Right, it’s more “engaging,” and the world and detail are fantastic. But is it as fun as Spider-man taking out a dozen thugs? No way.
Yeah I get that perspective. I disagree with it personally, but get it - I had lot of fun with Spidey and the flying around and fighting didn’t get old even in my completionist playthrough.
But man, the level at which I enjoy RDR is just sublime, it’s the first game to match Witcher 3 since that came out in that respect.
I really enjoyed that they included the Netflix stuff.
This pic took way too much work to set up.
Yeah. I actually rage deleted the game at the first boss fight, something which hasn’t happened to me in years. I need more comfort gaming.
For me, Spider-Man is way more appealing than RDR2 and basically all the other entries in the genre because for once I wanted to play an open-world game that doesn’t require me to be an unmitigated asshole. (Okay, to be fair, since I haven’t played RDR2, I’ll assume you probably play a thoroughly mitigated asshole.)
Arthur Morgan is not a good person, no - he is an outlaw who robs and sometimes kills (dozens of) people. But yes, he doesn’t have to be fully “unmitigated” - to certain degree you can direct his actions. I saved lives of quite a few people in RDR2 as well, and just in the mission I played this morning, at the conclusion of it I had a choice to kill someone or spare them (which I did).
Obviously though these shades of “grey to black” are nowhere near the goody two-shoes nature of Spidey.
Yeah, and I can totally understand why people like morally complex characters and stories. The appeal of Spider-Man for me is that for perfectly good gameplay reasons (or, to be snooty, “ludonarrative consonance reasons”), almost every open-world game since GTA3 has cast you as a criminal without moral compunction so that you can make unlimited mayhem around the city. Spider-Man is a 180 from that, it works, and I find it refreshing.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Spidey too and the reasons why I think RDR2 is better and much more interesting game have nothing to do with the fact that I play an outlaw in it - if anything, I would probably enjoy RDR2 as much or even more if I played a sheriff or a Pinkerton or some such.
Whew. Taskmaster challenges complete. That was doable, frustrating. Especially the drone challenges, which often require precision in web-slinging you don’t ever need anywhere else, and in those situations you’re pushing the web-slinging out of the loose and fun style into annoying.
Drone challenges weren’t a lot of fun.
Worst challenge ever, though, was the science mission to destroy a bunch of AC units on the sides of a few buildings. I wasn’t the only one who despised that mission, was I?
I didn’t love that mission but it didn’t stick out as particularly bad to me.
I think I just was pretty bad at swinging and aiming at things at the same time. Maybe I never figured out the technique for that. And finding where the units were both laterally and vertically was frustrating. All under a time limit. Yuck.
No, it was terrible.
I’m slowly working through the third DLC and it’s rough. I’ve had about enough of this game. Oh look, they brought Screwball back. Again. Joy. It’s like what’s the point of being a “super hero” when everyone you put away just comes back? Sorta seems like a waste of time.
Finally finished (and Platinum’d!) the main game last night. Good times! Now on to the DLC. I might even do a quick New Game+ for a couple more trophies.
The Heist, first of the DLC is now complete (100%). Screwball sucks, and the mission where you have to chase the subway through the tunnels was the first time I got truly frustrated with an actual story mission so far in the whole game.
Decent DLC, but not amazing.
Screwball sucks, Screwball sucks, Screwball sucks.
I realize there’s no reason you have to go for the gold on her challenges, if you master the (in my opinion, easier) Taskmaster challenges in the main game you’ll already have all the challenge tokens you’ll need for upgrades, and you only need silver on all of Screwball’s challenges for the trophies.
Still, I was determined to get the top tier on every challenge and optional objective on every activity I could, and I eventually pulled it off.
I think the Screwball stealth challenges were the most frustrating activity type in general (I believe those were in the second DLC), although the third gadget challenge was the hardest individual activity to get the gold on. Electric Web + Impact Web is a decent enough combo for taking people out, but the photobombs in that one all required sticking people to walls and I just had a hard time getting groups of enemies stunned in arrangements conducive to getting more than one or two of them webbed to the appropriate wall in time for the photobombs.
As for the rest of the DLC content, I did die more often than in the main game. It wasn’t punishing, but I think it’s definitely designed to test you a little more. The Screwball challenges were harder than the Taskmaster challenges, and likewise after the first DLC (once the maggia stops just being the maggia and starts wearing Sable gear) the missions and bases are a bit harder too. Those heavy guys with the mini-guns can cut you down pretty quickly if you’re up against two at once and don’t pay attention.
A minor personal disappointment—the Into the Spider-Verse costume is the second-to-last costume to unlock. I wanted to play with that more! But I guess now I will, since I’ve gotten every trophy from the main game and the DLC except for the New Game+ and Ultimate difficulty trophies. So I’m starting over now and I’m just going to try to zip (thwip?) through the main story as quickly as possible on Ultimate, because I’ve come too far to not get all the trophies now.
This is a very good game, I just only bother to talk about the nit-picky frustrations.
New Game + could really use a skip cutscene feature.
Oh wait, literally just found the option from the pause menu! Because I was trying to find sound options to address parts of the audio dropping out in the cutscenes.
Finally started this a few days ago. Lots of that old Insomniac polish and playability, but they made the combat systems so complex and expandable it’s too tempting to pick the handful of things you like and use them over and over (web up and swing kick into the wall, repeat). Which now that I think about it was one of my issues with Radical’s Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. Overall, a nice open-world mix of fiddly busy work and scripted set pieces that scratches all the right open-world itches. Unless the game is making you play as not-Spider-Man, those were just elaborately delayed cutscenes.
Other than some uncanny valley issues with the animation, it’s pretty much one of the best looking games I’ve ever played (using a Pro on a 4k set), and definitely the best super-hero game. I actually misted up a bit at the Stan Lee cameo, “you two were always my favorites.”
I think some of the challenges and bonus objectives did a good job of pushing me to try out moves and gadgets I wouldn’t have tried on my own, and once I did, I really did start to mix up my tactics more. Like, I ignored the web-trip-mine gadget for about half the game before realizing it was incredibly effective against airborne enemies. I only figured that out because I started using it for some bonus objective somewhere, otherwise I probably would’ve ignored it as a very niche stealth tactic.
There were a few challenge types that just felt cruel (especially in the DLC). I’m not here to tell anyone they should 100% the game, I’m not sure it was quite worth the effort. But I did find that actually learning to incorporate new attacks and gadgets was always rewarding. Everything just felt great and flowed so well together.