Despite being a headlong engine of triple-A entertainment, Spider-Man has no shortage of impromptu moments of wonder and welcome slivers of quietude. Insomniac’s PS4-exclusive chucks a little bit of everything into its towering New York, a dazzling – often literally, if the sunset or sunrise catches the glass-skinned skyscrapers just so – simulacrum that feels near-mythic. This NYC manages to seem hyper-real even while allowing your Spidey to rather implausibly survive ricocheting off walls and (a few skill tree unlocks later) do some unnatural roly-poly charged jumps along the ground. It’s not so much a sandbox game as an airbox: a crash course in physics, momentum, stickiness and gravity.
The cascade of little thrills in Spider-Man are countless: twanging yourself like a rubber band across rooftops; clonking late-arriving baddies with their own car doors; strutting along at street-level and doing high-fives with gleeful pedestrians. Any of these snapshots – from selfies on top of Stark Tower to pirouetting at speed through the gaps in exterior fire escapes – could be a standout moment in one of the most enjoyable and streamlined blockbusters of the year. In second place, I might even nominate the sweet interstitial animations where Peter Parker, having ditched the tights, prepares to re-enter his civilian life while nervously touching up his boyband haircut (because let’s face it, those skintight Spidey masks have gotta be murder on your VO5 firm-hold styling gel).
Personally, my crowning Spider-Man moment was something quite carefully planned rather than accidental or happenstance. Something earned through blood, web fluid and tears. This wasn’t just some chaotic emergent gameplay, it was a moment of premeditated triumph. It also necessarily came very late in the game, at a time when I was already well-versed in fleet urban traversal and a grubby veteran of every nook, cranny and alley of Insomniac’s bustling model of NYC.
