Hello everyone! Today I’m doing a video game review of Spider-Man.

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I was actually going to do this review next month but then I finished Rise of the Tomb Raider so I decided I’d do one now, and that one next month. Don’t get too used to video game reviews though, These two and Until Dawn are the only games I own for my PS4 right now (although I did just order Far Cry 5). I do have a ton more games from my PS3 still though so maybe I’ll do some of those if I feel up to it.

As I mentioned, this will be a review of the video game Marvel’s Spider-Man. It is a 2018 game developed by Insomniac Games. The game is inspired by the Marvel superhero and was highly reviewed when it was released as a PlayStation 4 exclusive.

Anyway, I do want to come clean and admit, I only played Spider-Man because it came with my PS4. There was a sale on the bundle over Black Friday last year and I’d been planning to wait for the sales for awhile. I wouldn’t have played Spider-Man if I hadn’t gotten it with the bundle though but I was excited to try it out anyway!

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So I won’t really avoid spoilers of the Spider-Man world, such as the fact that Peter Parker is Spider Man, since I feel like that’s pretty common knowledge (if you didn’t know that, whoops my bad but also what???). I’ll avoid major spoilers on the game itself in this first part though I will comment on them later (I’ll warn you first!).

The story itself opens with Peter having been Spider-Man for a few years and balancing his crime fighting with his job as Dr. Octavius’ assistant, as well as helping Aunt May at F.E.A.S.T. At the start of the story Spider-Man fights with the usual crime groups you would expect which are run by his long time nemesis Fisk. As the story progresses and Mr. Negative appears on the scene Spider-Man starts fighting enemies known as the Demons who possess energy powers as he tries to keep them from finding the weapon Devil’s Breath. Eventually, many of Spider-Man’s enemies team up against him causing Sable International to add to his attackers using high tech gear. Being targeted from all sides, Spider-Man then has to confront his newest and biggest enemy to save the city.

In terms of story, I really, really enjoyed it. I was never a huge fan of Spider-Man in general so I didn’t really know a lot of the villains or anything but it was still fun to play. Spider-Man’s NYPD Captain friend Yuri Watanabe was also new to me, like the villains, as was Normon Osborn and Silver Sablinova. Other characters, such as Aunt May, Mary Jane Watson, and Miles Morales were familiar names. As I went through the story and really got to know more about Spider-Man/Peter’s relationships with all of them, as well as his sense of humor, I really was drawn into the story.

Parts of the story are played as Mary Jane or Miles, which is a ton of fun. They don’t have powers so they are heavy on the sneaking around part and not getting caught. Even though they were similar in nature though they still had their differences. Mary Jane was very quick to come up with a good story to convince people to let her in, to get captors to trust her, and just get around. She was usually in those scenarios by choice, as she was investigating something for her journalism career or to help Peter, and the two teamed up a lot. Miles relied heavily on his technology which would jam Sable’s tech. He was usually caught in situations by chance rather than choice, unlike Mary Jane, but he was brave nonetheless and also quick-witted. I enjoyed getting to play as each of them a lot.

Now, Spider-Man is the perfect type of game for me. I love open world games a ton because I really love exploring everything. For Spider-Man I am 100% complete for the story but I’m only about 87% complete overall I believe. I’ve done most of the main side tasks as well, such as defeating enemies at headquarter locations, ensuring all research stations are working, completing all the Taskmaster challenges, and so on. I think the only things I really have left in most areas are the random crimes that pop up every so often. I left those until last because they got really annoying very quickly. They’re not only very repetitive but can sometimes take you farther away from where you’re trying to get to. Plus, they happen so often and there’s nothing really new about them after awhile.

The headquarter locations with mass number of enemies were frustrating at times but still fun to play. Each one was at different locations so Fisk’s henchmen would be at construction sites, Demons would be at warehouses, and Sable would be at outposts they created. All of them followed the same structure though. There were six “waves” of enemies and only the first one would be mostly taken out by sneaking about and taking down enemies one by one. I would have preferred if at least three could be done by sneaking but I suppose it wouldn’t make sense to have the second wave come out and not suspect anything seeing as how everyone meant to stand watch was gone. These were a little repetitive but as there weren’t that many it wasn’t so bad.

The smaller tasks are pretty much done. Those are things such as gathering pigeons for one of the residents at F.E.A.S.T., finding all of Peter’s backpacks around the city, taking photos of major landmarks, etc. Unfortunately I didn’t realize you could read the Daily Bugle headlines until close to the end of the game so I know I won’t get all of those. I also missed some of Dr. Octavius’ recordings at the lab so I doubt I’ll get the chance to listen to them now that the game is over as they were tied to parts of the story as it progressed, just like the headlines. I do have a lot of the secret photo locations left though as I discovered halfway through the story that those were available on accident. I’m thinking I’ll have to cheat to find the rest because on my own I’ve only found maybe 3 or 4 and I believe there’s 50. There’s still a lot of costumes and gadget upgrades to unlock too, so I’ll have to work on getting those!

Now I’m going to add a few thoughts that are spoilers for the game’s story. I’m going to sandwich it in between photos of the game so skip past the first picture until you get to the second if you want to avoid them!

One of the earliest surprises for me in the game was seeing Peter was working for Dr. Octavius, since I was pretty sure he was Doctor Octopus. I asked my friend, who asked her boyfriend, who said that was correct but in the story they start out working together. Fair enough, I accepted it and was just sad the entire time knowing that their happy, lovely relationship was about to be RUINED. Even so, it was so interesting to pick up on Otto’s little hints of what was to come and see Peter miss them entirely due to his trust in Otto. At the end, seeing them both feel completely betrayed by the other was rough as the game did a fabulous job of conveying a real father-son like relationship between the two.

Aunt May’s story was a huge surprise to me though. I have to say, even seeing May get sicker and sicker due to Devil’s Breath I never saw her death coming at all. I think I just loved Aunt May’s character so much that I just decided there was no way anything bad could happen to her. I totally knew that Aunt May had to know about Peter being Spider-Man so seeing her have that moment with Peter was really nice. Watching Peter decide to sacrifice Aunt May to save more people with the antidote was difficult too. Even though I knew he’d pick to save more people it was amazing work by the developers on that scene in particular.

Otherwise the only other big surprise was the scene with Harry and Norman at the end. I figured Harry was probably not on a trip early on, and when it was revealed that Harry was undergoing treatment that made sense. However, seeing Harry in the lab was surprising, as was Norman’s dedication to his son as the game really didn’t show that side of Norman at all until that point.

The story with Miles wasn’t a surprise at all but it was amazing nonetheless. I would say the most surprising part was learning Jefferson Davis was his father. I already knew Miles was going to gain the powers though once I heard his name so it was exciting to see him and get to play small parts of the game as him. Watching Miles reveal his powers at the end to Peter was hilarious. I loved that Miles and Peter’s friendship was to the point where Miles was so willing to show Peter his new powers. And that Peter was so willing to explain puberty to Miles was hilarious. I would have loved to see them do more together than just hang out on the ceiling but it was still a wonderful scene for those two.

Each of those big scenes at the end were amazing and I’m so happy I got to experience them by playing the game. Oh! And Mary Jane getting back together with Peter was great! I loved that throughout the game she asserted herself and made Peter see her as a equal partner, even without powers.

Overall I loved the game and had an amazing time playing it. I am almost tempted to play it again because it was just so fun, but the thought of having to do all those “stop crime” activities all over again or try to get all the collectibles again doesn’t sound as much fun as just seeing the story again. I think the game does have a way to play the story again without losing all the suits and gadgets and skills, but it does make the enemies harder and I’m pretty sure I was already on the easiest setting and getting annoyed at times so we’ll see. Either way, there’s still some fun things to do with the game so I might continue to pick it up from time to time!

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That’s my review of Spider-Man! Let me know if you’ve played the game and what you thought if you did. If not, maybe consider picking it up or watch a Let’s Play on it? It’s fun!

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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