The future looks bright for Spider-Man! (Marvel's Spider-Man in Review)

     We're a few months away from a fantastic friendly-neighborhood sequel, did you know that? In 2017, a game came out that really stood out. It's a new take on an old, very beloved character from a great developer who I've already talked about at length. That's right, I'm talking about Marvel's Spider-Man from Insomniac Games. Spider-Man is a great game, I have to say one of the best superhero games of all time. In this post I won't share any really big spoilers for the story, but I have to say from the top that this is among my favorite Spider-Man stories that I've seen, more than most of the movies. I love the movies, don't get me wrong, but I feel like this story handles a different take on the character and makes me root for Spidey even more than I already did! There is a darker story here than I thought there would be when I first started, but an immensely interesting one for sure. To pay tribute to the upcoming Spider-Man 2 game (the new one, not the one based on the Tobey Maguire movie of the same name), which I'm very excited about, I thought it would be worthwhile to talk a bit about the first one of the bunch! Get your spandex ready, because we're swinging through the streets of Manhattan today!

Spider-Plots Galore!

    I said I wouldn't have any big spoilers for the story, but it would be wrong for me to not mention anything about it at all. This game begins several years into Peter Parker's Spider-Man career, though it also archives the first big meet up with a few of his "big bads." You start off and right away, Kingpin is up to no good. It's up to Peter to take him down, quips in tow. You have a pretty awesome confrontation, and then Manhattan is pretty much open for Peter to explore. You help people with their little problems, bust some bank robbers, but it's not too long before it's clear that something is going wrong. People are severely injured by a new gang that's flowing with literal negative energy, and there are seemingly more people affected every day. In his off time, Peter is working with Dr. Otto Octavius on his incredible inventions, even with the mayor, Norman Osborn, threatening the doc's funding at every step. Peter also works at the local F.E.A.S.T. center with his Aunt May (remember, this is post Uncle Ben's death), when he's not swinging webs or working on science. Mary Jane also has a big role to play in this title, as the famed couple has been broken up for some time before the story begins, but it's clear that the pair still have feelings for each other. It doesn't take much time at all before MJ and Spidey begin working together on a pretty serious case. There are a lot of supporting characters in this game, tied to side quests or just the normal story mode, but one my favorite stories involves Felicia Hardy, AKA Black Cat. 

    In a twist not too far off of the Riddler's side quests in the Batman Arkham games, Black Cat has set up little cat dolls at crime scenes that she's hit, leading Spider-Man on a wild goose chase that will hopefully lead him to where she's set up shop. It's not really related to the main game, but I just really like the little touches of Black Cat that you can find around the city. I really don't want to say too much about the plot here, because I feel like the story is really the perfect motivation to keep the player going through the game, and there are so many twists and turns that you're kind of exhausted by the end, but in the very best of ways. Without giving things away, this game showcases a very real Spider-Man story, where his double life ends up hurting himself and the people closest to him in ways that he may not even expect. The story is full of all kinds of hardship and suffering, which is what has always made Spider-Man one of the most interesting characters to read about or to watch on the big screen. He's always going through rough times, and yet remains the plucky and goofy character who constantly cracks jokes while taking on the villains. He brings such a sense of joy to the people that he interacts with, even though some find him annoying, it's clear that he is an endearing presence by the end of the day.

Swinging through New York in style!

    From the first few "thwips" of this game, it's clear that Insomniac has nailed the Spider-Man Web Swinging mechanic. I've spoken before about how good this studio is at making games that feel fantastic to play in terms of the mobility of their characters and the utility of the gadgets that they use. In those previous writings, I was referring to their Ratchet and Clank titles, but Spidey is the perfect character for this idea! If you've seen a movie where this character appears in any capacity, it's clear that this guy can go pretty much anywhere he wants, which is very much the feeling that you get from playing this game. You can get a speed boost if you zip to a rooftop and jump at just the right time, you can pull yourself through the space under a water tower to catapult yourself forward, you can run up walls and jump off as you get to the top, the list goes on and on about just how much fun it is to move around the world. There's even a button that you can hold down to make Spider-Man do tricks while flipping through the air. Manhattan is a perfect jungle gym for the hero to swing around in, and more than that, the whole city is utilized in fantastic ways. There aren't just crimes happening on the streets, of course. We have whole gangs of thugs poised on the rooftop, planning all kinds of nefarious activities, and Spidey takes them down with grace and speed time and time again. The fun thing about fighting people on rooftops is that if you accidentally kick someone off of the roof, they're webbed to the side of the building automatically. I found that out because I was terrified the first time that I did it (since Spider-Man really doesn't kill), but I was happy to see the web come from the building somehow and web them up. It's a really fun animation, and something that made me feel significantly better about the outcomes awaiting these villains. Before we move on, I have to say that it would be wrong of me to talk about the gameplay of this game without talking about the gadgets. 

    For the first time ever, video games have made a fun trip mine. In most games, you mount a trip mine to a wall, and it blows up. In Marvel's Spider-Man, Spidey can shoot the wall with it, and then it instantly webs someone up and pulls them to the wall. Even better, however, is when Spidey sticks the trip-mine to an enemy, where it will tie up another enemy and pull them over to knock out the first one as well. There have been some incredible moves that I've pulled off with ease in this game because of the gadgets. Honestly the one that I used the most is probably the Impact Webs. There's nothing like shooting one blast of web and sticking the enemy to a wall because of that gadget, though the game rewards you with more of it if you use different types of gadgets as well. It's a smartly implemented system, and while I don't think it needed to be done, Spidey could get a little overpowered if they didn't have the ammo system in place. I never ceased to enjoy watching the animations of enemies throughout the game, I love the little squirms as they try to get out of the webs that Spider-Man weaves to restrain them, just one of Insomniac's many loving touches to the material here. This goes for the combat in general as well, utilizing Spider-Man's acrobatics to really nail how it feels to watch Spider-Man fight, while still requiring the timed button presses to react to a threat when his "Spidey-Sense" goes off. The combat, and a lot of the gameplay as a whole, call back pretty strongly to another superhero's video game being the aforementioned Batman: Arkham series. Much like those games, Marvel's Spider-Man is broken up of combat segments as well as stealth segments. I will say that this game feels much more forgiving than the Arkham games, with less aware guards and more emphasis on Spider-Man's abilities making these less of a challenge, perhaps, but just as satisfying in my opinion. The gadgets lend themselves to both styles of gameplay, combat and stealth, in a really interesting way, which I'm sure was a massive challenge to the team at Insomniac.

Lots to see here!

    Sure, this game is called Marvel's Spider-Man, but he is far from the only character of note in this game. A hero is only as good as their rogue's gallery, and this game features a ton of different villains and threats to face off against. I think it would be wrong to spoil all of them, because I was genuinely surprised and happy to see so many of them here. Even though most of the game has only one main villain, there are tons in side-quests, and also just later in the game. On top of the villains, there's something to be said about all of the different costumes that you can unlock for Spider-Man along with their respective Suit abilities! Spider-Man Noir comes along with the ability to sneak up behind enemies silently, the Spider-Man 2099 suit allows for lighter gravity, making possibilities for much more impressive aerial combos, Iron Spider's suit unlocks the ability to fight with metallic arms that come out of your back, etc. Of course, you can mix and match all of the abilities with the suits, so it's not like you have to wear the suit based on what power you like best. Honestly, I mostly used the Suit Ability that you start out with, which generates more power for your ability meter, allowing for more healing ability and more easily accessible finishing moves. That doesn't mean I stuck to the starter suit though, I was constantly changing them as I unlocked more and more. I think my favorite suits have to be the ones that are animated differently than the rest of the game, such as the Animated Spider-Man suit, but also I love the movie references that they added into this game, throwing in not only Tom Holland's Homecoming and Avengers: Infinity War suits, but also the suits worn by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in their movies. There's a lot of fan service in this area of the game by itself, but that goes for the entire game honestly!

    I don't know if there has ever been a Spider-Man game to resonate with me on such a personal level as this one, and I think that goes for a lot of fans out there. I think what this game succeeds at the most is not only making it a good game about the "web-head", but also a good Peter Parker game. You're rooting for him, his friends, and his family to all come out of the events of this game in a similar way, but they don't. People are changed in this game, the way that they go into the turmoil and how they all react to it changes them for the better or worse. In that way, this game is much darker than I was anticipating going into it. It's a beautiful story and maybe my favorite Peter Parker story so far. By allowing the player to play as Spider-Man and hear the internal monologue going on inside Peter's head, it's clearer than ever before just how pricey the toll is on the man behind the mask. He does a good job of hiding it, but he is human (well, mostly), and he deals with these human issues and struggles as well as any of us can. He's just a little bit different in that he has great power, and, as his uncle asserted so long ago, great responsibility.

    Thank you so much for reading my review of Marvel's Spider-Man, friends! I really hope you liked it. I know it has been released on PC and PS5 now, but I've only played the original release of the game which came out for the PS4. This is one of few games where I enjoyed it so much that I just had to pick up the season pass for the DLC, because it meant even more Spider-Man content, and more of it couldn't possibly be bad. I hope you're all looking forward to Spider-Man 2, I know I am, and this is how I get out some of that excitement! I tried to stay as spoiler-free as I could be in this review, but hopefully I was able to write about enough specifics to get you interested in this game from my writing! Thanks again for all the support, friends, and I'll talk to you again very soon! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, your friendly neighborhood Self-Proclaimed Dreamer. Always remember, even if you're not Spider-Man, there's something that you can do.