Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man video game roundup.

September 5, 2018 10:30 AM

Spider-Man Spinning An Amazing Web [Game Informer] “Insomniac Games’ Spider-Man is a triumph of superheroes and storytelling. Within a beautifully realized version of New York City, Spider-Man soars across the skyline with awe-inspiring grace, ducking into darkened alleys to pummel criminals in spectacular ways. The wall-crawler is front and center for most of this journey – spitting out quips and making a flashy show of heroism – but his mask frequently comes off to focus on Peter Parker’s struggles with relationships and the unpredictability of life. This complicated web is what separates this Spider-Man experience from the rest of the superhero games on the market. The story has a soul...” [YouTube][Gameplay][Trailer]

• A brief history of Spider-Man games [Polygon]

“Next week, Sony and Insomniac will release Marvel’s Spider-Man on PS4. The game explores the story of Peter Parker eight years into his career as the masked web-slinger, and it’s the most ambitious game of its kind to come in the wake of Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham trilogy. With Marvel and Sony trying to bring the character to a wider audience than he’s had in games in years, we decided to look back at Spider-Man’s legacy in the medium. The story of Spider-Man games is one of Herculean technical achievement and problem solving, and to delve into its history is to begin seeing countless echoes, in-jokes and homages. From Monster-Ock in Neversoft’s Spider-Man to the Atrocity in Edge of Time, or Mysterio’s fun-house games in the Sega CD Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin and Treyarch’s Spider-Man 2, these ostensibly mass-market products often reveal themselves to be products of intense love and passion.”

• Spider-Man PS4 is a throwback to pre-MCU superhero games and movies [Polygon]

“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. (The social media feed, found on the map screen, has some particularly relevant gems that capture what Spidey’s life would be like if he lived in 2018.) 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. That small example may highlight my biggest criticism of Marvel’s Spider-Man. There aren’t many surprises to the game; despite being an open-world experience, it plays upon a linear story, and the twists that happen feel familiar. The action sequences are breathless and memorable, but after the game’s final act I was left wanting more.”

• Spider-Man: fun comic book brawler [Kotaku]

“Combat is also slick. Punching, dodging, and webbing enemies all fit together in a seamless dance that grows more complex as new gadgets get added. As in web slinging, there are situational elements to the controls that lead to minor changes in outcomes depending on timing. Holding square will knock an enemy into the air, while holding triangle will tug an enemy forward and stagger them. If you’re in the air, holding square lets you perform a web-swing kick. Perfectly dodging an attack at the right moment, meanwhile, will lead you to automatically web the attacker and set up for a longer counter combo. Fights sometimes feel like playing an instrument rather than robotically inputting controller commands. It doesn’t bore. Webbing enemies to walls, dodging rockets, and building up a combo meter to unleash cinematic instant takedowns remains thrilling a hundred brawls in.”

• 'Spider-Man' Isn't Just Good, It's a Game About Trying to Be Good [Waypoint]

“When Spider-Man saves the world, that's great, but stopping The Scorpion doesn't exactly fix income inequality. Spider-Man's pursuits get splashed all over the front page of newspapers and TV, but it's not the hard, thankless work of helping someone fill out the right paperwork so they can (hopefully) get a job. In Spider-Man, Peter spends his free time volunteering at the shelter—chopping vegetables, cleaning clothes, catching up with the regulars. A few have stories that develop over time. Spider-Man doesn't come with policy prescriptions, but in making Peter's homebase a shelter, rather than a workshop to make gadgets, it reinforces a larger message not often seen in games like this: real change usually comes from the bottom up, and it's not easy. The game backs up its humanity in smaller ways, too, whether it’s cleaning up spills in the shelter for no reward, letting a stranger rest their head on your shoulder while taking the subway, or taking a selfie with someone you've rescued. Spider-Man is a "man (or woman) of the people" sort of character, and the game constantly finds ways to reinforce this virtue. Spider-Man isn’t a visual novel with swinging elements, though, and the rest of the game is less successful.”

• Marvel's Spider-Man: a classic hero gets the game he deserves [Eurogamer]

“Better to ask: just who's Spider-Man is this? The law firm of Maguire and Garfield is behind us and the new guy's not quite Tom Holland. This is an established Spider-Man we have here - living on his own, single, working an entry job in science in the city. Also, he's been Spider-Man long enough by now to chat to most of his super-villain enemies using their first names. The box and the start screen may say Marvel's Spider-Man, and there's all the fan-service you could ask for. But in truth it's Insomniac's Spider-Man. That's the key to this one, I think: it's a near-perfect marriage of developer and intellectual property (ugh). The people who do high-colour, cheery, knockabout fun have landed one of the few superheroes who seems to genuinely love the job - and they totally get that the reason he loves the job is because in his normal life, he's just like we've all been at some point: lonely, broke, awkwardly poised between childhood and the adult world. As a result, the traversal and the combat feel like more than just a bunch of nice systems delivered with lovely gamefeel or whatever you want to call it these days - they both have the genuine thrill of release to them. Both of them make the game's basic structure and challenges sing.”

• Marvel's Spider Man: Amazing. Spectacular. Sensational. Superior. Does Marvel's Spider-Man live up to those adjectives? [US|Gamer]

“Spider-Man has always been a hero of New York first and foremost, with Peter Parker hailing from the borough of Queens. Parker's hometown isn't in Insomniac's Spider-Man though, with the game instead focusing on Manhattan. Our hero is older and wiser, having been Spider-Man for eight years now. He lives and works in the city, protecting the populace from the existing members of his rogue's gallery. Insomniac built a Manhattan full of life. As you swing across the city as Spider-Man, the people below wander about from place to place. You can even hop down to the ground level and listen to them interacting with their local hero: some will high-five, others will take pictures, and one dude definitely called Spider-Man a mensch. This lively version of the city is one of the things that puts Insomniac's Spider-Man above some of the previous gems in the series: Treyarch's Spider-Man 2 and Ultimate Spider-Man had traffic and citizens, but were limited by the technology of that era, while Spider-Man: Web of Shadows took place in a city under invasion. There's definitely more of a sense of what Spider-Man is fighting for, even when you're just leisurely swinging across a city block.”

posted by Fizz (19 comments total)

Also, for those who are excited by how this looks and plays, there are hints that Marvel may be looking to create their own version of the MCU, only with video games.

• How Marvel Plans to Build Its Video Game Titles Like the MCU [Screen Rant]

“"Unlike the MCU, the Marvel Games division has struggled to perform at the same level that its film and TV counterparts do. This, despite the fact that its basically has access t the same characters that headline the studio's big blockbusters. Jones has acknowledged the problem and shared that Marvel Games is actually already in the process of making significant changes to streamline their content starting with upcoming promising releases like Insomniac's Spider-Man and Square Enix's Avengers.”

posted by Fizz at 10:35 AM on September 5, 2018

I don't own a PS4 console, so I'll have to watch this game via Twitch streams, but hot damn, it looks like a lot of fun. They seem to have nailed the excitement of slinging and flying through the streets of Manhattan. I'm a bit jealous I don't own a PS4, as this seems to be one of those exclusives that just makes me really wish I had access to it.
posted by Fizz at 10:37 AM on September 5, 2018

Huh, these reviews (plus nostalgia for Insomniac's earlier work like Spyro and the first couple Ratchet and Clanks) are making me mighty tempted to break my rule of "no AAA games that make me play a white dude". Maybe if it goes on sale after I'm done with the Spyro trilogy and still need something else to distract myself from another long cold winter.
posted by egypturnash at 11:09 AM on September 5, 2018

I saw a commercial for this the other day and thought, damn, I would like to play that. I loved Spider-Man 2 on PS2, but I don't own a PS4 now (but I really do want to play Red Dead Redemption 2, so ... maybe for Christmas).

I also had the Questprobe game on C64 when I was a kid, but I don't know that I ever finished it, being probably six or seven years old and not interacting with text parsers on a particularly advanced level.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:16 AM on September 5, 2018

I'm excited for this and preordered based on the strong reviews. The game comes 100% down to the quality of the motion for me, how fun the webslinging is. Spider-Man 2 is the benchmark here. That's the game that made me realize "open world + fun travel mechanic = success" (see also: Just Cause, Burnout Paradise, Assassin's Creed, Red Dead Redemption, GTA).

Honestly the reviews all have a common theme that worries me, that the game is a bit short and repetitive. Given that I'm surprised at how the final scores are.
posted by Nelson at 11:24 AM on September 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

"Also, for those who are excited by how this looks and plays, there are hints that Marvel may be looking to create their own version of the MCU, only with video games. "

Oof, this game looks neat and all but more "cinematic universes" are not welcome at this point. I'm fine with videogames not trying to cross-barf into eachother so you must buy them all to really get the full picture.
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:50 PM on September 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

GoblinHoney, you're not wrong. I mean, if it was done right, the idea is kind of cool, but knowing what we know about micro-transactions and paid DLC, we know that it'd be a gated story-telling kind of bullshit. And that's sad. Because the idea of being able to play Captain America or Black Panther in a world similar to this one that Spider-Man occupies would be quite a bit of fun.
posted by Fizz at 1:01 PM on September 5, 2018

GoblinHoney: I'm fine with videogames not trying to cross-barf into each other so you must buy them all to really get the full picture.^*

[*Ed. note: see Implausible Tales of Adventure, Issue #492 Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite, Nov. 2017 DLC]
posted by mhum at 1:12 PM on September 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

It’s not a 1 to 1 scale mode of Manhattan, unfortunately. Someday someone will make this.
posted by vogon_poet at 2:25 PM on September 5, 2018

[*Ed. note: see Implausible Tales of Adventure, Issue #492 Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite, Nov. 2017 DLC]

That's why DC/Marvel, to me, are best consumed in wiki form. The abstract of all that nonsense is better than trudging through it on a page by page, issue by issue basis. It would be one thing if their respective universes were just so deep and complex and nuanced they requires all the convolution to keep the drama and excitement going. However, most of that convolution is simply mandated by capitalist shenanigans. Can't just let a popular hero die or age or move on, they're valuable intellectual property! So much of comic lore gets twisted around these meta points where marketing or corporate is like, time for a reboot, we're axing this and that and focusing on him and her, and then shortly after, we gotta recapture some of that shit we discarded, turns out that was popular too, but also lets change.... etc. So now when you want to read up on a hero, you've got 16 different canons and universes, some of which overlap or intersect one another in bizarre ways.

Thank god there are enough great comics coming out these days you never feel like you have to resort to some DC/Marvel rag and even withotu reading them you can probably have a good idea of what is going on (the exact same shit as the last 70 years).
posted by GoblinHoney at 2:37 PM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

> GoblinHoney:
"Thank god there are enough great comics coming out these days you never feel like you have to resort to some DC/Marvel rag and even withotu reading them you can probably have a good idea of what is going on (the exact same shit as the last 70 years)."

There's a lot of good Marvel comics coming out right now. You shouldn't let your prejudices get in the way of enjoying them. Squirrel Girl, Ms. Marvel, West Coast Avengers, X-Men Red, Domino &c.
posted by signal at 5:10 PM on September 5, 2018

I used to love Spiderman when I was a kid. Like, from age four or so. Late 70s/early 80s era.

To me it was about an ordinary guy who gains speed and the ability to move through skyscrapers in all three dimensions. And he doesn't need to shoot or punch the baddies: he just captures them in nets!

Watching spidey chat with some kind of tactical manager over comms while just punching up a crowd of prisoners in orange jumpsuits misses the point for me in a way that is absolutely visceral. Maybe I've just missed out on too much in four decades of spidermans.

It just reminds me of the moment in the first Matrix sequel when a rubber Neo bounced off a million rubber Agent Smiths and I just got bored and said "I'll pass, thanks."
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 6:44 AM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

also why the holy hell is a game named Red Dead Redemption not about the Glorious October Revolution
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 6:46 AM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

William Hughes: Spider-Man’s J. Jonah Jameson finds his true calling as a blustering right-wing podcaster

Jonah slides easily into the role of a particular flavor of loud-mouthed conservative blowhards, one of those guys who started out in radio and then simply took his show onto the internet when the digital wave came calling (thanks to a far more tech-savvy intern who he constantly berates). There’s a little bit of Alex Jones mixed into his show’s DNA—although Jameson’s anti-Spidey conspiracy theories are a lot less outlandish in a New York where the mayor runs an evil superscience factory and villains can corrupt good-hearted people at a touch—but the majority of it comes from what we can’t help but think of as a Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh place, guys who combine charismatic presence, high volume, and an unearned certainty in their own moral rectitude to create an irresistible steamroller of bullshit. The best depictions of J.J.J. have always come from a point of grudging respect, acknowledging his courage and his journalistic bona fides, while also making it clear that his fear and ego are constantly blinding him to the truth of all the good that Peter does. Who better to ape for his podcast debut, then, than the professional conservative shouting caste, who lives to profit off of that same mixture of bone-deep certainty, xenophobic paranoia, and obliviousness to facts? (Hell, “Spider-Man: Menace?!” was “fake news” five decades before the term ever came into regular use.)
[...]
Even more interesting, though, is the way Just The Facts fits into the game’s wider view of New York’s online ecosystem. Being a 23-year-old living in 2018, the game’s version of Spider-Man has his own official account on the game’s in-universe Twitter stand-in, tossing online quips around with the same ease that he hurls bad guys across the battlefield. Said social media platform is absolutely filled with Jameson’s online fans and detractors, discussing his show, arguing with each other, and, in one memorable case, offering up a good old-fashioned fake account mocking him at every turn. In the past, the Spidey properties have rarely spent much time discussing how people react to Jameson’s hate for the wall crawler, simply taking it as read that bad headlines equal bad public perception. The online fights you can watch play out between the Brush-Heads and the Spider fans (available with a simple button press on your menu screen) offer a much more human take on what the people of New York actually think about the web-swinging weirdo in their midst—as do the people who call in to Jameson’s show, only to get screamed at when they start talking about how grateful they are to Spider-Man for saving their lives.

What helps Just The Facts stand out among the wide array of video-game talking heads out there, though, is the way it blends so perfectly with the personality of the man hosting it. Jameson’s nearsighted bluster has always been a huge part of what makes Spider-Man work—the sense that, no matter how much Pete does or sacrifices, there are going to be powerful, loud forces who just don’t like him. And by slotting him into an online world that prizes “debate” at the same time as it rewards whoever’s willing to yell the loudest to blow past their opponent’s opinions, Insomniac Games did an incredible job of translating that misguided fury into a format that fits a Spidey for the modern age.

posted by zombieflanders at 11:48 AM on September 7, 2018

Just dumped a few hours into a Redbox rental of this tonight, and I might just end up keeping it. The city is absolutely gorgeous and incredibly realistic, not just graphically but in terms of all the little trappings of New York life -- the food carts, the rooftop gardens, the lamppost flyers. I could take or leave the story mode so far, but the free roam offers so many cool diversions, and thanks to the satisfying web-slinging even just roaming the city is a blast. The combat requires a lot of multitasking -- would be nice if the spidey sense thing was more noticeable -- but I'm getting the hang of it. Really, as somebody who grew up loving the now-quaint-looking Spider-man 2 for PS2, Insomniac really hit it out of the park with this one.
posted by Rhaomi at 11:50 PM on September 7, 2018

Watching spidey chat with some kind of tactical manager over comms while just punching up a crowd of prisoners in orange jumpsuits misses the point for me in a way that is absolutely visceral. Maybe I've just missed out on too much in four decades of spidermans.

You are not the only one troubled by this: They Turned Spider-Man Into A Damn Cop And It Sucks
posted by Nerd of the North at 5:06 PM on September 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

the politics of the game probably won't be satisfactory to the real fiery radicals on this website, but things do take quite a turn and there is a twist. spoilers below:

Norman Osborne (who is a pretty clear Bloomberg metaphor) brings in private security forces. It starts out with them just doing stop-and-frisk around the city. But eventually they become more extreme, arresting and torturing people. Spider-Man refers to them as "fascist soldier guys". They become your enemies and you can swing in and kick the shit out of them to stop them from rounding up protestors.

In many ways it's an extremely pro-civil-liberties, anti-police-abuse story, except that the game goes to great pains to distance the actual NYPD from any of this bad behavior.
posted by vogon_poet at 7:29 PM on September 10, 2018

I'm liking the game but it's falling a little flat to me? I'm only in a few hours but it's a bit too much "open world with missions game #215" in the design, a bit too much "press square a lot and circle when prompted" i the combat, and a bit too much "stop it already with the stupid jokes" with the writing. The web slinging flying is definitely nice, particularly once you learn the system a bit and unlock some of the movement skills. And it sure is pretty.
posted by Nelson at 7:04 PM on September 11, 2018

The game's grown on me and I'm liking it a lot better. The virtual New York is great. Haven't found one of those "screenshots vs. photos" articles yet for the game, but I've gotten lots of screenshots of my own. Also appreciate the variety of open world missions. My favorite type has you chasing a pigeon through the streets, a nice variant on the usual car chase game where you are flying / swinging in 3d trying to catch a damn bird. It helps they take pity on you and rubberband it to make it easier after about a minute.
posted by Nelson at 6:22 PM on September 15, 2018