Spider-Man for PS4 is a game that made me question my hard and fast rule on a five point scale. I considered giving it a 4, but realised that this is a console game when all is said and done, and that right there is where the game falls down.
As a Spider-Man story, it's superb. It's comic-booky as Hell, sure, but really nails down what makes Spider-Man/Peter Parker such a compelling character. He not only has to deal with murderous super-villains and the Great Responsibility that comes with his Great Powers, but he also has to deal with the every day shit we all have to deal with: work, relationships, and the desire to just be a decent human being.
...Ok, so I'm not sure we all worry about that last part. I would hope most of us do.
Peter's relationship with Mary-Jane is the star here, highlighted by a particularly relatable SMS conversation between the two. Literally everyone on the face of the planet will have one of these conversations in their life-time, and it's hard not to love and empathise with them both. They're both trying their best, and that shit is hard, man, even with the proportional strength of a spider. There's lots of other enjoyable nods to the comics, with plenty of in-game references, alternative Spider-Suits, and set ups for DLC and sequels that any Spider-Fan will enjoy.
Another enjoyable part of the game I'd like to touch on before getting into what I didn't like, is the web-swinging. While it absolutely didn't "make me feel like Spider-Man", which is literally all I heard about the game before going in, it never-the-less works very well. Early on I was frustrated, as the particular mechanics where not very well explained until I happened across a tip on a loading screen after failing a mission a few times for simply being too slow. This is something the Arkham games did better (a comparison I'll be making a lot), as it would have explained this mechanic and tested you had understood before throwing you into the mix.
Sadly, every other aspect of the game basically boils down to just that: The Arkham Series Did It Better. That makes it hard for me to go easy with my critique: if you're going to lean on someone else's ideas, you best do a good job emulating that experience.
Combat, for me was frustrating. You hit the attack button in an enemy's direction in an Arkham game, and Batman leaps across the field with an athleticism simply no man should posses. You do this in Spider-Man, known for his incredible agility, and unless you're next to the enemy, and he punches air. I get that there's the button for webbing that lets you zip across in much the same fashion, but I can't help but feel this should have been simply the animation and not required to be input manually. Another obvious and annoying comparison: dodging. You hit dodge in an Arkham game, and Batman will either move well-fucking-away from the enemy, or the character models will actually interact and interrupt an attack. Not so in Spider-Man, who instead does a fancy but pointless cartwheel, often leaving him within arm's reach of the enemy you're trying to avoid.
The stealth sections were particularly disappointing for me. This is partly because some aspects of the game absolutely ignore the fact you cleared a room without alerting any enemies and then flood you with waves upon waves of enemies, making you ask what is the point, and why should you bother doing it again? When this wasn't the case, and you could actually clear the room without having to fight anyone, it just isn't as refined as it could have been. In an Arkham game, they're almost like puzzles, which reward patience and careful execution. You work out patrol patterns and notice subtle but convinient spots littered around the guard's paths where you can take out your target. In Spider-Man, most enemies are static, meaning you simply find a vantage point and either launch at them like a Man-shaped missle, or drag them up to your high place and web them up there. To help marginly with this monotony, there will be occassional groups of enemies which simply require you to distract one while you take out the other, in the same fashion you've already done ad nauseam.
Thankfully, there's no Spider-Mobile sections that would have made me hurdle the disc into oblivion.
Spider-Man is a perfectly serviceable game, but people lead me to believe it was more than that, something special. God of War this is not, which had both a fantastic story and a sold game-play beat. I'd love to see more Spider-Man games in the future, as they absolutely nail the feel of a Spider-Man world. They will need to at least bring any future games up to the Arkham-standard, which they so liberally borrow from but don't execute anywhere near as well.
For me, I'm going to be happy simply watching any future DLC through the medium of YouTube videos.
