Developer: Insomniac Games
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platforms: PS4
Tested on: PS4
Marvel’s Spider-Man: The Heist DLC – Review
Marvel’s Spider-Man: The Heist is the first in a triptych, which is called: ‘The City that never Sleeps’. So more content is coming to the game for fans of the red/blue – in this iteration – Red/blue/white webslinger. So the time has come again to suit up and beat the everliving snot out of a selection of baddies as the genetically modified human. Still no origin story though, so fans who are looking for that, be warned. You can read the review of the main game here.
Story
Marvel’s Spider-Man: The Heist focuses on an already established villain in the main game. On Black Cat to be precise. For those of you who weren’t paying attention during the game, or decided to skip the side content and jumped straight into the main campaign, she’s the white haired woman in the black spandex suit. Not to be mistaken by the other white haired woman gunning for Spider-Man.
The story is a combination of light and dark, because you learn something about the relationship between Spider-Man and Black Cat, and thusly “hero” and “villain”. The most information is given through information dumps during phone calls between Spider-Man, Black Cat or Spider-Man and Mary Jane. Of course there’s still quite some showing to accompany the telling. The ending to the DLC is rather… disappointing. It’s a cliffhanger ending after a very very short piece of content and fans and gamers alike can only hope things get settled in a satisfying end by the third piece of DLC, or Insomniac might have killed off their chance at a ‘Spider-Man’ franchise with games coming out every couple of years. All this so Disney/Marvel and Sony can line their pockets. Credit where credit is due though, the story is told in a compelling and interesting enough way to keep you entertained throughout.
Graphics
God isn’t real, money is fake, and #Puddlegate was a lie, at least one of those three is truth. There isn’t much other to say about both Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man: The Heist DLC, which is that it’s just eye candy. The animations are equally as fluid, the side activities are wildly vivid and it’s just a gorgeous game to look at. The developers put effort into it and it shows. It sucks you in and keeps you in place in a sort of immersion fuelled hypnosis.
Sound
One thing needs to be said about Insomniac, when they go out, they go all out. Every single line they recorded, is different depending on the situation. So when Spider-Man is web swinging around he sounds differently than when he’s just standing around doing nothing when having the same conversation. This means that every line had to be recorded twice, at least. There’s attention to detail and then there’s overkill and this is just short of that. It must have been really intense on the voice actors to do the lines over and over again. The voices of the low level grunts sound the same, but then again, with the amount of them you swat away, it’s hard to have a different voice for every character in the game. It would take several discs worth of only audio, so it’s only a minor gripe.
Gameplay
Marvel’s Spider-Man: The Heist, like the main game is an action/adventure game. It doesn’t break out of the pattern of the main game, but trots along the path merrily. You’ll still be beating up the goons and using your superpower against enemies, while solving the problems of Black Cat. For your efforts you’ll be rewarded with up to three new suits and some extra points so you can upgrade your tools some more.
The side missions are varied enough from what you’ve been doing in the main game, and even lets a recurring villain sit in the limelight while you finish off her challenges, so she can garner her e-fame.
What’s so sad about this DLC is that it’s so unsatisfyingly short. That speaks volumes in the way that the story and gameplay is combined into such a great whole. It plays like a charm and leaves you annoyed that you’ve blown through it so quickly.
Conclusion
Marvel’s Spider-Man: The Heist is no slouch and though it doesn’t shake up the formula to any extent it builds upon strong foundations so fans and gamers alike can appreciate the liberties taken by Insomniac lore wise while still staying moderately true to the basics. It’s fun, it’s beautiful to look at but sadly it’s short *insert dickjoke here*.
Marvel's Spider-Man: The Heist DLC - Review,
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