Insomniac's Spider-Man

That's Batman Arkham all over again. I do think Insomniac Games added variety to the boss fights especially with the double boss fights later on. Like Kingpin Boss fight is like the Bane fight in Arkham Asylum 1.

But I think both Batman Arkham and Insomniac Spider-Man suffer from an old-fashioned attitude to boss-fights. Games over the last fifteen years have seen the likes of Shadow of the Colossus, Dark Souls and so on. The Mr. Freeze boss fight was cool in Arkham City but we don't have anything as intense and tough as the other games. Or as epic. I wonder if it's because you are playing a superpowered dude whereas the other games have you play as basically normal dudes with weapons. A better comparison is Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel where you are a superpowered dude but there's this enemy leveling system and so on. The Taskmaster fight is close to a more modern idea. In that you really need to know and use your skills to beat him. But still a little easier.

I actually think boss-fights have declined in Spider-Games since the shift to open-world. My favorite boss fights are in Spider-Man: The Movie where you have multiple boss fights with the Green Goblin and since he can fly, you basically have to chase him across the city skyline, try and attack him while dodging his gadgets, and meanwhile he'll destroy and burn stuff forcing you to stop and help people while he attacks you as you go save the day. The open-world games never matched that. Like compare the train boss fight in Spider-Man 2 which is simpler in comparison to the movie.

I mean, Kingpin is just a Brute before you actually encounter Brutes. He’s there to teach you gameplay, not to serve as the sort of climax a boss fight usually is.

I agree with that.

But Dark Souls shows you can do that and still make the opening intro boss epic. There are other examples of this as well.

Spider-Man is the underdog hero, and when I think in gaming terms of underdog hero, I think of say Gordon Freeman who fights off an entire interdimensional army with a crowbar, and with weapons of the same kind and type that his enemies have, or even better Chell from Portal who outsmarts killer robots using her wits and a non-lethal traversal gun. And I think you need to give Spidey his own battle with the tripods moment or a fight like that to really sell it. Or of course Shadow of the Colossus where it's just you, a scrawny kid, a horse, and a sword against monsters several thousand times bigger than you.

Batman by comparison is the overdog, the hypercompetent absurdly rich a—hole so his gameplay experience is about dominance and control and the way to subvert that is by using narrative to complicate and mess with his experience. And also by means of humor, so the bad guys tend to always be a lot more entertaining and fun, even the Mooks, than the guy you are playing.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Dec 25th 2018 at 5:15:44 AM

I really do need to find a play to play Spider-Man 2 again, because there's a lot of things that don't age as well but my experience with Spider-Man 2 was better than this game even though I'm seeing a lot more reasons why this game is the better of the 2.

Edited by agent-trunks on Dec 25th 2018 at 6:15:00 AM

For some reason there's never been like a remaster or Updated Re-release for that game, even if it's console exclusive (Playstation 2, the original Xbox console, Gamecube, while the PC version was totally different and just garbage). And it's been criticized after that by many. Like the New York is not considered a proper simulation. Ken Levine, developer of Bioshock pointed out that Rockstar Games' fake version of New York, Liberty City in GTA-3 and later GTA IV felt more like the real thing than Spider-Man 2. The boss fights and other stuff haven't aged well.

Spider-Man 2 is generally acknowledged for its open-world swinging and getting that right. And as gameplay that's satisfying. And that counts for a lot. But Spider-Man PS 4 is more satisfyingly complete. In terms of boss fights and creative levels, I actually prefer the non-open world 3D titles like the Activision games, and Spider-Man The Movie, which is still so far the only Spider-Man 3D game to feature the classic Green Goblin as a boss fight (Ultimate Spider-Man game had the other lamer version), and which establishes why he's so much Spider-Man's best villain. He's a bad guy who really takes the fight to the skies of New York and across the city, forcing you to swing around and tail him and so on.

So I think Spider-Man 2 benefits from nostalgia. It's still one of the better Superhero games. And you know generally, I think Spider-Man had a consistent run of producing decent, fun, and good games even if PS-4 is the first real classic. It's not entirely true that this was a dark place before Batman: Arkham Asylum. I also loved X2 Wolverine's Revenge from that era and that had awesome boss fights for its time, really fun, creative, and it didn't feel repetitive. And Spider-Man showed up in that one as a cameo.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Dec 25th 2018 at 6:43:53 AM

Isn't it a licensed movie game, rather than an adaptation game in it's own right? Those are a little trickier to rerelease.

I guess. But golden eye 007 got rereleases.

Golden Eye is also incredibly iconic and important to game history, to the point where it arguably eclipses the movie it was based off of.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Dec 27th 2018 at 12:36:23 PM

Is it just me or was Hammerhead's defeat a little anticlimactic for a guy who has been in the last three DLC episodes? Not the hover jet crashing into him, mind you. Just him going down without any further words and then the scene goes on like he's not even there. He even kinda popped up suddenly at the end, too.

Well Spider-Man 2 had that reputation of being the golden eye of superhero games until Arkham Asylum. And when the PS 3 came it deserved a port at the least.

I thought his final defeat was pretty epic, but one the other hand it felt a little arc fatigued, since at that point we had already given him a sound defeat. I would've preferred it if in the end he was supplanted right at the end and replaced with a different final boss, like maybe Wraith.

Activision also consistently had license issues with Marvel for years. The number of times Activision Marvel games have been pulled from and returned to stores is kind of nuts.

Also, Spider-Man 2 is not even in the same league as Goldeneye in terms of importance and influence. Goldeneye basically invented first-person shooters on console, and couch multiplayer. Spider-Man 2 is a Grand Theft Auto III-style open world game with web-swinging.

Good point about Activision there. Golden Eye 007 is broadly similar. Both are console games, and console-exclusives at least in the version everyone remembers (I played the PC version and believe me it was humiliating, it was basically a glorified mobile game, and I felt robbed because the marketing at the time didn't clarify the difference in versions). That's why I prefer Spider-Man: The Movie.

I know that Spider-Man 2 was a big deal when it came out in its year. It was on Top 10, and GOTY lists. I've seen playthroughs on You Tube fully...but I never played it. I did play Ultimate Spider-Man game which had a cel-shaped animation and that game used Jamie Fristom's mechanics (the designer who created the web-swinging mechanic and is basically My Real Daddy for modern Spider-Man games). I personally think that game had a better story than Spider-Man 2. I generally do agree that Spider-Man 2 didn't age well but historically it does have value and it deserved to be ported to Playstation 3/Xbox 360 and I guess Wii (i can't imagine how web-swinging and web-shooting would feel with the Wii-mote). From what I gather, the web-swinging mechanic in 2 is more dedicated, i.e. you need to play well to get good at it, while later versions made it nerfed a bit.

Graphically, Spider-Man 2 is a step back from Spider-Man 1...because again open-world game means that you create something workable and consistent whereas a more linear game means you push for maximum visual presentation. I mean what people keep bringing about SM-1 is the whole swinging attached to the sky thing which is yeah silly, but again it was endless swinging, and it kept everything aerial. And you had the best aerial boss fights in any Spider-Man game, with the Vulture, and then the classic Green Goblin. The current generation solved this but you still have a New York that's maybe the best we've seen yet but way smaller. I honestly think developers should go the Immersive Sim rout. A game like Dishonored combines both the single and open-world experience. You have these marvelous intricate levels, and each of them can be played in any order and interacted in any way, and every playthrough is different, and your choices in every fashion carry forward.

Y'know who I'd really love to see in a future story arc? Molten Man.

We've gotten so many good people and friends of Peter being twisted by their darker sides and plunging down the slippery slope into evil, that it'd be nice to have the opposite: an out-and-out crook who thanks to encountering Spider-Man becomes a better and better person, until he's an outright ally.

Sandman would work for that too, but I like the idea of Molten Man simply because he doesn't get as much exposure.

Hmm. Spectacular was using Molten Man, but never really got to his redemption.

It'd be nice to see someone take advantage of that.

Come to think of it, when was the last time Molten Man showed up in the comics? Is he even still Molten Man anymore?

...Is he dead?

His Alter-Ego showed up in Go Down Swinging. Molten Man is also T'd up for the next MCU Spider-Man movie based on some recent news.

But yeah Molten Man would be cool. Either for a main or side mission. I loved the TSSM-Cartoon version of him a lot.

I'd like in a sequel to bring Li back And see his reaction to knowing he helped cause May's death. Doubly so if May's death and Li's arrest cause FEAST to shut down. I'd like to see him dealing with the damage he's caused and how it'd affect him. Especially since his letter to May made it clear he cared about her and FEAST.

I hope Martin Li and Mr. Negative come back too. And I think Insomniac will reuse him, because they basically repopularized a bad guy who was unknown and gave him more prominence than before, so I think they have a sense of ownership on him or at the very least they should. I think ideally Mr. Negative should be retooled to Miles' Arch-Enemy since he killed his father while Dr. Octopus is the man who unleashed the bioweapon that killed Aunt May and honestly I hope they don't do the redemption thing with that, it stunk when they did it in Spider-Man 3 and it would stink even doubly so here, since Insomniac's Aunt May is right up there with Rosemary Harris' and JMS' Spider-Man in all-time best Aunt Mays) and nobody will accept Peter pardoning her murderer.

Having a major enemy like Mr. Negative given to Miles' story is I think fitting and proper. Since a big problem with his stories in multiple media is a lack of his own Rogues Gallery. Mr. Negative was created for Peter Parker in the comics but was obscure and under-used until the game came along and while he's a good antagonist to Peter, he'd be even better for Miles.

And Miles worked at FEAST too...so you can connect that again with Li.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Dec 29th 2018 at 8:06:58 AM

I wouldn't be interested in seeing a villainous Lee again. Have Miles confront him in prison and let that be the end of it.

I'm not overly fond of Miles getting Li as an Arch Nemesis, coz while Li killed his dad, Li and Miles never interact during the first game. And Miles doesn't really show any particular desire for vengeance. Yeah, he's angry his dad is dead, but it's not like he's sneaking around trying to find stuff on the Demons (MJ does more of that!). Seeing them develop this relationships would feel like it came out of nowhere. And lets be honest, it'd be super Lame that Miles' nemesis is one of Peter's hand-me-down villains. Plus "You're my nemesis coz you killed my dad" is so trite and lame and cliche and boring, why even do that?

Plus it's Peter who reaches to Li and almost makes him do a Heel–Face Turn. It's Peter who's constantly trying to bring out Li's good side and build a rapport. And with Li already having this rapport with May, I can see realizing what he help caused and how it killed her be the catalyst for a Heel–Face Turn or a Redemption Equals Death.

But he basically joins it after Li's been exposed as Mr. Negative. So it doesn't really connect him to Li. Again, they never really have any screentime together.

I think people can accept it if it's well written. For one, it'd fit Peter's character, and even May's, who sees the good in people and doesn't espouse vengeance. It'd separate Peter from Yuri/Wraith and would even mark the difference between Peter and Otto himself - Peter forgives. Though I'd expect any potential redemption to be lethal to Otto.

That said, I don't think I'd want it to happen, coz it'd shit over the amazingly well written tragedy that is Otto's downfall. It's far more tragic for him to never redeem himself.

Rosemary Harris' May was actually terrible. Like, she looks fine, and the acting is fine. But the way she's written was awful. She never really provides any of the moral support or moral center you expect May to do. There's a bunch of scenes where she's actually kinda awful (The scene where Peter admits his involvement in how Ben died. You'd expect Comic!May or Insomniac!May to tell Peter he's got it wrong, that he didn't kill Ben, and assuage his guilt. Raimi!May just full on rages on him. The Raimi movies really dropped the ball on May). She's sort of rude, and none of her pep talks ever show the inspiring wisdom May usually shows.

Edited by Ghilz on Dec 29th 2018 at 12:56:12 PM

To quote Mary Jane in the game in one of her conversations with Peter when he asks her when is it okay to give up on a friend, she tells him, "You have to decide if the person your friend was is still there, or if they ever existed in the first place?"

And I think that's what Mr. Negative and Dr. Octopus in the game are ultimately about. They are bad guys, capable of doing good, but they chose their own revenge over that. And I don't think either of them are capable of redemption after all that they did.

He also doesn't have superpowers. Has a mother looking after him, and then Peter acts as his Big Brother Mentor. But a little older with superpowers and so on, and if he hears Li has escaped and so on...yeah I think it would work.

Having no superpower is no reason when the game has MJ involved in fighting the demon and Li. Miles would not have needed superpowers to have a scene where he confronts Li over the murder of his dad. Using words. He has no such scene. I don't think Miles even ever mentions Li directly.

Plus like I said. The you killed my dad motivation is so lame I struggle to find one more boring and cliche. It would be such a downgrade compared to the relationship between Peter and Otto it'd do a disservice to Miles and make him a lamer Spider-Man by resorting to such trite plotting. It'd be an admission that whoever wrote this garbage doesn't care coz they couldn't be bothered to come up with anything more interesting than the "you killed my dad" dynamic.

That's without even going into how Li himself doesn't even care about Davis. As far as Li was concerned Davis was collateral damage. It'd be so lame.

Edited by Ghilz on Dec 29th 2018 at 1:26:38 PM

Sandman being excused for killing Uncle Ben in Spider-Man 3 isn't really that a big deal for me in the sense that he didn't even intend to shoot him and was trying to put the gun down, even if that doesn't absolve him of the situation.

My problem is that Peter and Sandman have absolutely no reason to hug it out considering they've spent almost the entirety of their screentime trying to kill each other, Uncle Ben's death was an accident for both robbers involved which makes the whole thing feel like "Nobody's at fault" in a manner of speaking, and Sandman killing Uncle Ben doesn't even really add anything to the story.

That's why it stunk. Not only did it make no sense as payoff, but Uncle Ben's death being some random accident takes away from the hard determinism of the origins. It was clear cut that Peter's inaction directly led to Uncle Ben's death. That was the whole point. Adding this other random factor and fumbling and so on, means that Peter no longer has that clear-cut direct cause-and-effect responsibility. It undermines the entire story and motivation. The burglar Peter let go did not kill Uncle Ben. That's what Spider-Man 3 did. The entire bit in Spider-Man 1 where Peter rides into action and corners the burglar in that warehouse...yeah didn't count. I mean this stuff was a major problem when Tim Burton did it in Batman (1989).

That to me made Spider-Man 3 irredeemable. There was never going to be a good film there once Raimi came up with that. Make no mistake Sam Raimi is ultimately to blame for that film's failure. Yeah they forced him to add Venom and so on. But he still decided to add in Sandman and his initial plan all along was to have Peter forgive his Uncle's killer...which again goes against the entire story. Stuff like Emo Peter, silly and pointless as it is, are symptoms of how thoroughly he misread the material.

Adding a revenge (and forgiveness) motivation on to Peter Parker is a major mistake. Revenge would make sense with Miles Morales in this game, since he isn't actually responsible in any way for his father's death and was genuinely an innocent victim whose life was upended by Mr. Negative. But for Peter, revenge is out of the question.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Dec 30th 2018 at 9:18:04 AM

Which would just make Miles a worse Spider-Man than Peter. While Peter does things out of altruism and a sense of responsibility, Miles would be motivated by revenge. Which is just one more reason that whole idea is both stupid and lame.

Heck, becoming Spider-Man out of revenge is literally what they do with the Goddawful Amazing Spider-Man movies, where Peter goes around beating people up coz he wants to find his uncle's murderer and kill him. So ya know, speaking of taking inspiration from garbage...

Edited by Ghilz on Dec 30th 2018 at 12:37:31 PM