Marvel Spider Man PC Review: Is the experience in four years outdated?

Amidst controversy and questioning, Sony's first party game PC has progressed to Marvel Spider Man HD. The original version was the PS4 game released in 2018, which was always on my "discounted buy one" list, but it was always overlooked for various reasons. I didn't expect to end up playing it on my most familiar PC platform.

Not long after the game started, Stan Lee's guest appearance completely reminded me that it has been almost 4 years since the first release of this game. This puts the main focus of this review on answering two questions: Will Marvel Spider Man look a bit outdated after 4 years? What kind of enhancement can the PC platform provide for it?

go through the motions

Marvel Spider Man is an extremely standard open world action adventure game, and its main storyline progression and map element settings can clearly make you feel this.

The game takes Manhattan, New York as the stage, dividing Manhattan into several areas where side quests, strongholds, small battles, and collectibles are evenly placed. If you want to know where these side activities are, you need to climb the tower and create a map first. As these side activities gradually open up with the progress of the main storyline, players need the resources they provide to strengthen themselves, which can lead to the situation where they have to walk the entire map up and clear out various new marker points every other period of time.

In theory, this repetitive process can easily make people restless, but the development team Insomniac effectively alleviated this feeling among players through design, and they achieved this in three ways.

Firstly, as the stage of Marvel Spider Man, New York is beautiful enough, and the spider web swaying movement brought by the character's characteristics is also very refreshing. The two complement each other, making the player's movement in Manhattan always full of fun, and this fun has been enhanced through PC version graphics upgrades. I often give up fast teleportation and choose to manually run maps, partly because I want to trigger more crime missions along the way, and also because it's really irresistible to wander through the glass curtain wall.

Stop and take a look at the scenery when you're tired of walking

Secondly, these side activities are not very difficult for you. Although most side activities have some repetitive parts, apart from imitating the challenges of masters, they can still be completed relatively easily, so as not to make people shake their heads when they see a map marker.

Finally, Marvel Spider Man has a very reasonable grasp on game time and main storyline length. When I complete most of the collection, the clearance time is 26 hours. If the game time is calculated based on the same price, it may not seem as cost-effective as those works with large maps and long main storylines. However, being able to end the game before players start to feel tired of the core gameplay is the most valuable aspect of this game.

I think this is also why Marvel Spider Man adopts an extremely standardized open world construction approach - a way that even from the perspective of the game's release in 2018, it would already make people want to frown, but it still allows me to play continuously and complete the levels in 2022.

Undoubtedly, Marvel Spider Man is a game that still has sufficient appeal in 2022, but it must be said that although it ended very timely, Marvel Spider Man also showed signs of fatigue in the latter half of the game.

The game's main storyline adopts a movie like three act structure, with the third act being the critical moment and ultimate climax of the entire story. At this time, two new criminal missions and several strongholds appear on the map, disrupting the already tense storyline rhythm. The changes brought by the new enemy types to the battle are also limited. As the main enemies of the third act, the six villains possess various superpowers, but the gameplay and opening of BOSS battles do not have much fundamental difference, which is somewhat regrettable.

Of course, these are all issues inherent in the original work four years ago, and it was not possible for them to change in a PC ported enhanced version. Everything still needs to wait for a sequel to be released next year.

The Complete Version and Optimization Problems

It has to be said that there were some unavoidable flaws in the initial performance of the PC review version of Marvel Spider Man HD, but when I opened Steam before the review was lifted, I received a 38.9 GB update push, which made everything subtle again.

Before discussing the specific performance of the PC version, it is necessary to first explain the PC configuration I used during the evaluation: 5900X+3070TI+32GB of memory, and the game is installed on a Western Data SN550 SSD. According to the official configuration table, the preset high image quality and high light tracing requirements have been met, and the distance from the preset high image quality and extremely high light tracing is only a little short.

Under preset high graphics quality, the PC version of Marvel Spider Man HD performs surprisingly well, especially in some close up details. When operating an ordinary human character walking on the ground, you can clearly feel the visual enhancement brought by the upgraded shadows. The Central Station scene in the following picture is top-notch even by the standards of a completely new 3A game.

When I climb to the rooftops of some tall buildings, I can have a panoramic view of Manhattan, which is also one of the great joys of the Marvel Spider Man game. Buildings with high image quality are very clear and sharp at long distances. The following few images are screenshots of the PC version of Marvel Spider Man HD (2560 * 1440) and the PS5 version of Marvel Spider Man Miles Morales (4K) at almost the same location, and the differences can be visually observed. However, the screenshot of Little Black Spider is affected by the snowfall weather and 4K resolution output of the game itself, and cannot achieve 100% consistency. Please note this.

Marvel Spider Man HD Edition - PC

Marvel Spider Man HD Edition - PC

Marvel Spider Man Miles Morales - PS5

Marvel Spider Man HD Edition - PC

Marvel Spider Man Miles Morales - PS5

Next, let's talk about ray tracing. The PC version has multiple ray tracing levels that players can choose according to their configuration. Based on my personal experience, the improvement effect of ray tracing function is relatively limited most of the time. To see the impact of ray tracing more clearly, it is necessary to spend the night time in the game.

The following four images show the reflection of building glass during the day, which are light tracing off and light tracing high. When the light tracing is turned off, the glass reflects the city's scenery clearly like a mirror. However, when the light tracing is turned on, the windows become a bit dirty, the reflections become blurry, and the scenery inside is completely different.

ray tracing off

Light chasing height

ray tracing off

Light chasing height

At night, it is better to distinguish different levels of light tracing effects. The following three images are light tracing off, medium, and high. When light tracing is turned on, the reflected light on the glass increases significantly, and there is also reflection on the far building glass on the right side of the screen. The clarity of the reflection increases with the level of light tracing.

Light tracing off

ray tracing

Light chasing height

The most prominent light chasing effect in the game is electronic billboards. The next four images show the reflection of electronic billboards near Times Square, in the order of light chasing off, medium, high, and very high. When the light tracing is turned off, the reflection of the electronic billboard behind cannot be seen. And the clarity of reflections with high and very high light tracing is higher than that with medium light tracing, and the brightness of reflections between high and very high light tracing will also differ.

ray tracing off

ray tracing

Light chasing height

has very high light pursuit

Whether or not to enable ray tracing for the above effects depends on the player's own configuration and choices. In addition, when light tracing is turned on, the edges of the building will become blurred during high-speed movement, which also requires some attention.

In the initial version of my review, there was a noticeable drop in frames when the light tracing was turned on and swayed in Times Square, where electronic billboards were concentrated. After updating the giant patch before its release, the situation of frame reduction was greatly reduced, which also allowed me to chase the light more confidently.

I also encountered an obvious issue in the PC review version, which is that there may be character voice delays during the game process, whether it is during cutscenes, phone calls, or JJJ broadcasts. Sometimes the voice is delayed by a second and a half, and sometimes several conversations are played together. At the same time, cutscenes may also suddenly freeze at a certain moment and jump directly to the scene one or two seconds later.

Imagine, when you see a critical moment in the plot, the visuals and voice get stuck and delayed, creating a devastating scene

However, due to the awkward update time, I didn't have time to start over the game again before unlocking the review to verify whether the above issues had been fully fixed. However, I opened a new game and played the first two hours or so, and the two issues mentioned earlier hardly appeared again. If I can maintain them during the later game process, then I have no complaints about this PC version.

Buy or not

For me, it is pleasant to see excellent works like Marvel Spider Man landing on PC in a better posture, provided that the production team ensures that it is indeed better than before. If there are a lot of negative reviews during the initial release due to optimization issues, it is obviously not worth the loss for Sony, which is under pressure from its own supporters to send its first party assets to PC.

Although the sudden appearance of giant patches before official release may not be very friendly to reviewers, it is better than presenting malicious flaws to more players. Of course, as a PC version game, it also needs to ensure that it is effective for players with various configurations.

In summary, if you are a PC player who previously followed Marvel Spider Man, I believe it is undoubtedly a game worth having, because the joy of becoming Spider Man is real, and this experience will not make you feel outdated. Additionally, it is an open world game that understands moderation and is a rare virtue in open world games today.