Spider-Man for PS4 review: ‘One of the best superhero games I’ve ever played’

IT’S one of the most anticipated games of the year and the good news is you don’t need to be a fan to enjoy this one.

SPIDER-MAN has been swinging his way around New York for 56 years and it’s testament to the character’s popularity that the arrival of a new game (or movie) featuring the arachnid adventurer is still greeted with so much excitement.

Developed by Insomniac games and released by Sony exclusively for the PlayStation 4 — and one of only two AAA games to be getting a platform exclusive release this side of Christmas (the other is Super Smash Bros on the Nintendo Switch in December) — Marvel’s Spider-Man was going to be popular just by virtue of its licence alone.

Fear not, however — as it’s also a very good game, regardless of whether you’re a Spider-Man fan.

You don’t need to be a Spider-Man fan to enjoy this game Picture: Supplied

It surprises people to discover I’m not a huge comic book enthusiast, so I was a little hesitant when approaching the new game since I figured it’d be packed with in-references and callbacks to things that would go swooping over my head like the eponymous character.

The developers have said that they wanted the game to be accessible to everyone, and that as long as you knew Spider-Man was Peter Parker who got bitten by a radioactive spider and became a superhero, you’d be fine — and that’s definitely true.

While the game is obviously full of references for dedicated fans, it does an excellent job of intelligently explaining who the characters are — I never once found myself unsure of who someone was or where they fitted into Spider-Man’s life.

The level design is excellent too — from the fantastic-looking recreation of New York City to building interiors to ventilation ducts and more, everywhere you go looks impressive and is full of things to turn into impromptu weapons against your enemies.

Where the game really shines is the web-swinging and combat mechanics. Using webs like vines and swooping through New York like a Tarantula-themed Tarzan is a lot of fun and feels very natural, and the combat feels very fluid too — you can try and pull off combos and be fancy, or mash buttons and hope for the best, but it always feels like you’re controlling a plausible superhero.

The writing is top-notch too, perfectly capturing Peter’s self-deprecating nature and use of humour as a way to cope with stressful situations — and bordering on the self aware at times, which is humorous and welcome.

Review for Spider-Man on PS4. It's good.

Making Peter Parker and Mary-Jane a few years older was a great decision on the developer’s part, moving their characters forward while still allowing them to retain some of their youthful traits and enthusiasm as well.

At its heart, Marvel’s Spider-Man is a relatable human story about finding your place in the world, and is full of experiences many people can relate to — being broke, juggling work and personal life, wanting to get back with an ex and not knowing if the relationship can be salvaged, and also knowing when to ask for help.

The story is quite good too; and importantly, it’s not just about Spider-Man. While many superheroes tend to be loners (or hang around with other superheroes, perhaps in some kind of league dedicated to justice or in an organisation devoted to avenging wrongs), Peter Parker has friends, family (well, an aunt), colleagues and rivals — not to mention an ex girlfriend with whom “it’s complicated” doesn’t even begin to describe the situation.

Many of them feature strongly in the story, and in some cases — notably Mary-Jane — are even playable characters. What I particularly liked about Mary-Jane’s investigative themed parts was how they felt like an important part of the storytelling and a worthwhile addition to the game, offering a different perspective and insights into the game’s central story.

Peter Parker is a technical engineer, so there are lots of nifty gadgets available for him to build, including improved Spider-Man suits, better web-shooters, spider web trip mines and spider drones.

Some of these are a lot of fun — I rather liked the web bomb — but upgrading them to be regularly effective involves doing a lot of side missions.

While being an open-world game, it’s not Grand Theft Auto so the world isn’t particularly interactive and you can’t get up to a lot of mischief like causing traffic chaos by webbing major roads and bridges for the sheer hell of it, either.

Then again, that’s not really in character for Spider-Man either, but that probably wouldn’t stop people trying anyway.

The graphics are impressive. Picture: Supplied

The combat mechanics themselves are fluid and well implemented, but combat itself is inconsistent, swinging between far too easy and far too hard, and some of the boss fights are particularly frustrating — or, in some cases, too easy.

While the story is generally good, it does have moments of characters behaving illogically to suit the plot, and the difficulty ramps up in parts too.

Like many other open-world games, some of the side-missions feel a bit grindy after a while — one would think after the fifth or sixth time Spider-Man beat the stuffing out of some goons and left them suspended in a web over a major thoroughfare that the city’s other ne’er-do-wells would get the message, but apparently not.

These are all but minor flaws in what is otherwise an excellent game and one I highly recommend — it’s one of the best superhero games I’ve ever played.

Between the extremely well designed world, impressive graphics, excellent voice acting, solid story and fun gameplay there is a lot to make Marvel’s Spider-Man a must buy for PlayStation 4 fans of superhero games and solid adventures alike.

With great power comes great responsibility — and a lot of fun.