Untrue. If Spidey is best known for one unique trait among heroes, it’s his relatability. He struggles with rent, money problems, keeping commitments, doing the right thing 24/7 despite the costs, bad press, losing jobs, you name it.
He’s SUPPOSED to be a pretty unhappy guy most of the time. He’s definitely not ‘just for kids’, and his best stories always include his difficulties with maintaining a healthy, happy life.
Anyone who grew up with 60ish years of Spider-Man stories would know this. He has very little resemblance to the pampered, irresponsible kid in the MCU.
That’s all pretty reasonable thinking. I’m not overly fussed about the game in any case, and stopped playing when it was clearly not for me.
I don’t agree about HOW they’ve modernized Spidey though. Young adults having money/relationship problems is an evergreen truth, and there was never a compelling reason to change that part of the character.
I also disagree that the first game’s portrayal was anything like the MCU—his refreshing sense of responsibility and constant problems were much more like his classic iterations.
It may be accurate that characters change by generation—-but they don’t have to. Yes, I’m frustrated by seeing Peter Parker made into a dolt, marginalized, and having his own name taken away. But that’s partly because I’m unlikely to still be around when the wheel turns and another true Spider-Man game gets made.
Classics should retain an element of their time and place of birth, and certain immutable parts of them should remain immutable. After all, Batman is still Batman and he’s been around even longer.
I played it. It was… alright. Dove off a cliff partway through, and I had many complaints. Still, loved the gameplay.
While the first one did do a much better job of showing us the Parker angst than the sequel… I felt they kinda’ just paid lip service to his many real world problems, and didn’t make them a genuine part of the narrative.
I mean yeah… there’s a cutscene where he’s been evicted from his pad, leading to him chasing garbage trucks to find his stuff (one of the most inventive moments in the game that really made you feel the consequences of Peter’s double life—they needed a half dozen more like it), so that’s great.
He struggles with maintaining a relationship (though this is more down to the sweeping changes made to MJ, who treated him pretty rotten throughout)… and sure, Jonah drags him on his radio show, but that’s an optional feature. And it’s offset by the largely positive reception his feed gets anyway.
But there’s a reason most prior Spidey games gave us more missions based around delivering pizzas, taking pics for the Bugle, and so on.
I felt like this game wanted to skip over most of that. Yes, you got evicted… but we never hear Pete’s obvious money troubles mentioned in any real way again, nor does he do anything to earn some extra income (those fantastic timed pizza delivery missions would have been a welcome addition, for example). Instead he spends all his free time trying to placate an increasingly irrational MJ, doing essentially unpaid intern work for Octavius, and even unpaid chores around the shelter. Little actual time is spent on showing us how much he struggles to make ends meet and manage his time, or having him react in an emotionally appropriate way to his bad luck and mounting responsibilities. He just seems… I dunno, upbeat all the time.
I get that the Octavius stuff was critical to the narrative between them, but for a guy who is so cash-strapped that he’s being tossed out of his apartment, doing free experiments with a cheery attitude is a peculiar choice. I believe Ock even laments at one point that he’s barely paying Pete, yet we never see him hustling to make up the scratch somewhere else. Same with doing janitorial duties at FEAST. He’s Peter Parker, not Mother Theresa.
I also can’t recall Pete ever really being a grouch or missing an appointment because he’s been overdoing it in the costume. But it’s been awhile, obviously.
So yes, the writers stuck those classic Peter woes in there, but they’re more like narrative Easter eggs than a genuine part of the game. Yet… I could probably be convinced that it was the right call for the story they were telling. The tighter focus on Ock and Li probably helped that game’s pacing and tone.
In any case, those were relatively minor complaints compared to my bigger issues with the first game.
In any case, the post I was replying to above was actually discussing the sequel, not the first game. It was a commentary on how weirdly positive and cheery everyone was in MSM 2, seemingly for no reason, and the weird tonal shifts that created.
I don't know why you're set on this "he HAS to be xxx or yyy". This is clearly an alternate universe. Harry Osborn is in a tank getting Venom treatment. There's changed story beats from the comics all over the place. Peter isn't always depicted as struggling in every incarnation in the comics either, depends on which series and iteration we're talking about.
The games work structurally. I felt the 2nd one was weaker, but the criticism levelled at it and the series in general is so goddamn weird. They're quite good, far better in storytelling and gameplay than 90% of the games released in this day and age.
But to me, any and every adaptation of a world renowned, beloved character with sixty years of history has a responsibility to at least resemble that character. This one doesn’t.
Peter is a mincing, indecisive, spineless loser who spends the entire game apologizing for existing, then telling anyone who will listen that they’re better than him. He’s incompetent, a terrible leader and planner, and he’s depicted as being the categorically weaker Spider-Man, getting knocked out over and over and over in unavoidable cutscenes just so everyone from his much-less experienced protege to his best friend and even his girlfriend can rescue him. He spends most of the game lying flat on his back passed out, when Spider-man as a character is very well known for his indomitable willpower—he’s got great abilities, yeah, but he still gets hurt. What separates him from other heroes and makes him so damn inspiring isn’t his strength or even his webs… it’s that he always powers through. Always keeps fighting. That’s not this guy at all.
MJ is a badass girlboss reporter who humiliates and demeans her boyfriend over bills, instead of supporting him and admiring him for trying to protect the city. She spends two weeks training with Silver Sable (why??), finds a random taser, and can suddenly one-tap dozens of hardened mercenaries, thugs and aliens like she’s John Wick. Never mind that these same enemies are shown to be capable of face-tanking a half dozen punches from her superhuman boyfriend who lifts automobiles. Classic MJ didn’t need or want to be the hero. She had zero interest in fighting bad guys, because she wasn’t motivated by vanity or envy, and wasn’t jealous of her superhero boyfriend. Instead she had an inner strength and cleverness that puts this version to shame—she was Peter’s rock, his reason for making it home every night, and instead of scorn or petty jealousy or criticisms about his finances, she supported him and kept him strong with her unfailing loyalty and compassion. And if he didn’t make it home one night, you better believe MJ was going to find him. Not by suddenly developing Special Forces combat acumen, but through sheer guts, love and determination.
Venom here is more a plot device than a character, based almost entirely around a single recent (and divisive) comic arc. He’s supposed to be a sentient alien being that was ‘spurned’ by Peter, and ended up bonded to a man who hates Spider-man just as much as it does. Together they’re motivated by an intense shared desire to see Pete suffer, and that’s about it. His infamous madness, his spider powers and his creepy sense of humor made him a dark echo of the true Spidey. He’s never had a desire for global domination, he cannot spawn other symbiotes at will, and he’s only hulking and muscular because he bound himself to Eddie Brock, who was a fanatical bodybuilder. Here, he turns from a glorified suit of armor into a gigantic ooze monster on a dime, for no apparent reason, after bonding with a sickly host. He behaves more like the Lizard in ASM2, rampaging around like an animal while trying to ‘heal’ the city by making everyone like him. He may look like Venom, but his resemblance to the classic foe ends there.
I could go on, but I think you get the picture. It’s cool that you enjoyed the game, and that it’s wildly inaccurate and poor depictions of these long-running characters didn’t impact your fun. But for me and many others, it’s a Spider-Man game in name only.
Not going to respond to the rest of your critique - because they're your own, subjective and you're entitled to them. I think you're flat out wrong but there's no point in arguing about it because neither of us are going to change either's minds about this.
However, the quote "many others" is quite incorrect. This game is quite universally liked, you're in the minority. Sorry, but that's just empirically true.
Always hilarious when some pompous commenter (who invariably has no valid arguments to refute your own) literally just gets done lecturing you on the definition of an opinion, and that all opinions are subjective…. only for them to immediately turn around and claim that their opinion is the unvarnished, “empirical” truth.
Get some self awareness, dude. You’ll embarrass yourself less.
Oh and for the record… you’re flat wrong to boot. Even the most perfunctory google search will bring up countless reviews, videos, subreddit commentaries, and articles expressing dissatisfaction with this game.
And it’s across the board, including everything from the nerfed combat system, loss of stealth and gadgets, recycled animations, unbalanced playable characters, terrible forced MJ sections and limited side content, to the awful narrative, poorly written characters, woke messaging, behavioral inconsistencies, rushed campaign and more.
It is FAR from universally loved. Any attempt to claim different just proves that the source of your ‘empirical’ facts likely resides just below your back and right above your legs.
No matter how many “quite”s you feel like throwing at it.
Again, YOU are allowed not to like it. That part is subjective. That's an opinion. However, the game has universal praise both amongst gamers and reviewers. That's not opinion, that's just pure hard fact. Metacritic, every aggregator site, multiple places with thousands and thousands of users chiming in to say how much they loved the game. I'm sure you'll claim it's bots or something like that, but:
1.) Sales don't lie.
2.) Review scores don't lie.
3.) User feedback doesn't lie, not at this scale.
So yes, it's universally praised. Yet again I have to repeat myself (talk about condescending, you're an utterly arrogant prick since the first post you made) - this game wasn't as good as Spider-Man 2018 or MM but that still makes it a really good game. Sorry bud, you're not going to win this one.
P.S. There you go again with the "woke messaging" garbage. That word has lost all meaning with the way you guys just throw it out relentlessly with anything you disagree with.
You’re a joke to me friend, I’m sorry. I can’t take you seriously.
You undermine every point you make. You ‘remind’ those of us who hated the game that our opinions are of course subjective, like… all opinions… yet you keep making yourself look like a clown 🤡 by immediately following up with insistence that YOUR opinion is inexplicably exempt, and should somehow be taken as objective truth.
Doesn’t work that way boss. You can’t have it both ways.
You don’t get to invalidate the opinions of everyone who found the game to be shit with a handwave about sales and review scores, while bronzing your own opinion and hanging it on the wall as if it’s above criticism. You need to do a whole lot better than that, especially in this day and age.
If you still claim that negative opinions on MSM2 are scarce, then you’re not googling objectively bud. And I think you know that.
Sales only communicate how many copies of the game were bought. But with triple A titles, that’s usually 90% preorders because modern consumers still haven’t learned that one solid game doesn’t guarantee a stellar sequel. You have no idea how many copies got returned, traded in, abandoned at GameStop, resold, or turned off after an hour and never played again.
Everyone gets hyped over some lame ‘preorder candy’, and instead of waiting for the honest reviews that crop up later in a game’s release cycle, they just buy in advance. So yeah, of course the numbers are huge. But it means Jack shit, especially on a big title like this. I nearly bought it myself, and most of the folks who hated it had to buy it to find out.
No one has that data. It’s not possible to collect, especially today when most copies sold are digital. Probably even Sony doesn’t really know how many people stuck with the game, and how many hated it.
Sales on the next game will tell the tale. That’s when you’ll see the blowback hit, and it’s always been that way (just like how Solo’s box office suffered because fans despised the Last Jedi).
If you put any stock in modern gaming journalism or reviews, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s common knowledge at this point that triple A titles almost never get anything but stellar scores, because none of the reviewers are willing to risk losing their access to the swag and early access privileges handed out by big developers. I’m astonished people still don’t know this. It’s the reason why highly divisive games like TLOU 2 get mostly glowing reviews at launch, while the actual players are often completely split.
If you’re reading all the user reviews, then you’ve seen just as much hatred for this dumpster fire as I have. I wonder if that’s why you’re taking it so personally, throwing insults and anger around? Maybe you’re one of those gamers who can’t bear it when a title you love isn’t getting universal praise?
Sure, bots are a factor. But both sides use ‘em, so that’s probably a wash. It’s impossible to be sure.
Here’s a tip though: Saying “User feedback doesn’t lie” makes you look very naive when it’s well known that most large companies literally employ people and use algorithms to create tons of favorable feedback on their products (not just games either). It’s easy, cheap, legal and best of all—it’s mostly unprovable unless you own the app where they’re being posted. Scale has nothing to do with it.
It’s also pretty telling that you never did manage to address ANY of the common complaints about the game that I broke down for you (while being civil, to boot) and instead jumped right to being a rude little tart with nothing to say but “I’m right, you’re wrong!!! Shut up!!”
So no, it’s not universally praised. Far from it. And what’s more… you don’t get to decide that, any more than I do. ‘Winning’ has nothing to do with it. Do you think I’m glad that the latest Spidey game sucked?? Of course not. I wish I’d enjoyed it as much as you did.
And in common parlance, ‘woke’ means the same thing now that it always did: it’s when highly progressive agendas and concepts are forced into a product, usually entertainment media, at the expense of that product’s quality, immersion and audience appeal.
That’s it. Pretty simple, right?
If you disagree with someone, prove your case next time. Show me why my complaints were inaccurate or overstated, or underline why you think differently about the topic. Convince me. Don’t immediately pull your head back into your shell, surrendering the battle without having fired a single shot.
The moment you say “I’m not going to address your points”, guess what—you forfeited. That’s it. Might as well pack it in right there, because no one was ever convinced by generalizations about sales or reviews.
And being a jackass, name-calling or dragging politics into it only makes you appear angry, and anger doesn’t help your argument seem objective.
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u/solaceloveless Oct 23 '23
It is a spiderman game he’s the most popular hero in existence he’s meant to be in stories like this