Marvel's Spider Man is a action-adventure game only for PS4, which was developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It is based on the Marvel Comics superhero Spider-Man inspired by the long-running comic book mythology and adaptations in other media.
In my younger days where the stuff like comic books, TV stations and other types of media had introduced me a superhero related franchises that caught my attention as a kid back then.
Marvel Comics is one of the American comic books brand was founded in late 30's by Martin Goodman, while sharing with the well-known key people like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Stan Lee was responsible behind the successful superheroes like Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Fantastic Four, Captain America, and of course your friendly-neighbourhood Spider Man that everyone had talked about which is the reason why it got so popular back from 60's to nowadays.
Spider Man is a main poster boy of whole Marvel Comics was well known for his web-slinging action such as saving the people lives from broken buildings, chasing after the thugs, fighting against supervillains, and so many responsibilities that made him becoming the most recognisable superheroes of all-time.
The success of Spider Man comic book series had spawned with many film adaption, TV series, Toys figures and merchandises, and of course the video game series.
I grew up watching many of animated and film series relating to Marvel's franchises especially with both Spider Man's 1967's and 1994's animated series, and Sam Raimi's Spider Man film trilogy which is the reason why I liked the character as a whole that is quite amazing in my opinion.
I remember playing the games for my Gamecube based on Sam Raimi's film trilogy films such as Spider Man (2002) which is a decent web-slinging title, while the Spider Man 2 (2004) was heavily improved over the previous original being regarded as one of the best game in the series, until I just find out there is a recent Spider Man game just came out exclusively for PS4 in 2018 which many gaming press labelled the game as not just being the one of the highest-rated Spider Man game, but also fastest selling superheroes games of all-time which many had argued it's miles better than the previous entry of Spider Man games.
It's been for 16 years since I've played two of the Spider Man games on Gamecube, so I decided to pick up a copy of Marvel's Spider Man for PS4 which I've bought it out from Ebay for £12 thanks to Playstation's Day of Plays sales as I was expecting the game itself to be just as amazing depending on how many the numerous of quests, tasks, collectables, and many activities you have completed throughout the game and how is the story went on whole game had turned out to be, so the answer is yes I have enjoyed the new Spider Man game thanks to spectacular storylines, memorable cast of heroes and villains, large open-world area to explore, amazing fighting mechanics, and tons of replay values is what made the game amazingly fun to play.
Marvel's Spider Man on PS4 is definitely a better superheroes titles for Playstation consoles which I didn't expect the game was created by a team behind Ratchet and Clank and Resistance series which are also a great video game franchises, but I got to say this game is the one of the Insomniac Games's strongest title that bought out so many things to offer that they put up many efforts on their project turned out to be very successful at the release.
So without go further do, lets start the review.
Presentation
The game focusing on the event of criminal attack that takes place in New York City was responsible by the crime lord named Mister Negative who threatens to release a deadly virus as well as plotting to seize control of New York City's criminal underworld, so it is up to Spider Man to confront Mister Negative as well as protecting the city while dealing with the personal problems of his civilian persona as Peter Parker.
The story in the game is quite straightforward to follow the plot as a whole. You have Peter Parker, which we already know he's Spider Man in entire entry, had troubled with his many personal responsibilities such as working with respected scientist Dr. Otto Octivius in Octivius Industries, assisted with his ex-girlfriend Mary Jane Watson who works with Daily Bugle as reporter, and supporting his Aunt named May who volunteers at the F.E.A.S.T homeless shelter run by philanthropist named Martin Li which is the reason he struggles to balance his superhero and personal lives.
His mission brings him into conflict with several supervillains such as longtime foes Kingpin and superpowered gang Inner Demons run by Mister Negative who begin dividing the city as well as corrupting innocent people in the city.
It makes the story quite interesting when the person had to make two decisions whether is to protect the city as a superhero or helping out with the supporters as a normal guy which I really liked how the entire plot went well in the game.
I got to say most of the characters in the game is actually great. I really liked this version of Peter Parker in the game has cooler personality during the conversation between the characters, as he had a brighter look on his face that made him quite friendly with supportive characters.
I also liked him as a Spider Man sharing with his awesome humor and being energised superhero who spent most time to save a lot of people in the city which delivers his enthusiasm well in the whole game that made the character quite recognisable.
Then you have other character in the game such as Miles Morales which also delivers his interesting event that has happened in the game, so you may know him from the animated film such as Spider Man: Into the Spider Verse which is cool to have him being included in the game.
Then you have Sliver Sable who is the leader of private military company Sable International being hired by New York Mayor named Norman Osborn to stop Mister Negative and his terrorist group known as Inner Demons.
I got to say the game had a tons of villains on each acts such as the big fat bold head Kingpin, sparkling Electro, big boulder dude Rhino, the green stinger Scorpion, the flying Vulture, the wave blasting Shocker, skilled hand-to-hand combatant Taskmaster, the obnoxious wannabes Screwball, and the freakshow Tombstone in which I am so impressed to see any of the games that has large cast of villains.
I also wanted to give credit to two of the best villains in the game are Mister Negative who has ability to use his mind control power and healing touch which I think this character is actually pretty good in the game, while Dr. Octopus is by far one of the greatest villain of whole Spider Man universe that totally steals the show.
He's one of the character that taking revenge on New York Mayor's lies that he fully despised him which is the reason why his performance is quite chaotic due to his mechanical arms that affected his personal behaviour.
The presentation in the game is fully well done for its overall city environment. It has 6 to 9 districts such as Harlem, Upper West Side, Central Park, Upper East Side, Hell's Kitchen, Midtown, Greenwitch, Financial District, and Chinatown.
It has tour attractions and landmarks such as Avengers Tower, the Wakandan Embassy, the Sanctum Sanctorum, the law offices of Nelson and Murdock, Alias Investigations, the superhero cleanup company Damage Control, the Roxxon Energy Corporation, and Empire State University, as well as real-world locations such as the Empire State Building, Freedom Tower, Madison Square Garden, and Chrysler Building which I find these locations pretty interesting to explore throughout the game giving a nice view of whole city centre of New York.
Overall, it has terrific story, great cast of characters, and impressive presentation design.
Gameplay
The game contains 3 acts with 44 missions including story and sides quests, and citywide activities included in the single player campaign, so you take control of Spider Man in the open-world area where you need to complete all the objectives that was marked on the map screen.
Spider Man has ability to swing through the city buildings by holding the right trigger button, but letting it go will stop you swing. Your swinging speed will able to travel faster depending on your altitude, so you can also tap the X button to zip forward to build up your speed, but it also can lose momentum when swinging.
You can shoot a web at certain ledges by holding left trigger to swing up across building faster which is useful for most of the stealth missions.
Spider Man can also climb walls by pushing left thumbstick next to the building wall, so you can lower yourself down by holding left trigger while on top of the ceiling, and you can run across the wall or building quicker by holding the right trigger for sprinting.
For fighting mechanics, you will start off with basics attack by tapping square button few time to perform combos which your combo system points will be added on your hit score.
You can perform air combo by holding square button will launch enemies into the air, while continuing to attack them while in the air.
You can evade the enemy's projectiles by pressing the circle button to dodge when your Spider sense appears on Spider Man's head, but doing a perfect timing will make you perform a perfect dodging causing Spider Man to hit enemy with web.
You can throw objects at the enemies by pressing both shoulder buttons together causing Spider Man to toss items at enemies.
Spider Man can shoot webs by tapping right shoulder button to tied up your enemies, as well as using the web gadget attack can be pressed with triangle buttons such as impact web that causing enemies to launch towards walls, electric web stuns the enemies, web bomb to stick more than 3 or 4 enemies, spider drone to shoot laser, trip mine that ties enemies together, suspension matrix that makes enemies float up high, and concussive blast that pushes enemies backwards.
Spider Man can perform a variety of moves such as web swing that swings enemies in circle, swing kick that drop kicks enemies while swinging, yanking enemy's gun to disarm their weapon, throwing rockets at enemy, long range strike that leaps towards them, and many moves which can be shown on move lists at the pause menu.
To keep you mind that each of the skill trees may require skill points to unlock by completing quest will reward you with skill points depending on your level XP system, as well as gadgets may require tokens which you will need to complete the citywide activities to gain tokens to unlock your mods.
Leveling up your character will improve upon your fighting skills the more you become a experienced fighter which really helps your fighting gameplay style for most quests.
I got to say I really liked the size of the open-world maps giving more variation of exploration and discovering where you can able to greet the people in the city centre, going up to rooftops and towers for beautiful landscape view, swim around the sea for fun, and taking selfies on photo mode where you can edit your own personalised photographs which I finding it cool.
There are several of citywide activities that keeps you very busy with the game such as collecting souvenirs from bagpack, taking a photo of building attraction, chasing down pigeons, helping Harry's favour through research stations, capturing enemy bases in many waves of enemies to fight, locating Black Cat's figurines, and completing a task challenges such as chasing drone, disarming bombs, taking down enemies without being caught in stealth, and fighting with the enemies in combat battle which rewards you with tokens so you can able to spend and unlock your mods for gadgets and suits.
I got to say I really enjoyed several of the activities that I can spend time having fun to swing around the city to find objects and completing a certain of the tasks which really adds my experience that feels very rewarding in the game.
While I really enjoyed all the challenge activity tasks, the issue I have problem is that it is ridiculously difficult to achieve gold award for some tasks, so I did manage to get both bronze and silver to gain few tokens, but I was aiming to get even more tokens which took me 20 to 30 times retries to get a gold award to gain 3 more tokens depending on how faster can you beat in time limit or gained a higher score as possible which I finding it quite frustrated that made me skip the task for not being able to achieve gold award doesn't mean it ruining the whole challenge mini game.
There are several of story and side mission that are pretty solid like battling against supervillains, doing stealth investigation, hacking the security modules around the building, fighting with Mister Negative and his Inner Demon gangs inside the train station, activating all surveillance towers, finding missing student, taking down snipers, solving puzzle mini game from Octivius Industries, and there's plenty of all missions that are actually fun to play.
Aside with Spider Man, you get to play as two of the supportive characters like Mary Jane Watson that are heavily focused on investigation like sneaking into somebody's office room in art museum and examine the hidden top secrets in Oscorp building, while Miles Morales are more likely focused on stealth where you need to sneak to next area without getting caught by guards in action, so best to keep an eye on enemy's indicator during the stealth mission.
The character's controls feels very fluid for its web swinging through city building and being able to climb and running up walls which I had no issue with the responsiveness.
The actual gameplay itself is played absolutely amazing for its combat system thanks to skill tree upgrades, web gadgets, and engaging fighting techniques feels very responsive and playable for most part and I got to say the quick time event does have a best looking sequences for most of the action packed scenes where you had to press and tap the button that appears on the screen feels very engaging for most part.
Along with the amazing combat gameplay, I do find some enemies have overdone the blocking, as well as some cheap counterattack which took me about 15 to 20 seconds to finish them off that I never liked compared with killing off other enemies that takes less than the 10 seconds which is fine, so far I've managed to enjoy the game thanks to large open-world map, numerous of activities and quests, combat system, and of course the boss battles are pretty outstanding that keeps the game well entertained.
Overall, it has large open-world map, numerous of activities and quests, combat system, and boss battles.
Graphics
The graphics is stunningly beautiful for its environmental design thanks to large open-world details and sharper textures on building surfaces which I got to say it is genuinely spectacular to see things in the game.
I really liked the draw distance, the visuals, and the animation for most levels which feels very polished for AAA games that gets everything right like you can able to see things from the landscapes, the lighting and shadowing on some areas, the weather system effects that is quite dynamic, and the structure itself is well built that made the game quite appealing.
The character's model is looking fantastic for its facial animations and motion capturing movements that looked pretty terrific on most of the cutscenes and in-game design which I got to say it is the most impressive game I've seen on the Playstation hardware.
Overall, it has beautiful environmental design, polished visuals and animation, and fantastic motion capturing system.
Music and Sounds
I really liked the epic original soundtrack in the whole game feels very like the Marvel's films such as Marvel's Avengers and Sam Reimi's Spider Man trilogy which is the reason why its sounded heroic and fascinating at the same time during the cutscenes and in-game action.
It was composed by John Paesano, who previously worked on his score behind Gran Turismo Sport and Detroit: Become Human, did a remarkable job of making one of the most memorable soundtrack in whole game.
I also liked the sound design for most part in the game with well crafted sound effects and atmospheric noise from city centre, and then I got to say I liked the voice performance for several of casts that did absolutely a cracking job in the game.
Overall, it has epic soundtrack, well crafted sound design, and cracking casting performance.
Special Features
The game comes with extended 3 DLCs which introduced new quests and different storyline. It also has photo mode with customisable edits, collecting cool souvenirs, and unlockable suits.
Overall, it is a fantastic content.
Advantages
Terrific story and characters
Impressive presentation design
Larger open-world map
Numerous of activities and quests
Amazing combat gameplay
Beautiful graphics
Epic original score
So many content
Disadvantages
Enemy's cheap counterattack and over blocking.
Very difficult to earn gold award on challenge task.
Final Verdict
Presentation 9/10 - terrific story, great cast of characters, and impressive presentation design.
Gameplay 9/10 - large open-world map, numerous of activities and quests, combat system, and boss battles.
Graphics 9/10 - beautiful environmental design, polished visuals and animation, and fantastic motion capturing system.
Music and Sounds 9/10 - epic soundtrack, well crafted sound design, and cracking casting performance.
Special Features 9/10 - extended 3 DLCs which introduced new quests and different storyline, photo mode with customisable edits, collecting cool souvenirs, and unlockable suits.
Overall 9/10 - Marvel's Spider Man is a groundbreaking superheroes title that is amazingly fun.
This is one of the game that got everything what we wanted from the developer teams that brings many features and content thanks to fluid combat, open-world exploration, great missions, and tons of story and characters is what makes the Marvel's Spider Man a all-time greatest game in the series since Spider Man 2 (2004).
I highly recommend all to pick up a copy for PS4 for less than from £17 to £15 of this quality superheroes games with fully completed content is worth for your time.
With great power comes great responsibility, I really liked the game.
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