Marvel's Spider-Man (2018)

So this has finally released on PC - has anyone decided to pick it up despite already completing it on playstation?

I love this game and it's currently on sale for £38. Just trying to decide if it's worth paying that much for a game i've already completed. I'd be purchasing it purely for photo mode, mods, and some casual swinging about.

The City that Never Sleeps has some truly enjoyable moments mixed in with some of the lower points of the series. While I did have fun playing it, I have to admit that I’m walking away uncomfortable with the following pattern across the two games and DLC:

Character of colour that uses lethal means to pursue and stop a bad-guy = villain that Spidey tries to stop.

White character that uses lethal means to pursue and stop a bad-guy = hero that Spidey teams up with.

There’s obviously more nuance to this critique, but the pattern that Insomniac has set up isn’t my favourite. I think I have very high hopes for the next game but I am have a lot of concerns and reservations.

I slept on it a bit and still come to the conclusion that what the game did with Yuri does fundamentally bother me. On the one had I appreciate that there is a potential for a critique of the police and abuse of power, but given Pete’s close cooperation with the police that critique risks being pretty toothless. Yet, once again a character of colour is largely defined by a link to violence and revenge.

This is exacerbated by the fact that Yuri is essentially underdeveloped to begin with. Unlike Martin Li and Phin Mason, we don’t get to spend a significant portion of time with her personal story. Her story is mostly pieced together through sound bites and telephone calls. For the most part Yuri is a plot device, a character almost exclusively designed to advance the action in the base game. To develop her character in a direction that leads to yet another revenge plot reduces her to a trope that Insomniac has leaned on far too many times over the course of the two games.

I should stress, there is nothing wrong with POCs cast as villains, but to cast a significant portion of the only POCs with generous dialogue and screen time in the same mould, the trope of the wronged who is seeking revenge through problematic means, strips all of them of their uniqueness as characters and reduces most of the game’s racial representation to that of what the game paints as unjustified violence and vigilantism.

This is something I think Insomniac sorely needs to work on and remedy in the next game. How they handle this in future might affect my ability to enjoy the stories they tell. It’s already affecting my ability to enjoy the first game’s DLC.

Screwball missions are so much like Sunset Overdrive missions that I want to skip them entirely. They were cute for a bit, and at first they made me miss Sunset Overdrive. But by The Heist they overstayed their welcome and just like a lot of the bloat in Sunset Overdrive they make me want to avoid them altogether and power through the main story content instead. I once said that Insomniac took all the good from Sunset Overdrive and transferred it to Marvel’s Spider-Man but now I realize they also took some of the bad.

I’m really sad how much the DLC content is starting to diminish my experience of this game. This is why I’m worried about the potential for excessive content in Spider-Man 2. Sunset Overdrive is far too large a game with too much content that feels better to skip than complete. The base content of Marvel’s Spider-Man was pretty close to perfect. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales hit the ideal sweet spot of content and length. The DLC content of the first game overextends the game in ways that force me to question whether they contribute to the game in meaningful ways. If Spider-Man 2 is even longer I’m afraid of the kind of burnout I experience with other big AAA games. One of the things I love about Insomniac, aside from great mechanics and gameplay, is manageable length. They have shown a tendency to keep things reasonable. I hope that’s not changing.

I’m excited for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 because Insomniac knows how to take conventions of AAA games that I typically find tedious and infuses them with fun. Yet, despite my excitement I do have a laundry list of things I’d love to see Insomniac change, remove or include in this sequel:

1. A reduction in the staggering number of side missions and collectables that were present in Marvel’s Spider-Man. While I’ll admit that I thought the first game handled this well, my recent stint replaying the game immediately after replying Miles Morales revealed a game that is too bogged down in meaningless side activities that detract from the strengths of the game. While Insomniac has a talent for making all of the content count, they arguably did a much better job balancing the side content with the main content in Miles-Morales. Furthermore, Miles Morales’ side content is frequently deeper, more meaningful and contributes to Miles’ overall growth in ways that the first game simple doesn’t muster. A lot is taken for granted about Peter, and his growth as a character is typically only the stuff of main missions, with side missions contributing little to his personal growth as a character. There are exceptions, like Howard’s pigeons and Harry’s research stations, but the latter feels excessive in repeat play-throughs because it barely grazes the surface of Harry’s story, and his relationship to Peter. Marvel’s Spider-Man is best when it’s exploring real character connections and this feels like lip service to Harry. Similarly the Task Master challenges feel like mechanical relics of older open world games matched with Marvel’s need to shoehorn as many characters into a property as possible. Compare this to activities like collecting sound samples with your Uncle or postcards and audio messages from your dad in Miles Morales. These activities are central to Miles’ development as a character and add depth to the overall game. They are joyous to interact with because they add that depth while not simply meant as busywork. That content pairs up with main story content in a perfect balance that never leaves the game activities feeling tedious or excessive.

2. Focus on character interaction and relationships rather than rote action. Marvel’s Spider-Man thrives on its characters and their relationships. Although swinging through town is incredible, even better are the moments when Pete’s actions drive character development forward rather than simply driving plot alone. Again Miles-Morales enacts this and balances it with the main story much better than the first game. I hope Insomniac has learned from both Miles-Morales and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and brings a similar increased emphasis on character to Spider-Man 2.

3. A humble more mature Pete. Despite Pete’s difficult childhood, he remains a man of certain privilege and that is painfully obvious in the first game. Sadly it’s not something I think Insomniac set out to critique. But with some of the nuance employed in Mile-Morales I’m hoping they are more aware and willing to explore maturing Pete. His willingness to work with the police is born out of this privilege, and I’d like to see Pete recognize that and reject the power structures that enable the status quo. If he is fighting for the people he needs to fight the status quo. I hate that something that is often the burden borne by minority communities is thrust upon Miles while Pete is blissfully ignorant. Miles already carries the weight of fighting the status quo alone, and it would be nice if Pete is able to take responsibility for his own part bolstering existing power structures. I’d like to see Pete reject institutions like the Police. I’d like him to question many of the assumptions he blindly makes in the first game about criminality, crime, drugs and other things his privilege has led him to pass judgment upon. I’d like the game to explore Pete’s relationship to power structures and institutions of authority in ways he fails to do in the first game, and ways that Miles automatically challenges in his game. At the very least I’d like a return of community over authority as represented by the Friendly Neighbourhood app in the second game. No more Spider-Cop because Spider-Man should be a member of the community that is working with the community, not policing it.

4. A more nuanced exploration of authority and policing related power structures. Both of the first games use mercenaries to stand in as representative of corrupt power and institutions. Sable and Roxxon mercenaries are the bad cops. I want to see an explicit critique of regular municipal police forces and abuses of power. I don’t want the cops exempted from that, I want the game to rightful include them among the groups that threaten the community, as they do in real life. I hope Insomniac has it in them to critique power structures and the status quo maintained by police forces rather than pinning everything on one bad-guy or one bad private corporation.

5. Mainstream minority characters, especially BIPOC members that are not always relegated to the role of vengeful, retaliatory villains of colours and that are often depicted as ignoring the people they care about due to personal trauma, or are fridged or killed off as motivation for other characters. Both Spider-Man games contain a host of visible minority characters, yet less than a handful have pivotal roles within the story. Martin Li is a central villain in Marvel’s Spider-Man. His back story is that trauma inflicted on him by Norman Osborn leads him to kill his own parents and then eventually risk all the good he’s ever done for revenge. Phin Mason is the central villain in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Her back story is that trauma inflicted by the murder of her brother by Simon Krieger leads her to risk all the good she’s ever done for revenge. Both Martin and Phin choose to harm everyone close to them in a crusade against one man. Both disregard the fact that a Spider-Man would probably help them bring the subject of their vengeance to justice. I know this is a common trope among comic book villains, and we see this with Octavius in the first game, but the fact that two of the few Black or Asian characters in the game are given this treatment ties a great deal of the villainy in the games to racial minorities. Second to that is the death of Jefferson Davis, a Black character that sticks around for one and a half main story missions in the first game before dying to advance the plot. Both games don’t have the best track record for characters of colour that aren’t either villains, dead or relegated to minor roles like Yuri Watanabe.

6. Equal screen-time for Miles and Pete or the ability to choose Miles for the bulk of the game. I either want something structured like Rift Apart where you alternate between Mikes and Pete or have the ability to pick Miles for all content save for some key story missions that require Pete.

7. A shorter game. I know it won’t be as short as Miles Morales, a game that basically hits the sweet spot of story and length, but I hope that Insomniac trims a bit of the excess of the first game.

8. Keep and expand on the mechanical improvements made in Miles Morales a game that vastly refined almost every aspect of the first game for the better.

9. Spider-Gwen. This might seem like a pipe-dream addition but it isn’t such a far fetched idea. Gwen doesn’t need to be from another universe. Comic book miles is from Earth 1610. In that universe Parker is dead and Miles is the only Spider-Man. Marvel’s Spider-Man takes place on Earth 1048 where Morales and Parker are both Spider-Man. Spider-Gwen is from Earth 65 where Parker is also dead and there is no Miles. Insomniacs decision to set the game in Earth 1048 means that there is no established canon and they can essentially play with character backgrounds. So if both Miles and Peter exist on Earth 1048, so can Spider-Gwen. And if that’s true Insomniac can replicate what they did with Miles in the first game, introducing Gwen as a regular character and slowly foreshadowing her eventual powers. Then boom, we get Marvel’s Spider-Gwen.

Marvel's Spider-Man is nothing short of amazing. After years of Spider-Man floundering around in poorly designed and repetitive games, Insominiac finally did Spider-Man justice.

The web-swinging has finally been perfected and feels fantastic. Swinging around a visually impressive New York City finally feels satisfying and was the first time I actually tried to do neat tricks. Swinging around made me feel like a badass

The combat isn't perfect, but it is damn fun to fight in this game.

The music fits the feel of Spider-Man and I appreciate how it's only really played once you start swinging.

New York finally feels lived in and is also fairly accurate to the real city.

On top of that, the story (though pretty predictable) is extremely engaging and has plenty of touching moments that are both good and heartbreaking. The story has some depth and has some great voice acting.

Marvel's Spider-Man tells an engaging story, with amazing gameplay, web-swinging, and an amazingly detailed New York.

Insomniac has done justice for Spider-Man

Would Recommend

4/5

Mechanically, they really nailed this one. I felt like it hit flow state (perfect challenge level) consistently, ran very smoothly and hardly ever felt like the action got in the way of the narrative or vice versa. Traversal around the city was so fun and interesting that I'd sometimes just take a few extra laps around the burrough just to enjoy the web-slinging. Combat was smooth and varied, my biggest complaint being that the different factions didn't feel different to fight against.

The story was compelling enough to keep my interest, but other than a twist or two at the end, nothing to write home about unless you've never seen/read a Spider-Man or Marvel story before. Which is to say it adhered faultlessly to the Spider-Man mythos, which is not necessarily a bad thing but did make it somewhat predictable.

I'd describe myself as a merely casual fan of Spider-Man, but this game was so fun to play that I'd buy a sequel no question.

So everything in this game is great, voice acting, story, characters, comics fidelity, stealth gameplay, combat gameplay, movement.

But half of this is wasted going after collectibles required to upgrade your stuff, and none of that has anything to do with spider-man. I understand where the dev were going but if you gonna put a ton of semi mandatory content in your game then find a better context for it than "go chase pidgeons and take pictures of your own city to recalibrate gps settings" whatever that means.

Still a had a good time especially with the boss fights time but I'm sad this potential was not fully exploited.

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.

Really good. It has the same issue that I've been noticing in games recently where you have to upgrade yourself to the point where the game gets good. They start you off with a set of moves that's too basic. It really made a bad first impression. Felt like a lesser version of the Arkham games. Then you get enough moves, and the games starts to feel more unique. You can get more creative in combat making it more fun, and you web swinging gets better.

This version of Peter Parker was a little annoying. I don't read the comics, so I only know Peter from the movies. This version of Peter has a terrible sense of humor that gets grating throughout the game. There are moments where he shines as he genuinely cares about people, so he's not all bad.

The stealth sections are as annoying as I've heard. They remind me of The Order: 1886. In the final stealth section, MJ gets a taser. I wish they gave you that at the beginning of the game. I would've enjoyed these parts more.

I never quite understood Martin Li. I'm not sure why he was taking care of the homeless at F.E.A.S.T. at one moment, and then setting off a bomb at a press conference the next. Where Octavius had a reason for his change in behavior, I don't get what made Martin turn so evil. Maybe there was a detail I missed?

They really nailed web swinging in this game. It never got old. They give you an option for fast travel, and I never used it. Who would? I love the way he can run on buildings too.