Nah, I do it. I don't really know why I would not do air combat, it's like half the variety at least. I'm not gonna sit here and say I'm some pro at it, but I feel like I use all the pieces of the combat and still get pretty bored of it. But also, I'm not fan of this style of combat at the outset. It feels pretty rigid and automatic. If someone wasn't bored of Arkham City's combat I don't necessarily think they would get bored by this, I just think it's dull.

It's run smoothly for me 99% of the time, but I've had some issues. I got a system error on booting it the first time from the preorder menu thing. Then it crashed on me randomly after I did the elevator shaft mission. Finally, I started the mission at the party and fell straight through the ground, watching the city from below as I died. It's nowhere near as crashy for me as Just cause 3 or Death's Gambit, but one of the problems with the ps4 compared to my old 360 is that I've experiences a lot more game crashes.

Initial impressions: Not quite sure how many hours I played it yesterday. Maybe 5 hours? Found myself unable to play and watch all the live Friday GB stuff so that cut my time way short. Just to say it *again* up front, I am not into comic books, I'm not into Spider-Man, I see all the movies but its just because they're okay popcorn junk.

The city and swinging is glorious. So glorious in fact, that I only did a few missions and the rest was spent unlocking all the towers, collecting all the backpacks, and a bunch of the landmarks. This is another one of those games, kinda like Arkham City was for me back then where it's just like.. Geez, when I was young, I never could've imagined games looking this good. It's almost unbelievable how large and detailed the city is.

So far I actually like the voice over and attitude of Spider-Man. The quips are charming and not annoying yet. Overall voice over work seems pretty good. Cutscenes look fantastic. Just the whole production quality is excellent, and Marvel studios must be sitting in their giant Avengers-like tower and board room and thinking.. "Wow, never thought silly childrens video games could actually do our holy brand justice.." So far it's so much better playing and engaging with this than watching any of the movies.

The bad-but-not-really has been the surprising difficulty. I started on "Amazing" (normal I guess) and proceeded to die a ton on the first boss and maybe some grunts before that. Kept going, another mission and I was dying a lot again, this time only against grunts but they throw like 10 at you at a time and they don't wait in line to attack you per say. Which is nice, but also very hard. Pretty much die in 4 hits. After dying a bunch there, I thought, yea I could eventually get through this by practicing and bashing my head against a wall, but eh.. So I turned it down to the lowest difficulty setting and continued. Didn't make it that much easier I must say. I think the enemies feel less like damage sponges which is nice.. That's what I want. It shouldn't take Spider-Man 30 punches and kicks to beat up some regular dude. One combo and they should be dead, especially because I'm fighting 10 guys at a time.

Anyway, very good so far. Will continue playing today and progress more in the story.

I'm roughly 5 hours in, I just finished the first boss battle with Shocker. My impressions so far are: the traversal isn't as fun as I had anticipated, not to say I dislike by any stretch. To echo an earlier comment, the swinging feels like little more than just holding R2 and pressing 'X' occasionally. I had hoped for more variety from the tricks, I find myself using the dive for momentum over the moves. I guess I had just hoped for more.

I really enjoy the combat, I don't use the gadgets at all really though. I played the Arkham games the same way, combos and dodging over gadgets. There doesn't seem to be any variety in terms of encounters so far, so I can see how people find the combat boring or repetitive.

Speaking of boring and repetitive...side missions. They seem kinda bland right now, take pictures of landmarks, stop a car chase, nothing terribly fun or interesting after doing it once.

Overall I'm really enjoying the game so far, I like exploring the city and there's plenty for the completionist in me to do.

I've played a few hours. I didn't like it at the very beginning and was worried it might be a big disappointment, but after the open world gets a few objectives unlocked and the story gets a little bit of momentum going the game kind of clicked for me and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I think it will likely be an 8/10 for me. It's not the best game I've ever played but it's fun and polished, it looks great, and I'm enjoying the acting and cut scenes (though there are too many cut scenes, especially at the beginning of the game.)

Some specific thoughts:

The traversal is really fun and pretty intuitive. It's my favorite part of the game (as it should be in a Spider-Man game) and I wish there was more of a focus on it during story missions. Not that there aren't any traversal focused missions, but so far most of them are about stealth or combat.

Speaking of which, the combat is pretty good, if a little simplistic. It's nothing special, and very reminiscent of Arkham, but it gets the job done and feels fast and fluid and Spider-Man, which is good. One small complaint is that the "brute" enemy types who are just big tough dudes can't be hurt by Spider-Man's normal attacks. Spider-Man has the proportionate strength of a Spider and no normal human should be able to just shrug his attacks off. I do understand why they did it for gameplay reasons, though, so it's forgivable.

Also you kick a lot of people off of buildings, which is fun but not very Spider-Man. There are even combat sub-objectives for kicking people off of buildings, which is VERY not very Spider-Man.

The stealth is simplified and boring. At least they have a Noir suit, which I like for sneaky bits. It also reminds of Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, which I think was an underrated game (though this game is clearly better than that one.)

It's fun, it's good, but it's not mind-blowing. It's not Horizon: Zero Dawn or Last of Us quality. It's not even Uncharted 4.

This may sound bad, since I really just started it, but it makes me excited for a sequel. Now that they've got the traversal and the city and all that I think they could focus on fleshing out the combat, adding even more super-villains and story specific stuff, and make a really spectacular Spider-Man game. Pun intended.

A very strong contender for my game of the year so far. It just feels tons of fun to play, even if the open world might be built of some already well-known tropes. I don't see myself getting bored with this before the story's over and even after that it'll probably be a while.

Also this game's New York is easily one of the best virtual cities I've seen in my life. I imagine that it must be even more awesome for someone who lives there, when it already feels so mindblowingly big and detailed to me.

https://www.dualshockers.com/spider-man-ps4-panorama-screenshots/

This kind of surprised me at fist also, but if you follow a guy you kick off the roof, you can see he gets attached to a string and stuck to a wall. I don't think there is any animation on the Spider-Man character for this, it just kind of appears out of nowhere and does its thing to keep it "clean".

I like it a lot so far. At first I was worried that it was just Batman combat in another game, but unlocking gadgets and attacks helped with that.

The only thing I don't like is playing as MJ. It's not awful, but when they make you control her during her reporter missions it's pretty boring. Also, she doesn't look or feel like MJ at all, it feels like Nathan Drake's wife dyed her hair red and started dating Peter.

Gotta agree with the man Jeff Bakalar. Lot of good about the game. But a whole lot of monotonous stuff too. Hard to avoid the collect-athon because it liters the entire map. And I'm struggling a it to get a good flow with the combat mainly due to getting shot too much.

Bit of a step down, imo, from the pinnacle that is Sunset Overdrive (that I probably have rose colored glasses for at this point).

I give it 42 out of 105 backpacks.

I completely understand people’s complaints with the game and they’re fair but I really love the game so far.

I don’t mind the collect-athon side stuff because swinging around the city feels so good. I do really like the actual side missions, I just wish there was more of them.

I’m really enjoying the story missions so far too.

This is a really good game.

The size and the detail of the city is fantastic.

I've had a camera glitch a couple of times though where the camera would flip out when I start a fight after i've 'dropped in'.. The camera will be like a mile away, and after a few seconds it'll zip back to where I am.

@handlas: I think the way to avoid being shot is to mix up your attacks/gadgets and take it to the air. This game wants you to be moving and dodging constantly, and using web-shot and other gadgets to stun some guys while you deal with others. You can also web zip into a fool's face to distract him and there's a power that lets you disarm fools.

I agree the game is not as good as Sunset Overdrive, but Sunset Overdrive is a special game in my opinion. It really let Insomniac go nuts with creativity and weirdness, and the result is just the strangest most incredible game of the early generation. People said it was try-hard and forced humor but I thought it was cheesy but came with an actual vision. It has some of my favorite boss fights ever because they focus on traversal and what makes the games great instead of just pattern recognition or brute force.

Spider-Man is more constrained because it has to fit within Marvel's conception for Spider-Man so it can't be quite as out there. It's also more visually polished and "realistic" but has a blander more mainstream style. But within those constraints it's pretty darn good, and it's a very polished open world experience. They delivered the game they promised, and it's a game that a lot of people really wanted.

Been playing a fair share of this. Loving it so far. Hardly deep on the story, as I've been spending a lot of time just swinging around.

Some thoughts:

• I appreciate how Spidey's lines seem to be read as if he's exerting himself swinging around, because that's exactly what I'm typically doing during them.
• The character interactions so far have been really great (again, story-wise I just had dinner with someone, so very early goings, but what I've seen so far has left a strong first impression).
• So far I'm really enjoying the way they've spun around familiar Spider-Man elements.
• The new suit in the context that you acquire it really sold me on the fresh differentiating take on his costume.
• Combat seems to have a good amount of options to let you switch things up (as well as some good incentives for doing so).
• The same goes for traversal in terms of having options. The game seems to do a bit of fidangling in order to keep you from getting hung up on buildings that you otherwise might've slammed into, but it never feels too extreme like I'm not in control.
• The stealth stuff is fine because a) stealth is fun, and b) eventually you're forced to throw down and brawl.
• The scale and detail of the city also does wonders in making traversal so fun. It really feels like what I imagine it'd feel like to be able to swing above the downtown hubbub.

e: I was just playing and doing some collectible stuff near street level when a random dude shouted "hey Spider-Man, we don't need you in our city. We got enough problems as it is."

Oddly refreshing to have a game where the civies aren't all high-fives and cheers (the later of which I've got a few of so far). Kinda awesome in a really weird way?

@theht: Don't know if you have noticed yet, but it seems that they recorded two sets of lines for Spider man. One where he is exerting himself, and another when he is stood still/walking. Pretty impressive.

I knew I would like this because I was one of those guys who thought Sunset Overdrive was game of the year, but I'm loving it even more than I thought. It's absolutely gorgeous, nails the one thing you need to absolutely nail in a spider-man game (swinging) and the combat feels fantastic. I understand the comparisons to Arkham's combat system, but it's coming at it from such a different angle. Where Shadow of Mordor felt like it was just Arkham combat with a couple different options, this feels like something entirely different. The emphasis on air combos is such a cool spin on the whole thing, it really differentiates it from Arkham. Also, it addresses the main problem Arkham had with its combat presentation, where Batman would lock-on and slide like literally 20 feet to the next thug, if you were pointing the stick towards them. You actually have multiple different ways to close in on an enemy.

I'm still early on, but the Arkham games also had a huge flaw in the combat after the middle to late game where the most effective thing was to just knock a bunch of guys down, use the AoE Batarang finisher, rinse and repeat. Pretty much killed my enjoyment, really hope this game doesn't fall into the same trap.

Much like DBZ earlier this year, Spider-Man always deserved a really great, big budget game. Glad it finally got one.

Peter must have spent a tremendous amount of money on backpacks when he was a teen.

This has been a weird one. There is much to love and much to hate.

Sometimes with certain huge AAA releases I feel like you just know when you are playing something that is on another level. Something absolutely world class made by the most talented developers at the top of their game. Games like Red Dead Redemption, The Last of Us, and this years God of War made me feel that way.

This game has moments that reach those heights, but it just can't sustain the level of greatness I feel those games did. This game runs the spectrum from god tier to dogshit and everywhere in between.

The world and the traversal are unlike anything I have ever seen. This city is just fucking nuts. I can stop at any moment and just be in complete awe of how gorgeous and vast it is. I cannot fathom how they made this game run so well while moving very quickly through such detailed and well populated environment. The swinging is fast and fluid and rewarding and just fun as hell. They could not have nailed it more and it is by far the most important part of the game to get right.

The combat is good. It isn't revolutionizing anything, but it is fun and fast paced and something I can enjoy for however long it will take me to beat the game. You really do feel like spider-man and that alone is impressive. I think this game pretty much squeezes everything you can get out of the arkham brawler formula of combat.

The collectibles are pretty fun to get simply because moving around the world is the core part of what makes this game fun. The crafting and upgrades are not super deep or anything, but it is still decently rewarding.

The side missions are okayish. Some are better than other, but alot are pretty boring or repetitive. I feel like you kind of need them in there to fill out the game, but they are definitely not a highlight and I often feel unsure if it is even worth my time when doing them.

The QTE parts and set pieces, at least so far, have been either bad or middling at best. I feel like I am playing a knockoff Uncharted or something.

And now for the dogshit. Anytime you are not playing as spider-man straight up sucks shit. It is actually kind of appalling how bad it is. I feel like I rather being doing anything else in my life then playing through that crap. It honestly feels like some shitty, B tier studio came in to make the gameplay for those parts.

On a similar note the puzzles and mini games are fuckkkkking awful. Why am I playing this kiddie time wasting bullshit? Why is this in my life in 2018? What the fuck.

Overall it has been bittersweet. I think it is worth the $60 just for the fact that at any moment I can boot it up and swing around in that world. It really does feel that good. It is a shame the lows are as low as they are. Luckily they are not a huge portion of the game, but they do make it a very uneven experience. I still have not made up my mind on the story since I am not done yet, but it seems kind of mediocre.

@berniesbc: webs dissolve after an hour or two, these backpacks have been webbed up for years, oooone star

I haven't tried standing still to see if he sounds different, but definitely will now. That's fucking awesome.

Played a bunch more yesterday. I think the game progress thing says something around 50% last I looked? Not sure if that's story or overall.

I think, unlike a lot of people, the side stuff hasn't bothered me that much. As I said, I just straight up did all the towers, backpacks, and landmarks as soon as possible just because it was fun. It also didn't take that much time. Since then, I've done a lot of all the other extra/collectible things, just because most of them are easy and quick enough. I've completed every puzzle in the lab so far, except for four that are locked I think, because those have been a nice change of pace. Point I wanted to make though is that I almost feel like they've trimmed the side stuff down to a reasonable quantity. I'm just casually completing stuff as I go and I feel like I've done most of it. The only thing I have avoided was the blue <Side Mission> things because.. Well I guess Ben said to save side stuff til later.

I don't use gadgets that much, which is bad. I think because I fumble around with their controls too much? I'm not even sure this is right but I don't like how R1 functions as both the webshot and your gadget use? I tend to pick a gadget, hit the button to use it, go back to fighting for a second, and then smash R1 a bunch of times like I'm on Webshot and then just spam and waste my gadget. Not quite sure but I wish there was a separate Use Gadget button.

Again, I have no history with Spider-Man or anything, but the costumes have all been kinda ugly. I'm still using the "Classic" one I think. Maybe there is some info elsewhere in the menus, but I'd be interested in an explanation about each suit and where it's from. Like "X suit is from the 1991 issue 13 in Spider-Man comic where he encounters X and uses this unique suit to counter this special situation" Maybe if I had some context for them, I'd be more interested in using them. Otherwise, almost all of them just look silly and gimmicky.

Combat continues to be surprisingly difficult. I'm definitely getting better and racking up some big combos. It feels and looks perfect (like it would in a movie scene) when you nail all the dodges and use a variety of attacks to wipe out an army of dudes without getting hit. It's very satisfying. I'm just surprised at how tight the timing is for dodges and such because once you start to get hit, stuff really hurts you. I consider myself to be decent to pretty good at games and so I can't imagine how a child would handle this.

I guess I'll insert some story related notes in here (Spoilers I suppose): *Now with addendum*

@genericbrotagonist: yeah that bit was weird. I don't know if something got cut out or what but it seems like a pretty major plot hole.

That's the game done!

In the end, it was a satisfying experience. When it comes to placing me in the shoes of Spider-Man, it's unmatched. It elegantly extablishes a setting of its own, has something like nine villains but in no way feels overstuffed, tells an emotional and spectacular story that sets up future events but feels contained, and largely manages to respect the source material. While polished to a sheen, it also feels like it's made with a lot of love. It's a great game!

But it's also a frustratingly shallow and generic game in some parts, and I'm not on board with all of the decisions they made when it comes to the story. No outrageous decisions, exactly - but I feel like they zigged when they should've zagged in some of those cases. I'll write a blog post at some point.

@redhotchilimist: Have you already bought the pass for the DLC, or were you waiting to see how the game clicked with you before making that decision? And if the latter, I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

I love the game. Feels like the modern descendant of Spider-Man 2. I haven't finished it--I think I'm roughly halfway through at this point--but it's just . . . man. It's really great.

I'm the type who loves the menial side content. Maybe not the Research missions, but the petty crime throughout the city. Swinging always brings me a ton of joy. To be able to stop swinging for a moment, flex on some thieves, take a selfie with some of the passersby, and then zip back up to the top of the concrete jungle? That's delight.

I like how they did the character in terms of personality. Everything else about the game is pretty average from what I played. I'll give them props for making the Batman combat somewhat interesting, tho.

@genericbrotagonist: I just got to this part today and pretty much had the same reaction. Also for reiterating how much dude loves masks WHY WOULD HE NOT WEAR ONE!

@berniesbc: If you look at the science trophy found in one of the backpacks, Peter says "When I won this Fisk Science Award, I turned down his dirty money, but did keep the lifetime supply of backpacks". It's super goofy.

I was waiting to see how the game clicked. I think I'm gonna get it now - I want a couple more adventures with this crew in this city. I dunno if they're actually gonna be worth playing, they might just be a few, or even a lot, of tiny side missions where you beat up guys while Black Cat or whoever is on your ear. But I definitely wanna see more of what the devs can do with different characters.

Heh. One weird thing i noticed, when going to the graveyard in the top left part of the map, all the people are mourning recently departed people, however they are standing on the opposite side of where the text is on the graves, and the graves they are mourning the "recently deceased" at have death dates of 1860-1920.

Finished it up last night. What a blast! But I'm super confused on the ending:

@mikewhy said:

@mikewhy: It's the good old "You're trying to stab me and I'm resisting, but I'll let you stab me so I can counter-attack" and then he pulls out the neural connector so Doc loses his connection with the arms.

Oh wow, I see that now. I guess it was the explosion that threw me off. Spidey took out that neural connector multiple times without that happening.

And yeah, I totally missed the line where Doc sees you working on the suit but just assumes you're helping him with his equipment. Or maybe that was when Doc knew who Spiderman really was.

Thanks @briarpack and @ares42!

I usually hate games like this and I've totally bounced off most of them, but I bought this out of curiosity and I just love it. Great story and it really never gets old to swing around.

I have a serious issue with an action game that can't maintain even a steady 30 fps (on a Pro) when simply moving the camera around in the city.

(Edit) Or in action apparently. Yep this is totally making me hate the combat and consequently the game. Wish there was an equivalent of a Steam 2h refund real bad now.

(Edit 2) Ye fuck it this is awful, i'd rather bite the bullet and not play it entirely rather then do so out of obligation that i've spent money on it.

@tennmuerti weird, it was really stable for me. Oddly enough, I had hitches when finishing a couple of the minigames. They're 2d for crying out loud!

@mikewhy Yea considering i'm not seeing this issue pop up widespread and the gameplay footage seems fine on streams, I can only assume something is up with my PS4 pro all of a sudden.

This thing has been silky smooth for me for almost 5 hours now. I actually thought it was 60fps until I looked it up and saw it was locked at 30(as I should have expected).

Bummer. This game would definitely be a hard-pass if the framerate didn't hold.

Is there a cache-clearing option for PS4 consoles? Wonder if there is anything you can troubleshoot on your end to help the situation.

The line delivery of "You knew? - YOU KNEW?!" was very very good.

@xanadu: it made the part where he says it to Aunt May even funnier. I couldn't help but hear it the same way.

I expected to like the game, sure, but I'm utterly blindsided by how much I love it. The traversal system is incredible and the story is super enjoyable, with a great mix of marvel style action as well as quieter, intimate character moments, all with A+ writing.

The open world is absolutely beautiful, even on a base ps4, no matter the time of day (though I wish more sequences took place in the morning/afternoon, when its easier to get well lit shots in photo mode), and the attention to detail is stunning, not so much in terms of how accurate Manhattan is (I dont live there, but I know its a bit off) but in terms of the dense amount of detail packed in there. As for the side activities, I know some people are bothered with collectibles, but they're perfectly fine to me. I find myself just fucking around more in this game than I do in a lot of other open world games, just swinging around and having a good time, so I tend to pick up backpacks whenever I feel like it, though it hasn't stopped me form needing to go and seek them out from time to time to upgrade stuff. The little lore hooks to each one is a nice touch too, and keeps them from getting repetitive (along with some of their tricky locations and scenic views). The research stations usually end up being enjoyable too, mostly due to how they play with the mechanics of the traversal and their light narrative hooks.

Most importantly - every suit looks great

Finished the story up yesterday. Overall, a very impressive game. It'll certainly be talked about and referenced for the next decade just because of the swinging mechanic and city. Best representation of NYC since GTA4 (yes, that was a broad interpretation). Now we'll see how Rockstar try and one-up it. The game isn't perfect of course. Few minor issues for me. I'm thinking it's #3 on my GOTY list so far? I want to say I liked it more than God of War, but less than BattleTech and Monster Hunter World just for sheer engagement and gameplay.

It seems like I might try and get the Platinum for it. I think I just have to go around and complete all the random faction crimes in all the districts. One down so far.

Also, to those who are having performance issues: Playing on a Pro and I haven't had a single hiccup through the entire thing. Only bug I've even noticed just happened, which was the random crime events seemed to stop showing up? Swung around for awhile and nothing. Exited to menu and reloaded and they immediately started popping up again.

If anyone knows of a Youtube video where someone goes through the suit list and explains where they are from and why they are cool in Spider-Man history, I'd be interested in seeing that. I pretty much just used the Classic and Stark suits the entire game. Everything else looked weird/corny to me.

Edit: Annnd platinum'd.. [frisbees the disc] Back to DQ11 until Tomb Raider I guess.

Ratchet & Clank sequels will probably have to wait.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2018/09/20/marvels-spider-man-ps-4-sells-record-3-3-million-copies-opening/1346187002/

Can't complain overall. They nailed the traversal, combat was fine and I liked the story and their interpretation of the characters.

As far as combat I wish they would have done more with the challenges in missions. I think they would have been better served to cut some encounters and instead add challenge objectives to every encounter. The most fun I had with the combat was when the game asked me to do something out of my comfort zone to complete a challenge.

My one major issue was the token system. It felt like a free to play game with all the currencies. It was annoying to have to keep track of that, especially when late game suits are asking for multiple tokens of different types.

I love that the game can facilitate different playstyles. Contrary to you, I almost always ignored the additional combat challenges the game asked me to complete, instead focusing on maximizing combo count/minimizing damage taken. But the combat system encourages tremendous creativity, giving wildly different approaches a ton of viability.

@inevpatoria: For me I found a pretty easy string of moves (knock up, air combo, web zip and repeat) that I never felt compelled to try out a lot of the gadgets and other options. Of course I had the same problem in the Arkham games I wouldn't use any of the quickfire stuff unless I had a challenge for it

@berniesbc: They actually explicitly explain this in one of the backpack item comments. He won a contest sponsored by Fisk's company. He turned down the money (because it's Fisk), but he accepted the lifetime supply of backpacks. I really appreciate that they took the time to explain some of the more pedantic aspects of the game world, especially within the collectible itself.