I dunno, I feel like playing it on easy would make it not as repetitive. Playing it on hard will just make you have to hit enemies more. It's actually something that kind of bothers me, how much Spidey has to hit these random goons. I get gameplay, but this is a guy could kill Captain America in one unrestrained punch. Not that he would, but having to hit some of those normal people 5+ times until they go down rubs me the wrong way.

 

Playing on hard means that you need to be creative with the ways that you approach enemies... On easy you can just button mash and tank hits.

Then you hate most Spider-Man comics as well, because he's always held himself back so that he doesn't kill, suprise surprise. How do you feel about Superman?

 

Nowhere did I even imply he should kill them or never hold back. I don't know what you're talking about.

Spider-Man can easily take out normal thugs nonlethally. That was what I was saying.

 

I don't know if you realise this but one hit KO-ing is pretty dangerous. Regular humans can kill doing it, let alone a bloke that can bench ten tonnes.

So when you complain that he's taking down enemies in five hits, it's comes across as childish and whiny, especially when Spider-Man's fast enough to do so safely and with ease. Rewatch the gameplay, mate, he's not struggling at all. You're just complaining over what basically amounts to nothing.

Did you complain about the Arkham games? Because Batman has Olympic level strength and knows exactly how to hit people to cause the most amount of pain and damage. So it sometimes taking ten hits on thugs seems a little excessive, only that it's part of a fun and well balanced combat system.

I hope Rocksteady isn't making a Supes game just for your sanity.

 

What, and repeatedly hitting and kicking them in the face is a-ok? What Spidey does in the gameplay videos would outright kill a normal man.

Oh, bugger off. All I said is that it would rub me the wrong way, not that it's a big deal.

I mean, that's exactly my point. He shouldn't need to kick this dude 3 times and swing a car door in his face to put him down. How the fuck is this any better than KO-ing someone in one hit?

I haven't played the Arkham games, and even if I did, Batman's strength is nowhere near Spider-Man's. Spider-Man can lift up to 60+ tons. Regular thugs are basically a joke to him. I think it would have worked much better if they let us play with your normal thugs in-game. It's exactly what Spider-Man would do and it would make it not as repetitive as it seems to be.

Edit: Alright, I don't care that much to argue about this.

 

We don't actually know that 'hard' makes enemies that aren't 'super' punch sponges, do we?

I assume it's more aggressive AI and bullets doing more damage. We'll find out soon, I guess.

 

I dunno, maybe not. I've seen a bunch of unofficial gameplay, including the apparently hard difficulty, and it was really just having to dodge and hit more.

 

Might consider getting this, if only to enjoy swinging around NY. I don't have enough PS4 games anyway.

 

Played for an hour this morning. Did the first, well publicised mission, spent my 6 free skill points, then spent the rest of the time swinging for xp with the trick system lol.

Swinging feels amazing, but doing the tricks doesn't really. Maybe when I unlock more skills so I can launch myself stupidly high.

Guns in combat are the biggest threat atm. The first skills I bought revolved around countering that with perfect dodges dude auto web the gunners. Also a skill that rips guns out of enemies hands.

Fucking work! Can't wait to get home and play more!

 

Been playing for a few hours now, and having an absolute blast. Traversal is really good, very intuitive and exhilarating; the combat is a little trickier than I was expecting, as Spidey is a bit of a glass cannon, but evasion is so fun and fluid that I don't really mind. Just a case of getting used to it.

Other than the opening mission, I've mostly been roaming around stopping random crimes, which can be mildly irritating; there's usually a red dot to home in on, but I can't always see it, which I think might be related to the observation tower network, as it always happens in areas where I haven't fixed them. However, it's not like there's a shortage of random encounters, so it's not really a problem, and it might just me not being properly observant.

There's other little details that really impress though, like the moment when I arrived at a location in the middle of a conversation, which triggered a cutscene and interrupted the conversation. After the cutscene finished, Peter called the guy back and they picked up where they'd been interrupted. Or when you land on the wall of a building and realise that an awful lot - I don't want to say all - have visible interiors instead of the windows being blacked out.

And so far, I really like the writing. It's funny, and it's an interesting alternate take on the setting, with some clever variations on old favourites.

 

The Brute enemies are really fucking annoying, and they're the only ones I hate so far. All I seem to be able to do is web them and wail on them while they're webbed - then they break out. I saw a skill that lets me fling them around like a wrecking ball, so that'll be handy in the future.

It seems like every district has you needing to stop 5 of those random crimes in each. I'm not actually sure if they keep popping. Atm I'm at a point where I can get all the towers, bags, landmarks and Fisk bases. There's loads more things that are locked, but I can come back to them when they unlock.

Oh, and Yuri > MJ fite me.

 

Ah, well that's neat. I literally just fixed the last signal tower which happened to be right next to the mission at the construction site; I wanted to climb onto the crane while listening to the final (?) chat about Spider-Cop but ended up starting the mission mid-convo. Looks like I won't be missing out.

 

I collected one of the backpacks (get them all, so many cool little ancillary tidbits in there, like previous villains and his past in general). One of them was a failed experiment for a stealth suit... Man that'd be so fucking cool! Stealthing around in bases and thinning the numbers are my favourite part of combat so far, it's the thing that makes me feel most spidery.

Spoiler

Black Cat just introduced herself in the story and she's trying to fuck me with her words, lol. Another wahmen I ship with Peter over MJ. I'm not her biggest fan tbh, but I feel that way about most 'partners' in fiction who break up with their significant others because their jobs were 'too much' - you see it most with cops. As if you don't know that going in...

(In her defence, I'm assuming she didn't know he was Spiderman until after the 'flakiness' was pissing her off)

 

So Peter's actor recorded all his phone call lines twice: once normally, and another time while sounding out of breath. The latter activates when you're web swinging. That's pretty cool.

 

I've only today beaten Act 1, then spent the rest of the day clearing the Challenge Missions (honestly, if I were a reviewer, I'd ding the game a point for those drone missions alone, they're that horrid)...

Spoiler

There was a moment during the bombing at the end of Act 1 that I thought, 'Huh, this Spiderman story isn't a Peter origin story, but is it a Miles one?'

It wouldn't terribly shock me given the emphasis on how much Pete is struggling with life, and the second game being based on Miles would be fucking awesome (and conveniently dodge the issue of an open world hero somehow forgetting all the cool shit he learned in the first game...)

Just a thought.

 

Finished the game after playing it through and mostly sticking to the main missions, along with

Spoiler

the Black Cat stuff.

That didnt actually resolve at all which I'm mildly annoyed by.

Hands down the most fun part of the game, in my opinion, is swinging around in NYC. That might sound like an insult, its really not, freeroaming as Spidey is one of the most fun things I've done on my console in a while. There was also quite a good bit of good writing, especially in the 2nd and 3rd acts, to the point where i actually said out loud "Oh fuck you game, fuck you" at something that happened late on because I was invested and legitimately not really expecting it, and in one-on-one, Combat felt good against bosses. That said, there are a few big negatives that should be addressed.

1) Ubisoftication of the game will make it a slog to get through. Currently, I have 11 Landmarks on my map, each 11 being a different task. Some of them are interesting and fun, but of those 11 only 2 or 3 change themselves up to have you doing something slightly different. And while it leaves a lot of stuff to do, when its the same thing each time, it gets tedious.

2) Suit Crafting, and upgrading the weapons you have available to you to do more, all require tokens, used up by crafting, which you can only get by doing those aforementioned repetitive tasks. And some of those tasks are not quick, at all, for between 1-3 tokens each time. This would have been fine if the tasks werent so repetitive though.

3) Group Fighting in this game felt, to me, like dodge until you're far enough away to be 1-on-1, then spam webs. Especially when you're facing a Rocket Launcher, multiple shield users, a sword user, a brute, and whatever that thing is with firey ribbons as a weapon. Seriously fuck that fight.

4) There is some obvious DLC Padding with the Miles Morales stuff. No @Gengar, its not quite an origin story for this game, but it's either going to be a quick sequel, or DLC coming soon to a PS4 Store Near You!

Other than that though, I dont dislike this game at all. Solid 8/10 from me, and I'll continue playing it for a while, even after beating the game.

 

So, just bought it and done the first couple of missions and swung around, so not much into the meat of things. The combat I'm actually enjoying, the way he moves is great and the focus on webbing up.

The wall crawling leaves a bit to be desired. Trying to crawl the Empire State he wouldn't manage the mast, and on other buildings when he reaches the top ledge he'll just fall rather than climb over. It's jarring.

Not sure which of the three trees to go down first. Any particularly good abilities or paths worth looking at?

 

The right tree is the best imo.

 

Just finished act two, and so far this might actually be one of my favourite Spider-Man stories full stop, not just in a game. It's really well done.

Spoiler

The rise of Doc Ock actually felt genuinely tragic, even more so once I realised that they were actually going there in this game, not just setting him up for a possible sequel, and that the things we were doing in the game were actively contributing to his origin. Really smart use of expectations there. And then he released the Devils Breath, which genuinely shocked me.

 

I'm into act 3 now, but yeah, it's brilliant.

Except fuck MJ. I ship Peter and Yuri forever fite me.

Edit:

Finished. Fucking incredible.

There's loads of places where I think they can improve heavily on in the sequel, but as for story and gameplay? This was just amazing.

Spoiler

Fucking called they were setting up Miles as Spidey (not exactly Nostradamus)! Bet he's actually the playable Spidey in the sequel, that'd be pretty fucking cool.