This game sucks
It's one of those "everything wrong with modern gaming" kind of games for me. It's gameplay feels automatic and on rails with barely anything to break that pace...and what does break that pace is god awful. It's story failed to make me feel anything and it's mostly empty...I was already saying I'm out when they did that MJ shit...and it just sucks...

Let's go back to the beginning, I'm a huge Spider-Man fan and that's probably part of why I hate this game so much, it sucks at being a Spider-Man anything on any level, whether that be characters, story or even the basic gameplay. Much like everyone else, for years I wanted a "Be the Spider-Man" type of game...and when this was revealed in 2016, I was excited. His costume looked pretty cool (and it is cool and unique, I'll give it that...albeit association with this game has ruined it for me) and the gameplay looked very promising. Come 2018...this game was out, everyone loved it, critics were raving, fans were raving. Woahwoo! Buuut I had no PS4 and there was no way to emulate, so I had no way of playing for myself. Come 2022, they announced it's coming to PC! Sweet! I'll finally play Spidey! Buuuuut then I realized my PC wouldn't be able to handle it...so once again, no way to play this while everyone else was playing it and raving it.
Come 2023...I finally have a PC that can play this thing...let's begin!

So at first it felt pretty cool, I will say that the controls of this game are on spot, responsive, quick and most things feel like they have enough weight. It's optimized pretty damn well too, no problems there. As far as a port goes, this thing is pretty solid. Anyway went through all the Kingpin stuff, pretty cool opening, gave me the exciting feel I would get when starting a 7th gen game. So far so good, pretty exciting end to Kingpin. Oh and the graphics are gorgeous of course, no problem there. Damn thing looks great.

Cool! Then I decided to explore the city, oh man the swinging felt great! I'll also give the game this, this is probably the most expanded and versitale Spidey's moveset has ever been in a game up until that point. There is the very detailed combat of WOS, of course. But what I mean is more of a general moveset to swing around all the ways you can interact with buildings and such.

I also have to praise the collectibles, I love how they actually made them unique, worthwhile and actually part of the lore. It sure as hell beats collecting...checks notes...2160 tokens?!....buuuut nothing can come close to comics you not only catch in the air but can also actually read! We'll never get that again huh....Marvel wants to sell them old comics...

So, you can go down to the city and interract with people, pretty cool! WOS also did something similar by having people react to Red and Black Spideys differently....and if you bump into people in SM2 PC, they'll tell you to get a real job lol.

Uhh you can take selfies of course, unlike most games it makes extra sense since Peter is a photographer. I immediately took advantage of this by taking selfies next to drugs with the comic book bubble "I can do it!". Raimi suit is pretty cool, I know it's not the most accurate now thanks to mods and updates but hey it's still a cool rendition, most suits are nice...I don't like how some of them resemble Advanced Suit too much and Future Foundation's lenses are awful (thank god there's a mod for that).

Speaking of mods, that new face they put on Peter? Yeah, no, that's gone. Replaced everything, model, photos, credits. Bam, all gone. Thank you modders.

Some missions pass and I think this is where I found those uhh...portable lab things Harry left behind....man these quickly became such a chore...they're all always "Hey Pete, my mom, my mom, I'm in Europe, my dad bad, now do these tasks that are literally impossible or will kill you if you're not Spider-Man even though I have no idea you have superpowers, bye!". I think I summed these up enough with that...

I like that you can fast travel with the train and it's nice to see Spidey interacting with the people on it.

Boxers costume is funny and actually reminded me of the goofy ahh extras old games would often have but new games don't seem to for some reason....of course it's gone in the sequel...Although it's funny that they didn't include Symbiote cuz it's "lore breaking" but not Peter swinging in his literal underwear...this alone is honestly enough for Jameson to try to make him look like a pervert and have him arrested for public indecency lol. Of course, now we know what they meant to say was "we're saving it for the sequel" but couldn't say it for obvious reasons. It's like how MVCI developers had to come up with that "characters are functions" thing and not say out loud "The rat won't let us put Magneto in".
Gwen better get her own undies costume whenever she becomes playable...

Look I won't lie...side activities get old REAL quick, they honestly become a boring chore.
I also wanna quickly go back to Jameson, he has a podcast and he talks and...at first I enjoyed these but quickly they started to bore me...voice actor is just not a great Jameson and it feels like he's trying too hard to be JK Simmons, I'm sorry and one of the most important things for Jameson imo is his voice, if you don't have someone with the right thick voice to do that large ham acting then it's just not gonna work. These honestly add nothing to the already worthless game, they're like anti-GTA radio in entertainment value, just mindless noise wasting disk/hard drive space

Okay, BACK to the story, it's been a while and I haven't looked back on this game with fond memories, so some shit might be out of order, anyway. At some point I went through the whole helicopter sequence, yknow what? It was pretty cool...there's the F.E.A.S.T. stuff...eh I don't care...there's just something off about F.E.A.S.T. in this game by the way...I know it's from the comics and appeared in other continuties too, such as MCU...yet it never felt off there....here, it feels like they're doing it just to make us go "Awww, isn't Aunt May such a good person? She's doing something out there!"...it's just the vibe I'm getting...but eh. There's Martin Li...gee I wonder who he's gonna be!

I get to the bank..I "fight" Shocker...god that shit sucked, whole thing felt piss easy and mostly on rails. Talk about an anti-climactic fight...honestly thinking now? Kingpin felt more damn challenging...hell Shocker in previous games (not you, USM) felt more active and fun. Yes previous Spidey games (especially TASM2) had moments like this too but I'd expect something a bit more involved from such a..."masterfully crafted game"...boy that's gonna come up again.

I get to the museum...and...here she is...Mary Jane...something felt off in this moment, I'm serious. The moment she appeared on the screen, I took one look at her and something about her vibes felt off...mind you, I knew nothing about this game before going in, I didn't check any reviews, I had literally no clue or impression of how she was gonna be in this game. And it wasn't some "oh my god she so ugly!" moment either. I just saw her and...something felt off...
And it only got worse from here...now we get to the stealth section with Mary Jane!
UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
FUCK. Holy shit, THIS is the ambitious gaming masterpiece has to offer to break up the gameplay? Oh my god...this brainless stupid, predictable, mostly nonsensical stealth...fucking games based on cartoons on the PS2 had better stealth than this. That one MGS parody section in Saints Row IV was much better stealth than this...now I'm not expecting Metal Gear Solid level of stealth-...actually why shouldn't I? Maybe at least somewhat downgraded version of it? You would think they would research some good games as they were making this...but yeah...oh wait for lady to turn around and run away! Rinse and repeat! God, Toy Story 3 had better stealth...oh wait, this is literally the exact same system...wait for coast to be clear by having the person you're hiding turn around...and have them also be deaf and bam! Such great gameplay...I am soooo glad the samey gameplay with Spidey is broken up with this. Yknow I forgot the details but if I remember correctly, MJ's plan here was full of holes too...she literally lies to get in, learns jackshit and gets herself in danger and Spidey has to come in to save the day.

They have a dinner in a restaurant that goes nowhere...
There's a beautiful Stan Lee cameo though and it's one of his best, so props to the game for that. A rare W for this game.

Let's fucking break down Mary Jane...they made her Lois Lane. Or as my friend calls her...Lois Lame...indeed...she is a SHIT person and a SHIT character. God what a godawful character...yknow the idea of MJ being a report is kinda ehh boring, I don't think it fits her but it has potential...buuuut execution sucks...I'll elaborate on this in a bit.

Let's go over the rest of the story...there is an underground construction place...Silver Sable comes! And Spidey's spider senses are turned off for plot convience! Yay! So he easily gets caught by his trap...great thanks...

Miles' dad died...yeah didn't make me feel a thing, then we get a shitty stealth section.
Oh yeah there was another MJ stealth somewhere...it was somewhat challenging ish but that didn't last long...meh.

There is one more thing I'll save for last, it's a side activity but it was the final straw for me, but let's change it up for now.

Music sucks, it's generic forgettable soulless "cinematic" shit. It's so damn boring. Each track resemble each other and it manages to give no thrill to the swinging at all. Raimiverse travel music mod was a must for me at this point.

But yknow what, FUCK all that. This is a game right? It doesn't matter how bad the story is, how boring or shit the characters are or whatever. What matters most is core gameplay, cuz without that...we got a problem....so how is the core gameplay? Besides all I mentioned...more I got in more I realized...like I said, how on-rails it was. My god, why is my swinging speed so low? It feels like I can never truly get momentum and launch myself forward. Why is it this way? I had to mod this to actually have fun with swinging too. My god game, many Spidey games before have figured this out! Not that these developers probably played any of them anyway....

You sometimes get basic QTEs but most of them are for such simple shit...it just makes me question why bother? I could make that jump! I could do that swing! I could do that punch! I could do that throw!
MAKE ME do more stuff game, stop holding my damn hand, throw me into your world and let me fucking figure you out. You want to add an easy mode? Fine, but don't enforce it for everyone.

Peter sections bored me...AND OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THIS BORING MOBILE GAME PIPE SHIT. THIS is the best they could come up with?! Thank god for that fucking puzzle autoskipper.

Anytime you're not Spidey is a damn snorefest and even Spidey himself has such stupid restrictions.

Back to Spidey, lack of fall damage is UNACCEPTABLE. It shouldn't have taken an entire game to make it a thing. You wanna let it be toggeable? Fine. But my god, this is such a basic thing I'd expect...without it, what's the point? Spidey isn't Superman, he's still a MAN who's so high up in the air, technically he's in danger all the time and that's part of the thrill, this in turn gives the player a thrill but also a motivation to experiment and and do more with his web swinging...what the hell point is there when they literally turned web swinging into this boring go from point A to point B.

That's one of the worst things about this game I feel, web swinging is supposed to be a thrill, it's supposed to be exciting, it's supposed to be dangerous, there's a damn reason he's one of the most exciting superheroes to witness and his powers being so unique is what made me a fan since I was a kid. Without any danger, any momentum, most shit on auto, WITHOUT ANY WAY to truly push the web swinging forward or have some fun while I'm doing it, web swinging is just a bus ride from work to home and THAT sucks. They literally got one of the core basics of the character wrong.
He's not any better personality wise..he's a goddamn doormat for MJ. You know, you could argue all versions have that Parker Luck or whatever, fine. But yknow what Peter was? Likeable, he was never spineless either, not to anyone, he geniuenly tried and that's why you always rooted for him and that's why it felt so good to see him win, wheter that's in a battle or in his personal life. This guy is a generic goddamn doormat and I couldn't care less if he was squashed like a bug...

And then that scene came...that moment...Mary Jane stealthes into that lab...that very dangerous lab...so she puts herself at risk...tries to interview a guy, who has a gun drawn on her cuz someone just went through the door (I might be misremembering a few details), it seems like they're going somewhere. But Spidey understandably thinks MJ is in danger and knocks the guy out, only for MJ to yell at him what's going on...fine...but the bad guys are coming and they gotta go...

And the phonecall afterwards? My god...this is one of the worst things I ever heard...not only MJ just shits all over Peter without finding ANY fault in herself but Peter just fucking takes it and agrees with like he fucking did something wrong. Worse thing is, THE GAME agrees with MJ, it legit tries to paint Spidey in the bad light here and I absolutely hate it. This fucking doormat of a character paired with this toxic bitch. I'd say Peter deserves better but THIS Peter? Fuck no, they're perfect for each other. I love how she blames him for making a tension breaker joke like that's such an unreasonable thing to do...and THEN there's the line "This is why we broke up" HOOO BOY, when I heard this shit I just stopped web swinging in disbelief. And she pisses on him for just trying to protect her too. The way it sounds, it seems like she would always do reckless shit like this, only for Spidey to have to save her ass. God it's like Lois Lane in Fleischer Superman but worse in every goddamn way...I absolute hate these versions of the characters, everyone else is a goddamn paperweight from my experience but these two? hooo boy...
I made this into a personal meme of mine...say what you will about Spider-Man on Atari 2600 but atleast it doesn't remind you why Peter and MJ broke up...see? If you read my reviews, you might've seen this pop-up on some other reviews aswell, where I reference or meme it like this. Now you know what it refers to in case you didn't.

By this point...and it's been like what, 35 hours? I was really getting tired of this game...not only it disapointed me big time and didn't live up to the hype but the shit story and the repetitive held back gameplay and just the whole squeaky clean corporate AAA feeling just made this game a ughhhhh such a bore. I was fucking around with the side activites and then run into...

Fucking Screwball. Screw Screwball. FUCK Screwball. Reviewing this damn game made me into a genuine AVGN here man. God this game was written in 2018 right? Yet all the internet streamer lingo is STILL written like it's written by people who have no idea what they're talking about while trying to be quirky with it. I don't like making fun of people who don't understand internet due to being from a different generation, that's fine by me. But PLEASE don't do this, if you don't know it, if it's not your forte, just leave it alone PLEASE. Otherwise we just get peak "how you do fellow kids?" energy. She was insufferable in the first few missions but when she fucking spelled out LOL as "El O El" outloud in a fucking outside setting WHO SAYS "TLDR" IN REAL LIFE. WHO. IT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE, THERE'S NOTHING TO FUCKING READ, YOU'RE SPEAKING. God and yknow what? I was actually enjoying the combat a little bit, ooo combat with a bomb! Finally! Cuz honestly combat quickly got repetitive and boring in this game tooo...BUT FUCKING SCREWBALL POPS UP AND I CAN'T STAND HER VOICE. Luckily there is a mod to silence all of her lines but...my god, if I have to mod the damn core game with like 6 mods to significantly alter how it plays...is the damn game truly worth it? If I have to mod RE3R to change the designs of Jill, Carlos and Nemesis, was the damn thing really worth it in the first place?
And yknow what, the whole fucking game consistently felt, yay this is getting fun! Oh wait no....here's the new annoying shit they introducing...this game is great at pulling the fucking fun rug from under me, that's for sure.

I was raging pretty damn audibly at this point and my brother was in the room and he just asked me a simple question "Why don't you stop playing it?" and yknow what? He was fucking right, why should I subject myself to this overrated souless fluffed annoying tonedeaf variety lacking boring generic piece of shit trash? So I deleted every last bit of data related to it.

I don't care about the rest of the game, or the DLCs, or the sequel, or Miles, or whatever. I want nothing to do with this universe. And from what I heard...I'm probably not missing much.

Oh and WHY it got one star and not the half star it deserves? Cuz there is a small amount of good things I mentioned in there...
A few cherries or sprinkles on top of this shit sundae if you will!
But no matter what fancy fruit you put on top of it....that sundae will still taste like shit.

I had a lot of high expectations for this game, and how could I not? EVERYONE loved this game, oh it's such a masterpiece that! award this! Finally the "REAL spidey game". And the worst one nowadays is "Previous Spidey games walked so this one could run". Shut the fuck up, please shut the fuck up. Don't come to me with this shit take.

And yeah, previous Spidey games are much better. SM2 (The Tobey one, duh)'s web swinging is still unmatched. There's the awesome anime ass combat in WOS. even TASM2 had innovative ideas like having individual hand web swinging and that game fucking sucked. I guess my ideal Spidey game would be something taking SM2 web swinging and WOS combat and building something awesome off that but nooooooooooo. I wasn't expecting that here realistically but YOU'D THINK they'd atleast study fucking Spider-Man 2, which is still to me, the closest thing to being Spidey fr in a game to this day...
You can feel this game's lack of soul even in finer details...if you try to leave the island, you get a generic text box popping up and saying "You can't leave the main area" or something. In the old games, I think especially TASM1 did this best by having Spidey swing back on his own and say something like "I can't leave, people here need me" and such. Why couldn't they do something like that here? Even the little things man...small details, my ass.
Look at the fucking cover, look at how boring it is. Spidey in a literal red void, wow how exciting! You couldn't put a fucking city there? Even a zoom of his suit like like the Raimi covers would be more unique than this shit. Oh what a great name too...Marvel's Spider-Man...as opposed to DC's Spider-Man. Great fucking names too, way to fuck up the search resulsts, especially if you wanna find the Raimi movies or games based on them and with SM2 being among my favorite movies and games, this is quite the fucking annoyance. Remakes cause the same fucking shit and I hate it. How about that ugly ass basic REMASTERED font. Thank god they remastered this 4-bit piece of trash huh...How about that generic meaningless slogan? "Be Greater" and "Be Greater Together" wow...thanks dude, really means a lot there! Look at how boring and lifeless this fucking game is to the fucking core. Oh and this is like the ONLY Spidey game to be approved by Marvel appereantly...boy with almost 3 decades of some great games, Marvel really has some shit taste. Pretentious shit taste, that's even worse! Oh wow he's in Spider-Verse...oh wow he's in the comic...wow I'm supposed to give a shit? Cuck-Man here can fuck right off

THIS is the amazing awesome DEFINITIVE BE THE SPIDER-MAN game? This? 18 years of 3D Spidey games and all their ups and downs and what was learned there lead to this? Yes Insomniac weren't those developers but you'd think THEY'D ATLEAST GENUIENLY LOOK AT THEM FOR INSPIRATION SINCE THEY'RE TRYING TO MAKE SOMETHING IN QUALITY SUPPOSEDLY FAAAAR ABOVE OF THOSE. Some fucking game this turned out to be, nothing but empty hype. What a piece of shit. What a disapointment. I don't give a shit about Game Awards but I'm glad the sequel didn't get shit. Fuck this shit. Fuck this fucking fuck of a game!

This review was a long time coming and I wanted to wait until I was up for it and I finally was, I even looked up some of my old comments on it to remind myself. And my god, I made the right choice.

Maybe this fucking game's problem is that it makes itself look like chocolate, like I said, graphics are so pretty, it looks so pretty to watch. You look at it and you go "woah! This game must be amazing!" and for the first hour or two it feels amazing...but then you realize what you were eating wasn't chocolate at all...

And that's it, That's Spider-Man or Shit-Man or Cuck-Man or whatever. This fucking game sucks my left ball AND my right ball all at once. I'm done here.