8/10
I love the first and second act of this game - the characterisation of Harry and Peter’s friendship felt really believable to me and the Black-Suit arc felt satisfying if a little rushed. However, my problems mainly appear in the third act - Venom and Anti-Venom feel incredibly rushed and misunderstood which is disappointing as Tony Todd does such a good voice. To explain, Venom is treated as the symbiotic itself instead of the shared animosity of Eddie or in this case the host and the Symbiote creating Venom. Yet Insomniac’s Venom is just the symbiotic this removes a lot of Venom’s characterisation and a deeply hurt and conflicted idea and is replaced by just a purely evil Suit that has no nuance. They don’t even try to hide this - multiple times throughout the game it’s made explicitly clear that MJ as Scream and Harry as Venom aren’t in control (which is fine) and don’t remember what they are doing/saying (which is not fine). The suit is meant to heighten the wearer’s feeling and develop an already existing conflict like Peter’s feelings of inadequacy of fear of Aunt May being unable to pay rent in the 1997 show instead the symbiote creates the problems and this is what I take issue with. As for Anti-Venom, I understand the gameplay reason to give the player symbiote abilities back but it happens so soon after losing them, it doesn’t feel like this deep metafiction look at drugs that Insomniac promised it feels like a cop out. If it seems like I hate this game I don’t but I love the Black-Suit as a concept and as a story element and Insomnaic drop the ball a bit here; luckily the gameplay has somehow been even further improved with web wings.
I love the first and second act of this game - the characterisation of Harry and Peter’s friendship felt really believable to me and the Black-Suit arc felt satisfying if a little rushed. However, my problems mainly appear in the third act - Venom and Anti-Venom feel incredibly rushed and misunderstood which is disappointing as Tony Todd does such a good voice. To explain, Venom is treated as the symbiotic itself instead of the shared animosity of Eddie or in this case the host and the Symbiote creating Venom. Yet Insomniac’s Venom is just the symbiotic this removes a lot of Venom’s characterisation and a deeply hurt and conflicted idea and is replaced by just a purely evil Suit that has no nuance. They don’t even try to hide this - multiple times throughout the game it’s made explicitly clear that MJ as Scream and Harry as Venom aren’t in control (which is fine) and don’t remember what they are doing/saying (which is not fine). The suit is meant to heighten the wearer’s feeling and develop an already existing conflict like Peter’s feelings of inadequacy of fear of Aunt May being unable to pay rent in the 1997 show instead the symbiote creates the problems and this is what I take issue with. As for Anti-Venom, I understand the gameplay reason to give the player symbiote abilities back but it happens so soon after losing them, it doesn’t feel like this deep metafiction look at drugs that Insomniac promised it feels like a cop out. If it seems like I hate this game I don’t but I love the Black-Suit as a concept and as a story element and Insomnaic drop the ball a bit here; luckily the gameplay has somehow been even further improved with web wings.