This post has some spoilers, so don’t read if you don’t want the ending spoiled!
When I first heard that a new Spider-Man game was coming out, I was the most excited. This was the first Spider-Man game released in a few years, after a flurry of some good and some not so good releases in the early 2010’s. What changed my mind was the first trailer, which showed beautiful cinematic shots of New York City, intense action sequences, and best of all, web-slinging. When I first booted up the game, I was surprised at the level of detail put into the most mundane things, like cars, sewer caps, and trees. The attention to these small things really put the game on my radar, and as reviews heralded this game as a classic, I had to get involved.
Spider-Man is an action-adventure open world game, set in Marvel's New York City. It follows the story of Spider-Man (Peter Parker), and his adventures in fighting crime and helping his family. One great aspect of this game is that some missions require you to play as Peter Parker himself, adding another dimension to the story. Through the many escapades fighting crime and making new enemies, he also works alongside Dr. Otto Octavius in his lab, setting the stage for a really cool variety of missions. The story ultimately ending with a battle with Doctor Octopus, after his bionic arms mess with his brain, allowing him to think only of revenge.
Throughout the progression of the story, the game allows you to unlock and use different suit designs that each come with different abilities. While this may seem like an inconsequential mechanic, Spider-Man actually uses this mechanic as a plot device. In the final battle with Doctor Octopus, Peter builds a new suit to prepare for the fight. The suit-building mechanic is seen at many points in the story, creating a new way to interact with the game, where these kinds of visual features make a difference and really draw the player into the world of the game. Along with a greater level of immersion, the suit building feature is just really cool, allowing a greater level of customization.
Spider-Man makes good use of mechanics as plot devices, from building new attachments for combat to learning new web-swinging techniques. Many of these skills are obtainable through story progression, where you can fiddle with circuits to build new gadgets, and to research missions to fix environmental problems. Unlike many similar games, Spider-Man really nails the diversity of mechanics and the interaction with the main story line.
Another way the in-game features of Spider-Man really draw the player in is with cinematic photo-mode, where players can take dramatic or funny, snapshots of themselves in various situations, such as while web swinging, or the iconic image of Spider-Man hanging on the side of a building - the only limits are a player's imagination. This feature allows the player to truly have an immersive experience, where they can share photographs of themselves doing funny or creative things that nobody has done before. It adds a very personal feeling, but also give the game more room for creativity. This feature really encourages players to look at the finer details of the map, that you maybe wouldn't notice if normally playing through.
Moving from mechanics and game-play, Spider-Man surprised in other ways. The political side of the storyline was an interesting part of the game. Doctor Octopus, first and foremost a scientist, was thrown under the bus by his business-minded friend, Norman Osborn who was trying to push his political agenda as the mayor of New York City. This plot line, while fictional, mirrors a conflict that is very present in today’s society. While the game exaggerates, and maybe even stereotypes the battle between a ‘greedy, hungry business-man politician,’ and a scientist whose main focus is his craft, it can be seen as a commentary on the state of politics today. Many times, especially seen in pharmaceuticals, companies will take very important medications that are relatively inexpensive to produce, and significantly mark up the prices for profit. In game, a similar situation of powerful people having goals other than the advancement of science occurs where Norman Osborn shuts down Doctor Otto’s lab in an attempt to force Doctor Otto to work for Osborn to find a cure to a bioweapon that Osborn unintentionally created, in an effort to save his political career. Spider-Man does a great job of telling a fictional story, and in the process displaying a series of negative effects that trying to push a political agenda can have on a city. While showing this may not be the main goal of Spider-Man, it definitely highlights this issue and makes it known.
As a video game, Spider-Man excels in many ways – the graphics are almost movie-like, the story line is fantastic, the mechanics are on point, and the game even makes some political relevant commentary. Spider-Man also excels in pulling the player into the game with an engaging story and dynamic mechanics. It makes your childhood dreams of web-slinging around the city and fighting crime almost a reality. 9.5/10
Comments