The lack of true swinging freedom is noticeable, and while maybe it’s unfair to compare it with the Insomniac version, it’s honestly questionable whether the swinging feels any better than Spider-Man 2 on the PlayStation 2 did. All illusions are broken once you attempt to swing moderately high into the air and hit that invisible barrier. But that magic often swiftly and unceremoniously evaporates as Parker smacks his face into that aforementioned glass ceiling and all sense of momentum is lost.
Despite this, some of the magic is there, especially for the first swing or two after each launch into the air. The developer also doesn't have the luxury of being able to design a whole city around the Spider-Man mechanics like Insomniac has. Having Peter bunny hop across snow and desert isn’t anyone’s idea of fun. In fairness to Crystal Dynamics this is the only real option, with the majority of Avengers’ locations being rural. Opting for the ‘swing off of anything’ method, Spider-Man effectively swings from a glass ceiling in the air. A very high bar has been set by Insomniac when it comes to the fluid motion of Spidey, but even allowing some headroom, Avengers falls quite some distance short of it. In this preview build I got to swing around the Eastern Seaboard region, which is the closest we’re going to get to Peter’s native Queens, as well as the Future Wasteland biome. The same, sadly, can’t quite be said for how it feels to play as Spider-Man outside of a fight.
Spider-Man feels great in combat, which is not entirely surprising hero design has never been Marvel’s Avengers problem. Of course, you can modify all of these abilities to fit your playstyle, my favourite being a tweak to the Wrecking Ball that covers Spidey’s hands and feet in boxing glove-like webs to inflict extra status damage with each successive hit. I found it to be particularly devastating when it hit, but frustratingly it does miss the target fairly often due to often being quite hard to aim. Effectively a giant ball of webs that smashes down onto the ground to damage anyone near it, it works in a similar fashion to Thor’s Bifrost ability but a lot less reliably. Lastly is Spider-Man’s ultimate ability, the Wrecking Ball. You can choose whether to instruct it to roam a specific area of the fight, or set it to follow mode, offering some welcome flexibility on the battlefield. The Spider-Drone is a patrolling AI companion that fires webs at any foe that wanders into its radius. He plays somewhat similar to a more nimble Black Panther. Once that status effect bar is full, a webbed enemy becomes incapacitated and much easier to take down. Web-Bomb causes area of effect damage and is naturally useful for crowd control, but also inflicts the new webbed status effect onto enemies. While a lot of his strikes are your standard punches and kicks, every now and then a more “Spidey-like” contextual animation will trigger, such as a swift swing into an AIM grunt’s chest with both feet that feels entirely in-keeping with the character.Īs with any of the Avengers he also has three heroic abilities. With a combat style largely centred on quick evades, perfect dodges, and quickfire melee attacks, he plays somewhat similar to a more nimble Black Panther. As with every other Avenger, Spider-Man comes complete with his own unique moveset and slots right into the frantic action.