RE: Marvel’s Spider-Man (PS4)

All right, I’m going to make this as quick a post as I can.  Why?  Because the sooner I finish, the sooner I can play more Marvel’s Spider-Man.  

The Emissary from Hell has arrived.  And I couldn't be happier.

I almost feel dirty about pushing this post out the door.  As of writing, I’ve only had one short hands-on session with the game -- enough to get through the prologue, at least.  I’d hoped to play a bit more up to this point, but I gave the Mega Man 11 demo a shot…which was subsequently followed by a power outage and a need to reboot the PS4.  Also I gave Naruto to Boruto another fair shake, which was a mistake.

Then I popped in Marvel’s Spider-Man, and it was…well, I’m not going to say mind-blowing.  There have been plenty of past instances where I was on board with a product at the start, only to endure crushing disappointment later.  So yes, take this post with a dump truck’s worth of salt; it’s VERY possible that this game will fall apart in the hours to come.  On the other hand?  If nothing else, it makes a very good first impression.

Except there’s clearly, definitively more to this game than just a good first impression.

I think I’m in love with the combat system.  As in, I fell in love with it immediately.  Near as I can tell, all of your core options are available as soon as you run through the tutorial (and thus know you have them); after that?  You might as well be playing Devil May Cry 5 pre-release.  On the whole, The Emissary from Hell has DMC3’s Trickster style combined with Nero in general from DMC4; dodging is a key part of your toolkit, and webbing up foes to pull yourself or enemies closer is a natural extension of the hero.

What really gets to me is how simple yet elegant -- dare I say it, effortless -- the system is.  The options fly in fast and hard, yet the learning curve is gentle enough for you to grasp it in a matter of minutes.  In the same way that the Arkham games make you feel like Batman, this new title really makes you feel like Spider-Man.  Only more so.  And better.  The two share DNA, that much is obvious, but I prefer the approach in this game FAR more than the Arkham games.  For one thing, you can’t just stand in the middle of a circle of enemies and counter everyone into oblivion (or at least do some damage, however sub-optimally, by mashing Triangle).  For another?  The Emissary from Hell’s agility has been imported wholesale, be it with air combos or simply on-the-ground dodges.  Plus you can vault off walls for sneaky surprise attacks.

If it turns out there’s a Maximum Spider in this game, I’m going to flip my shit.

I do have concerns about whether or not the difficulty will be maintained throughout the game.  I tapped out on the Arkham games because the combat wasn’t doing much for me, itself crippled by the onslaught of easily-dispatched goons.  At least here, Spidey’s weakness has never been made more apparent: guns will shred right through him, and based on what I’ve seen elsewhere new enemy types will do their best to put up a challenge.  Will it be enough?  The odds are stacked in your favor if you’re in top form.  (Notably, your ability to heal is dependent on you fighting well and building meter.)

If I had one minor complaint, it’s that I wish the Spider-Sense indicator -- the effect above your head telling you to dodge -- was a bit bolder and easier to see.  Maybe make it a different color, or some other means to have it stand out.  The looser enemy formations mean that you can be attacked from enemies on and offscreen, and when you’re in the heat of the moment -- with The Emissary from Hell flipping all over the place -- it’s ridiculously easy to lose track of the visual cues.  Anticipating incoming bullets is easier, to be fair (since they have trails that turn red on occasion), but I’ve taken some nasty hits on more than one occasion.

I’m enamored with the combat, but how about everything else?  While it’ll be a hot minute or two before I have a full picture of the other systems, I’ve got faith in the rest.  Web-swinging is exactly as fun as it needs to be, which is to say that it’s quite fun.  I still need to practice with it more to get a better grasp of it -- no doubt maintaining momentum will be crucial for acing future missions -- but at this early stage?  You have many ways to gain speed, height, and distance in a matter of button presses.  On top of that, you seem to be able to keep traveling no matter where you are in the city thanks to vaulting off stuff in the environment, or simply wall-running across a skyscraper.  Notably, you have some degree of that web-swinging mobility mid-fight, which lets you stay out of Kingpin’s meaty swings.

On the production side of things, it’s exactly what you’d expect from a AAA, big-budget, tentpole release.  The visuals are impressive, though what I appreciate most right now is how much effort went into each animation for The Emissary from Hell -- lots of articulated flips and kinetic strikes that make plenty of hits feel like they hurt.  Right now the soundtrack isn’t doing that much for me, but that’s a complaint you could throw at the MCU as a whole.  In contrast?  The cutscenes so far are definitely above par in terms of providing a story and character insights -- and the same goes for the character bios, as if they were written by Spidey himself.

...In the sense that Spidey would have written them if he was real, and not just having an Insomniac proxy mimic his style.

Bizarrely, I think that what I’m the most interested in seeing is the story -- specifically, Insomniac’s interpretation of Peter Parker as well as The Emissary from Hell.  In his costume, he fires off quips at a rate faster than the average Gatling gun.  Outside of it?  It’s as if he’s been taking notes from Tom Holland and Homecoming, only his sheer adoration made him turn the performance up to eleven.  He’s such an earnest nerd -- of the “intelligence” sort, though with some social awkwardness mixed in -- that I can’t help but respect the hustle.

I’m digging the story at this early point, which doesn’t sound like much…until you remember that I’ve mentally checked out on games much faster and more decisively.  Certainly, the dialogue is there, and there’s probably going to be an honest attempt to make Petey into a full-fledged character instead of leaving it at “DURR SPIDERMAN”.  Will the game be able to maintain its momentum and weight thanks to the inherent limits of the open world/sandbox genre?  Going off of that, will being in an open world hurt the game overall thanks to a dedication to repetitive, borderline-meaningless tasks?

It’s possible.  But here’s the silver lining: even if the game is the most meandering, busywork-laden product since [insert relevant Ubisoft game here], the clincher is that everything about Marvel’s Spider-Man is tuned in such a way to make me want to do that busywork.

I’d keep my eye on this one if I were you.  This one might be a keeper.

And now I’m off to play it some more…is what I’d like to say, but I’m getting a bit hungry.  I wouldn’t be having this problem if I would hurry up and convert myself into a robot, but alas.  The journey to transhuman ascension is a long and arduous one.