Looks like it’s going to be a sequel of sorts to Shattered Dimensions by the same developers. Except there will only be 2099 Spiderman and Ultimate Spiderman this time around. No Spider-Batman or Amazing Spiderman.
I’ll just assume right away this also means there will be no real webswinging and the game will just be another linear game where you punch people with the occasional jumping puzzle. Not that I mind those in principle, I just keep dreaming of proper webswinging games.
Why was Spiderman 2 good again? Beyond the facade of the big city and competent swing controls, the game was rather limp.
Shattered Dimensions was quite good. It had defined levels, but each stage was a unique event, a well realized obstacle course for the agile spideymen to tackle. I’m all for a new sequel.
I want something like the PS Spidey with Spider-Man 2 web swinging. How hard is that?
Pretty hard when you have barely a year of dev time.
It had a lot of absolutely terrible content, but all of that was offset by the traversal system. When you were operating at the edge of your capabilities and nailing swings just the way you wanted to it really felt like an incredibly freeform platformer. These days most open world games play traversal incredibly safe and boring (Assassins Creed, Prototype, Infamous) which is such a disappointment.
The Spider-man Noir levels were my favorite in the last game. Don’t get me wrong, I really like Spider-man 2099 but those levels weren’t very good.
People really need to go back and play Spider-Man 2 again, because it is not what you remember it being.
Oh, I’m sure it has aged very poorly. But what I saw in it was the idea of a open world traversal game where the traversal actually was the gameplay focus. And that’s what I’d like to see more of.
As a game it sucked but as a web slinging simulation it was awesome.
That’s a bit condescending. It is absolutely what I remember it being. I remember it being quite painfully broken in some areas - namely boss encounters. The combat was very weak, apart from seeing what you could do with a snagged dude.
But the awesome web swinging and availability of crap to do - which would’ve sucked but for how much I just loved swinging around.
I have a particular fondness for novel mechanics, so I can appreciate that not everyone would find the appeal. They nailed that one system.
I would have assumed people would get that the part I was implying isn’t how they remembered is the web-swinging. Apparently not, so I’ll clarify: The web-swinging has not aged well. It is not what you remember it being.
I have a particular fondness for novel mechanics, so I can appreciate that not everyone would find the appeal. They nailed that one system.
I loved the web-swinging in Spider-Man 2, and for the time, they did nail it. But when I went back to play it again about a year ago (after learning that Shattered Dimensions would not be open world), I discovered that, well, it kinda blows now. It’s fairly clunky and could use some streamlining, although at the time I can understand why it was such a revelation to me. For my money, the game that got web-swinging just about perfect was Web of Shadows.
All of this is beside the point, though. Edge of Time has a one-year development cycle, and that does not leave Beenox nearly enough time to reinvent the Spider-wheel.
How exactly did Beenox become the company in charge of Spider-man? I remember them as the company to do broken ports for a $1.98.
Ah. My mistake. I did not get to Web of Shadows, mostly thanks to being drained of Spider-love by The Dreaded 3.
I did play Shattered Dimensions, and while it had a functional system to accommodate basic platforming, did not have anything close to the joy of 2’s swinging.
Also didn’t realize Shadows featured a functional open world. Thought it was more like contained areas. Guess I’ll have to pull it up.
The reason why I really liked the Spiderman 2’s web slinging was because it wasn’t streamlined. It was a learned skill. When you first start you’re slinging too low and running around the ground with your hands up like Feakazoid. It took some time and effort glide through the air like a spider ninja.
Yeah, that’s pretty much how I found it. It just felt right.
Whatever they did in 3, I can’t remember now, but it didn’t feel nearly as fun to me.
Spiderman 3 was more streamlined. It still communicated a good sense of speed and motion but it didn’t require much skill. You could just jump and swing.
Which, when you think about it, is how it should be (in theory…Spider-Man 3 was awful). Spider-Man doesn’t have to think about webswinging, it’s like walking to him. Web of Shadows nailed it by making a system that allowed you to simply swing around without much trouble, but you could still pull off some pretty awesome moves and tricks with practice and familiarity with the physics of the game. It was a near-perfect balance of ease-of-play and depth-of-mechanics.
Damn shame they pulled the plug on that team. A second Shaba Games Spidey title would probably have been incredible.
Again, I’ll still have to try Shadows to properly judge, but I loved the timing, rhythm and amount of control involved.
If streamlined translates to press X to keep swinging, and I have less range as a result, I’d find it unappealing.
(I also wasn’t really drawn to the Shadows setting, particularly coming off of Prototype fatigue. I’m pretty much constantly on the precipice of oppressive-biomenace-monster fatigue.)
Web of Shadows is pretty lenient about just letting you get from A to B, but the control over Spider-Man’s momentum, angle and location is all important to web swinging with any style or skill. Webs need something to latch onto, they don’t just hook to the sky, and with practice I found I could stick a two-meter diameter landing spot on cue from a hundred or so feet up. It’s not as timing based as Spider-Man 2’s system but there is a definite difference between watching a novice and an experienced player swing around the city.
Put it this way, once the swinging opened up (a handful of missions in), I found the web mechanics so much fun that I swung around NYC and collected every single Spidey logo token before continuing in the story. All 2000 of them.