I was prompted to make a grouvee account and start cataloguing my gaming experiences because Spider-Man was so good that I was overwhelmed by the need to tell EVERYONE in my life to play it.

Seriously. That good.

One thing I love about the narrative design of this game is that you constantly feel the pressure of Peter Parker's / Spider-Man's obligations. From your in-suit phone (which itself is such a fun touch, since you can get as much exposition as you want without needing to stop swinging) you receive calls from Peter's friends and family, calls from Spider-Man's "professional" contacts, and podcasts (yes!!) from our favorite hater J. Jonah Jameson. You feel pulled in all these different directions, just like Peter.

Side-note, I felt like JJJ's podcast managed to be all of the following at once:

• A love letter to Spider-Man lore and the characters in it, even (especially?) Jameson himself.
• A self-indulgent jokefest for the writers (in a great way)
• A lampoon of alt-right conspiracy theorists

And it worked fabulously!

But back to the game: I also love how frustrating it is to NOT be Spider-Man during the main quest. You feel helpless, until you get your bearings and discover what's within your reach - literally, by looking for interactibles , and figuratively, by making an actual difference to the story. This game knows how to manipulate player emotion in a great and powerful way.

Not only that, but it's just pure fun! The mechanics for moving and fighting are all really smooth and natural, once you get the hang of it. After about an hour of playtime, I was completely competent on the controls, which is rare for me, lol.

The story is fantastic and better-handled than most of the Spider-Man movies. It's compelling and keeps you guessing. Even when you think you know what the twist is, I can almost guarantee that there's three more just out of sight.

This game, for me, represents a perfect gateway into flow state. I felt challenged, but never frustrated, interested, but never confused, and immersed, but never limited. In games, I usually expect final bosses to be miserable slogs to get through, but in Spider-Man, every major fight is perfectly paced and kept in the scope of your chosen difficulty. For me, it took the stress out of late-game (in a good way) and let me focus fully on the narrative and cinematics.

It's a wonderful experience from start to finish. I can't recommend it enough!

Insomniac pretty much nailed this one.

Spider-Man on PS4 combines most of my favorite parts of Neversoft's Spider-Man (2000), Treyarch's Spider-Man 2 (2004), and Rocksteady's Arkham trilogy. Yet the whole manages to be greater than the sum of its parts because everything feels so tuned to the character and setting.

Whereas Batman feels like a self-assured force of nature in combat, Spider-Man is squirrelly. Mashing punch and occasionally dodging won't suffice... you will be dodging, swinging, spinning webs, and shifting styles to counter your opponent, all while dropping a variety of the character's trademark tension-breaking quips.

That element of improvisation extends to traversal. The variety of ways Spider-Man can get from Point A to Point B aren't just for the player's benefit: Each has pros and cons depending on the environment, direction and altitude.

All that sounds like it would make the game intimidating or unapproachable, but that's not the case. The popular comparison to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is apt: Chaining all these elements together becomes a really joyful experience.

These mechanics are complimented by a really lovely alternate universe (Earth-1048 for my fellow Marvel nerds out there) that acts as sort of an updated "greatest hits" version of all Spider-media, similar to what Rocksteady did with the Arkham games. The villains and supporting cast are all terrific. In particular I really appreciated Mary Jane Watson's role in the story... in my opinion, she's never been a more interesting character than here.

Even the citizens react to your presence with character and spontaneity. While Arkham Knight captured the scale of Gotham City, its streets were a mostly-abandoned warzone. The New York in this game feels like a real city with real people in it, which is pretty remarkable.

I do have a few minor critiques. While I appreciated the variety they lent to the story, a fair amount of the non-Spider-Man sequences felt like a chore to me. Spidey's stealth missions never feel quite as satisfying or natural as Batman's, with less gradual escalation and more of a binary pass/fail per opponent. As a comic book fan, I would have liked to have seen one or two more cameos from the broader Marvel universe.

But overall, this feels like the Spidey game I've wanted since I finished Neversoft's take on my Dreamcast almost two decades ago. Worth the wait!

Marvel’s Spider-Man allows you to take control of Spider-Man as he tries to keep New York CIty safe. The game starts with Spider-Man helping the police arrest Fisk in a well constructed, action packed tutorial sequence. You would think that taking down the biggest crime lord in New York would give Spicer-Man a break but it quickly turns out to be the catalyst that would see New York under siege from several well known enemies from Spider-Man’s past. Overall, I really enjoyed the main story. It felt like it would make a great story arc in a Spider-Man comic and is also able to maintain a great balance between keeping the story accessible to newcomers to the Spider-Man universe and paying a little fan service, with cameos, to long-time Spider-Man fans.

The main story is only a small part of the game. Marvel’s Spider-Man has a lot of side quests, activities and collectibles for you to get sidetracked with. Initially, the side quests and optional activities are quite varied, such as a mixture of fighting criminals and using your gadgets to support the research stations. However, once you get about half way through the game, you start to see a bit of repetition in these tasks. For example, you will start the game being able to uncover Fisk’s hideouts. There aren’t that many on the map and is easily doable in the first act of the game. So, you clear them and move on to the second act, which reveals another factions' hideouts, which have to be dealt with in the same way as the Fisk hideouts. This happens three times throughout the game with just the hideouts alone- same thing just cosmetically different looking enemies. I personally would have preferred either fewer side activities with more variety in the tasks. That being said this is only a small negative, as these are all optional activities and there were plenty of tasks that I really enjoyed, like exploring New York city in order to take pictures of famous landmarks.

Speaking of exploring the city, let’s talk about the mechanics. Web swinging is easily one of the best aspects of the game and Insomniac Games should be praised for how well they implemented it. I found myself just enjoying building up my swing speed and performing aerial acrobatics through Hell’s Kitchen. The other mechanic that I felt was well implemented was the spidey sense. It is very similar to the combat mechanic in the Batman Arkham games but it still feels like it fits into a Spider-Man game. I also like the implementation of suit powers and gadgets, which allow you to play Marvel’s Spider-Man the way you want to play.

The final two elements of the game I want to talk about are the setting and the music. Insomniac Games have done a great job in creating a city that feels like a city. As you swing by on your way to your next crime scene, you will hear the citizens of New York yell out to you, car horns and subway trains. You will experience the city through different times of the day and in all weathers- all of this just helps to immerse you into the world of Spider-Man. I also like the fact that Insomniac Games avoided the temptation of making this a huge sprawling open world game. Yes, New York city is big but you can still web swing from one end of the city to the other in a reasonable amount of time. The final thing I want to briefly mention is the music. John Paesano has done an incredible job with Marvel’s Spider-Man’s musical score. It fits so well and gives the game an epic cinematic feel. I love the soundtrack so much that I have saved it on Spotify so I can listen to whilst writing these game reviews.

I think it is pretty clear that I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Marvel’s Spider-Man. It is clear that Insomniac Games had spent a lot of time and care in creating a game that feels like it is part of the Spider-Man universe, rather than a game that has Spider-Man in it. Some of the quests do feel a little repetitive but that is a small part of the experience and did not detract from my experience. Overall, I highly recommend Marvel’s Spider-Man, especially of you are looking for a game to play on your PS4.

I played this after a long sequence of From Software games for some light relief and because of the PS5 enhancements (got to justify that purchase). I was way more impressed than I expected to be.

The title pretty much says it all. In this game, you are Spider-Man. Swinging through NY feels amazing and it was never dull, like in most open world games, to travel from mission to mission.

The combat is pretty easy but great fun, although Miles Morales does improve the combat significantly with the venom system. It can get a bit repetitive when you refine down to a small set of pretty reliable moves but it still looks and feels very cool.

Cinematics and quick-time events aren't my favourite, but they are so well done in this game that it was hard not to feel like you had, in fact, just stopped that helicopter crashing into the street, even though the game just told you to spam L2/R2.

Graphics on the PS5 are sensational (although Miles Morales ups the game even further) and the RT reflections are stunning in a city full of windows.

Audio is also excellent. Dramatic Spider-Man music at crucial moments and when you swing through the city and ongoing chat from characters to keep you interested and to guide you through the story and missions.

I ignored some of the open-world busywork (pigeons, for example) but I don't really object to it being there - it's a function of the open-world format and most of it was more fun that the tedious fetch quests that litter other games.

Overall, an outstanding, almost flawless game which I would say everyone should try. After a diet of soul-destroying FromSoft games, it was great to feel so awesome and empowered. 5/5

I have always loved Spider-Man but never been obsessed with him or his stories, but after this game, I want more and more. Not only is the protagonist written extremely well and realized from the comics, but the side characters and villains are also done justice. With the gold-tier rogue's gallery spider-man has, it was bound to be missing some of his foes, but even still they managed to fit so many characters that made the game a ton of fun. While the story was not at its best in the first few missions, once you reach the prison stage and onwards I was unable to put it down and even had a lot of emotional punches that caught me off guard! The New York setting feels extremely real and beautifully done. I also liked a lot of the side missions, but they did get repetitive, especially if you're going for that 100%, could have used more variety. I also wish the game had a more cooperative feel, where are Spider-Man' allies? Maybe that's just me since I like group dynamics better. Overall Insomniac knocked it out of the park as the gameplay was very smooth, with beautiful visuals, impressive music, and stellar writing. I would die a little if a sequel is never realized (fingers crossed for Miles and Spider-Gwen).

So, I literally just beat the game, so this review is going to be pretty messy. But, all my reviews are messy, so whatever

Let's start with the story, first, since that's on my mind right now. SPOILERS, obviously.

Story

The story as a whole is actually a little better than I thought it'd be, though it definitely has some flaws. I liked that they centered a lot of the story around the theme of past traumas and how they can affect people for the entire lives - this is explored through the characters of Martin Li and Otto Octavius. This is a pretty smart, albeit obvious, theme for a Spider-Man game, since the webslinger himself has the most famously tragic backstory ever this side of Batman, basically. The story explores how past traumas deeply affect the psyche of these three men, leading to a desire for revenge and "justice" in Li and Octavius, while Peter Parker derives his responsibility and his desire to do the right thing from his traumatic past. It's fairly well done, and allows the story to be centered around a single idea and a single person, really, since it's Norman Osborn who Li and Octavius seek vengeance against. This keeps the story fairly clean, despite juggling so many characters (and so many antagonists, especially), which could've gone off-the-rails otherwise. The relationship between Octavius and Osborn is crucial, and it's from there that most of the conflict ultimately arises.

There are flaws, though. Martin Li, despite taking center stage for the first half of the game or so, is simply knocked aside by Octavius in one of the climactic cutscenes. It's disappointing that his character didn't get more of a satisfactory ending, especially since he's one of the more interesting characters in the entire game. By the point that Octavius clearly becomes the main boss, it would've been nice if Li had more of an opportunity for redemption, though that's simply wishful thinking on my part. The same goes for the Doc Ock, too, though that might be my deep love for Raimi's Spider-Man 2 coloring my opinions.

The story, at several points, suffers from what I like to call "narrative blue-balls" - the writers clearly set up what could be a serious confrontation between Spider-Man and one of his villains, but Spider-Man is conveniently incapacitated or somehow distracted, and the villain is allowed to escape to set up their real confrontation, later on. I can understand why they do this, as it's a sort of short-cut to setting up tension in the plot and between our favorite webslinger and his villains, but it always feels deeply contrived and annoying.

It's also clear that there are plenty of characters who are introduced but pulled away before they can actually do anything terribly interesting, like Silver Sable (who just, like, leaves the city to go do some soul-searching, which is kinda funny), Black Cat (who, to be fair, only appears in her own side quests), and Miles Morales (the ultimate sequel bait). I'm being a bit unfair, though, since Morales is sorta important to the story, but it's clear they're mostly just setting him up for future games. Anyone who's seen any MCU movies will understand my frustration over this, though, since so many of those movies seem to exist only to set up future movies, which exist only to set up movies even further down the line.

I kind of like the exploration of the relationship between MJ and Peter, and them learning to work as partners and Peter especially learning to trust her more and see her as more of an equal. Though the ending they get at the diner, where they kiss, feels a little jarring, it's still a cute moment.

Oh, and the Sinister Six is there, sort of, but they feel a bit like the writers threw them in to include some fan favorites and to pad out the length of the story. They're fun to see, but also not terribly important. Taking down Wilson Fisk to start the whole game off is a nice bit of excitement, too, but his importance to the plot is his absence, leaving a power vacuum in the city for Martin Li to take advantage of.

AGAIN, SERIOUS SPOILERS AHEAD

I was so surprised by how emotional I got over Aunt May's death, too. Afflicted by the Oscorp-designed bioweapon, she was on death's door during Spider-Man's climactic fight with Doc Ock. Not only is that tragic in and of itself, but Spider-Man had with him the antidote that would've saved her - but if he used it on her, it couldn't be used on the thousands of others who would've needed it. The reveal that she knew all along that her own nephew was Spider-Man was really powerful, too. Yeah, I cried.

Okay, phew. On to gameplay and stuff now.

Gameplay

The webslinging rules. Basically everyone has said something about this by now, but yeah, it's fucking great. Don't really want to spend too much time on this. It just works.

The combat is a lot of fun, too. I was a bit wary of it at first, since it seemed a bit too derivative of the Arkham Batman style. As I got more comfortable with it, and as I unlocked more moves and gadgets and suit powers, the more I enjoyed it. Once you get past the superficial similarities to the Arkham games, it becomes clear that this style of combat is pretty unique to Spider-Man - you fight with speed and agility and the ability to launch your opponents into the air and chain off aerial combos to your heart's desire. Throw in all of the different webshooter gadgets and suit powers and you can do some pretty crazy things in battle. You have a huge list of moves to pull from, and chaining them together in unique ways is a lot of fun.

It's not all good, though. You know me, I always have to nitpick stuff. The stealth sections where you're playing as MJ or Morales are just awful. You're just crouched down behind waist-high cover, hoping people don't see you. You get some gadgets for them to use as you progress through the game, but they only help so much. These missions are always such a jarring shift from the exciting, balls-to-the-wall action of the usual Spider-Man missions that it's always such a disappointment when you realize you have to play through them.

The side quest design also leaves a lot to be desired, since you're doing stuff that you do in basically every single open world game, like activating towers to see the map, clearing bases, and doing other dumb errands. I didn't really mind, though, since the pure thrill of webslinging and combat is just so much fun, but I'm sure some were more bothered by them than I was.

The boss fights also aren't terribly exciting. They're not that hard, for one, and each boss has a fairly simple weakness for you to exploit over and over again until you win. You get a hang of their attack patterns fairly quickly, too, so they don't really provide too much of a challenge. I did play it on the standard "Amazing" difficulty, though, so that might be affecting my opinion.

The game looks fantastic, too, and New York is lovingly rendered down to its puddles and piles of trash. Travelling and taking pictures of famous landmarks is a lot of fun, and is probably the best bit of virtual tourism this generation besides Watch Dogs 2. Swinging between the beautifully-rendered, distinctly New York-ian buildings is a truly wonderful and unique experience.

Anyway, this is a good game. It's super fucking fun, the story is solid, and it looks amazing. What more could you want, besides all of the flaws and nitpicks I pointed out getting fixed? Exactly.

Also, Yuri Watanabe is the only character of all time. Don't @ me

Re-visiting this game in prep for Spider-Man 2 PS5. I originally bought my PS4 to play Spider-Man PS4, and I did the same for Spider-Man 2 PS5 (bought the limited edition Spider-Man console bundle). This game is just fun, plain and simple. This is the best super-hero video game of all time. The combat flows so well, and the swinging is very engaging and fluid. Combat encounters are fresh with a plethora of different enemy types, though I wish there were more than like 10 unique finishers. The gadgets are a blast to use as well. They offer so much variety in how you approach combat situations, or you don't even have to use them at all! Combat is much more engaging than a game such as the Arkham series (no hate, I love those games too). Leveling up and getting new suits/moves/gadgets was great as well. Level progression is very fun/rewarding here. Most of the suit designs they chose to add in the base game and dlc are good.

The game does take a nose dive in boss fights however. Every single boss fight boils down to using R1 L1 to web up an item, press triangle to zip to the boss, then mash square. Repeat that 3-5 times and you win. I felt like they could've done so much more with their boss fights. The ONE time they switch it up is with the Mr. Negative fights where you have to dodge his blasts in a certain way, but even then you end up pressing triangle to zip to him after he exhausts all his energy, then proceed to once again mash square.

Story is solid, though shorter than I remember it being back when I originally played this in 2018. It's pretty predictable, but I think that's kind of the point. It kept me engaged enough to want to keep playing through it, I just beat it way faster than I would have expected. I played on spectacular difficulty in both base game and dlc. Honestly I think the story is a littttttle overhyped, but it's still solid and I like this spider-verse a lot actually, very curious to see how our characters and this game universe progress in Spider-Man 2. DLC is meh, nothing to write home about. First chapter is solid, pretty interesting story with Black Cat, but I didn't care for the Maggia/Hammerhead plot line all that much. That final fight against cyborg Hammerhead is GOOFY AF LMAO. He does these little jumps at you like a frog and I was dying laughing the entire time, I didn't recall that boss fight from when I completed the DLC when it first released. Also Black Cat shows up again for two mins in the final chapter of the dlc to save Peter, then is never heard from again or mentioned by anyone after that? Strange.

Wrapping things up here, I really don't like the new character model they chose for Peter in this remastered edition. Maybe it's because I grew to know the original character model back when I played it during release, but this new character model/actor just doesn't do it for me. Peter is supposed to be 23 years old in this game, and the original model captured that perfectly. The new model looks like a an older high school student. Not sure why they decided to change the model, but oh well. Anyways, this game is awesome and sure to please any fan of Spider-Man. Onto Miles Morales next, which I did play but only the main story. Then the big one in October, Spider-Man 2.