Spider-Man: With Great Games, Comes Great Responsibility

[CriticalGaming]

Well, I was skeptical on how good the new Spider-Man game could possibly be. Frankly the track record for the hero's video games has not be great. Despite the hype and how good the game looked at E3 (gameplay wise not graphically, graphics mean shit if the game is shit), I needed to wait and see until I got my hands on it myself.

Welp, good news. The game is great. Spider-man takes the next step in Arkham combat gameplay, utilizing the system to it's fullest by putting it to a character that actually has some real super powers. It might just be an illusion, but Spider-Man FEELS better than Batman ever could. From webbing up bad guys, to throwing rockets back at them, the combat just makes a lot more sense using Spider-man as the context. And it stands out as something truly great because of that.

What makes Spider-man stand out to me though is the exploration and movement. Spider-man doesn't do anything special or remarkable with it's open world map. Most open world games don't. But Spider-Man stands out, not because it's a great world but because it is fun to get around that world. Like Just Cause games, traveling around in Spider-man is a lot of fun. Webslinging takes timing and practice to get used to, but it is intuitive enough that it only takes a few minutes to basically become competent with it. Moving around the city is so fun for me, that I have basically gone around and collected every collectible possible before doing much with the main story.

The collectibles is probably the only thing that Spider-man handles differently than any other open world game to my knowledge. "Every open world game has collect-a-thon bullshit" you might say, and you'd be right. But Spider-man unlocks these collectibles gradually. Meaning that if you collect version of a collectible as it unlocks, you can actually collect them all in about 30 minutes. Of the four collectible/activities I have unlocked so far, I've already got them all done. Backpacks, towers, landmarks, and badguy hideouts, all taken care of in just under 2 hours of webslinging fun.

However Spider-man suffers from janky controllers and bugs sometimes. Which sadly do a lot to interrupt missions and exploration. Missions where speed is a factor is a big problem because sometimes Spider-Man will simply not do what you want/need him to do.

Sticking to walls is a hit or miss effort. Sometimes you'll auto stick to a wall you swing into, other times you just fall to the ground. When stuck to the side of a build, sometimes you can crawl around a corner or onto a ceiling, other times it's treated like an invisible wall, even if you can stick and crawl on that surface by zipping to it directly. It can make controlling Spider-man and getting him to do exactly what you want, when you want him to do it a bit....unreliable. During normal exploration it's annoying but not game breaking, but during frantic missions like chase missions or speed challenges, it can be downright frustrating when Spider-man just does wonky shit you don't want him to do.

Oh and there have been at least three times where when I stuck to a wall, I was stuck forever. I could walk around, but I couldn't jump off or get myseld unattached from the wall no matter what buttons I pressed.

Outside of the random janky, Spider-man is pretty fucking great and a lot of fun. The music is wonderfully super-heroic, the voice over work is wonderful especially J.Jona Jameson, combat is fun and when you get really good at it oh boy it feels REALLY awesome.

Spider-Man is 99% likely to make the best games of the year list for me.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It's good, but it's not Arkham good.

Combat definitely has a higher fun factor than Arkham, but it's also a lot more finnicky. Though I don't think it's possible to make a Spider-Man game that isn't. It took a while for me to really sync up with it, but once I did I was having a blast. I love how you can utilize webbing where a webbed-up enemy can be kicked or thrown into anything to instantly stick (and in the process incapacitate) them to it. Once I figured that out combat became so much more rewarding. Swingkick rules!


The webswinging is fantastic, BUT there's something iffy going on with it.. I tried to do my old Spider-Man 2 move where I'd swing around the very tip of the Empire State Building, and it just wouldn't here. In fact, I've noticed a distinct lack of being able to swing from the tallest structures, which makes me sad. You can obvious get ontop of them by wallrunning and webzipping, but not swinging.


Storywise I'm less enthusiastic though. Comparing it to Arkham again, it just feels rather plain in it's storytelling. I also didn't give two shits for the relationship woes between Peter and Mary-Jane. Can't say I'm liking her much at all. There's one moment in particular where a scene of reconciliation between the two was really necessary, but it just does nothing with it. I feel a greater connection between him and Yuri then I do him and MJ. Also, there's a super-villain-in-the-making staring Peter right in the face, and he just let's it happen like an idiot. This is doubly stupid since we as the audience/player have our faces shoved into how this is going to end up, but aren't given any means to put a stop to it. There's literally a scene where Peter leaves said future villain, thinking he's talked him out of it, only to have the villain go super mere seconds after, followed by Peter as Spider-Man stepping out of the building and giving control back to the player.. And you can't go back in to deal with him.


And there's one thing that seriously pisses me off, and that's that you can't redo random missions. The game can be pretty tough, especially on the hardest difficulty, and you can quickly get overwhelmed and die once you mess up a few times. In every other situation you can just restart the mission, but if you die in a random encounter that encounter is just gone, leaving you with a thoroughly unsatisfied feeling knowing that you can't try again.

Overall I'm quite liking it. Not game of the year though.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Overall I'm quite liking it. Not game of the year though.

Oh it wont be my GOTY, but it'll be on the list of top games. I agree with everything you said though.

 

[CriticalGaming]

It?s good to hear they nailed the traversal and feel of what a Spider-Man game should handle like. Too bad about the sketchy controls though. It would?ve been cool to have each of the four shoulder buttons represent a sticky limb, and holding them down meant you?d stick each appendage independently if so chosen, whereas releasing the buttons would mean letting go.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It?s good to hear they nailed the traversal and feel of what a Spider-Man game should handle like. Too bad about the sketchy controls though. It would?ve been cool to have each of the four shoulder buttons represent a sticky limb, and holding them down meant you?d stick each appendage independently if so chosen, whereas releasing the buttons would mean letting go.

I'd say the controls are about as good as they can be. The problem is Spider-Man as a character is so bouncy and agile that making spot-on controls is pretty much impossible. Either you have him be as fast as he can be and have the controls be sorta finnicky, or you have very solid controls but you slow the character down more.

 

[Yoshi178]

meh. it's just Spidey Arkham Asylum.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

So far I'm really digging the combat. Its base is obviously Arkham combat but this time its actually evolved into something that feels fresh instead of just an Arkham reskin (*cough*Middle-earth*cough*). Spiderman mainly ups the combat via aerial combat but there's quite a bit more going on with the combat system than just 'Arkham + air' that makes it great. Spiderman gives the player a nice selection of moves that have their own singular purpose while also playing off the other moves to basically make your own combos affording to the player great creativity. Arkham combat itself has very few moves on its own (just basic attack, counter, dodge) with some light gadget use and that's really it. Spiderman builds a "real" combat system on that top of that basic foundation. The combat just flows so very well once you start figuring out all the interplay between the moves. I love how none of the moves are contextual so you can do them (or not do them) at will, like I thought from watching that demo footage that the slide under enemy was just a contextual dodge animation but you can purposefully do that move whenever you want to. I also love how you can't just mash buttons either as mashing the dodge button ain't gonna make you immune to getting hit like mashing counter in Batman will. Spiderman is, in a sense, the antithesis to God of War's combat system where in GOW you unlocked all these new moves that really had no singular purpose to them so you never used them nor did they play off each other either. Basically GOW is lots of breadth with no underlying depth while Spiderman's breadth of moves adds depth (basically exponentially).

I guess now I have to talk about the not-so-great parts of the game. Spiderman is your very basically designed open-world game through and through chalk-full stuff like radio towers, collecting backpacks, taking pictures, etc. It does work slightly better than your standard open-world game because movement (web-slinging) is much more fun than most games where you just run around or drive somewhere. I was hoping for at least a Horizon level of quality to the open-world activities to where they were rather reserved in number while fitting into the world itself like Horizon's vantage points doing world-building but in Spiderman, stuff like Peter finding his lost backpacks and taking pictures of landmarks really makes little sense and there's quite a bit of both. Why can't we have photography being something Spidey/Peter does for investigation purposes to find hideouts or something? The science-y minigame stuff is pretty disappointing as well. The random crimes are the best of the bunch because they lean heavily on the core gameplay, which is the strength of the game.

So far the story and writing are just OK. I haven't gotten far at all, I just did the 1st mission where MJ shows up and I haven't even met the main villain yet. The game doesn't seem to come close what Rocksteady did with Batman with their basically effortless way they integrated the world and characters into a cohesive experience. I guess having a smaller world with all the villains locked up with you makes that much easier than having all of New York as your game world as Arkham Knight lost that feeling Asylum and City had too. Maybe making each district in New York ruled/controlled by a Spidey villain could accomplish that with say Mysterio's district full of illusions (like buildings that aren't there, random crimes that are ambushes) and Shocker's district with electrical issues to give the city a different feeling for every district.

Right now, I'm feeling a 7/10 from Spiderman because the core gameplay is really solid and a bunch of fun while the open-world aspects are very run-of-the-mill. The game is basically exactly what I saw from the demos as here's my quote from The BIG E3 Round-up [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.1055560-The-BIG-E3-Round-up] thread.

Spoiler: E3 Spiderman impressions

The web-slinging should be a unique gameplay feeling over similar games. And it seems like the game will finally add to what we know of as Arkham combat with much more aerial dynamics to it and more environmental/object integration. Last time Arkham combat "evolved" was Arkham City with the beatdowns and quick-use gadgets and even the next best Arkham combat system, Middle-earth games, are basically reskinned Batman games with the same freaking moves (like the beatdowns and specials). I feel Spiderman is going to hinge on mission quality and how well Insomniac can basically pull a Rocksteady in regards to fully developing/integrating the world and characters in a meaningful way. Basically, the gameplay and elements seem to be spot-on for a good Spiderman game but the quality of the glue holding everything together will determine whether the game is special or just a fun Spidey game.

 

[PapaGreg096]

It's good, but it's not Arkham good.

Combat definitely has a higher fun factor than Arkham, but it's also a lot more finnicky. Though I don't think it's possible to make a Spider-Man game that isn't. It took a while for me to really sync up with it, but once I did I was having a blast. I love how you can utilize webbing where a webbed-up enemy can be kicked or thrown into anything to instantly stick (and in the process incapacitate) them to it. Once I figured that out combat became so much more rewarding. Swingkick rules!


The webswinging is fantastic, BUT there's something iffy going on with it.. I tried to do my old Spider-Man 2 move where I'd swing around the very tip of the Empire State Building, and it just wouldn't here. In fact, I've noticed a distinct lack of being able to swing from the tallest structures, which makes me sad. You can obvious get ontop of them by wallrunning and webzipping, but not swinging.


Storywise I'm less enthusiastic though. Comparing it to Arkham again, it just feels rather plain in it's storytelling. I also didn't give two shits for the relationship woes between Peter and Mary-Jane. Can't say I'm liking her much at all. There's one moment in particular where a scene of reconciliation between the two was really necessary, but it just does nothing with it. I feel a greater connection between him and Yuri then I do him and MJ. Also, there's a super-villain-in-the-making staring Peter right in the face, and he just let's it happen like an idiot. This is doubly stupid since we as the audience/player have our faces shoved into how this is going to end up, but aren't given any means to put a stop to it. There's literally a scene where Peter leaves said future villain, thinking he's talked him out of it, only to have the villain go super mere seconds after, followed by Peter as Spider-Man stepping out of the building and giving control back to the player.. And you can't go back in to deal with him.


And there's one thing that seriously pisses me off, and that's that you can't redo random missions. The game can be pretty tough, especially on the hardest difficulty, and you can quickly get overwhelmed and die once you mess up a few times. In every other situation you can just restart the mission, but if you die in a random encounter that encounter is just gone, leaving you with a thoroughly unsatisfied feeling knowing that you can't try again.

Overall I'm quite liking it. Not game of the year though.

Whats Peter supposed to do, punch Otto because he thinks hes a supervillian also Peter never saw Otto do anything violent so there werent a lot of red flags

 

[CriticalGaming]

Whats Peter supposed to do, punch Otto because he thinks hes a supervillian also Peter never saw Otto do anything violent so there werent a lot of red flags

I mean it would have been obvious if he had seen Spider-Man 2. DUH!

 

[CriticalGaming]

So far I'm really digging the combat. Its base is obviously Arkham combat but this time its actually evolved into something that feels fresh instead of just an Arkham reskin (*cough*Middle-earth*cough*). Spiderman mainly ups the combat via aerial combat but there's quite a bit more going on with the combat system than just 'Arkham + air' that makes it great. Spiderman gives the player a nice selection of moves that have their own singular purpose while also playing off the other moves to basically make your own combos affording to the player great creativity. Arkham combat itself has very few moves on its own (just basic attack, counter, dodge) with some light gadget use and that's really it. Spiderman builds a "real" combat system on that top of that basic foundation. The combat just flows so very well once you start figuring out all the interplay between the moves. I love how none of the moves are contextual so you can do them (or not do them) at will, like I thought from watching that demo footage that the slide under enemy was just a contextual dodge animation but you can purposefully do that move whenever you want to. I also love how you can't just mash buttons either as mashing the dodge button ain't gonna make you immune to getting hit like mashing counter in Batman will. Spiderman is, in a sense, the antithesis to God of War's combat system where in GOW you unlocked all these new moves that really had no singular purpose to them so you never used them nor did they play off each other either. Basically GOW is lots of breadth with no underlying depth while Spiderman's breadth of moves adds depth (basically exponentially).

I guess now I have to talk about the not-so-great parts of the game. Spiderman is your very basically designed open-world game through and through chalk-full stuff like radio towers, collecting backpacks, taking pictures, etc. It does work slightly better than your standard open-world game because movement (web-slinging) is much more fun than most games where you just run around or drive somewhere. I was hoping for at least a Horizon level of quality to the open-world activities to where they were rather reserved in number while fitting into the world itself like Horizon's vantage points doing world-building but in Spiderman, stuff like Peter finding his lost backpacks and taking pictures of landmarks really makes little sense and there's quite a bit of both. Why can't we have photography being something Spidey/Peter does for investigation purposes to find hideouts or something? The science-y minigame stuff is pretty disappointing as well. The random crimes are the best of the bunch because they lean heavily on the core gameplay, which is the strength of the game.

So far the story and writing are just OK. I haven't gotten far at all, I just did the 1st mission where MJ shows up and I haven't even met the main villain yet. The game doesn't seem to come close what Rocksteady did with Batman with their basically effortless way they integrated the world and characters into a cohesive experience. I guess having a smaller world with all the villains locked up with you makes that much easier than having all of New York as your game world as Arkham Knight lost that feeling Asylum and City had too. Maybe making each district in New York ruled/controlled by a Spidey villain could accomplish that with say Mysterio's district full of illusions (like buildings that aren't there, random crimes that are ambushes) and Shocker's district with electrical issues to give the city a different feeling for every district.

Right now, I'm feeling a 7/10 from Spiderman because the core gameplay is really solid and a bunch of fun while the open-world aspects are very run-of-the-mill. The game is basically exactly what I saw from the demos as here's my quote from The BIG E3 Round-up [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.1055560-The-BIG-E3-Round-up] thread.

Spoiler: E3 Spiderman impressions

The web-slinging should be a unique gameplay feeling over similar games. And it seems like the game will finally add to what we know of as Arkham combat with much more aerial dynamics to it and more environmental/object integration. Last time Arkham combat "evolved" was Arkham City with the beatdowns and quick-use gadgets and even the next best Arkham combat system, Middle-earth games, are basically reskinned Batman games with the same freaking moves (like the beatdowns and specials). I feel Spiderman is going to hinge on mission quality and how well Insomniac can basically pull a Rocksteady in regards to fully developing/integrating the world and characters in a meaningful way. Basically, the gameplay and elements seem to be spot-on for a good Spiderman game but the quality of the glue holding everything together will determine whether the game is special or just a fun Spidey game.

Curious, if you had an example of what exactly would be a 10/10 game to you? IIRC you said GoW was a 6/10, but here Spider-Man is the antithesis and only a 7/10? I know there are other parts to each game but you seem to put more weight to the combat portion.

 

[stroopwafel]

Game is really fun. Compared to Arkham I like Batman much more but the rythm combat is quite dated by now and the controls in general are very stiff. In Spiderman you really feel like you have full control over the character and there is a rythm element but it is way diminished here. There is a level of responsiveness the Arkham games don't have. Even the web slinging feels super tight swinging and flying through the air making sharp corners when careening at the sides of buildings. It is magnificent.

I quite like the story, it's giving me lots of childhood nostalgia the movies never really did. Spiderman has always been more of a character for children and I can't think of any Spiderman story outside perhaps 'Kraven's last hunt' that I would consider mature. Well, maybe some of the '90s McFarlane run but even here, it's always been pretty tame. That doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. Despite it's adaptation to a modern audience the game's story actually reminds me a lot of the era in late 80s to mid 90s when Marvel comics were at their peak. Again, hitting a particular nostalgia vibe the movies never did. I even really like Peter and MJ. With MJ in particular reminding me of her more classic status as a plain Jane before McFarlane turned her into this supermodel babe during his Spidey edgelord run.

The city of New York also feels alive, with an incredible amount of detail even in the areas that don't really have any missions and most players will simply skimp over. I'm also surprised how much work they put on the ground level of the game considering most of the game is spend flying over it. Even the buildings have interiors you can look into and many shops differentiate from eachother. They really went above and beyond adding detail. I've been to manhattan many times and this must be one of the prettiest simulations of the borough I have seen in a game.

Batman has really put himself above everyone else but Spiderman is the blue-collar hero and I love his affection for the city and his little interactions that make it feel he is really one of them. I really feel with this game Insomniac pulled everything out of the Spiderman license they possibly could.

Definitely a possible goty contender for me. Other candidates would either be God of War, Monster Hunter World or Red Dead 2 depending on how that game is going to be. Though, I haven't had the time to play DQ11 yet while I did really enjoy DQ8.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Whats Peter supposed to do, punch Otto because he thinks hes a supervillian also Peter never saw Otto do anything violent so there werent a lot of red flags

No, but he's been Spider-Man for 8 years now and has dealt with Scorpion, Electro, Rhino, and the Vulture; You'd think he'd see where this was going, especially once he gets a good look at you-know-what. More importantly though we know, and it's like waiting for someone to finish a long drawn out joke you already know the punchline to.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Still waiting for a good Superman game

Or the epic Superhero open world RPG game of my dreams where you can make whatever kind of superhero or villain you want.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Still waiting for a good Superman game

Or the epic Superhero open world RPG game of my dreams where you can make whatever kind of superhero or villain you want.

You'll never get a good Superman game - he's not a character that lends itself to video games. Superman is so powerful he literally punched God, so you're not going to create a game with a believable challenge or villain.
Superman's whole thing is the morality of his action. He can basically do anything, he's basically God, and his character is about the morality of being a God, and the consequences of his actions.
Video games have no consequences. Gamers can do whatever they want, and either not save or start a new game. So you'd render the central theme of Superman moot, and have boring gameplay with no challenge because nothing can beat him.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Still waiting for a good Superman game

Or the epic Superhero open world RPG game of my dreams where you can make whatever kind of superhero or villain you want.

How would a Superman work considering he is objectively the most broken comic book character ever created.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Still waiting for a good Superman game

Or the epic Superhero open world RPG game of my dreams where you can make whatever kind of superhero or villain you want.

You'll never get a good Superman game - he's not a character that lends itself to video games. Superman is so powerful he literally punched God, so you're not going to create a game with a believable challenge or villain.
Superman's whole thing is the morality of his action. He can basically do anything, he's basically God, and his character is about the morality of being a God, and the consequences of his actions.
Video games have no consequences. Gamers can do whatever they want, and either not save or start a new game. So you'd render the central theme of Superman moot, and have boring gameplay with no challenge because nothing can beat him.

Who says the challenge have to be only beating up bad guys? Events like stopping planes from falling or going in a building on fire can also factor in gameplay.

And really no one is asking for a Superman game where you can break whole planets with a punch...well except for people that makes a living out of stuff like that on Youtube to make a joke about it.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Still waiting for a good Superman game

Or the epic Superhero open world RPG game of my dreams where you can make whatever kind of superhero or villain you want.

How would a Superman work considering he is objectively the most broken comic book character ever created.

You make it sound like its impossible to have him only strong enough to lift a truck and have a reasonable amount of powers that are not ridiculous in a video game.

In the nearly 100 years of Superman's existance we can turn him into whatever we want to portray him as.

Silver Age Superman destroys galaxies by sneezing.

Modern Superman needs to be a god to destroy one planet.

 

[stroopwafel]

I still really want a Spawn videogame. That character has such a wonderful cast of villains that, except for the Joker, is even better than Batman's.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I still really want a Spawn videogame. That character has such a wonderful cast of villains that, except for the Joker, is even better than Batman's.

Of course you would give a special exception to the Joker

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Honestly though you think being Superman in a video game would be more fun then Batman because you are stupidly overpowered. I mean you can fly and left objects heavier then the mountains.

I rather have that the using grappling hooks, web swinging, and gliding