Thursday, August 2, 2018

The first hour of Spider-Man on the PS4 strains against the limits of open-world storytelling

To get it out of the way before we dive in: after an extended demo of the first hour of Insomniac’s upcoming Spider-Man game for PS4, yes, the swinging is still that good. But the question I have is how will that action gel with the epic superhero story the developer is trying to tell?

From my brief time with the game, most of the various pieces of gameplay that make up Spider-Man are solid. Open-world exploration is, thanks to that swinging, a total joy. New York City has been lovingly re-created as a gorgeous, sun-drenched sandbox. The combat is quick, but it takes advantage of open spaces that allow players to make use of Spidey’s mobility to fly around, along with his unique web-slinging abilities. Players can pull off moves like...

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