Genre: Stealth/Action
Developer: Insomniac Games
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

This reviewer vividly recalls seeing a mind blowing "Disruptor" 3DO beta screenshot scan in a period magazine, and also buying "Spyro" the day of its release. From those early days to "Ratchet & Clank" to "Resistance", Insomniac's superhero engine programming brings a comic book New York City to life, with gritty texture resolution, seemingly endless draw-in distance, ray-traced reflections in rainy street puddles and crystalline skyscraper windows, and the best facial animation system in the medium.

Does this title have music? For the kind of generic orchestra background elevator songs one would find in movie trailers, this game's aural selections at least establish motifs for different game scenarios-- but it generally fails to make much of an impression overall. The game's voice acting is another story: it's highly professional, and even in light of the story being filled with cliche "Mary Sues" and "complex" villains, these personifications help build up each character's identity and temperament.

In the several decades long history of the medium, this title has to go down as one of the most complicated-to-play ever, with every last controller button performing some function or another-- functions which sometimes change or swap buttons contextually, or which require multiple buttons to be pressed simultaneously! The swinging world traversal programming is nifty, while the combat is lifted straight from the "Arkham" games. Like most games of this type, there are skill trees and unlockable gadgets to employ. Destructible elements like mailboxes and crates can be thrown or run into, which frequently leads to ludonarrative comedy.

This game was clearly intended to be "Arkham City", but with a Spider-Man twist, and it mostly achieves that goal: the hand-holdy combat is just dynamic enough to maintain interest, while the "perch and grab" stealth-style elements are well implemented. Where the title falls short of the "Arkham" standard however is in its lack of linear, heavily-curated indoor "dungeon" areas, causing the game to lean way too heavily on open world map busywork. All the same, its web of silky smooth framerate, muscular engine technology, and fun world traversal make for a swinging diversion.