Spider-Man 2 [PS5, PC]

I don't think I've played a game since Uncharted 2 that did 'action spectacle set pieces' better. You start out on a pretty big high with a massive boss battle and they just keep throwing these great encounters at you. It's truly a marvel.

I also dig the accessibility features with my favourite has to be the ability to toggle the game between 100% and 70% at the touch of the d-pad. Spider-Man 2's combat can overwhelm you at times. The baddies did not graduate from Orderly Queuing 101 at Videogame Badguy University, and a couple of positioning screw-ups or missing incoming maniac, robot, gunfire, bomb or missiles attacks can hammer your health fast. Rather than lower the difficulty, which I like, flicking to 70% provides a brief respite in which to quickly survey the battlefield and re-prioritise.
I havent played too much of the story yet. Ive spent most time doing random encounters in the city, but agreed: the setpieces are amazing. The start of the game is really strong.
I like how the animations and camera make every fight seem choreographed and cinematic.

Im having trouble remembering to use gadgets and powers, and the new moves you learn. Fights do become easier when you use those as well.
 
Yeah, the equivalent of the collapsing-crane scene in SM1 happens seemingly on an hourly basis now. It's nuts.



It's always been varying levels of cringe, but I find the annoying dialog is actually reduced quite a bit from the originals, at least so far. Miles and Peter both sound slightly less grating in this.

I haven´t had much issues with the Peter Parker stuff. Some of Miles Morales stuff remind me of that computer bug thing in rift apart and the yellow girl robot. "I didnt this! All by myself! If I just belive in myself I can acclomplish greath things too! :love:!" It so cringy, humourless and not the least inspiring. I get the same vibe from the Morales campus sidequests: "Thank you spiderman! With this awesome video you helped us with we will be able to inspire new students so they also can be interrested in science! :love: Its a good thing to help one another! :love:" Yuck. Not that I have anything against positivity, it can be delivered in a more clever, engaging and funny way. Some of the writers at insomniac are really dragging their games down.

I loved the writing in psychonauts 2 and guardians of the galaxy. I never laughed so much playing a video game as I did playing guardians. Insomniac should take some cues from them.
 
I haven´t had much issues with the Peter Parker stuff. Some of Miles Morales stuff remind me of that computer bug thing in rift apart and the yellow girl robot. "I didnt this! All by myself! If I just belive in myself I can acclomplish greath things too! :love:!" It so cringy, humourless and not the least inspiring. I get the same vibe from the Morales campus sidequests: "Thank you spiderman! With this awesome video you helped us with we will be able to inspire new students so they also can be interrested in science! :love: Its a good thing to help one another! :love:" Yuck. Not that I have anything against positivity, it can be delivered in a more clever, engaging and funny way. Some of the writers at insomniac are really dragging their games down.

I loved the writing in psychonauts 2 and guardians of the galaxy. I never laughed so much playing a video game as I did playing guardians. Insomniac should take some cues from them.

Yeah, when Miles first dropped years ago I remarked it had incredible Nickelodeon energy. LIke I'm not expecting a spiderman game to have Miles drop a 'motherfucker', but jesus. Look it's been a while for me, but I'm pretty sure teenagers do not talk like this.

Finally started to play as Venom, goddamn. Yeah that's right, no quips just fuck em up Peter/symbiote. Glad I put this playthrough on Amazing difficulty rather than Spectacular though, while that difficulty is a cakewalk on the originals, here that damn parry window just keeps ruining me, I'm sure I spectacular would have just been frustrating instead of fun.
 
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Finally started to play as Venom, goddamn. Yeah that's right, no quips just fuck em up Peter/symbiote.
I've not played as Venom yet but Peter does now have the symbiote suit and it feels like a massive tonal shift in combat. It's so gratifying to just f*** everything up around you and Peter acknowledges the effect of the suit on him.

I'm really enjoying this game.
 
I've not played as Venom yet but Peter does now have the symbiote suit and it feels like a massive tonal shift in combat. It's so gratifying to just f*** everything up around you and Peter acknowledges the effect of the suit on him.

I'm really enjoying this game.

Oh that's what I meant, I just translate 'symbiote' into Venom, no idea when/if you actually play as Venom. Yes it's so gratifying, especially since the hunters can be obnoxious with their increased verticality compared to enemies in the other games. By that time I'm definitely in a symbiote mood.
 
Yeah, when Miles first dropped years ago I remarked it had incredible Nickelodeon energy. Like I'm not expecting a spiderman game to have Miles drop a 'motherfucker', but jesus. Look it's been a while for me, but I'm pretty sure teenagers do not talk like this.

Finally started to play as Venom, goddamn. Yeah that's right, no quips just fuck em up Peter/symbiote. Glad I put this playthrough on Amazing difficulty rather than Spectacular though, while that difficulty is a cakewalk on the originals, here that damn parry window just keeps ruining me, I'm sure I spectacular would have just been frustrating instead of fun.

I played some random encounter as Miles yesterday. After the battle was over Miles said something about what a mess it was after the battle, and that he hoped the city would clean it up, but the he should check in later and help with the cleaning if needed.

Gee, thanks game! If you hadn´t taught me that valuable lesson I would still be thinking I could beat up super villians in the streets wihtout helping to clean up my synthetich spider webs and the remain of the robotic dinosaurs I smashed with my bare hands.

Jesus Christ, who in their right mind writes something like that?? It boggles the mind.
The only character I have enjoyed is Jonah Jameson, but only in a flashback mission when he is himself. Not when they try to portray him as some parody of Joe Rogan.
 
Very unfair to Jonah here

I got the feeling they sometimes try to portrait him as they percive Joe Rogan, I think its in Miles Morales he talks about suppliments he´s selling.
Personally I like the character more when they dont politicize stuff like that.

I´ve played a bit more and I feel more invested in Peter, Harry and M.J. Its getting more emotionally engaging.
 
I got the feeling they sometimes try to portrait him as they percive Joe Rogan, I think its in Miles Morales he talks about suppliments he´s selling.
Personally I like the character more when they dont politicize stuff like that

Marvel storytelling history is packed with politics and social commentary. I don't have any particular view on Rogan, but as a generalisation, podcasters/influencers peddling dumb supplements deserve a slap with the satire stick.
 
Jesus Christ, who in their right mind writes something like that?? It boggles the mind.

I have not played this game, but I've noticed this pattern in many recent titles too. It coincides with noticing a growing scene of game enthusiasts (who devs interact with) which talk and act progressively more infantilistically, when not in a contrived anime-script way.

Perhaps gaming is up there with comic books, toy collecting and whatnot as hobbies that are specially good at atracting devellomentally arrested adults, for whatever trauma/mental health issue it might be.

These same people also have a proportionately higher tendency to become chronically online shut-in, interecting withing their click, further accelerating and exagerating the whole process.

If those same people go on to be hired as writers, i dont know. Or if writters just assume thats what their audience is like, by misjudging the over-representarion of a loud minority that are online 10x more often than typical people i dont know either.

All this is pure speculation, but the speech patterns are very similar. Bad games and bad Tv shows sound "twitterean". its so condescending it surpasses mere cringe, and starts to border on creepy.
 
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All this is pure speculation, but the speech patterns are very similar. Bad games and bad Tv shows sould "twitterean". its so condescending it surpasses mere cringe, and starts to border on creepy.

Thats very well put, its beyond cringe. I really wonder what went thru their minds when writing that line. Did they really think they were making a difference and that this was a good way to stop people from littering? Talking to people like they´re small children?

Did you play rift apart btw?
 
One thing I like is that in many of the random enemy encounters the enemies look like typical comic book robbers. I prefer that to every enemy having glowing sci fi weapons and cybernetic suits.
 
Ok, one of the most engaging and exciting sidequest ever! Spoiler alert so I´ll use the spoiler tag.

I got to play as Miles deaf girlfriend. Some one had sprayed ugly grafiti so I got to play her as she turned this ugly grafiti into beautyful art! Even though she is deaf, she is also a very skilled street artist. I never knew deaf people could be skilled and talented, and this is just one of many things this sidequest has taught me!

The mission had me walk over to a grafiti tag and press triangle to start the painting process. First I got to shake the spray can by pulling up and down on the right thumbstick, then hold the right trigger, but not too hard!, to start painting. To paint the correct shape I had to guide a dot on the screen to a circle on the screen with the left thumbstick, while not pressing to hard on the right trigger at the same time! It sounds pretty tense but she is such a positive and confident character so it never felt too stressful. I got to do this three times with different colors and then the art was done. It felt like I had created this beautiful piece of art all by myself. Aftet that I got to climb over a fence, walk up to a new grafiti tag and do the whole thing again!

I got a glimpse of the person doing the grafiti up on a roof, so I started making my way up there by way of the scafolding. A cat was in the way, so to get it to move I threw a rock at a cat toy which was sitting on a fence, and when it hit the ground the cat went there and picked it up. Im so glad I didnt have to get the cat to move by gently pushing it aside or walking towards it, since that might have been very stressful for the cat.
The person who had done the grafiti was another girl about the same age as the character I was playing. They started communicating by texting with their phones. Did you know deaf people cant hear so they need to communicate by other means than sound? Using phones and texting is one way, but Im pretty sure there are other ways as well!

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot! During this whole mission there is basicly no sound in the game, to reflect how the character you are playing percieves the world! This sidemission have given me such a deeper understanding for deaf people: they can´t hear. This game really makes a difference!

It turned out this other girl was trying to make art too, but she was never happy with what she was trying to make, so she kept painting over it. But my character asured her she had talent and was great too, and they created this amazing artwork together! Then they decided to start an artclub together, and my character texted "It is good to have support". Wow, when it was spelled out in black and white I totally got it!

Later Miles morales turned up, and when he saw the artwork he said to her "Wow, you are amazing!".

I´ve always pondered how you can get an audience to understand the importance of having support from other people, or how to convey that one character has admiration and love for another character in a way that is engaging for the audience. This has to be the best way, to spell it out in black and white! If someone says "its good to have support", we know its good to have support! And if someone says "you are amazing" to another character, we know that character thinks she is amazing.

We also know that she is amazing despite her handicap, because spiderman said she is. So if you didnt think deaf people could be good, or even amazing, people, now you know better.

While I applaud Spiderman 2 for having a deaf woman as a protaganist, we have to remember that other video games laid the important groundwork:

 
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