This is always the hardest category for me to pick and I always spend weeks thinking about it. What makes a game better than all the others? Does it have to be revolutionary? One of a kind? Bigger than any other game? Not necessarily. GotY is usually for a game that exceeds expectations and feels solid, structured, fun, and memorable, and just stands out as a whole over any other game. This was a hard year to pick from as there were so many fantastic games that fell under these criteria.
It was really only a close call between God of War and Red Dead II this year with Spider-Man right behind them. This was one of those rare years where I had to analyze each and every piece of both games to determine the winner. They both have fantastic acting, characters, gameplay elements, and visuals. God of War however did most of this with more finesse and less experimentation. I felt the story of Kratos and Atreus cut a little deeper and I felt more attached and wanted to die to see the next cut-scene while Red Dead II was a really slow burn. The gameplay in God of War single-handedly reshaped combat for its own genre while Red Dead II just refined it. They both had large open worlds, but God of War’s was more memorable and had so much incredible detail that Red Dead just didn’t have.
The story is probably the second most important aspect of a game next to the gameplay. A good story can be memorable, impactful, controversial, enlightening, frightening, and any other emotion humans can feel. We didn’t have many games with memorable stories this year, but there were some out there that stood out.
There weren’t that many engaging stories this year, and there seems to be less and less every year, but God of War not only portrayed memorable characters, but the story Kratos goes through is very memorable and something you talk about long after the game is complete. Stories that stand the test of time are the ones that are remembered through history.
Sound design isn’t something we normally think of every day, but without great sound design we wouldn’t be as immersed in games, it’s something that’s on the back burner and never gets enough credit.
Making realistic sound can be done any day, but making sounds that don’t actually exist is a serious challenge. Every sound, breath, whisper, grunt, and weapon slash brings you into the game and helps make you feel like you’re really there. Even the voice of the World Serpent’s rumble is eerie and actually made me a little uncomfortable.
Best technical graphics is all about games that push their system to the limits. Shaders, ambient occlusion, shadow maps, tesselation, anti-aliasing, deferred lighting, and every other piece of tech that makes games look as good as real life.
Usually, console games get beaten out by PC exclusives in the graphics department, but the last five years have really closed the gap. The benefit of console exclusives is that it allows a developer to hone their skills on one piece of hardware, get it to know it, and push it to its limits and learn all its programming tricks. God of War is probably one of the best looking games ever made, period. The amount of detail and stunning beauty of the game is out of this world, and on a PS4 Pro and a 4K TV, this is where it’s apparent. This is a serious treatment that you only get once in a console generation and this is it.
What is an action game? Any game with action can be considered, but in my opinion, these are action/adventure games or games that are cinematic and full of flash and adrenaline-packed adventure.
God of War almost got overtaken by RDR2 on this one, but the combat system in God of War revolutionizes its own genre and just feels astoundingly perfect and insanely intuitive yet also very deep. The scripted scenes are also out of the world and the best ever seen in a game, you can’t beat the action here.
This was a decent year for the PS4. With many older exclusive franchises being remastered for the system, plus some great new exclusives, the PS4 stood out from the rest. I would feel comfortable saying this is by far the best year for the system.
Sony ruled this generation, once again, due to the fact that they still know what gamers want and that’s beautiful well-told single-player games. God of War isn’t just the best game of the year on PS4, but the best game that’s come out this entire generation cycle. The acting, visuals, art style, combat, and characters are phenomenal and the bar has been reset for what video games should be.
The superhero craze may be tiresome in Hollywood, but in the video game industry, I feel it is just beginning and is taking a long time to pick up. There are good superhero games such as Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, X-Men Legends II: Rise of the Apocalypse, and the granddaddy of modern superhero greatness, Batman: Arkham Asylum. Marvel has really dropped the ball lately with the just awful movie-to-game adaptation, with DC taking lead with the Batman and Injustice series. Insomniac Games is an interesting studio to develop a superhero game, as this is completely outside of their track record. With games like Resistance, Spyro, and Ratchet & Clank, you would be a little skeptical to think they could produce such an amazing title.
Spider-Man 2 was the best Spider-Man game to date as it featured the first big open-world for a superhero game and did it right. You really felt like Spider-Man, and there was so much to do and see in that game. Insomniac’s Spider-Man goes above and beyond just a big open world but features a rich story, amazing characters, and fantastic action sequences. I personally love the way the game opens up. It feels like a Spider-Man movie or comic, depending on where you come from. Also, understand that this isn’t a story about how Peter Parker became Spider-Man, but it has already been so for several years now and could technically take place after the first three Sam Raimi movies due to a few references to those. Peter is late for work and is rushing around his run-down apartment to get ready. He jumps out the window as Spider-Man, and you take over, swinging around the city with epic orchestral music playing in the background. It gave me goosebumps and made me smile, and I was amazed. It’s a perfect way to open a game.
Swinging around Manhattan is exhilarating at best, as this is one of the richest, most detailed open worlds ever created. The game just oozes details, from birds flying off of poles when Spidey swings by to citizens looking up at him when he swings low to the ground. The streets are bustling, the city feels alive and packed, and it feels just like a Spider-Man comic came to life. The story allows you to play as Pete and Spider-Man, but like Pete, you are doing puzzles in Doc Ock’s research lab and doing some small investigation missions here and there. The puzzles are actually pretty fun, as they remind me of the hacking puzzles in BioShock, and the matching puzzles are rather fun too. Completing these extra ones unlocks XP and tokens to unlock suits.
Once you finally start fighting in the game, it is very reminiscent of Batman: Arkham’s combat system, but a little less stiff and with more flair. Spidey can web people from far away, has various gadgets and suit powers and mods, has a finisher move, can heal, stun, toss objects around, and has an entire array of moves. It’s fairly deep yet simple to learn, and I liked it quite a bit. It’s extremely responsive, looks great, and feels just like how Spider-Man would fight. Stealth combat is also really fun, as you can swing around and web people up, distract guards, and sneak up behind enemies. There are even challenge missions focused on stealth and regular combat.
Some story missions have QTE’s, and I am happy to report they are not abused. It’s to make the game feel cinematic and exciting rather than be a cop-out for a lack of content. Some of these are thrown into random crime missions that pop up around the city, but they are wisely used, thankfully. Speaking of crime missions, there are plenty of side missions and things to do outside of the lengthy story missions. You can find backpacks, complete research challenges, eliminate enemy bases, and tons of other side stuff. It’s a wide variety, and the rewards are well worth their completion.
I have to say that the story is just so good, and the characters are awesome. If you saw the movies or read the comics, you kind of know who is going to be an enemy of Spidey’s and who isn’t, but the way the entire story unfolds is amazing, and there are some sharp plot twists towards the end that were unexpected. There are a good number of villains in the game, and the ending cleverly states who is going to be in the next game if you’re a big enough Spider-Man fan. I never got bored with this game, and swinging around the city never got old. The game looks absolutely amazing and is probably one of the best-looking games ever made. I highly recommend only playing this on the PS4 Pro, as it’s well worth the purchase. The animations are phenomenal, and the voice acting is well done.
Overall, Marvel’s Spider-Man is one of the best comic book games ever made, period. It nails every single thing you would want in a Spider-Man game. I felt just like the hero, and the story kept me hooked with plenty of things to do in the city that didn’t feel boring or tiresome. I would say the game relied a little too much on combat at times, and it felt a little abused, but there’s not much wrong with this game. Maybe a few more villains, but there are more wishes than issues with the game.
I’m not sure what it is with the Spider-Man series, but the movie-based versions are always the best. This is usually the opposite with video games, but it doesn’t deny this strange truth with Spider-Man. The best Spidey game, in my opinion, was Spider-Man 2, based on the Sam Raimi movie. The huge open world was unheard of in a game like this back then, and the graphics, at the time, were astounding. It felt high-budget, and despite copying the movie, it was really amazing. TASM follows suit as well, with some tricks up its sleeve.
This game is actually a sequel to the recent movie and is highly entertaining. You play as Spidey and are trying to take down the cross-species that Oscorp created. The bad guy here is Alistair Smythe, who runs this place, and this is how the movie ties in. Spidey needs Doctor Connors to create a cure, but he’s locked up in an asylum after the events in the movie. The story is entertaining, but none of the actors from the movie take it apart here, which is probably good. The characters resemble the movie characters but look a little different. This is how you do a movie-based game, right?
The game is more cinematic than previous entries just by the way the camera is angled. The combat is pretty satisfying with just one attack button, but the animations are so fluid and entertaining that you won’t care. Spider-Man doesn’t have a health bar but regenerates health. When you take too many hits (he can only take a few), you have to use the retreat feature, which has Spidey flying off into a corner away from enemies to heal. Use Web Strike to immediately go right back into the fight, which is awesome. Once enemies are stunned, you can use special moves, and all these moves are upgraded by finding tech pieces throughout the game. One of my favorite things is the stealth mechanic, which is done right for the first time in a Spider-Man game. Crawling on the ceiling shows a purple web radius under you, and when guards are on it, Spidey will drop down, wrap them up, and hang them from the ceiling. The health system makes you use this feature because you can’t dodge enemies with guns. Your spy sense will turn red, and this means the attack isn’t dodgeable. Use a quick web retreat and try the stealth again. Very satisfying and well done.
Of course, this wouldn’t be a complete Spidey experience without a huge open Manhattan to explore with side quests. Like Spider-Man 2, there are many missions like saving citizens from crimes, various timed side quests, collecting comic pages, police chases, and various others. They are a lot of fun at first but grow repetitive towards the end. Swinging around as Spidey is just so much fun, and the well-done animations help this a lot.
The only big issue is that the layout of levels repeats often. Disable this lock, take down these turrets, beat up these enemies, and turn this valve. It’s all very mundane, and even the boss fights are really easy with little challenge. Thanks to all the other elements being very solid, you can look past this enough to get through the game. At least the graphics are fantastic, especially on PC. Beenox took the time to give PC users higher-resolution textures and better-looking everything. This is rare in a movie-based game to see such attention to detail. There are some game-breaking bugs and glitches that were never addressed on PC, and that is a real shame.
Overall, TASM is a solid Spider-Man game and probably one of the best yet. This is how you do movie-based games, right? The story is entertaining, the combat is solid and fun, and exploring Manhattan is a lot of fun. The graphics are amazing, but I can’t help but feel annoyed by the repetitive level layout and easy boss fights. This is well worth a purchase, and even if you don’t like the movie, you will enjoy it.
The Spider-Man games have always been generally good, but with the success that Treyarch made with Spider-Man 2, it’s a wonder why this game is not as good. With the success of that game, you wonder why this could have been messed up so badly. While the core game is pretty good, there’s just so much wrong with it, such as a terrible camera, a useless upgrade system, a poor story, bad voice acting, bad graphics, repetitive missions, and the list goes on. The game is about Venom fusing with a bit of Spider-Man and creating bastard symbiotes that are trying to destroy the town. They take over a few Marvel characters (Wolverine, Black Cat, and Vulture, just to name a few), and it’s an interesting twist, but not interesting enough.
The gameplay is what the game is supposed to be best at, but it falters on this. You have a pretty robust fighting system here with heavy and light attacks, web shots, and new wall and aerial combat, but it just doesn’t work very well. The aerial combat isn’t as broken as the wall combat and can be pretty fun at times. You can shoot a web at someone in the air and just keep juggling them. Upgrading this allows for more juggles and more powerful follow-ups. You can also just attack normally, and you will kind of home in on the enemies, and it’s pretty solid.
Ground combat works too but feels pretty boring due to the fact that there are only a few combos that you can upgrade, and there really isn’t anything Spider-Man about it at all, like tying enemies up to light posts or anything like that. Wall combat is the most broken, thanks to the crappy camera. You can climb a wall, but instead of the camera zooming out at a fixed angle, it follows you, and if you’re locked onto an enemy, it’ll follow it, and the camera will do backflips and somersaults, and it’s nauseating. Not only that, but you can’t look very far up a building thanks to the camera being right behind Spidey. The camera also poses an issue when swinging around the city because if you get stuck on a building, the camera jitters and freaks out, and it can get mildly annoying.
Of course, you have a black suit that you can do, but it’s not much different from the red. Instead of being extra powerful or using a completely different fighting style, it just borrows from the red suit and changes the combos slightly. This also leads into the story of being able to be a good or bad spy, and the results are mildly amusing. It’s interesting to see Spidey turn bad, and you can choose the path at different points in the story. I would normally mention epic parts of the game that could have saved it, but there aren’t any.
The missions are also highly repetitive and irritating. There will be a mission that has you waiting and guarding citizens, and then the next mission will be the exact same thing, but just shorter! Forget about the side missions because they are even more repetitive, and even doing things like saving citizens, rescuing them, and fighting bad guys is just boring and not fun at all since it never ends.
Lastly, the game doesn’t look too good. It doesn’t look next-gen at all, but it’s a highly polished Xbox One game. The game just doesn’t look good at all and doesn’t even sound good. Spider-Man has a whiny voice and sounds like he belongs in an emo band. Plus, everyone else sounds pretty bad and just, well, isn’t up to Marvel standards. Web of Shadows isn’t the best game in the world, but it’s good enough for a mediocre rental if you’re craving Spider-Man action.
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Yep! The fact that I forgot about this game until you made a comment proves that.