In my time reviewing movies over the last few years, I’ve covered the topic of adaptation numerous times, and numerous film examples have provided me with new insights on the process of adapting a successful franchise or intellectual property. For all the variety the medium of film offers, however, I can’t help but wonder if sticking strictly to film as the prime medium of adaptation is selling mass media short. Video games, after all, have been seen over the last few years as a form of artistic expression, entertainment and storytelling on par with film, and for every lazy use of licenses in video games, there are expansions or different interpretations of popular franchises that stand as legitimate adaptations of those franchises. “Aliens: Colonial Marines”, for example, would not be nearly as panned and detested as a hack licensed first person shooter game if legitimately good games like “Batman: Arkham Asylum” did not prove that popular characters and franchises could be more than just cash-grabs. Where one insulted players and fans alike, the other worked just as well as a game as it did a love letter to the franchise’s history, and it’s with that sort of contrast in mind that I’m happy to report Insomniac Games’s success in both regards with its take on the “Spider-Man” mythos. Every aspect of the game is oozing with love for the characters, setting, and legacy of the web-slinging wise-cracker, and more than just an endlessly fun open world superhero game, Insomniac’s “Spider-Man” is possibly the best take on the character and the themes surrounding him since “Spider-Man- Homecoming”.
Breaking the tradition of beginning the story with Peter Parker’s superhero origins, the game’s narrative is set years into his career as Spider-Man, to the point where Parker (Yuri Lowenthal) is now in college, six months into a breakup with longtime girlfriend Mary-Jane Watson (Laura Bailey), and working as a lab assistant for inventor extraordinaire, Otto Octavius (William Salyers). Things are looking up for the wall-crawler: Wilson Fisk (aka “The Kingpin”) is in custody, Octavius has crafted a new and improved Spider-suit for Peter, and Peter’s Aunt May (Nancy Linari) is doing well to aid the homeless in New York. For all the success going for Peter, though, old enemies are waiting in the wings, with numerous members of his rogues gallery escaping prison, along with new enemies that have come in the absence of Fisk’s criminal legion. Compounding all of this are Peter’s personal issues, from Mary Jane pursuing dangerous cases as an investigative journalist for the Daily Bugle and Octavius’s latest invention, his prosthetic, telescoping arms, beginning to have adverse effects on his mind. With the weight of a New York college student and the city itself on his shoulders, the man behind the mask must find a way to keep both lives in check before he’s swallowed whole by the increasing threats.
Before gushing about the narrative elements of this take of the tried-and-true story of Spider-Man, however, it’s important to first discuss gameplay and how that factors into immersion for Peter Parker’s New York. First of all, the greatest achievement of this game from a technical perspective is undoubtedly its handling of movement and exploration. Previous Spider-Man games have tackled the physics of web-swinging to various degrees of success, but this one may have presented the best example in the medium. Spidey does require adjacent buildings and the holding of a button to swing, but the tethering move ensures that this doesn’t break the pace of the game in the slightest, and it’s amazing what few limits there are to how fast and high you can get around this city in this game. It’s far from groundbreaking to say, but the game’s handling of movement does enough on its own to make you truly feel like Spider-Man. Speaking of the city, this game’s depiction of New York City is astounding for its attention to detail and balance of realism and comic-book panache. There’s no shortage of landmarks and nods to the greater Marvel universe to spot, and the inhabitants are integrated realistically enough (such as in their interactions with Spider-Man) to feel wholly immersive. What’s truly remarkable about the gameplay, however, is its execution of well-worn open world tropes. Mediocre or outright bad open-world games are less about putting the player in a unique environment without a variety of things to do and more about assaulting them with busywork and collectibles to trudge through at an agonizing pace. The good ones, though, are the ones that offer variety and spontaneity in spite of the immediate availability of the main story content, and the briskness of both the exploration and the side-missions ensure that tedium is far less present here than in other games of the genre. Adding that to the speedy and challenging combat and the variety of upgrades and various Spidey-suits to unlock makes for an especially rewarding open world superhero experience. There’s a deeper beauty to the busywork of a sandbox game in terms of how it’s utilized in “Spider-Man”, however, and that’s in how the gameplay ties into the well-trodden themes of power and responsibility that the character embodies.
Peter Parker, in every iteration of his story, is meant to be symbolic of the struggles of everyday life beneath the freedom and fun of being a superhero, and thanks to their efforts in immersing players through its handling of playing as Spider-Man, Insomniac does doubly well in its attempts to connect them to the struggles of Spider-Man, his loved ones, and even his adversaries. Veteran voice actor Yuri Lowenthal is no stranger to playing youthful, wisecracking characters in games and animated series (see Ben 10 for proof positive of that), but what truly shines about his performance is his nailing of Peter’s vulnerability, something that either gets overplayed (as with Tobey Maguire) or completely missed (as with Andrew Garfield). As recent as the game is, Lowenthal’s portrayal stands head and shoulders with Tom Holland’s performance in the MCU as my personal favorite in the character’s history for doing just as well in that regard. This story is far from being just Peter’s, though: Mary Jane Watson is perhaps the most proactive and compelling she’s ever been, thanks to her wit, chemistry with Peter, and spot-on performance by yet another VA veteran, Laura Bailey, Nancy Linari is in perfect form portraying the doting Aunt May, and William Salyers, a voice actor typically cast in comedic roles, deserves special props for balancing Dr. Octavius’s paternal warmth towards Peter and ever-mounting egomania in a way that makes the doctor’s inevitable fall into villainy all the more heartbreaking. “Spider-Man’s” long-term, open world style of gameplay certainly isn’t for someone looking for a short game for fans, and the combat can be frustratingly imprecise and difficult at times, but as a fast-paced, fun experience and perhaps the most meaningful and exploratory portrayal of the Spider-Man themes and characters, you can’t do much better than Insomniac’s latest outing.
Rich Reviews 