’s easily one of the best action games I’ve ever played. It’s right up there with Arkham Asylum for comic book adaptations, and it could’ve reached even greater heights without a major faux pas, but we’ll get to that.
Movement is the star of the show. The ways you can traverse New York City was a dream from previous generations, realized with modern hardware. The framerate never drops, there is detail for miles. You can run along the street like an Olympic sprinter, but what’s even cooler is you can sprint up the sides of buildings. The camera swings effortlessly as you change the axis you’re on instantly. It’s mind boggling how cool this is. Once you’re among the rooftops , it’s up to you – do you plunge down in a death defying leap only to swing away at the last second? Do you coast along, web-slinging from building to building? Do you careen in a horizontal fashion, chasing down a runaway vehicle? Do you perform aerial tricks at the apex of your swing? The freedom is staggering and seeking secrets of all types among a nest of concrete peaks is addicting. It’s the only game I can think of, aside from Xenoblade Chronicles X, where I refused to fast travel. I didn’t see the need; you can get from one end of the city to the other in mere moments, and it’s too much fun to swing. I did do it once, just to get the achievement. I’ll admit, seeing Spider-Man take the subway was a nice visual touch. I mean, even the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man needs public transportation once in a while.
Combat is stellar, even if it does borrow heavily from the Arkham series. You feel as light as a cloud, nimble as a ballerina and your punches connect like a truck. There are so many evasive maneuvers and offensive capabilities that each fight feels less like a puzzle, and more like a playground. There are very few games that offer me the ability to web-sling a rocket launched at me back into the face of the owner. In this regard, Spider-Man is fantastic.
There’s always something to do, even if the crimes and mini-challenges get repetitive by the end. Still, boredom never seeped in because the experience never overstays its welcome. One of the reasons I’m a huge fan of Persona 5 is that even if the campaign took me 108 hours, the journey is divided into bite sized morsels. So even if I only had 15 minutes for a session, I could still jump in and do a day’s worth of socializing, or studying, or getting snacks, or buying a present. Spider-Man is woven from the same cloth. I could jump in, do a few side missions or just swing around trying to find backpacks, or climb the Avengers tower and leave satisfied.
The story beats are solid too. Having Dr. Otto Octavius be your mentor puts us in a false sense of security and familiarity. The longtime classic villain is your friend? He’s not trying to kill you? He’s likeable and supportive, so the entire time I was hoping he wouldn’t turn heel…but come on. A leopard (octopus) never changes their spots. However, that doesn’t make the inevitable betrayal any easier to accept.
Insomniac was wise to take well known Spider-Man stories and put their own spin on them. Since I’ve never read a single Spider-Man graphic novel, and only saw a few episodes of the animated series, I was in the dark about the pillars of Spider-Man stories. I’d watched all the movies, sure, but a lot of the details that fans would squee over were lost on me. What I can tell is that they worked on me, the whole story. Every villain, every friend, every pressure Peter Parker feels, I felt alongside him. Aunt May’s fate in particular was a surprise. The only time I felt truly safe was riding the sky with my strands of web.
The lone reason Spider-Man isn’t higher on the 500 are the instant fail stealth missions. Boy howdy, do I hate instant fail stealth missions. My least favorite thing in gaming. It’s the reason I hate stealth games for the most part as a rule. I never find them fun, I always find them frustrating and I always fail over, and over again. Any progress I’ve made up until that point seems like a waste, and I verbally threaten to rage quit to nobody in particular. Once in a while, when you’re not in control of Spider-Man, these sections work really well. Like controlling Mary-Jane and you’re tasked with alerting a computer-controlled Spider-Man when to string up armed baddies who have taken over a building. That’s terrific. What’s not terrific is trying to ensure Rhyno doesn’t find Miles Morales. The first comment on the YouTube clip I searched for was this.
These stealth missions got on my last nerve.
Right there with you, @dadnbud
Mercifully, they removed these sections in Spider-Man: Miles Morales and made the experience even tighter as a result. However, there’s true greatness here and I’d be silly to punish Spider-Man any further because of it. Everything else here works: the story is interesting, I cared about the characters, I loved the combat and the free-flowing travel in the open world is among the best in gaming.
The 500 