The Technocratic Spider-Man

here cemented all the writing problems that would go on plague the sequel. I was more forgiving of them originally, given Miles Morales's standing as a halfway-game between numbered entries. I had assumed the full sequel would be back on the right track, with a more rich and interconnected web of side stories—more like the first game! revisiting the whole series now, turns out Marvel's Spider-Man 2 somehow has even less meat on its bones than this launch title reskin raytracing demo. ouch. here's hoping Marvel's Spider-Man 3 is... better?

oh god. they're gonna do the Red Goblin in the sequel, aren't they. man. never mind. it's over.

a long silent trek along a single-textured canyon. no palpable sign of your advancement but the slow-creeping growth of a massive structure in the distance. as you finally round the corner and view the structure in its totality, you marvel at about two dozen polygons—together representing an airship in the shape of a duck. you turn around. you consider the road back to the level EXIT sign. twenty minutes of have passed since you last saw it. twenty minutes idly holding the analog stick forward, occasionally dodge-rolling to break the monotony. refusing to dodge-roll for a few moments when the sticky momentum stop at the end of the roll animation begins to bother you at the base of your skull. you consider dodge-rolling all the way back. you turn back around. you stick-press a little closer to the airship duck. a gold playstation trophy dings into the upper right corner. a platinum playstation trophy alights in its place a moment later. you pause the game. you quit to the menu. you go do something else.

all this and more can be yours for only .49 USD.

i’m really getting my money’s worth out of this new PS5

the closest insomniac has yet come to capturing the exact texture of a comic book. this is some marv wolfman, bill mantlo type stuff. my review may as well just be a compilation of cover images for the issues it most inspires me to reread.

one of the first spider-man books I ever owned was a mid-2000s trade paperback called Spider-Man vs The Black Cat. my dad bought it for me at the Borders in the lobby of his office. it collects her first six appearances. baby kieran went cover to cover on it so many times the binding is now in tatters. so, of course this little nugget of story DLC sings to me.

playing The Heist again five years later, and after fully ingesting my lukewarm plate of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, I arrive at a great yearning. oh, ye sleepless ones! return to the way it was!

more of this! god please, more of this. no more drones. get the spider-man branded Uber for Superheroes out of the game. instead: more games which feature spider-man traveling of his own narrative momentum to Locations, seeking to perform Actions, all the while interacting face to face with Characters. please! and if you absolutely must deliver the majority of your story through phone calls and audio diaries… imbue them with as much crackling drama as they’ve got here, where Peter and his ex-girlfriend’s father subtly interrogate each other over the phone without the other realizing.

insomniac. you were so good at this before. what happened?