To give you a great browsing experience free of charge, this site uses cookies. Cookies help us personalize content and ads, provide social media features, track your preferences, and analyze traffic. Forbes may share this information with its advertising, analytics, and social media partners, who may use it with information you have provided to them in connection with their services. They both wear masks and use high-tech gadgets to take down enemies. They even have two remarkably similar games. Now Spider-Man has his very own open-world game, Spider-Man, and it shares plenty in common with the Arkham series while also surpassing it in many ways. Credit: Sony After all, Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker only share so much in common. Fly across the city like a spider-god. Credit: Sony But whatever Arkham does, Spider-Man can do better. Web-swinging through the city which entails swinging, dashing forward, doing cool tricks in the air, running up and along walls and zipping to perches is glorious. Moving about the expansive, richly detailed open-world burgh of Manhattan is a joy. This is a world tied directly to the MCU films though in an alternate universe where Spidey himself is older and more experienced. And he can fly through the city like a god. Credit: Sony Seriously, the traversal system in Spider-Man is a rush and it gets better as you level up. Moving is half the fun here, and the city is scattered with various types of challenges that become more and more diverse as you advance. There are stealth challenges, combat challenges, movement-based challenges, research challenges and much, much more. This is an open world filled with stuff to do and all of it helps you unlock an array of gadgets, Spider-Man suits and their associated special powers, as well as level up and fill out your skill tree. A good deal of that skill tree is devoted to traversal. Combat is a blast The skill tree. Credit: Sony Once again, the comparison to the Arkham games is apparent. This is almost a sub-genre now, with the Shadow of Mordor titles also making an appearance. You can pull of combos, tinker around with your array of web and tech-based gadgets, and wreak havoc on your unwitting foes. As you unlock your skill tree and gadgets, combat becomes far more varied and interesting. Most non-story combat encounters such as taking out an enemy base or stopping a crime will come packaged with challenges. You get more Tokens for this. These are spent to upgrade and unlock gadgets and suits. In any case, combat is fun. Press square and you punch. Press and hold square and you punch an enemy into the air. Now you can punch them a few more times in the air or you can hold triangle to slam them to the ground. Or you could hold square to do a swing kick then follow that up with a series of punches. If another enemy is across the street, tap triangle to web your way directly to them. I like this suit. Credit: Sony Top this off with your Focus bar and special suit power. Both build as you score hits and dodges. The suit power recharges separately and can be used by clicking both joysticks down. My favorite is still the web blast where Spider-Man leaps into the air and webs every enemy in a pretty massive radius. The game is gorgeous Spider-Man is a beautiful game. Animations, in particular, are incredibly good and tight, making move
