I had planned on never doing so :)
Arrived today, can’t wait to get off work to play it. I wasn’t hyped originally but I am pretty damn excited now.
I’m really bad at this game. I think I’m just old now.
Vintage comic book suit is so cool.
Just finished it, with only a few things (a couple suits and gadgets) left undone. So here’s the Wall of Text review!
A few tips for people starting out. First, do take some time at the start to do side activities, both to gain skill points and to avoid some minor weirdness in the storytelling if you do nothing but story missions. Second, don’t do side activities during act three; there are reasons why you shouldn’t (don’t worry, you can still do them after the main story ends.) Third, the scarce resources in the game are challenge tokens, so plan your suit purchases and device upgrades accordingly. Fourth, if you’re having trouble with the combat, get the Repaired suit as soon as you can; the power that comes with it, Web Blossom, is basically an I Win button for normal fights.
This is a pretty great game. Not a perfect one; there are some minor nits to pick. The side activities are solid but not inspired and you “have” to do too many of them. The “Spidey snags bad guys from the rafters” levels are all fine, but not terribly distinctive. At no point will you say, “The level layout/design there was amazing!” the way you might do in, say, Dishonored. The story structure is a bit askew - there’s waaaaay too much stuff crammed into act 3 (one character, Martin Li, gets shortchanged as a result), and not quite enough in act 2. Act three also quite unnecessarily borrows from Arkham when it goes down the “zillions of criminals escape and take over the city” route, which really doesn’t add much to this game.
Also, the main story missions focus as much on Peter, MJ, and Miles as they do on Spider-man, especially early on. This makes sense if you think about it - if those characters are gonna get screen time, it’s likely to be in cutscenes or exposition-heavy story missions - but if you only do main story missions you might be taken aback to find yourself spending more time as Peter talking to May or as MJ sneaking around than as Spidey.
(I thought the stealth levels with MJ and Miles were all super straightforward, and only veered into “guess what the designer wants you to do in advance” territory once, with Miles and Rhino. But then I play stealth games, so your mileage may vary.)
These are all nits, as I said. Most of what’s there is wonderful. Simply getting around is a joy: web-slinging is super-fun; the banter with civilians is great, and Manhattan is lovingly rendered. Once you get into it, the base combat system is just as engaging and more free-form than Arkham. The boss fight with Electro and Vulture is one of my favorite Spider-man experiences in any medium ever, even if it’s not terribly unusual in terms of mechanics. Indeed, almost all the set piece confrontations with super-villains are spectacularly staged, if a bit too much of safe boss-in-a-box set pieces for my boss fight tastes; I kinda prefer my fights with super-powered characters to be in the chaos of the open world, like the ones with Taskmaster or the jet pack guys.
In terms of plot, the story is fine, if not perfectly paced: it’s mainly setting up a trilogy. The department where the game really shines - and clearly outdoes Arkham - is in its character development. Nobody plays an Arkham game to see Bruce Wayne change and grow, or to see Bruce Wayne at all. But this game is an excellent Peter Parker story. It’s also an excellent Aunt May story, and an excellent Otto Octavius story, and what may be the beginning of an excellent Norman Osborn story - his moment at the very end of this is the only time I’ve ever cared about him as a human being.
In the comics the soap-opera elements of Spidey have been as big a part of the series as the web-slinging or the fighting. Insomniac nailed all of it in this game.
How do you know which Act you’re in? Is it explicitly stated in the mission screens somewhere? I haven’t been paying attention but I don’t think I’m terribly far into the story.
You get trophys when you end each act. Once you hit an act break it’s pretty obvious, though. Each represents a major, dramatic event. If you haven’t been to Norman’s speech you are still in act 1.
Ah ok, thanks - I actually just attended that, after doing a bunch of side stuff beforehand.
…and finshed it! Must say, its a pretty great game!
Here are some quick thoughts:
Well done story and character beats. Cool set pieces. Fun visuals and costumes. Great swinging feeling in the open city. Great score. No bloody micro transactions!
Main criticism is that it has too many tokens and collectibles - just barely acceptable and dangerously close to MMO grind. (but still happy it didn’t slip into monetization)
Apart from that, its a great example of an open world game that has structure and builds momentum. Really impressive.
PS
I can’t say how much I appreciate the ability to turn off QTEs & those minigames. That was awesome and I hope other games follow this example!!!
PPS
Even though I was playing on Friendly difficulty, that last boss battle was really tough. Think I died & had to restart the whole fight about 8 times… Old man don’t do combos well! ;)
Finished it as well. On the whole, just a super fun game.
This sunk its hooks in me wrapped me up in gooey webs real good this weekend. I’ve done almost all the open-world missions (towers and construction sites and pigeons and landmarks) that are available to me right now and a lot of the random crimes. Not sure how far I am in the story, but I’m definitely at least getting out of the early stages.
Someone mentioned the web-blossom as being a powerful suit power, but I have to say, the Spider-Bro (Stark Suit) is crazy powerful. I’m almost feeling guilty using it. Stun everyone, and when they fall down web them to the ground. Deals nicely with brutes (whom I HAAAATE).
I’ll have more thoughts later, but this sure is a great game.
Are the boss fights in this game as bullshit as the Fisk intro fight? Because that was some epic levels of bullshit.
I died probably 15 times to the turrets. Press L1+R1 to throw them, just like you did dozens of times to get to this point. Haha, just kidding! L1+R1 does nothing. NOTHING. I haven’t come so close to destroying a controller in 20 years. Finally, it magically worked. I have no idea why, as I tried everything possible in prior 15 deaths.
Then the Fisk fight itself. Punch, punch, punch, but haha, fuck you, don’t try to punch him a fourth time because his counter-punch? It’s un-dodge-able and will take 25% of your health! Welcome to Dark Spiderman Souls! JFC.
Games should not make you rage, and this game made me rage.
Just one question: were you consistently webbing up the turrets before attempting to yank them? It’s a necessary precursor. I suck at this game in general (on the middle difficulty) but didn’t find that fight particularly tough. So that may be why.
Yes, of course. I wonder if a patch broke something.
The boss fights are garbage, but that should be the hardest one until the very final one. The others are mostly gimmick fights where the enemy has no HP bar and you need to find the one situation where they are vulnerable, and repeat that a few times.
Yeah, the boss fights are kinda lousy in Spider-Man, and that Kingpin fight was a huge misstep for getting people into the game. The others are a little irritating, but not as bad as that first one.
I wasn’t a huge fan of that fight either but just accepted it as part of the overall package. They had to have some sort of big confrontations with the super villains but I don’t know of a better way to put it in. I’m still only about halfway through the game though.
Finished this the other day. It was great. Much more fun than RDR2. Good plot, better than most of the movies. There’s even a Stan Lee cameo.
But, sigh, Spider-man is Spider-man. Lawful good to a fault, and gullible as hell. There were several cutscenes where I felt the villain needed to brought down or disabled a little more (or, much more) than Spider-man did.
The first DLC was really good as well. It introduced some new mission types that were really fun, like the Museum heist.
The controls were pretty good, but perhaps like all games of this type at least every 30 seconds Spider-man would do something you absolutely did not intend for him to do. Getting stuck on ledges, walls, leap-offs that sometimes do and sometimes don’t fire. Within the first hour or so of playing this game you will swear your R2 button is broken. R2 is what Spider-man uses to swing, and sometimes… he just doesn’t swing, instead going head down and dropping like a stone despite the NYC high rises towering above him. Swinging down a street at a low altitude works well and is sublime. But it’s when you start getting high, going around corners, going over shorter buildings with their antennas, towers, and HVAC obstacles that things sometimes go to shit and suddenly that bird or drone you were chasing is now too far away because Spider-man did something you didn’t want him to.
I finished the first DLC yesterday and was disappointed I have to wait for Turf Wars. The in-game DLC menu says it’s out, but it’s not out until the 20th.
Insanity.
I mean I get it. RDR2 is often not as “fun”, but it sure as hell is more engaging for me and I consider it several levels above Spidey. And I loved Spidey! :)