Editor’s Note: There’s little question that the video game that made the most impact this year was the superb Spider-Man for PlayStation 4. You can read our review here, in which we refer to the title as a “masterpiece in superhero video gaming.”
If you’re looking for a last minute gift for a PS4 owner, consider Spider-Man as a digital gift, or drop into your local gamer shop and try and snag one. And once you’re done playing through the game, be sure to check out the download content, which includes a new story, The City That Never Sleeps. Our Mat Langford has been reviewing the DLC content, which concludes with his review of the final entry.
Silver Lining – the third and final entry in Marvel’s The City That Never Sleeps DLC (see my review of the previous two, The Heist and Turf Wars) is a great finale to a great DLC arc – with an evening out of combat difficulty and appearances by nearly all of the main cast, including some surprise ones. Spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t played it yet, have at it and come back!
It starts off lighter right off the bat with MJ talking about taking a vacation together. We get an update summarizing the previous chapter’s events – Yuri has been placed on administrative leave for her near murder of Hammerhead. The metal-headed villain, however, has been revived and has created his super-armour using Sable tech – making Silver Sable very angry in the process. She’s got a civil war brewing in her own country of Symkaria and needs that tech to help stop it.
Silver Lining plays like a mixture of the two previous DLC’s – whereas the Heist was thought to be too easy for most players and Turf Wars was considered almost too hard – Silver Lining is just right. It’s got nearly identical baddies as the last chapter and the difficulty – while ramping up noticeably in the later half – feels just right and much more in-line with that in the main campaign.
We hear from Mary Jane throughout the episode, but still never actually see her or play her stealth missions (thank you Insomniac). While I don’t miss the missions, I do miss her actually interacting with Peter – it feels a little emptier without her physically in the game. We also learn that she’ll be heading to Symkaria to cover the civil war there, which Peter isn’t too keen on.
JJJ is back as well, with his ramblings of such a calibre that I often stopped on my way to missions, waiting to hear the ends of them. Miles makes appearances through phone calls – and it’s clear that while in earlier chapters he was a bit out of his element with the whole superhero thing, he’s officially becoming a force to be reckoned with – even letting Peter know that his calculations are wrong at one point, causing Peter to rethink Miles’ naivety. Miles is also physically at the end in an after credits scene that I won’t spoil here. But watch it, it’s short and entirely worth it.
As you progress through the story, you’re greeted with an unfolding of events that neatly wraps up most of the main story – Silver Sable and Spidey join forces and combine into a comically awkward team that makes you cringe in such an enjoyable way. There’s a high-five scene that actually had me laughing out loud. They team up and take out Hammerhead, giving Sable the weapons she needs to cull the civil war in Symkara. It’s a truly satisfying ending to a story that has kept me engaged throughout the nearly 7-8 hour DLC arc.
There are some pretty big questions up in the air though. While the Hammerhead story line seems to be completed – we don’t get a resolution to the Mary Jane arc – with her in Symkaria documenting the happenings there. I was hoping that we’d see her there or learn that she’s OK – especially after her and Peter’s playful ‘let’s talk about our day, honey’ banter throughout the game. It seems like a pretty big omission, but maybe that’s something we’ll see addressed as a story line in Spider-Man 2 – though if it’s just her sneaking around Symkaria for hours on side-missions, I may throw the game out the window.
Black Cat – my personal favourite character in this whole game – who was believed to be dead after the first episode, comes back in the nick of time to save the day when Silver Sable and Spidey get attacked mid-air by Hammerhead and his new Sable tech robot body. It was great to see her, but she literally shows up, saves the day and leaves. That’s it. It was a bit disappointing, but again, hopefully we’ll see more of her in the inevitable sequel.
All in all, this was a completely satisfying wrap-up to a great DLC – we got resolutions to most of the main arcs as well as some surprise appearances, great combat and a touching and awesomely awkward camaraderie between Sable and Spidey, which in itself made this a great game. If this is indeed the last piece of content we get for Marvel’s Spider-Man, I can say without a doubt that it’s a great wrap-up for one of the best games of the year, and one of my favourite gaming experiences in recent memory.
I’ll leave you with what the game left me, a touching tribute to the man who made it all possible, Stan Lee.
If you’ve played it, let us know what you think in the comments!
