Avengers, Assemble! To Play this Amazing Marvel's Spider-Man Game.

Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is back and looking better than ever. When a friend first told me that Insomniac Games was working on developing a new Spider-Man game, I had mixed emotions. I was excited, because I love Spider-Man the character. Peter Parker, the brilliant goofball who works for the Daily Bugle is relatable and entertaining. Add in his super spider powers and you've got an "amazing" character. Another likable feature of Spider-Man, like most other superheroes, is his cool suits. Even though I like Spider-Man, I was worried that it would be another game I was interested in getting but would struggle to enjoy playing. Older version of the Spider-Man game series had interesting stories, and decent graphics for their time, but for me had low replay rates because of how difficult the controls were to master.

Aside from flying around New York City as a character like Iron Man, the next coolest mode of transportation has to be web swinging. Previous Spider-Man games were exciting because players could take control of Spidey and sight see in New York while swinging around on webs, but the controls were never great. It was easy to get yourself turned around because your web did not shoot where you wanted it to, or instead of attaching to the side of a building Spider-Man would miss it completely and instead just fall. Add to those movements the sluggish and uncoordinated fighting style and the games easily became frustrating and unentertaining. Marvel's Spider-Man (2018) with it's picturesque scenery, brilliant graphics, and fluid movements easily make it one of the most fun superhero games to date.

Picture this, you're swinging from building to building enjoying the agile acrobatics of Spider-Man when you pick up a call on a police scanner built into your suit. You hear some thugs are mugging an innocent civilian close to your location and you decide to save the day. Using your parkour skills and web shooting abilities, you easily navigate through the city bouncing off of rooftops, running alongside buildings, and swinging from skyscraper to skyscraper finally landing on the ground next to the victim after doing some backflips during your free fall. Talk about an impressive superhero landing. Suddenly your "spidey sense" goes off, warning you that the thugs have been alerted to your presence, and after such an epic superhero landing they should take notice. You decide to take one thug out of the equation right away by using a long ranged web attack. Six shots later and that thug is stuck to the side of a building. A second assailant charges toward you fist raised, again your "spidey senses" are triggered and you dodge the attack, sliding underneath the attacker's legs and standing up directly behind him. You land an uppercut on the attacker that sends him into the air and you follow. Soaring upwards you continue landing a combo attack until finally you render the second thug unconscious. While still in the air you notice the third and final attacker aiming up at you with his pistol. With one swift movement you dodge the attack, web the baddie, and pull yourself towards him, landing a few blows before finishing him off with an impact shot that instantly attaches him to the side of a car.

The victim thanks you, some witnesses congratulate you and then you take off again searching for anymore bad guys to take care of. Marvel and Insomniac Games have created a Spider-Man game that accurately showcases the hero's agility, strength, and speed during movement throughout the city he protects and during fights with thugs, mob bosses, and iconic super villains. What is just as impressive as the movements of Spider-Man are the graphics. Visually stunning, the game developers have captured Marvel's New York City in a way that no other games have been able to before. Players can travel around New York enjoying sights such as The Empire State Building and Avenger's Tower.

One of the first things that I am sure most people did after starting the game, was finding the tallest building in the area, climbing to the top, and looking around at the city below. On the way up to the top of the skyscraper, one will notice the details developers put in to the buildings. Sun reflects off the walls of windows and age marks appear on the brick buildings. Just making your way to the top of a building is stunning. Once you finally get to the top and perch yourself on the highest point to look around, you see the New York City skyline. Three hundred-sixty degrees and you can see the sun reflecting off water and buildings, trees in the parks, and clouds, planes, and helicopters soaring in the sky. Looking down at the streets below doesn't look fuzzy or "laggy" despite being so high up. The "concrete jungle" is so stunning and detailed that it makes you want to explore the city as much as possible to take in all of the sights.

Beautiful graphics, challenging but fluid fights, and smooth web swinging and traveling make this game what it is. After playing for a few hours it is easy to see why it has made its way to the seventh best selling PlayStation 4 game just in the four months that it has been out (release date September 7, 2018). Writing this piece makes me want to turn on my system and get back to playing as the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man everyone, except for maybe Green Goblin, loves.

Screenshots taken from my last Twitch stream of Marvel's Spider-Man.