Spider-Man: how to be a superhero 101

Remember when you were five and on Sunday mornings you would run to the living room to watch the Spider-Man cartoon on the TV? Because Insomniac remembers.

Let's get down to the basics. Spider-man was released on September 7th, 2018 and the great minds behind its development were Insomniac Games, creators of Spyro and Rachet&Clank, among many others.

The game was announced in Sony's panel at E3 2016 and, from then on, the hype train was started. Its release broke records and it was, very recently, nominated for Game of the Year, in eight different categories.

Games make me cry

I bought the game upon its release and for the first time in my life, I cried of joy with a game.

Let's rewind a little bit to when I was a very small kid. When I was growing up, I was always sick. I couldn't leave the house because I was too weak and couldn't be around people either. On top of that, my family was very poor. We were five children, me being the youngest. This being said, we did have one TV and a VCR on our living room/kitchen. Why is this important? Well, because I would watch the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends on tape, all the time. This is the first memory of my life that I can actually recall.

Years later, I was so sick that I had to stay three long months in a hospital bed with my mom beside me, all the time. She would go every day or so to a small store nearby and pick up Spider-man comics for me. Those were the highlights of my days, in the hospital, between the medication and the pain.

So, you see, Spider-man is that important to me. He's the favorite superhero of hundreds of people around the world and everyone has different reasons for that. For me, it’s because in some parts of my life, Spider-Man made me believe that even when faced with great challenges, you can surpass anything.

When I saw the intro cinematic of Spider-Man PS4 I cried. I cried because I was really happy to see such a great character being treated with so much respect. I cried at the end too, but I won't say why (non-spoiler alert).

But what about the game?

The game follows Peter Parker eight years after he has become Spider-Man, while a power struggle for New York's criminal underworld is on.

Isn’t this description just classic-Spider-man? As I already said, the opening of the game is magical and the main reason for that is because it never loses focus or explains anything about the game to you. You know who Spider-man is, how he gained his powers and what he had lost, so why waste time with those things? The team behind Insomniac wants you to feel the rush of being Spider-Man, as soon as possible. And so from the moment you launch your first web, that's exactly what you feel!

But what if you aren't a fan of Spider-Man, would you still enjoy the game? Well, yes in most cases, probably not in others. I would say it's a 50/50 chance. If you never touched a comic book, never seen a movie or a cartoon of Spider-Man, you will be presented with an open-world game with a fairly developed combat mechanic.

I almost (just almost) envy someone who isn't a fan of Spider-Man and plays this game as an entry point into the character. Everything will be new for you, but most importantly you won't see the plot twists coming. That being said, the game takes some liberties with a lot of characters and storylines, in order to please older fans while not being predictive.

Webbing my way to the top

The city of New York is, by itself, a character of the game. Probably, the best character.

So, about open-world games... Are you tired of them yet? I, personally, never get tired of anything if, of course, it's well executed. I can't tell you what it feels like to swing around New York without going full-on cliche mode: It feels like you are Spider-Man!

Somehow, Insomniac Games managed to homage New York, other Marvel superheroes and the Spider-Man universe without the game feeling crowded or confusing. Everything is in the game for a reason.

When faced with the challenge of making a Spider-Man game, a developer has to take in consideration that the traveling system is already set in stone by decades of the character history: Web-Swinging. Insomniac used something that works near perfectly, a momentum based system, this means that you start swinging with just the click of a button and, as you gain speed, it will be harder to control but if you manage to master it, it is a rewarding experience.

Can you tell the difference between Spider-Man and Peter Parker?

The game takes around 15 to 20 hours to beat the main storyline and it has three DLC episodes (two of them already out by the time of this report) that should expand the time for 3 hours each.

In that time, you will meet dozens of characters. All of them perfectly cast, if I might say so myself, but no other shines like Yuri Lowenthal. He just oozes chemistry with everyone and just nails it with both the delivery of funny spider-jokes and the dramatic moments.

That being said, the work done by Insomniac in developing a story that is Peter Parker-centric and, just after that, makes it about Spider-Man, is just phenomenal. You feel like every twist is deserved and makes sense in the overall narrative. You grow attached to this portrayal of the character, even more than in any other portrayal before it.

Full on Spider-Fashion Mode

Insomniac's Spider-Man has a wide variety of suits, almost 30 variations of the Spider-suit to choose from.

Spider-man can compete head-to-head with Batman and Iron-Man in the number of costumes available throughout the history of the characters. It would be impossible to put every suit of the wall-crawler inside a single game (still hoping to Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham as an alternate suit) but the developers chose, without a doubt, the most diverse gallery of suits. Some of them are iconic, to say the least, but some of them are deep cuts of less known Spidey stories.

That being said, there is some omission that may lead us to believe that they will be integral for a future sequel.

Everything is a remix

Is Marvel's Spider-Man the most original game ever? Nop. But, some would argue that real creativity is looking at something that already exists and improves it.

Does it work in this particular case? Yes.

Let's talk about the most obvious one, the suit.

From what I established above, you already know that there are a lot of suits on the game and more are on the way, but my favorite one has to be the Advanced Suit, A.K.A, the main suit of the game. The way Insomniac took the look of classic Spider-Man and changed it, just enough for it to look more modern and stylish, proves they respect the source material more than most developers.

One of the most common comparisons made to this game is that it is a copy of Rocksteady's Batman Arkham games but with a Spider skin on it. My question is: What's the big deal about it? The Arkham games are amazing, mainly because of its combat, and Spider-Man copies just enough of what's good and puts a spin to it. It's not better but it's different, focusing more on ranged combat than dodging.

Talking about the side-content of this game. If you like side-content they are some things you can do, leading to different results. My favorite one is taking down some the enemies bases, the other ones are a hit and miss with most players. But, more often than not, they will lead you to interact with some iconic character from the wall-crawler family.

Let's wrap it up: Spider-man is a love letter to old fans and a really nice entryway for new fans. If you like open-world games, this is a must play. If you like games in general, you should play it also.

Spider-man was released in 2018 for the PlayStation 4 and its expansion 'The City That Never Sleeps' is having chapters. With the first 2 already out.

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Tags: #spidermanPS4 #Playstation4 #spiderman #insomniacgames #e3