Back in May 2019, I beat Marvel’s Spider-Man after upgrading to my brand new Spider-Man PS4 Pro. I’m currently playing through Spider-Man: Miles Morales right after upgrading to a PS5. I found two short articles I wrote back while playing through the first Spider-Man game in 2018/2019. Since I’m currently playing and planning to write about Spider-Man: Miles Morales I thought it would be cool to post this before I post my Game Diary on Miles Morales. I went through these two articles and edited them together to create this:

From September 2018:

I finally upgraded to a PS4 Pro, (after having my PS4 since not exactly day one) and I decided to upgrade the moment I saw the Spider-Man Limited Edition console. I was in the car on a road trip when they announced the Spidey PS4 Pro and I remember ordering it on my phone that exact moment. I’m not sure when exactly I got my original PS4, but they were still tough to find at the time. My PS4 was still working fine, I just wanted to move onto a Pro to be ready for the future, and 4K gaming (I finally did get some 4K gaming time with my PS4 Pro over the past few months).

When first starting Marvel’s Spider-Man, swinging around New York was a bit strange, but I quickly got used to it and started moving more fluidly (jumping into Miles Morales, I already felt like a web-swinging pro). By the end of the first night, I was swinging around looking for famous New York/Marvel landmarks. I even found my old apartment building in the Upper West Side, or at least the intersection. If you live or have ever lived in New York, you need to play this game, just to explore the city. It’s a beautiful build of NYC (I heard some San Francisco-ians talk about getting this feeling while playing Watch Dogs 2).

After only about three or four hours into this game, I’m really loving this world. I’m so obsessed with finding every single backpack, landmark, easter egg and stopping every criminal along the way. The fighting is insanely cool and transitions seamlessly between real-time and cutscenes for knockouts. I’m making my way through the main story at a slower than normal pace, just because I enjoy this world so much and want to do everything while I’m here.

This game reminds me of Spider-Man 2: The Game (PS2). I’m sure if I went back and played that game today it wouldn’t feel as good as I remember. But at the time, the web-swinging felt as good as this feels to me now. I believe there was an even older Spider-Man game that had your webs launching into the empty sky as you swung around the city, but in Spider-Man 2 your webs had to attach onto a building or some structure, just like in these Insomniac games. It was funny because in the game before Spider-Man 2 where you could swing from clouds and the open sky, I didn’t even think about that.

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From May 2019:

This past weekend, (Star Wars Day/Cinco de Mayo 2019) I finally finished the last DLC pack in Marvel’s Spider-Man to reach 100% completion in every part of the story (I am missing about 4 screwball trophies in the DLC packs, but the game already says 100% next to each part so I don’t need to screw around with any more screwball challenges).

Marvel’s Spider-Man is the first game I ever platinumed. I’m not a trophy hunter. The trophies I achieve in my playstation games usually come as a surprise or as part of completing normal in-game tasks. However, I heard that the Spider-Man Platinum was as easy as beating the game, plus a little more (minus the secret photos and unlisted tasks, which I didn’t fully complete). I didn’t even have to get gold in all of the Screwball challenges, I just had to complete them to some degree. And for the missing trophies, all I needed was to get silver in those challenges which wasn’t that hard, but it’s time to move on.

Now that I’m done with Spider-Man, what comes next? I did get Gran Turismo this week, but that’s an ongoing game that I see myself playing for years to come (this was true, I continue to play Gran Turismo most weeks still). What I need is a story game. I did start Kingdom Hearts from the beginning, but Ursula was way too hard and I’ve stopped (I passed Ursula and am now in the final boss fight). I may need to call in a friend to help me defeat Ursula.

After playing Spider-Man, with the perfect swinging and movement mechanics (I could really just keep playing the game, swinging around New York with no missions). I could totally just swing around New York and fight crime. I even find myself getting chills anytime I free dive straight down toward the streets before shooting my web at the last second. I don’t do roller coasters, but this freaks me out just as much as watching roller coaster videos.

In unrelated news: Right before Spider-Man, I played through God of War, which had the most satisfying Axe throwing and retrieval mechanic. I felt like Thor with Stormbreakers and Mjolnir in this game. It makes me really want Sony Santa Monica to make a Thor game, they’ve already dove head first into the lore of Norse Mythology with this game. And they’ve perfected the mechanic of Thor’s weapons. So, why not…

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From today:

I was thinking of replaying the first Spider-Man game before jumping into Miles Morales. I ended up buying the Miles Morales launch edition, since that was all that was available at Best Buy when I picked up my PS5. I never got to try out Spider-Man Remastered and see Peter’s new face and all of that. However, after getting the platinum in a game I find it hard to return to that world. Even after just beating the main story or once I drop off a game, I find it very hard to jump back in.

Perhaps when I’m done with Miles I will one day jump back into Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered. Maybe some time before they announce Marvel’s Spider-Men: The Game (starring both Miles and Peter)… That’s what I’m hoping for next.