Ricky Church gets hands on with Marvel’s Spider-Man at Fan Expo 2018…
Marvel’s Spider-Man for PlayStation 4 has been a game long in the making and now it is just a week away from being released worldwide. At the Fan Expo convention in Toronto, PlayStation held a demo of the game open for fans to play, giving them just a taste of what awaits them next week. Just based off this demo, Spider-Man looks to be quite an enjoyable adventure for fans of Marvel’s resident wall-crawler.
The open-world is very rich in its detail. From the way civilians react to when you land on the street or how birds get spooked when you swing by, there is so much to look at and see. New York City may have never looked as good in a video game as it does here. However, you’re going to have a hard time looking at the scenery as you’ll be too busy looking at Spidey’s movements as he swings around. Spidey’s web-shooting and swinging abilities have never looked better, allowing you to swing in great sweeping arcs or do some quick-fire webs and zip-lines to get to where you need to go faster. It looks simply incredible, though can be almost nauseating depending how close you are to the screen. Nevertheless, the graphic’s on Spider-Man throughout his various movements web-swinging is fantastic.
It will take a little while for the players to get fully used to swinging. Players can control where they go and how much force to put into a swing, but there’s still a bit of a learning curve to the direction. There is also the additional detail that you can pinpoint where you want your webs to latch onto, whether its the side of a building, tip of a flagpole or water tower or something else. That’s a detail most previous Spider-Man games haven’t quite had before, at least not to this kind of degree. There is also the added element of going from a full swing to running on the side of a building to gain momentum, something that is very fun to do and again has so much detail if you’re running on glass and can see your reflection. Even though learning how to swing will take a bit of time, it will definitely be a rewarding experience.
The demo featured various combat elements as Spidey got the drop on some thugs. These can come either by looking around in your area, not unlike looking at a vantage point in Assassin’s Creed except you can do it whenever and wherever you want, or by getting a call from Yuri Watanabe, Spidey’s contact in the NYPD, that alerts him to some crimes in progress or where a gang might be located. The combat is very similar to the Batman: Arkham series where it is very fluid with the amount of enemies coming against you as well as the amount of moves you can do. Again, there’s a bit of a learning curve as you get used to the various web abilities, combos and devices. However, whereas Batman: Arkham Knight would allow you to quickfire gadgets in the middle of combat, Spider-Man seems to make you ‘pause’ the game as you pull up the device wheel and choose your next web gadget, making it a somewhat cumbersome though you also have to act fast as time still flows at a slower rate.
Still, fighting against waves of enemies as Spidey was incredibly fun. True to his character, there’s a lot of fun quipping as you pull of various moves and dispose of the bad guys. At one point, you could chase down a car or armoured truck in a very detailed and intense chase. These events seem to pop up at random as well and they’re fun to take part in as you have to swing and land on top of the vehicle and quickly dispatch the drivers. The real highlight of the combat, however, was the boss fight against Shocker.
You begin by learning Shocker has escaped prison and is in the middle of robbing a bank, this time with a newly improved suit. The fight isn’t too difficult, but Shocker does pack a healthy amount of damage if his shockwaves hit you. He gets progressively more difficult, to the point where you can’t even touch the ground if he’s using one of his attacks and have to keep swinging around the bank. The fight forces you to change your tactics and offers a nice mixture of gameplay as you more fully combine your swinging, dodging and combat abilities to defeat Shocker. It’s a pretty entertaining fight that again make you feel like Spider-Man with your moves and all of his corny smacktalk against Shocker.
Just based on the demo alone, it looks like Spider-Man will be a very memorable game. The detail in surroundings is outstanding and the combat flow works pretty well. Spidey fans should get a kick out of the game and the amount of stuff you can seemingly do and explore.
An experienced Spider-Man with several years of crime fighting under his belt, Peter Parker has sheer mastery of his powerful spider-sense, dynamic skills, acrobatic abilities and a new suit. This is an all-new Spider-Man universe, featuring familiar characters in unfamiliar roles. Take control of a complex dual life, as a young adult with great powers… and evolving relationships. Swing freely through Marvel’s New York City in epic action set-pieces filled with a rich narrative and relatable characters.
Ricky Church
