Halfway through catching up with Spidey games, I found my first dud. Weirdly enough, it's the level of quality I semi-expected from all of them, so it was a pleasantly unpleasant surprise (or unpleasantly pleasant... I don't know surprises; you get what I mean).
Spider-Man: The Movie on PS2 carries all the hallmarks people reference when bashing licenced games from the late 90s and early 00s. It cuts corners whilst unashamedly stealing gameplay mechanics from other, better games (in this case, the two preceding PSone Spidey adventures, which were absolutely fantastic but crucially made by other developers). It has a Hollywood leading man contractually obliged to provide dialogue regardless of whether he's actually a talented voice actor and, spoiler alert, he isn't. Tobey Maguire made for a wonderful big-screen Spidey but, in the recording booth, his quips awkwardly writhe out of his mouth like anecdotes from a eulogy.
And it goes off the rails halfway through, struggling to fill its twenty-odd levels with content from a two-hour movie and so coming up with the most dangerous of ideas: original content (aaah!!). Some of it isn't too ridiculous; there are battles with Shocker and Vulture which don't disgrace the tone but, when you finally get to sneak around OsCorp's HQ and find a fifteen-storey Megazord lurking in the basement, any semblance of authenticity is blasted by its apocalyptic laser cannon arms.
The PS2 reinforces its status as the least-powerful console of its generation, as it desperately attempts to run what was obviously a multi-platform cash cow. The framerate tanks on a regular basis, particularly when swinging between skyscrapers. The controls are bizarrely mapped and, to make matters worse, you're lucky if 75% of your frantic button-pressing is even registered; when it is, there's input lag so bad, you could make a ham sandwich in the delay. The physics are wonky, the camera is erratic, and Spidey has clearly formed a deep emotional bond with the walls upon which he crawls, as he'll veer towards them even when you're trying to run in the opposite direction. The web swinging is a broken mess, and the combat is painfully unfair. It throws all kinds of enemies and flashy effects at you in a confusing, unstoppable deluge of "Game Over! Retry or Quit?" screens (and picking the former sends you all the way back to the beginning of the current level, cutscenes and all; no checkpoints here, alas). And don't even get me started on the stealth missions!
Some redeeming features were buried amidst this rubble of mediocrity. Tobey Maguire might not have translated to the small screen well, but Willem Dafoe chewed through his script with relish, and Bruce Campbell's tutorial narration was an inspired turn... and okay, in early levels, when it wasn't trying too hard, there were brief moments of basic, enjoyable playability. They lasted all of three minutes, but they were cool enough, even if they were indicative of the "can't possibly mess this up" ideas stolen from the Neversoft and Vicarious Visions predecessors.
These kinds of games used to be my core. Aside from a small handful of exceptions, I spent my entire PSone and PS2 life playing licenced tie-in adventures. I think expanding my horizons on the PS3 and PS4 has spoiled me somewhat since; despite expecting this kind of experience when I purchased it, and actually looking forward to playing it, I became real frustrated real quick.
You've really got to want to engage with games like these, to learn their foibles and play around them to find the fun, but this did little to engender such a response. I just wanted it over.
But hey, one bad apple in a bunch of four? Those aren't the worst odds. Four more to go.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
Are you going to go for the rest of the series? Kiwami 1 does feel a bit of a step back as it is a remake of an older game but the story is still fantastic.
Like any good horror game, I never quite got the hang of the controls even against the final boss. I actually died against the final boss about 6 times but thankfully the continue button lets you immediately retry boss fights. I saw one guide that told me that to defeat the final boss I had to ‘shoot the boss and avoid getting hit’. Needless to say, when I employed that tactic, I won!
Always solid advice.
Was this your first time beating Silent Hill?
And yeah, I love the game, but the controls are janky as all get out. Even by survival horror standards. I don't think it really detracted from this game for me, though.
@kyleforrester87@Ralizah Yep, my first time playing the original Silent Hill and it was brilliant. It did feel longer than those 4 and a bit hours though, that’s just time logged by the game since I died a lot in the early game. I had way too many bullets by the end though because I’m a hoarder, I just ran past everything. Except those nurses, they were pretty freaky.
Silent Hill always used to feel very long when I was playing it. I'd usually play for 45 minutes or so and then stop because I was usually getting freaked out by then (gimme a break, I was a kid).
I just beat Hyper Light Drifter and I really enjoyed it. The core gameplay was tight, the music was incredible and I loved the ending, really powerful stuff. I’m glad I finally got round to finishing it, @kyleforrester87 inspired me to give it a proper go and it was a really fun ride. Perfect game to play if you’re struggling after a big release as it’s only taken me a couple of days.
I just finished The Council and loved it. It’s one of the best adventure games I have played on the system and for those who like those kind of games I cannot recommend it highly enough.
The PSVR is the best VR system on the market today.
@Arugula Do you think you’ll play Part 2 at launch? I think both the story and the gameplay are getting pretty substantial overhauls.
For me, I really liked the story and characters, and I liked the gameplay well enough, I’m not a fan of games with extremely limited resources. Also not a huge fan of horror games as a general rule, but I have a few that I’ve really enjoyed. So I’m not sure how I feel about the second game yet. I like the father-daughter vibe of the first game and I suspect that is not part of Part 2’s central theme anymore.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Finished the last chapter of Danganronpa. Dunno if I’ll bother with School Mode but yeah, great game. We seem to have been rather busy with that series here 😂
I've just beat (again) Shadow of the Tomb Raider but this time on it's hardest difficulty 'Deadly Obsession'. It wasn't to tricky but the worst part was it only saves when use a camp fire. This resulted in some serious frustration when a careless mistake or jump can lead to replaying large chunks of gameplay. At least the load times after death gave me time to calm down. I was just relieved when I died in the mud slide sequence it had a rare checkpoint at the start of it rather than my last campfire which was ages back before lots of combat. The bit I thought I might struggle on, the last fight, I actually did on the first attempt.
It made me ponder what actually makes a good hard mode?
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