This game rekindled my love of Spider-Man, back in my youth I was a huge Spidey fan. I grew up on the 90's cartoon and the Raimi movies, but as I got older I moved onto other heroes like Ghost Rider, which apparently Spidey has a Ghost Rider suit.
They say webswinging is what makes a Spider-Man game and Insomniac nailed it. Swinging around NYC is fun, intuitive, and a joy to try and master. Spider-Man swings at a good speed, I never felt as if i was getting confused by super fast movement.
Talking about the combat gameplay brings up the elephant in the room, the comparisons to Batman Arkham. While there is an obvious influence, especially in the stealth sections, it's no carbon copy like Mad Max or Captain America. Batman fights more like a stationary object, Spidey is all over the place, with a healthy dose of aerial combat. Calling it an Arkham knock-off is a disservice.
The world Insomniac created is a blast to spend time in. NYC is big & varied place with lots of little nods. And the city is alive with people who react to Spidey, and there's even a Twitter feed you can read through with hilarious results. With Marvel being a big shared universe, Insomniac could've thrown in Easter eggs to every other current movie, but they restrained themselves to mostly the Spider-Verse, with light references to the wider Marvel world, such as finding the Sanctum Sanatorium or having Daredevil's lawyer card. My favorite reference is to the stopping the train from Spider-Man 2.
Like Arkham. this game is in it's own universe and I love their takes of the characters, from Rhino's mech suit to a bit more active Mary Jane. I heard some reviewers giving MJ's character flak, but I think Laura Bailey did a fine job and I liked that MJ wasn't a damsel in distress, but they also didn't swing her too far into the "I don't need no man" direction. Peter Parker is a well rounded character and has some great quips that I got a laugh out of. Tombstone had a great redesign, instead of being a bland hitman, he's a biker gang leader. And it's interesting to see how JJ Jameson's would be viewed in today's world, he's a "gay frog" rant away from being Alex Jones.
Now, onto the story, the one thing I have some complaints about and to air them I'll be going into light to heavy spoilers, so skip to the 'all in all' if you want.
While I loved all the characters, I felt the story they were in had some problems with pacing. After fighting Kingpin, and a battle with Shocker, all of the supervillain fights are backloaded in the story. I'd rather they be sprinkled throughout. But that's not my biggest complaint, and the heavier spoilers, Dr. Octavius' story has the slowest pacing & seems unnecessary. It starts off good with him & Peter working to create a robotic prosthetic arm, sort mixing Otto's character with a little of Dr. Conner's, but after it fails thanks to Norman, all the other visit to the lab just have me asking, "Are you Doc Ock yet? We know how this ends." During the last act he becomes Doc Ock, breaks out six villains, builds new gear for them, and formulates a plan to kill Norman in an evening. There were hints that Otto hated Norman prior to this, but never any I remember of him secretly constructing a plan.
Otto serves the role of a mentor close to Peter with good intentions who becomes corrupted, but the game already has that character trope, Martin Li. He's the big bad for most the game and has a stronger connection to other characters beside Peter, mostly Aunt May, so I felt the story would be stronger with just him. He wants to destroy Norman as well for a lab test gone wrong and I feel there was an interesting Jekyll & Hyde dynamic that never got explained cause he gets sidelined when Ock arrives. And I wasn't real familiar with Mr. Negative, I was out of Spider-Man after the Raimi series, so I was interested in his character. I could see Insomniac or their Sony/Marvel overlords requesting Doc Ock be the main baddie because they don't want their 1st Spidey outing to focus on a B-list baddie. Still, the battle with Doc Ock was great with some solid writing where it's revealed Ock knows Parker is Spider-Man, of course. By the game's end, all the main characters know Pete's secret. Also, yeah, I was surprised they killed off Aunt May. Her character is usually used just to be always in need of help, whether medical or financial, but rarely does she die. Focusing more on Li & FEAST would also give us more time spent with Aunt May to really solidify that bond.
All in all, this game is a great Spider-Man game and a great superhero game in a time when most superheroes are relegated to mobile games. It's a great start to what will obviously be a trilogy of games. Next time though, let us adjust the screen size, there was a black border around the whole game.
