Marvel’s Spider-Man exclusively for Play Station is not a new game. It has been out for over a year at this point, having been released on September 7th, 2018. Yet, here I am reviewing the game a year after release. Why you may ask? It’s because I have NEVER been this invested in a game before in my life, and that I feel needs to be talked about. 

New York is a perfectly constructed concrete jungle fit for web-swinging through it. You feel like Spider-Man with every fluid movement you make traversing through the city. Something that comes naturally for Peter Parker, who has been Spidey for eight years. This iteration of Spider-Man shows a grown-up Peter Parker, freshly graduated from college and working as a research assistant for Octavious Industries. He’s going through a rough patch with Mary Jane, is trying to help Aunt May down at the F.E.A.S.T shelter, and is still behind on his rent. He’s doing those things all the while trying to stop crime and supervillains as New York’s loved or hated superhero: Spider-Man. 

Spider-Man is an open-world game, where you can roam freely and complete side quests or missions and obtain collectibles to better enhance your gear and suits (many are nods to the comic books and movies). These side missions can oftentimes feel like busywork and become repetitive but are a nice break from the intense storyline. However, when a crime is in progress, I feel obligated to help. The age-old saying of “with great power, comes great responsibility” comes into a big effect while playing this game. 

Web-swinging through the great city of Manhattan is excruciatingly fun. One thing Insomniac knew they had to perfect was the web-swinging, and they did just that. There is a learning curve, but it doesn’t take long to figure out the mechanics of swinging. Watching my dad try to figure it out with him never having played before was hilarious, especially since I had pretty much perfected it. 

The combat aspect of the game is fast-paced and requires lots of perfect timing. It can get repetitive at times when you have waves of enemies but is never the less fun as heck. Boss fights, like any game, are the most intense but also the most entertaining. The boss fights in Spider-Man were few, to say the least, but were one of the best parts of the game. They spiked your adrenaline and got you to focus on a pattern or the environment in which you were fighting.  

The game can go from playing as the confident Spider-Man to playing as Mary Jane or Miles Morales to give it a more grounded effect. These stealth missions as MJ or Miles were not my favorite part of the game, I often got mad at MJ for putting herself in a dangerous situation and then getting mad at Peter for having to save her in the end. Because nothing is worse than having your ex save you from evil-doers…right?

One of my favorite parts in this game was finally seeing the Sinister Six assemble. Something Sony has been trying to do for so long in their Spider-Man movies, (and might finally get to do once Morbius hits theaters) but in the end always got cut short. It was a big turn in the storyline, one that left Spidey unconscious for a day with 14 broken bones. Spider-Man finally brings these characters to life on a somewhat big screen, which so many of us fans have been dying for.

The story in this game is whole-heartedly one of my favorites. It’s a perfect Spider-Man “movie,” and I was invested from beginning to end. I cared about the characters, even minor ones who still had an impact on the story. That attachment to the characters is why the ending is so gutwrenchingly upsetting. Yes, this is a game about Spider-Man, but you can’t have Spider-Man without Peter Parker. In the end, even with radioactive spider powers, Peter is still human with human problems; that’s why this game works so well.

So if you have a PS4 consider going to buy this game, and if you don’t have a PS4, maybe think about switching consoles. Because this is a game you need to play.  Whether your a Marvel fan, a casual gamer, or a Spidey fanatic, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this game.