[Pre-Review] Marvel’s Spider-Man by Insomniac Games Is THE Spider-Man Game We Need

Thanks to Sony, we were give the chance to attend a media preview event of Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Spider-Man that’s coming to the PlayStation 4. The event was a fruitful one as we got a hands-on experience on Marvel’s Spider-Man on the PlayStation 4 AND got to interview with Insomniac Games’ Community Director, James Stevenson, for some private Q&A. We’ve got some good news and even more juicy news about the game. So far, we’ve loved it and there’s really to dislike about the game.

It is Spider-Man, one of Marvel’s beloved superhero by many and we’ve seen so many movies made because of this one character. It would be a disaster if one of our favorite character was not portrayed as we’ve expected, which is why we really love what Insomniac Games has done with Spider-Man. Without further ado, I’m going to breakdown what we’ve experienced during the media preview event.

*TL;DR? Scroll all the way down for the full video interview!

STORY

The story of Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Spider-Man is one that you guys might already know through the trailers and the Daily Bugle series that’s has been up on the official site. That said, Peter Parker has been Spider-Man for 8 years and he’s 23 years old now. After graduating from high school and through college, he’s now a certified scientist at a lab. He’s way past delivering pizzas and has a stable job at the science lab.

His love life – not so much. Peter is still wildly into Mary Jane just like in the canon story but they apparently have broken up. As Peter still struggles in life as a working adult now, we see him struggling with rent as well (that’s so Peter). This is pretty understandable as he is trying to balance his life between work, love, Aunt May and Spider-Man.

With a lot on his plate, he’s dealing with a ton of pressure from what’s going to happen in New York City. As we were introduced with the Inner Demons as we’ve seen from the trailers, we also discovered that Martin Li is this new villain called Mister Negative. Seeing that Martin Li is also the boss of Aunt May who works as a volunteer in his F.E.A.S.T. shelter for the needy, Peter will find it hard to bring him in behind bars. What would happen to F.E.A.S.T. if not because of him? And what would Aunt May do if she found out that Martin Li was a villain as well.

As we have experienced at the beginning of the story in Spider-Man of how Peter’s world collides with another’s, he’s basically trying his best to choose his next move carefully. Of course, this will be in your hands when the game officially comes out on September 7th, where you will be playing through the story to unravel the progression of Peter’s decisions.

Nonetheless, the story has been very intriguing thus far during the media preview. As much as we enjoyed the story, we also loved to run around web-slinging in the streets and between skyscrapers of New York City!

GAMEPLAY

If you’ve played the previous Spider-Man games released by Activision since 2000, there were no sense of freedom playing as Spider-Man. Though we could swing around the city, but we can never roam around the streets. It was only in Spider-Man 3 could we actually run around the streets and swing around the city to do missions like Spider-Man would.

Though, the story telling in the previous games weren’t the best and could have been better, we have seen them improve over the years. That has brought us to THIS Marvel’s Spider-Man game by Insomniac Games and they could not have done it better. The story was awesome and the gameplay do not feel repetitive as compared to old Spider-Man games as there’s so much to do even during battles.

Battles system

The enemies each have their own difficulty or moves that has only one aim – to bring down Spider-Man. There are brutes, grunts and others who each have their own weakness and ways to defeat them. With the freedom to also sling around any objects like a trashcan, a manhole cover or even pull down a shelf onto the enemies near it – you might find it hard to keep up with the battle. However, that is the challenge where you need to learn and develop your Spidey skills!

Dodging is very important in the game because Marvel’s Spider-Man is not some button-mashing game. It has depth and strategic battles – and if you make the wrong move, you WILL pay for it. With Spider-Man’s acrobatic maneuvers, you can perform multiple combos and skills to defeat an enemy. We especially love the variety of web skills that we can use – like the web bombs we saw in the trailer.

Missions

In Marvel’s Spider-Man, we have the main story quest that we should follow. However, we are given the choice to do it whenever we want. We don’t necessarily need to do the story. There are tons of missions to do, like side quests and backpacks to collect all over the map. These missions will give you tokens which enables you to unlock new suits that comes with new suit power or abilities.

Suit up!

Peter started off using his traditional Spider-Man suit. As you might have noticed, he was wearing a different Spider-Man suit in the trailers. During a battle with Fisk, his suit was torn and so he was forced to repair his suit. But instead, he created a new suit in the lab which is the Advanced Suit you see in the trailers. As mentioned earlier, new suits can be unlocked using tokens you earned from missions – but the Advanced Suit is FREE as it’s part of the story progression.

There is also a certain level that you need to achieve first before you’re able to unlock the suits. The suits come with various abilities and powers. There are also mods that you can unlock for each suit which you can master. Once mastered, you can even transfer them over to your favorite suit. Though, you can only equip up to 3 mods in a single suit – so you can build your very own ultimate suit!

If you want more tokens, there’re also tasks and puzzles that you can complete in the lab which will reward you with tokens. And of course, some suit will require certain tokens which can only be obtained by completing tech puzzles from the research lab.

SOME SPIDEY BITS

Now for the interview that we mentioned earlier in the article – it was a pleasure for us to meet with James Stevenson, the Community Director of Insomniac Games. We were able to squeeze some info about the game and what the future holds for us of their Marvel’s Spider-Man. However, I won’t write any further about the contents because it’d be too boring to read…. I know right!?

But I’m going to drop the bomb here – there won’t be ANY symbiotes in this Spider-Man universe. Sadly, that would also mean we will not have Spider-Man’s infamous black suit. Though there are other black suits in the game where we can unlock and craft later.

And you might also know that this Spider-Man universe is the same universe as the MCU, where we see the Avengers’ Tower AND the Wakandan Embassy exist in New York City. Though they exist in the same universe, sadly we will not be seeing them in the game. Those buildings exist because it wouldn’t be realistic if you don’t see those skyscrapers in New York City, would it? But we won’t be seeing any Avengers in the game – from the words of James.

Currently, Insomniac Games is just trying to focus on giving us the best Spider-Man content in this Spiderverse that they’ve created. So we won’t be seeing anything other than “Spider-Mans” in this game. So if you’re interested for more, you can watch the whole interview with James Stevenson below!

Want to know more? Watch the interview we had with James Stevenson below:

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