Sony

Sony

Sony

Sony

Sony

Sony

Sony

Sony

Sony

Spider-Man is headed to the PlayStation 4 (PS4) on September 7, and the game is coming from one of the industry's most accomplished studios for action-adventures. I played the first several hours of Spider-Man, uncovering the roots of its storyline and wandering freely in Manhattan.

The developer of this new game, Insomniac Games, is famous for making one of my most personally beloved franchises, Ratchet & Clank. The studio's two most recent triple-A games—a 2016 ground-up remake of the original Ratchet & Clank for PS4 and 2014 Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive—were two of the best I've played lately.

Given the funny, clever writing of Ratchet & Clank and the crazy, innovative, open-world traversal of Sunset Overdrive, Insomniac seems like the ideal studio to make a Spider-Man game. And I got the impression that the team there is passionate about it. Before my four-hour play session, the game's creative director gave a speech loaded with love, admiration, and knowledge of the many decades of Spider-Man comics.

While some superheroes have struggled to find their footing in video games (we're looking at you, Superman), Spider-Man has had a decent track record. Many fans loved 2004's Spider-Man 2, for example. All signs point to optimism with this new outing.

After a few hours of play, it was clear that the narrative is full of compelling lore for fans. While some parts were fun and satisfying, I was a little disappointed that the open-world game design didn't seem to have anything new to say in a crowded genre.

Story

Let me start by admitting that I'm not the ideal person to brief you on Spider-Man's history. I watched a Spider-Man cartoon series every Saturday morning when I was a kid, and I've since seen most of the Sony Pictures Spider-Man movies. But I've only read a couple of Spider-Man comics, and I (pretty happily) fell behind on the Disney Marvel movies somewhere around Doctor Strange. So I haven't seen Spidey's latest cinematic adventures.

But I know the main beats, I know the back stories and powers of the popular villains (mostly thanks to the cartoon), and I'm sure there will be lots of people like me interested in this game who like Spidey just fine, but who aren't superfans. Unfortunately, the game feels like it isn't really made for us. But I'm sure the dedicated comics fans will love it.

Spider-Man takes place years after some of the character's most famous struggles; Peter is in his 20s, and he's working as a scientist. As you could predict, juggling lab stuff with his alternate life as Spider-Man comes with challenges. That's a big theme in the game, from what I could tell.

Characters from Peter's life (like Mary Jane and Aunt May) return. MJ fits into the plucky reporter archetype, and she and Peter used to be together in some way but aren't anymore. The flirtation and tension between them—laden with history both unspoken and spoken—seems like one of the strongest points in the game's writing. That's nice to see, given that, with a few exceptions, romance narratives are not usually a strong suit for popular video games (or superhero comics, for that matter).

Other than that, though, I very quickly found that I was having trouble following the story. There were so many characters, and not all of them were explained well. Events were referenced as if everyone in the world knew what they were, but I had no idea. I had a similarly confusing experience with DC game Injustice 2.

I'm certain that if you are a Spider-Man fan who regularly reads the comics—or if you've even read a few key anthologies—you won't have this problem. It's always tough to balance making the game interesting to people who have been along for the ride for years with making it accessible for newcomers. And to that point, it seemed to me that the game is working overtime to provide the former group with a lot to sink their teeth into.

For example, one of Spider-Man's open-world activities involves swinging around to find collectible backpacks that Spidey left behind years ago. Each one contains a viewable 3D object from his past with some accompanying voiceover, and most are references to specific comic book storylines. The search works well, and it's a clever way to make the expected collection mini-game feel more meaningful to fans.

The open world

Spider-Man is an open-world game in the vein of Crackdown or Infamous, so the world and completionist mechanics like unlocking map markers and finding collectibles are key to the experience. I spent most of my time in the game wandering around its representation of New York City and completing side objectives.

How realistic is the game’s New York City?

The in-game version of Manhattan is impressive in size. South of Central Park, it seemed nearly to scale in terms of the number of city blocks you can traverse. Major landmarks are there to see (you can even complete a side activity by photographing them), but accuracy to the real city doesn't seem like it was a priority for Insomniac. As in other open-world games, like Watch Dogs or Grand Theft Auto V, the farther you stray from tourist hotspots like Times Square and the more closely you look, the less accurate the simulated city becomes.

I used to live in New York, so I swung down to the East Village to see if I could find analogs for the famed St. Mark's Comics or my favorite bar on Earth, Amor y Amargo, where I proposed to my fiancée. While the neighborhood looked vaguely like the East Village I know so intimately, buildings were generally in the wrong places, and none of the local landmarks I knew were present. I was particularly perplexed to travel up to Harlem—the game map's northernmost point—and find that one of the nation's most storied African-American cultural hubs was populated almost entirely by white pedestrians.

Spider-Man doesn't hesitate to include major locations from the comic book canon, though, like the Avengers' tower in the Upper East Side or the Wakanda embassy.

All of this is to say that Spider-Man's virtual Manhattan looks convincing when you're in the sky, but look closely, and the illusion falls apart quickly. That can be forgiven (except the Harlem thing—come on) since you will spend most of your time in that bird's-eye view, though.

Activities and gameplay

As in, say, the Assassin's Creed games, you travel to a new neighborhood and must perform a special task to unlock markers on that map. In this case, it's hacking radio towers on rooftops with a simple mini-game. Once you've unlocked an area, you'll be able to use Spidey Sense and the map to locate pedestrians in need, collectibles, and other events and side objectives.

Performing these objectives and filling out the map-based checklists gives you different kinds of marks that can be used to unlock new suits, gadgets, and other customizations. Further, you gain experience that you can use to unlock new moves and abilities.

My only complaint is that every activity I did was as an already-established trope in open-world games. Not every open-world activity was unlocked in the demo I played, so it's possible that there are more interesting opportunities coming. That's not to say swinging around collecting things, unlocking areas, and taking down enemy bases isn't fun—it's just that I've already done those things a thousand times before in nearly identical-feeling open-world games like Infamous: Second Son, Crackdown, and Saint's Row IV.

Most of your time in Spider-Man is spent either swinging between the buildings or brawling with enemies in the streets or on the rooftops. The swinging feels great. It feels so natural, it's hard to even explain. It just works. And there's an option in the skill tree to unlock the ability to do tricks for extra XP while flying through the air.

As for the combat, my colleague Sam Machkovech played the game at E3 and already wrote about the combat system in more detail than I will here. Here's some of what he wrote:

The game's reveal trailers have hinted that it will combat what largely resembles the Batman Arkham series. A basic "attack" button will pull off attractive, dynamic melee combos, while other buttons let you dodge, jump, and throw gadgets like bombs and traps. The Spidey-specific juice comes from web-slinging, which you can toggle with an unlimited supply. Grab an enemy with a web-sling, then pull yourself toward that foe to start chaining a melee combo and to pull yourself away from impending attacks. Sling your body to a girder or other hanging point above to escape and get a breather. Hold a pair of trigger buttons to grab and throw any useable debris nearby.

Combat is fine. It is similar to the Arkham games, though the game's similarities end with that. Spider-Man certainly doesn't have the Metroidvania structure that inspired those titles. Instead, it borrows its formula from every open-world game you've ever played. That formula is popular for a reason, so if you're just looking for gameplay you already like with your favorite web-slinging superhero, you'll probably dig Spider-Man. Just don't expect it to test the boundaries of that formula.

Listing image by Sony