Hitting store shelves this coming Friday, Marvel’s Spider-Man by Insomniac Games is one of the most anticipated PS4 titles to hit this year.
Assuming the roll of your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man a few years beyond his well over-told boy-hood origin story the game is effectively set free to explore new stories and carve its own path instead of staying laden to ones already told.
Reviews seem overwhelmingly positive, as you’ll see below, and perhaps even exceed the expectations of Reckoner’s own preview of the game from E3. You decide!
It’s hard to fault Marvel’s Spider-Man as Insomniac has taken their game to the next level. As a developer, they have gone from strength to strength and Spider-Man is a culmination of their past hits. There’s a stunning verticality that compliments the game’s watertight mechanics and, despite the literal boundaries, still makes the city seem boundless.
Spider-Man is a heroic masterpiece, and one certainly worth playing. You’ll find yourself happily overlooking some small rough edges just to get back to slinging some webs.
Insomniac has put time and care into making Spider-Man the quippy hero we’ve come to expect, and the world-building in the game’s writing paints a clear picture of Peter Parker.
But unfortunately, that personality and charm doesn’t always extend to New York City itself. I’d often run into the same few character models over and over, and the city lacks the diversity and ambiance I’d expect from New York.
Aside from a few odd pacing issues, which momentarily took me out of the experience of being a superhero, and a world of optional missions that don’t always quite live up to the heft of the main story, Insomniac has delivered a Spider-Man story that both surprised and delighted me, coupled with gameplay that made me feel like Spider-Man nearly every step of the way.