Marvel”s Spider-Man finally swings from the Playstation to the PC. Find out if the feat works or crash lands in our GlobalESportNews review.
I have a terrible fear of spiders. The little hairy critters with their outrageous number and then long legs send a chill down my spine. No wonder I could never really get to grips with Spider-Man. The wall-crawler triggers in me what Batman is actually aiming at: pure fear and maybe a little bit of disgust.
Of course, this only fits in with the image of the friendly spider from the neighbourhood, which has been swinging through the world of comics, films and video games since 1962 thanks to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. In the process, I have tried again and again: With Marvel comic books, animated series in the afternoon programme or the great cinema adventures of Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and most recently, of course, Tom Holland. But the spark never really took off.
In the end, it took Marvel”s Spider-Man and the heroes of my childhood called Insomniac Games. The developers of Ratchet and Clank (one of my all-time favourite game series) conjured up a superhero game at least on the same level as Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Even if it”s fair to say that Spider-Man doesn”t come across quite as innovative and takes a fair amount of inspiration from DC”s Bat.
Now – almost four years later – Marvel”s Spider-Man is following in the footsteps of Kratos and Aloy, ending its Playstation exclusivity and jumping to the PC. If you”ve left perhaps the best Insomniac game to date and are now wondering how Spidey made me forget my arachnophobia, you need only read on. You can also find out whether Marvel”s Spider-Man, like Horizon: Zero Dawn before it, gets tangled up in a web of technical stumbling blocks in my review of the PC version.
From great licence comes great responsibility
Don”t worry, Marvel”s Spider-Man refrains from regurgitating Peter Parker”s well-worn progression to superhero. Movies and comics have already done that enough, Insomniac Games takes a different approach. So Uncle Ben is spared another on-screen death and I am spared the umpteenth version of the Out of Great Power follows you know what speech.
In fact, Marvel”s Spider-Man tells an entirely new and original story; there is no dedicated template from the movies or the comic book shelf. At the same time, the game”s story doesn”t jettison familiar plot elements or character dynamics, but takes them in exciting new directions. May Parker remains Peter”s caring aunt, Mary Jane Watson his love for life and villains like Wilson Fisk, Electro, Hammerhead or Taskmaster are still no fans of the friendly neighbourhood spider.
In Marvel”s Spider-Man, Peter Parker has been wiping the floor with criminal scum in New York for eight years, has long since left school behind and hires himself out as a scientist instead of a pizza delivery boy. His new job, however, is comparably miserably paid and, as usual, the problem of balancing his two lives is added to the familiar money problems.
Here Marvel”s Spider-Man shines in a respect that previous games had criminally neglected: The lives of Peter Parker and Spider-Man go hand in hand: if one wins, the other loses out – and vice versa. At the same time, playable sections as Mary Jane or Miles Morales (here still without superpowers) provide completely new perspectives on (over)life in a New York packed with superheroes and villains.
(From above) the most beautiful city in the world
Speaking of New York: The city that never sleeps is so well done in the game that it could easily pass for a character in its own right. Insomniac has created an extremely true-to-the-template and vibrant New York, where allusions to the real world and the Marvel universe can be found at every turn. So I swing from Doctor Strange”s Sanctum Sanctorum to Time Square to Jessica Jones” private detective agency to Grand Central Terminal.
But the magic fades a little when I don”t spin from building to building, but walk through the streets like a normal mortal. Having arrived at the bottom of the facts, it”s impossible not to notice that the New York of Marvel”s Spider-Man was made primarily for viewing it from above and in a dive. At least I can respond to the attempted hugs of low-resolution passers-by with aplomb
with a high-five. Not at all unpleasant.
Not the end of the world. After all, I don”t spend too much time down there anyway, when I”m not out running criminals or rescuing civilians from predicaments. I don”t set foot on the ground for more than 90 percent of Marvel”s Spider-Man. I don”t even want to – and that”s because of the fantastic web-swinging mechanics.
This is what a spider man must feel like!
I dare say: Insomniac Games has been able to almost perfect the web-swinging. In almost no other game is it so much fun to swing from skyscraper to skyscraper, to rush into a dive, only to catapult yourself back up into the air at the last second with a spun rope. Despite unlockable abilities, the movement of Marvel”s Spider-Man never becomes overloaded or overwhelming; instead, it turns out to be both fast-paced and relaxing in a paradoxical way.
If I press the corresponding button, Spidey spins a rope that he holds on to until I let go. This gives me full control over the speed and momentum of his aerial acrobatics and I can either sail through the streets completely relaxed to enjoy the view or spin in short intervals to get faster and faster.
However, there is a catch: Although the background music of Marvel”s Spider-Man is basically successful, it is immensely repetitive, especially in the open game world. After I had already beaten my Playstation score to 100 percent in 2018, I simply can”t listen to the same theme any more. Different radio stations with licensed music à la GTA or Cyberpunk would have been an absolute dream.
There”s always time for a few bells
Marvel”s Spider-Man, by the way, manages a small feat that many other open world games of recent years have failed miserably at: Filling the game world with all kinds of occupational therapies, but not immediately overwhelming the player with them. How does Insomniac do it? The answer is frighteningly simple: instead of plastering the map with icons for (side) missions and collectibles right after the prologue, I unlock them bit by bit.
How does Insomniac do that?
This means that Marvel”s Spider-Man doesn”t run out of new content even in the late hours of the game and always gives me other things to do. At the same time, pretty much every time you level up or progress through the story, there”s a new reward in the form of an ability, unlockable suit or gadget upgrade. Marvel”s Spider-Man thus spices up its exciting story additionally with ample rewards and motivates me until the end (or the 100 percent) that I really want to see everything of the game.
This is even really tricky at times. Because on the way through the open game world, I get enough distractions in the way with randomly generated crimes or various collecting and research tasks. Sometimes a scoundrel wants to be beaten up, sometimes a getaway car needs to be stopped and sometimes bombs need to be defused, every now and then I also have to give Taskmaster a performance, follow the heels of Black Cat or save the environment.
New York really is full of varied occupational therapies, but they never feel forced and always fit into the context of the story. The pleasant thing about it: I can ignore many of the side quests, as long as I want to do without certain playful advantages or just a new Spidey suit. But Spider-Man is not really unfair or frustrating anyway, I can simply switch off or skip quick-time events or puzzles, for example.
But I don”t want to miss the Batman: Arkham-inspired
fights and sneak passages anyway, they are simply too much fun for that. A fundamentally simple combat system, strictly speaking I only have to dodge with one button and strike with the other. Of course, I can also parry with the counter button at the right moment, but the numerous abilities are indispensable for fighting a lot of enemies at once.
This way I can glue my opponents to the wall, shock them with an electronic net or rip their weapons out of their hands just to throw them in their colleagues” faces. Often enough, however, I can go quietly and clean up areas as quiet as a mouse without any significant resistance.
The boss fights of Marvel”s Spider-Man are again a double-edged sword: Sometimes spectacularly staged and playfully challenging, sometimes frighteningly simple, QTE-heavy and surprisingly quickly over. Just like with the MJ/Miles sections, not everyone is likely to be happy with it, especially the latter cause pacing problems in the last third of the plot and take out speed despite the exciting angle.
The advantages of the PC version
By the way, locomotion and also the battles work surprisingly well with mouse and keyboard. If you”re not satisfied with the standard key assignment, you can puzzle together your own set of commands thanks to the generous customisation options. In the long run, however, I would still recommend using the controller, after all, there is even official Dual Sense support.
Even in the later stages of the game, it can get a bit crampy when new skills require more and more exotic button combinations and more different enemy variants want to be beaten up at once. In the long run, Marvel”s Spider-Man is simply more fun to play with the controls it was originally designed for.
In exchange, the PC version of Marvel”s Spider-Man has quite different merits: If I don”t turn all graphics settings up to the max, I can get away with moderate requirements and still enjoy a constant frame rate of 60fps along with high foresight and ray tracing. And oh boy, is New York twice as beautiful to look at with an ultrawide monitor and the appropriate support!
What I would like to mention regarding the technology: During our test phase we had to deal with occasional technical problems. These ranged from occasional crashes to graphics errors and sound problems during cutscenes to disproportionate power consumption at medium ray tracing settings.
However, Insomniac Games patched so diligently until the embargo was lifted that none of these could be found or reproduced on three different test systems. If you want to be on the safe side, wait for the release on 12 August and the first player reports.
Marvel”s Spider-Man, like its protagonist, is of course not without its flaws However, the small flaws and inconsistencies can be overlooked with a clear conscience in view of the coherent overall concept. Even if, like me, you can”t stand spiders to death. That was already the case in 2018 when it was released on Playstation 4, and now PC gamers finally get the chance to experience one of the best superhero games since Batman: Arkham Asylum and/or City for themselves.
Marvel”s Spider-Man is worth a look simply because of the successful story, the fantastic movement and the open world filled with fun tasks. Technically, there is also little to complain about and with PC ray tracing and ultra-wide support, Insomniac Games” New York is perhaps even more beautiful to look at on the computer. Those who have so far left Marvel”s Spider-Man to the left due to its Sony exclusivity now have no excuse.
Editor”s Verdict
After already beating Marvel”s Spider-Man to 100 percent on the PS4, I was honestly a wee bit wary of this review. Because I really did swing through New York ad nauseam, put criminal scum in their place and invested more hours in the Insomniac game than I would like to admit in good conscience. But after starting the PC version, I was shocked to discover how quickly I had become entangled in the spider”s web again.
After four hours I had hardly (re)seen anything of the story, but was simply busy collecting old backpacks and photographing New York”s sights. I blame the absolutely fantastic web-swinging mechanics! Because rarely has simple locomotion through an open world been so much fun as in Marvel”s Spider-Man. (Except maybe in Mad Max, but you know how I feel about Mad Max). After my stay in New York a few years ago, I can personally appreciate the game world a little more, as I have a direct comparison of how much attention to detail the developers have put into their game.
The fact that Marvel”s Spider-Man tells a really good story, that Yuri Lowenthal”s Peter Parker is perhaps my favourite version of Spidey, and that fighting and sneaking are equally fun to play, is of course an added bonus. Marvel”s Spider-Man is simply a successful superhero game through and through, which doesn”t really do much that”s new and innovative, but it gets it damn right.
