My opinion on this game has been rapidly fluctuating for the past week. My first run though had me soypogging at all the Spiderman stuff from start to finish, and I had a genuinely great time.
And then I kept playing and did the worst thing you can ever do with a product; turn your brain on. Replaying the game and letting some of its issues settle in started to, not sour, but gave me a more objective and realistic glance at the game. And I figured I would use this to sort of springboard my issues, as well as highlight what I enjoyed, as nothing will take away my initial enjoyment.
Traversal is kind of the same, but with a newly added wingsuit, and I get it because the map space is twice as large as the other games, but it doesn't feel as nice as web swinging and I'd argue it almost takes away from it. Would argue many aren't playing Spiderman so they can emulate the worst parts of Superman 64, but it's a very minor nitpick. (For now)
Combat remains mostly the same on the surface, but a lot of core aspects changed up really starts to weigh things down compared to the original. For starters, there are no longer costume powers, replaced with a static super for both Miles and Peter, and here's where the problem starts as Miles gets his relatively early, while Peter is missing his for well over half the game. And it only gets worse.
There are less gadgets and to compensate we now have cooldown abilities. Insomniac worked on combining both aspects from the first 2 games, leaning more into the Miles Morales systems. We get 4 gadgets (5 if you really want to count the web shooter) and 4 abilities which have interchangeables for each slot. This creates a different kind of gameplay loop from what we had in the first game. Rather than using all your gadgets and abilities in tandem to control the flow of the fight and dispatch individuals, it's round up individual targets together and go wild with a myriad of crowd control and area of effect abilities. Most of your tools will have the intention of crowd control, which back then crowd control was the exception and not the rule, and gadgets here only perpetuate more AoE ability spam fights, which in turn works better for Miles who has access to multiple AoE abilities early on, while Peter is stuck primarily single target until fairly late into the game. This once again makes Miles more enjoyable to play for most of the game, which makes enforced Peter sections feel rather lackluster outside of very specific parts of the story.
I mentioned less gadgets and that plays into another issue, there are less tools to perpetuate more stealth playstyles. That isn't to say stealth 'killing' mobs is no longer possible, you just have less tools to work with such as no impact or tripwire webs. There's actually a significant lack of stealth sections and missions this time around be it in the main story or as side content, which makes it all the more awkward for Miles to have his camo carry over when there's not much reason to deploy it.
Speaking of which, side content. Feels awful lacking here as well. And that's not to imply there's nothing to do, but there's a lot less involvement and ties to the core gameplay. Before you had combat courses, web swinging time trials, stealth missions, the occasional pseudo boss fight with Taskmaster, for the most part the side activities helped you improve at the game overall, but here? At most you have the Mysterio combat trials which in of themselves are built narratively so they don't even feel like true combat arenas. Most side quests are doing a very campy request for a student, or solving a wall puzzle for Prowler, or playing a fetch quest with maybe a small skirmish at the end of it. There's nothing that really helps you improve at the game while you explore between main missions, and while activities like research stations existed in the first game, once again that remained the exception and not the rule. At least with this issue I expect it to be remedied with any potential DLC, but given that the base for the first game didn't have this problem leaves me concerned for future titles from Insomniac.
The game narratively feels like it's at odds with itself occasionally. Peter comes off as generally rusty while also accidently and inadvertently starting several of the game's largest conflicts. Despite that, he has a good cast of supporting characters to mitigate those shortcomings like MJ, Harry and Norman that make experiencing his side of the story rather entertaining.
This contrasts with Miles, who doesn't really have a proper supporting cast to bolster his side of things up. Ganke is the only one that provides a brief respite for conversation, but the issue is it's very brief compared to what Peter has, and every other character on Miles' side like his mother and Hailey never offer any real push back or interesting beats for his character building. And while I really did enjoy the Martin Li angle, it felt very short lived compared to the A plot. All the while Miles coming across as far more capable than Peter in most situations, making Peter feel like the B Spiderman in the major conflicts of the game, while the narrative feels like it's tugging in the complete opposite direction. I never understand how Miles ends up as the superior Spiderman here, and I never understand why Peter decides to slack and fall in most major moments of the game. Sometimes he doesn't even feel like the original Peter, and I'm not referring to the symbioted version of him.
Nonetheless I still enjoyed it. It's still fun to play as Spiderman, it's still fun to swing around the city, and the major story twists and happenings were really entertaining for me. Despite my moaning I'm probably rating this game lower than it deserves, but my main issue comes from the final package feeling incomplete. The combat feels a lot more spammy, the story feels rushed and unfinished, and there's a lot less going on in this game then there is in Spiderman 1 despite having twice the map size and literally twice the Spiderman. And for the most part I don't see many people bringing up, not just my own issues, but problems in general. The loudest group of individuals are the ones race baiting which doesn't bring anything constructive, and between a lack of proper criticism alongside Insomniac openly doubling down on the MJ sections (they're still pace destroyers) I'm just worries about the future of these games. I'm worried for less polish and care, replaces exclusively with spectacle and flare. And again maybe any future DLC will quell these worries, but I don't feel all that confident given we had 2 games prior to this not exhibit any of these issues.
I'll still buy a Venom game though.
And then I kept playing and did the worst thing you can ever do with a product; turn your brain on. Replaying the game and letting some of its issues settle in started to, not sour, but gave me a more objective and realistic glance at the game. And I figured I would use this to sort of springboard my issues, as well as highlight what I enjoyed, as nothing will take away my initial enjoyment.
Traversal is kind of the same, but with a newly added wingsuit, and I get it because the map space is twice as large as the other games, but it doesn't feel as nice as web swinging and I'd argue it almost takes away from it. Would argue many aren't playing Spiderman so they can emulate the worst parts of Superman 64, but it's a very minor nitpick. (For now)
Combat remains mostly the same on the surface, but a lot of core aspects changed up really starts to weigh things down compared to the original. For starters, there are no longer costume powers, replaced with a static super for both Miles and Peter, and here's where the problem starts as Miles gets his relatively early, while Peter is missing his for well over half the game. And it only gets worse.
There are less gadgets and to compensate we now have cooldown abilities. Insomniac worked on combining both aspects from the first 2 games, leaning more into the Miles Morales systems. We get 4 gadgets (5 if you really want to count the web shooter) and 4 abilities which have interchangeables for each slot. This creates a different kind of gameplay loop from what we had in the first game. Rather than using all your gadgets and abilities in tandem to control the flow of the fight and dispatch individuals, it's round up individual targets together and go wild with a myriad of crowd control and area of effect abilities. Most of your tools will have the intention of crowd control, which back then crowd control was the exception and not the rule, and gadgets here only perpetuate more AoE ability spam fights, which in turn works better for Miles who has access to multiple AoE abilities early on, while Peter is stuck primarily single target until fairly late into the game. This once again makes Miles more enjoyable to play for most of the game, which makes enforced Peter sections feel rather lackluster outside of very specific parts of the story.
I mentioned less gadgets and that plays into another issue, there are less tools to perpetuate more stealth playstyles. That isn't to say stealth 'killing' mobs is no longer possible, you just have less tools to work with such as no impact or tripwire webs. There's actually a significant lack of stealth sections and missions this time around be it in the main story or as side content, which makes it all the more awkward for Miles to have his camo carry over when there's not much reason to deploy it.
Speaking of which, side content. Feels awful lacking here as well. And that's not to imply there's nothing to do, but there's a lot less involvement and ties to the core gameplay. Before you had combat courses, web swinging time trials, stealth missions, the occasional pseudo boss fight with Taskmaster, for the most part the side activities helped you improve at the game overall, but here? At most you have the Mysterio combat trials which in of themselves are built narratively so they don't even feel like true combat arenas. Most side quests are doing a very campy request for a student, or solving a wall puzzle for Prowler, or playing a fetch quest with maybe a small skirmish at the end of it. There's nothing that really helps you improve at the game while you explore between main missions, and while activities like research stations existed in the first game, once again that remained the exception and not the rule. At least with this issue I expect it to be remedied with any potential DLC, but given that the base for the first game didn't have this problem leaves me concerned for future titles from Insomniac.
The game narratively feels like it's at odds with itself occasionally. Peter comes off as generally rusty while also accidently and inadvertently starting several of the game's largest conflicts. Despite that, he has a good cast of supporting characters to mitigate those shortcomings like MJ, Harry and Norman that make experiencing his side of the story rather entertaining.
This contrasts with Miles, who doesn't really have a proper supporting cast to bolster his side of things up. Ganke is the only one that provides a brief respite for conversation, but the issue is it's very brief compared to what Peter has, and every other character on Miles' side like his mother and Hailey never offer any real push back or interesting beats for his character building. And while I really did enjoy the Martin Li angle, it felt very short lived compared to the A plot. All the while Miles coming across as far more capable than Peter in most situations, making Peter feel like the B Spiderman in the major conflicts of the game, while the narrative feels like it's tugging in the complete opposite direction. I never understand how Miles ends up as the superior Spiderman here, and I never understand why Peter decides to slack and fall in most major moments of the game. Sometimes he doesn't even feel like the original Peter, and I'm not referring to the symbioted version of him.
Nonetheless I still enjoyed it. It's still fun to play as Spiderman, it's still fun to swing around the city, and the major story twists and happenings were really entertaining for me. Despite my moaning I'm probably rating this game lower than it deserves, but my main issue comes from the final package feeling incomplete. The combat feels a lot more spammy, the story feels rushed and unfinished, and there's a lot less going on in this game then there is in Spiderman 1 despite having twice the map size and literally twice the Spiderman. And for the most part I don't see many people bringing up, not just my own issues, but problems in general. The loudest group of individuals are the ones race baiting which doesn't bring anything constructive, and between a lack of proper criticism alongside Insomniac openly doubling down on the MJ sections (they're still pace destroyers) I'm just worries about the future of these games. I'm worried for less polish and care, replaces exclusively with spectacle and flare. And again maybe any future DLC will quell these worries, but I don't feel all that confident given we had 2 games prior to this not exhibit any of these issues.
I'll still buy a Venom game though.
tox
6 months ago