Topic: Insomniac's Spiderman

Er... heheh, nevermind. I’m now in act 3 and it’s all good. Got “Overdrive” trophy now. I might just go for the platinum after all.

But dang, the difficulty really spiked now. Some of these swarms of enemies with all their crazy skills and defenses are tough!

So I just happened to notice that when you’re talking on the phone with someone (like MJ) the voice work for Spider-Man is different if you’re standing still or if you’re swinging or running. And it will change in the middle of a conversation. I can be standing still and MJ calls me and start a conversation and then I can start jumping and swinging and when I speak the voice is grunting a little and breathing a little harder with the exertion of activity. Very realistic, and a small attention to detail. So the voice actor had to record all those conversations at least twice and the programmers had to account for which audio file would play depending on what you are doing at the time. And it will switch back and forth from “resting voice” to “exertion voice” and back to “resting voice” if you stop swinging again. Impressive.

@Th3solution It is well done. I think there was an article mentioning it somewhere in the pre-release hype phase.

How far in are you?

@KALofKRYPTON I must have missed that detail in the media hype. Honestly, the weeks leading up to the game release last year kinda turned me off because it got to be too much information. There were so many articles and advertisements that I lost track. (I think we’re about to see this happen with TLoU2 over the next 4-5 months)
I just discovered that little tidbit about the voice recordings on my own.

I’m very near the end. Not sure if I’ll have a lot of gaming time this weekend, but I’m knocking on the door of the platinum. 90% finished with story and only thing left on the map are a few scattered Crimes to finish off. Got all suits and all the other random trophies like webbing two people together, visiting the cemetery, etc. I’m trying to decide if I want to clean up the map first or finish the story missions first. Either way, I’m almost done. I’m not usually a DLC sort of person, so although I am curious about the DLC packs, I’ll probably skip them (at least for now)

I will make this other unrelated observation — I wonder why there was not as much backlash about the character models not looking like their MCU counterparts like there has been for the new Avengers game. None of them are remotely close. I’m perfectly fine with it, but Insomniac did put in the several MCU suits and obviously the nods to the recent Tom Holland movie (backpacks, etc) and even Spiderverse references. Granted, the game takes place like what, 6-8 years afterwards? Parker is in his early 20’s and graduated from college I think. But even accounting for time, Aunt May still is nothing close to looking like an older Marisa Tomei, even if Parker could resemble Tom Holland if you squint really hard. Perhaps people are fine with it because Spider-Man/Peter Parker is more of a longstanding character whose been represented many times over the years. Thor, Black Widow, Cap America - they don’t have the cinematic and gaming history Spidey has.
Anyways, it doesn’t bother me, one way or the other. It is a little weird to have MCU references though when the game is not really related to he MCU.

@Th3solution Well, RE: Avengers vs Spider-Man, it's worth keeping in mind that Spider-Man has been played by a LOT of different people over the last couple of decades, whereas all of the MCU Avengers characters have retained their same actors over the entire Infinity Arc. Maybe that's the reason?

Also, I think people just found the character models in the Avenger games to be kind of generic and unattractive in general.

@Th3solution because regardless of the MCU, Spider-Man is culturally top-tier; Batman and Superman levels of cultural significance. The Avengers are absolute C-listers in comparison - they need the MCU look to be interesting to non-comic fans.

Also, Holland is a terrible Spider-Man, isn't a good actor and MCU Spider-Man is a terrible Spider-Man in general 😁

@Th3solution I guess we've had three Spiderman film series now plus Spiderverse so people are less attached to one model/world (Raimi suit ftw though) and the MCU May is pretty off piste for the character.

As for the DLC, I've said it a few times on here but I would just describe it as fine. It's pretty much more of the same with a few new enemies so it's just more of the same. I could have done without it but I bought the Gold Edition.

And with regards to your first thought, I picked this game up later on in a sale and it was nice to come into it away from the hype (although I steer away from watching copious videos and previews of things). The cheaper price was a bonus too! The Division 2 is the only thing I've bought week one this year because of the online component.

@Ralizah @KALofKRYPTON Yes, I think you’re probably right about the relative second tier nature of the Avengers and their short lived popularity in the grand scheme of comic based media, when compared to the faces of Marvel and DC like Spider-Man and Batman.
I will agree to disagree on Holland as Peter/Spider-Man - I think I like him better than Toby Maquire and the Garfield kid, but it may be due to recency bias.

@Thrillho Thanks for the DLC advice. That pretty much supports the inkling I have had to skip it. And I agree with you that I think I enjoyed the game more having waited and played it without as many large expectations. Sometimes playing with the masses at release enhances the experience, and sometimes it only leads to disappointment. I knew going in that the game was good, fun, and technically solid, but not groundbreaking or innovative. So I didn’t expect a transformative gaming experience yet I’m pleasantly surprised how much I like it — despite agreeing with about a 7 or 8/10 type of score. (I still haven’t finished so the score could go up or down based on the ending)

So I've played a few more hours of this. As mentioned previously the web slinging is ace.

Also like the combat which has the right balance of being accessible and deep. Don't get me wrong its not competing with something like DMC on the combo meter, but there is enough variation there to keep things from getting stale.

The story is only ok so far, I'm finding it a bit predictable. It was cool to see the Miles Morales character, all though that would have gone right over my head unless I had seen Into the Spider-Verse! The voice acting is top notch, with some excellent delivery.

I'm not too keen on most of the side activities, the ones that are go here collect/photo feel a bit dull to me. The lab ones are ok though. There are also far too many of them for my liking and I doubt I will finish them all off unless I have to.

@JohnnyShoulder I started off thinking I’d not do all the side activities and mop up all the icons and then before I knew it, I was just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the platinum so persisted. It’s not too bad to 100% the map if you mix the side activities in gradually as you swing around town.
I will say the pigeons were my least favorite, by far. You probably haven’t unlocked those yet, but it’s not really a spoiler.
Glad you enjoy it. The story picks up a bit toward the latter half.

@Th3solution Yeah I've unlocked chase the pigeon. Not great. I wouldn't say revealing a side activity is trying to catch pigeons is a spoiler either. 😂

Don't think the story is awful or anything, just that I've seen most things coming a mile off. And I always try not to second guess stuff. Finished Act 1 yesterday and the set pieces have been cool too.

Like all the different suits, it would have been nice if they came with a bit of history or something.

@JohnnyShoulder So Yeah, spoiler alert — the pigeons have absolutely nothing to do with anything. They play no role whatsoever in defeating the final boss. 😂

And yes, the story was decent but not earth-shattering. There’s some really cool moments though.
And the suits are fun to collect but I used the same 3-4 throughout most of the campaign. Favorite suit was the one called Mark III, I think, and favorite power to put with it was Spider-Bro. When I had a group on a rooftop I’d switch it out for the guitar one or the other one that blasts everyone far away from you since that would knock most enemies off the rooftop to their presumed demise.
Collecting the suits is the way they trap you into doing all the side activities to get those tokens to unlock them.
By the way, if you’ve read any of the thread you might have already seen this advice, but if there is any chance you want the platinum then you’ll need to buy/unlock all the suits. There is a trophy for that. There is not a trophy for unlocking or maxing out all the gadgets. So you’ll need to ration your tokens appropriately toward prioritizing buying suits instead of gadget upgrades. Otherwise you’ll have to score “Ultimate” or Gold on the most of the Taskmaster challenges, which would be a super pain, especially if you don’t like the pigeons since there are some of the challenges that are a similar thing where you’re chasing something around trying to get to a moving obstacle in an allotted time. Bronzing the challenges is pretty easy and if you at least do that and do all the crimes, gang camps, and landmarks, etc then you’ll have enough tokens to get all the suits. So try not to blow too many tokens on the gadgets if you can help it. I think I upgraded the first 2-3 levels of most basic gadgets and still had enough though, but it was pretty close at the end with one of the types of tokens, I forget which.

I have a question for anyone who has purchased the GOTY edition. Is the dlc on the disc or does it come with redemption codes?

Thanks in advance

@Th3solution Not read the rest of the thread, I tend to only to once I've finished with the game.

Damn it, I thought the pigeons were going to be the main antagonist in the game and were going to hold New York to ransom. "Pay the money or we poop all over every vehicle window."

Done a few of the Taskmaster challenges, quite like the combat ones, the bomb ones were ok, did not like chasing the drones at all.

Cheers for advice on the suits and gadgets, i was aware of that but prefer to unlock stuff which suits (no pun intended) the way I'm playing and I'm actually using rather than geared towards obtaining trophies. So come the end of the game is there is still stuff to unlock and I have activities left to do which I haven't enjoyed, I will stop playing rather than grinding and my experience of the game be marred.

Sorry seems I went off in a bit of a rant there!

@redd214 I believe the word on the street is that it’s just a code put in with the original game disc. I could be wrong though.

@Th3solution OK cool, plan on picking up the GOTY version for $15 on BF and just selling the disc for 10 or so to get the dlc! Thanks again!

@JohnnyShoulder No worries — your sentiment about not worrying about trophies and just focusing on game enjoyment is a good one. I usually draw the line at trophy hunting when the enjoyment stops, but I usually enjoy the meta-game in its own way.
In fact I played Spider-Man without the intent to get the platinum and only discovered in the latter stages of the game that I was so close to the platinum that I could fairly easily just mop up the last icons and the trophy came fairly naturally so long as I just did that one plan to focus on unlocking the suits first.

I’ll be interested to hear how you get along with it through the last half.

@Th3solution Yeah see how it goes, I may be really enjoying the game and not want to end by the time I finish the story.

So I got past Act 2, the prison break section from one E3. I'm surprised that is so late in the game (story is at 76%), i just assumed that was from early on in the game. And now there are more activities unlocked, which are just more of the same of the other activities but harder. A bit of more variation would have been good. Oh well, I suppose I can ignore those for now and just do the story and side missions and I'm in the mood to do them.

The story, traversal and combat is what hold this game together. Most of the rest just feels like padding to extended the length of the game, something which I'm not a great fan of.

@Arugula I think they are good storytellers - but also that they were tasked to bring in a game that held enough content on the disc not to get roasted, but also have enough left over for dlc.

Other than the Spider-Man specific gameplay, Second Son plays out almost exactly the same, but I'd say is about two thirds the length of Spider-Man. Which was fine I thought - but the marketing push alone for Spider-Man would've meant massive losses if people's impressions of the game were that it was great but 10 hours long... With paid dlc to follow.