Spider-Man
Ok, first up, I hate Spider hyphen Man. I mean I con’t stand the guy. There has never been a cinematic version of hism where I can see him as anything other that a stupid, annoying little boy, with sticky hands.
So you could say that my excitement levels for this game were somewhere in the vicinity of below zero.
And after playing Insomniac Game’s version of Spider-Man I feel exactly the same way, which could mean that it’s the perfect Spider-Man game.
So if you take Spider-Man out of the equation – which is fucking hard to do because he is the central character – but you know what I mean, treat him as just a playable character, albeit someone who shoots spiderwebs from his wrists to do all manner of things, then you have a pretty solid game.
Nothing original apart from the Spider specific moves, means that this could be the next Assassin’s Creed – you have to climb and unlock towers, or the next Batman – the combat is fluid and utilises a special set of up-gradable skills. Not that this a bad thing, far from it, these are strengths.
Insomniac have created an entertaining, faced paced game centered around Spider-Man, set firmly in the third person action RPG genre. And it’s easy to get lost in the game for hours on end, even if you can’t stand the central character.
But not satisfied with creating just a kick arse addictive game, Insomniac have embraced a growing sub-culture in the gamer community. The game tourists, or game photographers. They haven’t just thrown on a screen grab mechanic so we can post pics of Spider-Man all over social media, they have created a nicely implemented photography mode. A mode where you can even take Spider-Man out of the picture.
In doing so Insomniac have created a massive urban environment just waiting to be explored, both on foot and on the roof tops.
Sometimes I’ll forgo the quick city traversing of swinging from building to building to get to the next mission, and I’ll run on foot, ducking down all the back alleys I can find, looking for interesting ways to frame the city with my camera. A lot of my time I’m just taking pictures of graffiti, other times just the geometry of buildings.
Photography mode breathes a different kind of life into the game, gives you a chance to slow down, pause and take in all the great work that Insomniac have done to bring the city to life.
Have a look here for some of my photography, and then take Spider-Man for a spin.
Rating: M Suitable for mature audiences 16 years and over. NOTE: Mature themes and violence
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