Game Commentary: Spider-Man PS4

I find it a little funny that I have to either precede or lead the actual title of the game with its platform of choice but it is necessary so as to avoid confusion. This is, after all, the best Spider-Man game to date. I could also use ‘Insomniac’s Spider-Man’ but that’s a bit of a mouthful, ain’t it?

I pre-ordered Spider-Man (as I always do) months before its launch in anticipation of a 6-hour stint for when I could finally pick it up and sink my teeth into it. And I did! I finished the game in less than a week. 100% on everything. A clean coverage. Why did this Game Commentary take so long to come out you ask? Life is difficult and I had to dedicate time to alleviate, at the very least, some of that stress. But I’m back! On to the commentary!

First and foremost, it is imperative to tackle the question regarding the gameplay for this title. Any comic book, gamer friend can tell you that the very first thing you need to nail when making a Spider-Man game is the gameplay, i.e. the web-swinging has to be dynamic, fluid and fun. This is exactly how it is in this game. Swinging around New York is amazing, no pun intended— well actually, it IS a Spider-Man game so, pun intended!

The controls are incredibly simple too. Hold R2 to swing with X to jump at the peak of a swing for an extra boost to speed. You repeat this as necessary and you’d find yourself flying above smaller building and weaving between larger ones with the speed that makes being Spider-Man incredibly alluring. You can click L3 for a dive, you can use X to pull yourself in a direction you want, and you can even zip to any location within reach and launch off of it for better control.

The way everything has been put together flows so well that the movement never stops. There are a lot of contextual actions that have been smartly placed so that you will never lose your momentum (assuming you react fast enough). You can wall run on buildings, vault yourself over rooftops, re-launch almost immediately after a bad landing, hell you can even do tricks! Sure, you don’t get to choose which hand you want to shoot webs out of (come on, someone else must want this feature too!) but what you can do is enough to make you feel like Spider-Man!

Going from traversal to combat is as smooth as butter. You can swing in on any enemy and immediately attack. If you feel like you need a breather, just swing on out (but they do have guns so you have to watch out for that either way). The controls are distinct enough that you can utilise both traversal and combat whenever you need to so play it however you want to play it. The battle controls are simple: an attack button, a zip to attack button (pull yourself to an enemy to attack him), a dodge button and a jump button. Really simple and you can use them in different ways such as holding down a button or pressing two buttons at the same time. Again, lots of contextual actions depending on what you do (ground or air attacks) or what’s around you. You can grab objects and throw them at enemies, or throw back their grenades or just throw the damn enemies themselves after webbing them up!

Speaking of webbing, you have access to an array of gadgets you can make use of in many different situations. I won’t spoil them here but these gadgets make everything you do that much more fun. Even during stealth sequences, the gadgets aid in clearing out enemies in, sometimes, extremely funny ways.

Different suits also come with different abilities that you can use to alter your combat approach, finishers are fun to pull off and can immediately incapacitate enemies, you can hang upside down from ceilings! I mean, you get the idea. The gameplay is extremely satisfying. You ARE Spider-Man.

Gameplay aside, I believe there's another important factor to any Spider-Man medium, regardless of whether it’s a game or a movie. Don't know it? Ask your comic book, gamer friend again. What's that? That's right! The characters.

They are essential to the idea of a homely boy turned superhero with a naïve sense of justice to protect anyone and everyone around him. The game does this so well that at points, I just wanted to remain as Peter Parker for a while longer before suiting up and being a superhero again. Of course, this is also due to the genius of the casting for the characters such as Yuri Lowenthal as Peter Parker or Laura Bailey as Mary Jane Watson.

Even the villains get their fair share of the spotlight and at the end of it all, you really get a feel for who they are as people and their mark on the story. The story itself was pretty incredible too that sometimes, I just rushed from story point to story point because I wanted to know what was going to happen. I had many good laughs, some ‘Oh shit!’ scenarios and of course, with any Spider-Man medium, some truly heart-wrenching moments.

The story and characters are further emphasized by the presence of a spectacular soundtrack and some jaw-dropping beauty. I played on a 4K TV with a decent pair of headphones and every single time, I get blown away. The main theme is heroically epic while the slower tunes tend to waltz their way into my heart, all that with mind-blowing lighting effects during the day and an astounding cityscape at night.

You know, I haven’t even talked about the upgrade system, mini-games, side missions, street and map activities, collectibles or even the J. Jonah Jameson podcast! But those are pretty straightforward things with some nice surprises so I’ll leave those for you to explore.

If anything, I can make mention of some of the poorer performing parts of the game. I found some or rather, quite a lot of parts to be generic open world activities that were okay but I’d rather they invest less in the number of things you can do and more in the quality of the things you will want to do. The mini-games were rather basic but still a little bit of guilty fun so it was unfortunate that it wasn’t used in any meaningful matter. For example, the circuitry mini-game would have been way more fun if it was implemented in the upgrading of your gadgets rather than just something you do for almost no reason.

Saying the open world feels generic is a big statement but don't get me wrong, the foundation is as solid as it can be. This is the ultimate Spider-Man game that we have been waiting for with a satisfying focus given to the core aspects of what makes us love Spider-Man to begin with. Insomniac Games, a studio who usually sees itself as the underdog in games development, has taken up the mission to represent Marvel’s most beloved in the video games scene and certainly makes good on that promise.

With great power, there must also come great responsibility.