The mark of a great Spider-Man game is the quality of its web-swinging mechanic. Few other elements are as effective at drawing the player into the role of Spider-Man and letting them live out that fantasy. While previous Spider-Man games have refined web-swinging over time, Spider-Man: Miles Morales improved upon its predecessors' designs and set a new standard for the mechanic.
Web-swinging has made its way into countless video game representations of Spider-Man, spanning nearly every generation since the arcade era. However, a robust and gratifying version of the mechanic didn't make it into the public consciousness until the web-swinging in Spider-Man 2, the 2004 video game adaptation of Sam Raimi's second Spider-Man film. Many players found its trigger-based swinging mechanics allowed for speedy, graceful traversal that combined well with the game's detailed, open-world portrayal of Manhattan.
Spider-Man perform tricks between swings. Tricks were done with a simple button press, in combination with a direction, and earned the player experience points and filled their Focus Meter. The player could also dive-bomb to gain speed, web-zip to specific points in the environment, and launch off of obstacles to gain speed. In general, these changes made web-swinging more fluid and satisfying than ever before.
The Evolution Of Spider-Man's Open-World Web-Swinging
The sequel to Marvel's Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, takes these same mechanics and expands on them even further in subtle ways. As an all-new playable character, Miles' swinging and tricks receive entirely new animations that express his character's personality and experience level to a greater degree than Miles Morales' Venom Jump, which the player can activate in midair to continue trick combos.
The change in quality between Marvel's Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales is marginal, but it still sets a new standard for web-swinging. The slight amount of depth added to the game's trick system gives traversal a sense of satisfaction similar to stringing combos together in a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater game, as players switch between swinging, tricking, and Venom jumping while navigating the cluttered Manhattan skyline. Hopefully Insomniac finds new ways to expand on its web-swinging when deg a possible third entry in the Spider-Man series.