Marvel's Spider-Man | PS4 Review

Publisher: Insomniac Games
Developer: Sony
PS4 Review

Now that I have finally finished the main story of Spider-Man I felt it was time to do a review, I just want to start off by saying no I never did play the previous PS2 Spider-Man games but I used to watch one of my sisters who loves Spider-Man play it so I was interested to see how the latest game would turn out. There was a lot of hype that surrounded it and although this would put me off at times, the more I read about it the more I wanted to get the game for myself, I was lucky enough to borrow a copy of the game off of a family member who told me I needed to finish the whole story, they are pretty good at recommended James and me games and I wasn't disappointed with Spider-Man.

The game took a while to install so we decided to only install it on James's console that way I had lots of space left on mine and wouldn't have to wait around for it to be installed and James has way more space on his console. There are 3 different settings for easy, medium and hard mode and personally I played it on easy mode, people may think I should have pushed myself to play it on a harder mode but to be honest I'm not the best gamer and didn't know how good I would be at this game so I set it to friendly, I went through the settings and enabled subtitles as I find it hard to play games without them due to my hearing being rubbish at times. Once I chose my settings the game got right to it, it flung me into the city and made me learn how to swing which isn't a bad thing, I needed a lot of practice because I kept falling to the ground (which doesn't kill you, funnily enough, you just land on your feet).

Soon after this, I found myself fighting my first boss, the first boss who is pretty much a beast when it comes to fighting against, I felt that being able to fight a boss so early on helped me get used to the battle elements and buttons, I would use being able to swing and climb up walls to my advantage, once you level up more you're able to perform more moves against enemies but when you first start out the moves are pretty standard such as using the square button to hit the enemy with and triangle button to pull yourself towards an enemy to hit them. I was so happy when I could finally use more moves on them such as holding down on the triangle button to yank their weapon out of their hand, then being able to swing the weapon and hit them with it.

Peter Parker (Spider-Man) No longer works as a photographer at the Daily Bugle and has had a big career change, he is now working with Dr. Octo to develop mechanical arms for people who need prosthetics, he and Octo have a very close relationship and Peter is always looking out for him, he cares more for his work than the struggles he faces when it comes to paying his bills. He and MJ are no longer together but I like this because it gave the game the opportunity to delve further into the issues they faced over the period of their relationship and how even though they are no longer together they are more than willing to help one another especially because MJ knows Peter is Spider-Man. The story has a nice and fluid pace which is easy to keep up with, I felt like I knew what I needed to do next thanks to the prompt notifications on the map (although that's not always the case when it comes to side missions), there are 30+ chapters to get through which roughly equates to 20 hours which isn't bad considering its packed full of side missions, secret and side activities, puzzles and mini games which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I got through the puzzles before I finished the main game, some were pretty annoying to work out but others simple, the great thing about this game is that you can choose to skip the puzzles if you're finding them too hard. Some may see this as cheating but Sony have done it to help those who won't be able to solve the puzzles, you will find the setting to skip puzzles, autocomplete QTE, add a background to HUD and more in accessibility settings. I would often find myself concentrating on doing other tasks such as beating up criminals in order to collect tokens so I would upgrade all my gadgets and collect all of the Spider-Man suits, there are 28 in total and my favourite would have to be the secret war suit, each suit gives spidey some kind of power which helps when it comes to fighting crime.

Combat is fairly easy once you get the hang of it, as I said before I already have my favourite move which you I use but being able to unlock more moves with skill points, leveling up didn't take as long as I thought it would and is the least tedious thing about the game, the most tedious part of the game would have to be part was the timed quests the Taskmaster gave you, I was rubbish at them and in Order to get certain trophies being rubbish won't help you get those trophies in order to platinum the game. Once I got through the main story I found myself spending more time swinging from building to building killing criminals than I did try to complete the side missions, I wanted those crime tokens to level up my gear and get more spidey suits so I could take more cool pictures in photo mode!

Talking of the photo mode, you bet I spent hours using it when I first started the game, I wanted to get a feel of how to take the best kind of pictures and it didn't disappoint me at all, in fact, the more I progressed in the game the better my pictures got because let's face it Insomniac made a beautiful game with amazing graphics, some of the best I have seen in a game and they really brought each character to life. The expressions on characters faces, their body language, and the voice acting were all spot on, it drew me further into the game for hours which I don't usually do when it comes to a game due to my chronic illness, here are some of my favourite photo mode images I took:

The game as a whole is packed full of fun, there is a lot to collect and complete and I personally feel a game like this shouldn't be rushed when it comes to a playthrough, having a section with moves that I can unlock and use in the menu was a big help, if I was unsure of how to do a move I could just check in the menu and refresh my memory, visually the game is stunning and it's biggest let down would have to be accessibility for people who are colour blind and the fact that you can't customise button assignments, but as a whole the game is beautiful, there were a few glitches now and then but once I restarted a mission they soon disappeared, I give this game 5/5.