Spiderman

[villa4europe]

£20 in GAME if you trade in god of war

[Chindie]

Literally just done the opening tutorial mission.

It's a very pretty game. Not quite to God of War level yet I think, but it's a looker. The only issues so far in the graphics department are I don't think faces quite look right somehow, and the HDR might be a bit much, I might tweak my TVs settings if that doesn't tone down. 

As for gameplay, traversal is simple but seems to have some depth to it. It's very forgiving - you can get a swing going and keep momentum going in situations I don't think quite match actual physics (then again Spider-Man's swinging has always played fast and loose with that).

Combat is a subtle tweak on the Arkham system, made to match a more Spidey skillset than Batman's brawling. It's much more kinetic. You aren't just bouncing around and countering a ring of goons. The enemies are more spread out, and they attack a little more. You dodge a lot, hitting and bouncing away. And your given more options. Batman has strike, counter, dodge, gadget, and supers. Spider-Man has strike, dodge, jump, web shoot, zip, launch, supers and a bunch of context based options. Dodge next to a wall? You can then bounce off the wall and dive back through a bunch of enemies. Strike and dodge towards a nearby enemy? You'll slide through his legs. Launch an enemy? Hold the zip button and you'll rip him out of the air towards to the ground, smashing into his buddies.

This all combines into something a little different to Batman's combat. You need to be constantly moving, and the games speed emphasises that. Spider-Man moves quickly in combat, and when you don't you get punished. Hard. You'll can't take many hits, and bearing in mind you'll be fighting with guys shooting you from a fair distance away means you need to. 

If there's an issue that's sticking out right away, it's that you are often fighting an enemy you can't see. The wider grouping of enemies means regularly enemies are off screen. You get your usual 'counter warning' which helps, and enemies shooting towards you have lines highlighted to their locations alongside the warning, but so far you'll still have moments where a guy off camera suddenly becomes an issue 

But all in all it makes a great first impression.

[LakotaDakota]

Looks like a shinier version of the other spiderman games that all suffer from the same issues of big "open world" that is mostly empty with not much to do and loads of repetitive side missions.

All the reviews seem to mention the same yet it gets scored way higher than the last amazing spiderman 2 game bacause it is a ps4 exclusive...

[dubbs]

17 hours ago, LakotaDakota said:

Looks like a shinier version of the other spiderman games that all suffer from the same issues of big "open world" that is mostly empty with not much to do and loads of repetitive side missions.

All the reviews seem to mention the same yet it gets scored way higher than the last amazing spiderman 2 game bacause it is a ps4 exclusive...

Not being argumentative but have you played it?

[Chindie]

Put some more time into it.

Yeah this is rather good. It's got a learning curve to the combat, and you will die. A lot. But as you get your eye in its more nuanced than it first appears and gives you more options. Hit and run tactics work, launching and using air attacks is vital, and the dodge is more useful as a set up for offensive moves than it is getting away from danger. You're far better served getting out of harm's way by swinging away or, ideally, zip attacking to another enemy. You also need to mix things up by using gadgets liberally, especially the webshooters. Initially you'll play it like the Arkham games and it kinda works but not quite. You have to use Spider-Man's speed and aerial ability. The game also throws in bonus objectives to mix things up - stuff like web 3 guys to walls, use 3 throwables, knock 5 guys off a building.

The web swinging is bang on. It's ridiculously easy to use but has a little more to it. You can just jump and hit R2 and point where you need to go. But you can also take things further. Swing, jump out of the swing right at the apex, dive and swing again just right and you'll generate speed far above basic swinging. When you nail it it has that zen like flow that is just awesome. It almost makes traversal a puzzle, when you really want to maintain that great run of swinging but you're heading into another section of the city with lower buildings (or none at all in the park) and you have to adjust a little to keep up the flow.

The city itself is well done. It's probably the best rendition of New York I can recall in a game, to the extent I think it's actually semi-accurate to real streets. It also has lots of little details - things as simple as making buildings appear to have rooms behind the windows, or having Spider-Man be able to to interact with people on the street. It also really does look incredible at times. Catching a moment at sunset where the golden sunlight is beaming between the skyscrapers down the street is just incredible.

Whilst there's not much new to the game really, it's the same stuff we've seen before in various titles, the same format and the same beats, it's bloody good with it. I'm still quite early in the game, but that's entirely because I can't stop launching around the city picking up Parker's old backpacks and stopping robberies and whatnot.

[dubbs]

Loving this so far.  The thing that's really surprised me is the audio. It's fantastic through our theatre kit,  so atmospheric. Have only done a few missions fromthe main story because I've been unlocking comms towers,  fighting crime and finding rucksacks. 

[LakotaDakota]

9 hours ago, dubbs said:

Not being argumentative but have you played it?

Not yet, Still have a huge backlog of 40 or so games to get through but if anything takes my fancy it jumps to the top of the pile.

Watched about 40 minutes of this on yourube / twitch and it doesn't seem to offer anything different than the previous games (i have played & finished all of them) to make me want to go and buy it immediately and i honestly can't see anything to justify such high scores & praise when the previous couple of games have been marked down for the usual problems with pretty much all of these games.

[villa4europe]

the reviews ive read seemed to suggest that the main story arc being so good makes up for the secondary stuff being a bit bland

[Dante_Lockhart]

Loving it. Died a few times (Damn Brutes are tough when in a group) but loving it.

Probably sunk about 8 hours in at the moment and just spent my time activating the towers so the whole city is viewable, and collecting the backpacks (got 'em all).

[Chindie]

Some of the suits they've put into this are dreadful 

[Chindie]

There are things in this that, as a comic fan, just make you smile. It recently introduced a character I really like, who is a bit obscure, in a perfect capacity. But then it doubled down on that and had something happen with that character completely unexpectedly, which lead into a completely perfect moment for that character.

There's a few familiar things in the game that are very nice to see.

There was a rumour this was the start of Marvel trying to make a gaming universe. On the basis of what there is in my experience of the game so far, I really, really hope they do. It hints and nods to do many little things it's a really tantalising  prospect.

[villa4europe]

10 minutes ago, Chindie said:

There was a rumour this was the start of Marvel trying to make a gaming universe. On the basis of what there is in my experience of the game so far, I really, really hope they do. It hints and nods to do many little things it's a really tantalising  prospect.

i read that in one the reviews, they wrote the majority of this, thats the way to do it, let the top developers make the games but partner with them to protect the brand and due to it being a more or less guaranteed hit they can pick the cream of the crop (recently telltale for GotG and now insomniac for this and next square enix for a RPG)

[Chindie]

I believe Dan Slott, who was the main writer on Spider-Man for the last decade or so, helped with the story on this so there is definetly some of Marvel having a hand in controlling where things go with the plot.

[jim]

If I wasn’t a fan of the Arkham games, will I dislike this?

Im really tempted to pick it up as I love Spidey but the similarities to Arkham are putting me off.

[Chindie]

7 minutes ago, jim said:

If I wasn’t a fan of the Arkham games, will I dislike this?

Im really tempted to pick it up as I love Spidey but the similarities to Arkham are putting me off.

What didn't you like about the Arkham games?

[jim]

Just now, Chindie said:

What didn't you like about the Arkham games?

I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It just didn’t ‘click’ with me. I felt the combat was a bit button mashy. 

[Chindie]

6 minutes ago, jim said:

I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It just didn’t ‘click’ with me. I felt the combat was a bit button mashy. 

This is heavily influenced by the Arkham series. It's not quite the same, the combat is effectively an evolution of the Arkham style, but it's looser, harder, and you can do more with it. The whole structure of the game is heavily similar to Arkham City, right down to things like a complete copy of the Arkham frequency minigame, with some other bits added in from other open world games (Assassin's Creed for example). You have story missions, side missions that tend to involve someone from the Marvel universe somehow (including some really obscure ones), basic collectable stuff and then things like challenge missions (chase this drone across the city to build a score within a time limit, defuse these bombs within a time limit etc).

What sets it apart is the world, the traversal and the more complicated combat. The world is a really good rendition of New York and actually feels alive. It's a blander world than the Arkham series's Gotham, but that's inescapable. It's also much more alive. There's pedestrians and traffic everywhere. You can drop down to the street and high five people walking by. The Batman series didn't have that at all. 

The traversal is brilliant. You can webswing, use your webs to zip to points, and wall crawl and wall run. The webswing has some nuance to it - you need to tone was things correctly to gain speed or height, using the swing to throw yourself forwards or up and then jumping out of the swing at the right moment. Then you can dive out of the jump to gain more speed before swinging again at the last second. Then you mix that up with zipping to an area and jumping off that point, or swinging onto a building to run up it or do a zip turn around it's corner. Traversal is simply fantastic and I've not once used the fast travel system as getting to places myself is more fun.

The combat is great. It's quite punishing at first. Fundamentally it's a similar system to Arkham, there's a mashy-ness to it, but where Arkham was more rhythm based (it started out literally as a rhythm game) this is more about agility and using options. If you play like you're playing another Batman game, you'll die. It'll work for a bit but as things ramp up you need to start using the systems the game offers. You start out with a basic repertoire - you can attack (hit Square), dodge (Circle), zip to an enemy (Triangle), jump (X), webshoot (R1) and swing (R2). Holding Square is a launcher, an uppercut that knocks enemies into the air for you to batter after jumping up behind them, and holding Triangle let's you yank enemies towards you, which initially doesn't do much. There's no counter like Batman. If someone is about to punch you, you either need to time your dodge, or hope your attack is faster.

Initially you'll die a lot. Spider-Man takes damage readily - I died about 5 times in the opening fight. But as you get used to it, as you understand this isn't another Arkham even though it feels very similar, and as you open up extra skills, it becomes it's own brilliant thing. In one of the brawl side missions, in space of about 30 seconds, I launched a guy, hit him in the air, did a swing kick into a shield guy, knocking him down, webbed him to the ground, dodged between the legs of another shield guy, hit him and bounced off him to a wall which I then launched off into another guy, did a perfect timed dodge of some gunfire and followed that up with a zip takedown of the guy that fired at me, then webbed a brute guy until he couldn't move before using a zip line to swing him around and throw him into a couple more guys, then used web to yank a guys gun out of his hands and throw it back at him. And that's only a few things you can do. You also have a whole wheel of gadgets like web mines, web bombs, a drone which auto attacks, web that shocks enemies, and you also get suit powers, like an ability to basically jump into the air and fire a barrage of webs around you. 

And there's stealth stuff, which again is similar to Arkham but again more flexible.

It's a very good game. There's certainly a lot of the Arkham series about it, but it's evolved past it. It's certainly for my money the best Spider-Man game there's ever been.

[StefanAVFC]

Have any of you seen this?

Quote

While you've been swinging through the buildings of New York City in Insomniac's Spider-Man, what was supposed to be a love story for the ages has turned into one of the saddest easter eggs of all time.

Tyler Schultz reached out to Insomniac back in May, wanting to propose to his then-girlfriend in a "big way." Marvel's Bill Rosemann and Insomniac both replied to Schultz and made the proposal idea a reality. Right now, there's a marquis sign that reads "Maddie, will you marry me?" hiding in the corners of the city.]

Unfortunately, according to Schultz, Madison did not wait. In a vlog, Schultz details how to find the easter egg and claims his girlfriend left him just weeks before he could pop the question.

"I'm actually kind of happy it's in this game," Schultz says in the vlog. "A lot of people, when I told them how I was going to propose to her, I don't think they understood that there was a literal piece of this game that anybody can go to."

 

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/fan-breakup-makes-this-spider-man-ps4-easter-egg-t/1100-6461651/

[jim]

8 hours ago, Chindie said:

This is heavily influenced by the Arkham series. It's not quite the same, the combat is effectively an evolution of the Arkham style, but it's looser, harder, and you can do more with it. The whole structure of the game is heavily similar to Arkham City, right down to things like a complete copy of the Arkham frequency minigame, with some other bits added in from other open world games (Assassin's Creed for example). You have story missions, side missions that tend to involve someone from the Marvel universe somehow (including some really obscure ones), basic collectable stuff and then things like challenge missions (chase this drone across the city to build a score within a time limit, defuse these bombs within a time limit etc).

What sets it apart is the world, the traversal and the more complicated combat. The world is a really good rendition of New York and actually feels alive. It's a blander world than the Arkham series's Gotham, but that's inescapable. It's also much more alive. There's pedestrians and traffic everywhere. You can drop down to the street and high five people walking by. The Batman series didn't have that at all. 

The traversal is brilliant. You can webswing, use your webs to zip to points, and wall crawl and wall run. The webswing has some nuance to it - you need to tone was things correctly to gain speed or height, using the swing to throw yourself forwards or up and then jumping out of the swing at the right moment. Then you can dive out of the jump to gain more speed before swinging again at the last second. Then you mix that up with zipping to an area and jumping off that point, or swinging onto a building to run up it or do a zip turn around it's corner. Traversal is simply fantastic and I've not once used the fast travel system as getting to places myself is more fun.

The combat is great. It's quite punishing at first. Fundamentally it's a similar system to Arkham, there's a mashy-ness to it, but where Arkham was more rhythm based (it started out literally as a rhythm game) this is more about agility and using options. If you play like you're playing another Batman game, you'll die. It'll work for a bit but as things ramp up you need to start using the systems the game offers. You start out with a basic repertoire - you can attack (hit Square), dodge (Circle), zip to an enemy (Triangle), jump (X), webshoot (R1) and swing (R2). Holding Square is a launcher, an uppercut that knocks enemies into the air for you to batter after jumping up behind them, and holding Triangle let's you yank enemies towards you, which initially doesn't do much. There's no counter like Batman. If someone is about to punch you, you either need to time your dodge, or hope your attack is faster.

Initially you'll die a lot. Spider-Man takes damage readily - I died about 5 times in the opening fight. But as you get used to it, as you understand this isn't another Arkham even though it feels very similar, and as you open up extra skills, it becomes it's own brilliant thing. In one of the brawl side missions, in space of about 30 seconds, I launched a guy, hit him in the air, did a swing kick into a shield guy, knocking him down, webbed him to the ground, dodged between the legs of another shield guy, hit him and bounced off him to a wall which I then launched off into another guy, did a perfect timed dodge of some gunfire and followed that up with a zip takedown of the guy that fired at me, then webbed a brute guy until he couldn't move before using a zip line to swing him around and throw him into a couple more guys, then used web to yank a guys gun out of his hands and throw it back at him. And that's only a few things you can do. You also have a whole wheel of gadgets like web mines, web bombs, a drone which auto attacks, web that shocks enemies, and you also get suit powers, like an ability to basically jump into the air and fire a barrage of webs around you. 

And there's stealth stuff, which again is similar to Arkham but again more flexible.

It's a very good game. There's certainly a lot of the Arkham series about it, but it's evolved past it. It's certainly for my money the best Spider-Man game there's ever been.

Thanks Chindie for taking the time to write that. I think I’d be mad to pass on this!

[villa4europe]

I've done about 3 story missions, cleared all the radio tower things, most of the landmarks and a fair few back packs, i like how they've tied the menial tasks in to developing your abilities, on games like far cry i find my interest in it dies off near the end

i would say im not really giving it a chance but the story hasnt really got going yet, not particularly fussed over not spending my time on it

and the city is incredible, so are the number of easter eggs they have crammed in