4.5/5 ★ – wesleytypes's review of Marvel's Spider-Man: Remastered.

I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. The game has obviously received a lot of praise in the 6 years since its release, but I'm not normally the biggest fan of Spider-Man, so I wasn't sure how much it would grab me. Needless to say, I'll be careful not to underestimate the power of this IP again. Spidey is immensely popular for a reason, and Insomniac made a lot of very good decisions. First and foremost of those decisions for me is the choice to tell an original Spider-Man story that utilizes all the familiar characters and tropes in fresh ways. One of the biggest potential problems for me going in was the fact that most of Spider-Man's essential twists are well known, leaving little to be surprised by. You already know Dr. Octavius is going to become Doc Ock, it's obvious Martin Li is Mister Negative, you know Miles will get powers, and you can reasonably surmise that Peter and MJ won't stay broken up for very long. However, it's how Insomniac spun these story beats that makes them work so well. They also changed a few things around to increase the impact, like making Dr. Octavius a mentor and personal hero to Peter. Overall, I was really impressed with the story, especially in how it changes directions and escalates toward the end. Arguably the most important aspect of Insomniac's design choices is combat and traversal. The gameplay is all around very good. At first I thought the combat didn't have enough weight to it, but after a while it didn't bother me at all. There is an appropriate amount of floatiness, and it feels more fluid the better you get at it and the more moves you unlock. The taversal is amazing. Web swinging around Manhattan is effortless and exciting. I never once felt the desire to fast travel. It perfectly captures the gameplay hook that makes games like Tony Hawk or Skate so much fun. Side content is your typical Ubisoft inspired affair with towers, bases, collectibles, and challenges. Most of these were fun for me, especially when I just wanted to experiment with the gameplay more, and there isn't a lot of story content locked behind them, so it didn't bother me to leave a lot of them undone. Besides, traversal elevates everything. The open world is one giant playground for you to explore and bask in your ability to be Spider-Man better than ever before. A few of the things that didn't work for me are the MJ and Miles missions, and to a lesser degree the lab mini-games. With the former, I just didn't think the missions were very fun. It doesn't help that being Spider-Man is so exceptionally fun it makes any time you aren't him feel like a waste of time. Also, they're always stealth based, which made them feel inflated in their annoyance and difficulty. As for the latter, I didn't necessarily dislike the lab mini-games, but they felt pointless. They were so easy and simple, it hardly seemed like justifiable gameplay. I understand that both of these parts of the game are meant to break up the action, but they didn't really work for me. All in all, Spider-Man is a special game. Initially this was just a box to check for me because it's a high quality PlayStation exclusive, but Insomniac Games crafted a truly great Spider-Man mythos and made me a fan again. I haven't been this excited about the character since the Sam Raimi movies. I'm eager to play the next two games in the series and I'm looking forward to the future of Insomniac's other games in this universe. You could say I've been caught in their web.