#ps4venom

[firstpuffin]

Possible improvements to the potential second Spider-Man PS4 game: costumes

This is the last one, folks! Honest!

I absolutely had to write something about the costumes and I was originally upset at there being no black symbiote costume until I realised there might be a reason for that: #ps4venom. Urgh, I just made a hashtag; can’t believe I went there. Anyway, Venom should appear in the second game so I’m hyped.

  Anyway, I love the range of costumes they have in the game, including Tobey Maguire’s suit, but anyone who played the PS1 games or read the comics knows there is a whole bunch left: the original Iron Spider (which I really want [and appeared in the DLC!]), Captain Universe, the other Ben Reilly costume, the Superior Spider-Man costume, and more I both do and don’t know (there are so many!). Heck, Spidey himself jokes about making a green suit for Earth day; I’d love to see that.

–damn, they need to put this game on the Playstation Store-

  Despite this, there are a few issues with the costume situation.

Acquisition

One of the more boring side missions is to track the Black Cat’s thefts only to find out that she was stealing a legitimate fortune as a distraction so that she can 1; break in and steal her gear back from the police and 2; give Spidey a costume she designed for him. I really like this as it’s a cool and immersive way to give you a new costume, and it reminds me of the comics where she was so smitten with the black costume that she made him one, and this new black and red (so sexy!) is doubtless in my top 5 for the game.

-the costume in question-

  It’s also cool because the main costume for the game was partly designed by Octavious, so that’s two suits provided in a cool and immersive way. Unfortunately, besides the one that Peter makes for the final battle (also in my top 5) they are the only immersive suit acquisitions which gets particularly annoying for the Negative suit. Am I being nitpicky?

  Absolutely!

  See, at some point this costume just appears as one that you can craft, but not long at all after I got it there is a bit where Mr Negative (as in Negative suit) uses his odd power on you, dragging you to a negative world where it would be a perfect first appearance and it would make sense for it to then appear as a craftable suit.

  It just feels like an odd oversight.

-this is... not actually the suit in question; it’s the PS1 version and damn, they need to put this game on the Playstation Store-

The costumes themselves

Each costume comes with a suit power but is generally pointless other than for aesthetic purposes which is kinda disappointing, especially given that once crafted any suit can have any power. Certain things allow you to slightly increase certain stats but that’s about it. What I want is probably very basic: I want the metal suits to increase defence, the black suits to increase stealth etc. There could be other bonuses too, like the High Velocity suit to have a constant minor speed increase and such.

  I want another reason to change outfits, or at least some common-sense stat changes.

-Spider Armor MK III- This metal chest plate stretches as he moves-

  Something else that would be cool would be upgrading the powers you get or better yet, the suits themselves. You can always have three “Suit mods”, so how about upgrading for more? If each suit had a completely unique extra, like my suggestion for the High Velocity suit, then it would be really cool to upgrade that further.

  And yeah it takes tokens to upgrade, but you don’t need to create a ton of side quests, just let us farm tokens from the same missions. We can already repeat them so why not?

  Another issue that I had was understanding the suit powers themselves and there are a number I still can’t figure out, and I suspect that some of them were nerfed in an attempt to stop them from being overpowered. This is a shame as I think they were weakened a bit too far, like the stealth field that doesn’t cover much ground and is very easy to walk out of.

What else?

When it comes to suit complaints I think I’m out, but what else could be added? Well if we have two Spider-Men in the sequel then that could mean more suits. Sure, Miles only has like three that I know of: the Spider-Man cosplay that he starts with, his suit from SHEILD and the Spider-Verse version, but who said that the game creators can’t design some more? Or maybe the suits work for either character just to up the choice?

  How about hats? This YouTuber I follow has this hat that people associate with him and for his video thumbnails he has photoshopped the hat onto Spidey’s noggin. So what if that was an option? It’s an easy means of customisation and a better collectable than newspapers (I’ve been getting the same newspaper for ages and I don’t know why!).

  Like seriously, how cool would that be?

  Actually, on a similar note, one of the comics Spider-Man at a fancy party with Silver Sable and he’s wearing a tux over his outfit, so how about different clothes that go over the costumes? Like a tux, a dress, a ninja outfit or some armour or something? The options are endless and really cool.

-the thumbnail in question-

And that’s that. I’ve done my best to address various problems within the game and to offer suggestions. Of course I don’t expect this to be used as a checklist by the games developers, they’ll never actually see it, but I’ve said my bit and it never hurts to have an example of constructive criticism floating about rather than just negative old criticism.

[firstpuffin]

Possible improvements to the potential second Spider-Man PS4 game: story

-Note: sorry this is late, I have no excuses. I simply got the days confused.

There are a few issues with the story that I would like to bring up but it was generally good. If you focus solely on the story then it is short; this isn’t really a problem in and of itself but it makes it difficult to flesh out certain characters and relationships.

The villains

  We get to see the main villain’s decent into- well, villainy, and it’s pretty good; unfortunately I feel that it gets a bit rushed towards the end and, while we have a reason for it, I would personally have liked a bit more of a lead up to this though. Octavious goes from a nice man with a progressive neurological disorder to a murderer of innocents; sure he has some- outside stimuli (by which I mean tech to the brain), but we should have seen more of the change.

  It’s not terrible though and his story is absolutely emotionally gripping.

-credit to u/MightUlt-7 on reddit for thinking of taking a picture here of all places-

More importantly though, this is supposed to be constructive so how could this be improved on for the sequel? A bit more show and a bit less tell; I think I know where Octavious’s problems started but it’s only a guess and they should have shown a bit more throughout the game. A bit more anger, more desperation, some clearly irrational thinking; it could have been done without too much problem either. Might not even need to change much, even a few tentative touches to the back of the head, an uncontrolled angry expression, just little things.

  It’s hard to say anything more without knowing what the sequel is planning, but they have a good head start on the Green Goblin so it should be easier to flesh him out some.

  There was some confusion (for me at least) about Martin Li, aka Mr Negative, and how Peter knew he was responsible for a certain event. It was only upon watching someone else play it that I realised it was because Peter saw him; I missed it the first time because it was a hectic moment with faded colours and Li only being onscreen for a moment.

  My recommendation is to make the big reveal a bit less fleeting.

-did Peter not consider that philanthropist and close friend of his aunt may also (also May) be brainwashed?-

Devil’s Breath

A large part of the story revolves around the Devil’s Breath superweapon and when I heard the name pop up I was excited as all hell!

  In the comics, Devil’s Breath is a gas that targets specific bloodlines so you could gas a city and only kill a certain family; it’s a weapon of awesome power due to its ease of deployment and precision. In the game- well it’s a generic bioweapon, ‘nuff said. I mean, sure, it’s technically a cure for genetic disorders that is still in progress, and that it’s relevant to the story, but it’s still very boring.

Side-characters: John Jonah Jameson

The infamous JJJ was always going to be tricky to write, with his raw emotion, irrational hatred of Spidey but otherwise sound judgement. I know a lot of people don’t see his competent side as when we see him it’s usually connected to Spidey, but he made it big in the newspaper business for a reason.

  In Spider-Man PS4 he is Alex Jones, who is quite honestly a joke here in England and hopefully everywhere. JJJ is proud but not so much that he won’t own up to his mistakes; he prints retractions, he apologises and accepts where he messed up. He knows full well that he made a big mistake in having the Scorpion created; but in Spider-Man PS4 he rejects the responsibility and blames others.

  That’s a big no.

  This is probably one of the issues with the game that I do thoroughly dislike. JJJ is a good and complex character but they’ve made him a joke. Although, in his defence, he does appear to step up when the city goes to hell.

Miles Morales

There aren’t a lot of side characters worth mentioning but Miles has been set up to be very interesting in a sequel. We’ve been shown that he’s brave and kind and all of the things that a Spider-Man needs and most importantly, he has powers by the end of the game.

  There were a number of token character swaps where we played as powerless Miles or MJ, which sucked, but now that there are two Spider-Men we can have some decent character swapping. I don’t know if Peter has any powers that Miles doesn’t have, but Miles has at least two powers that Peter doesn’t and I suspect that Peter has greater scientific know-how so if done well then it could be really fun to switch between the two.

-credit to u/SebVettel5 on reddit for being so inconsiderate to our hero-

Side missions

While playing I had to pretend that many of the side missions were happening after the story for the sake of immersion. Like many open world games, time may not actually pass unless you do the main story, allowing you to spend unrealistic amounts of time doing side missions; it’s a good thing for the player but when one of those side missions changes the time of day before sending you back to the same time, causing you to both miss and not miss in game appointments, it’s hard to justify it to yourself.

  Speaking of side missions (but applicable to anything Spidey has to interact with), quite often the game will target something that you can interact with, but you have to get the camera in the exact right position before you can interact with it. This may not sound too annoying but it can be quite picky at times and sometimes it seems to affect the webslinging as well as combat which can be incredibly annoying.

-sorry about the poor quality, I don’t understand transferring files from the PS4-

This was supposed to be the end of my Spider-Man constructive criticism, but I haven’t even gotten onto the bit that I really wanted to talk about: the costumes. One of my favourite parts of any game is character customisation and I have great memories of the PS1 Spider-Man games allowing me to play with the different costumes which, let’s be honest, is one of the things we love about superheroes: the costumes.

  I guess I’ll have to do just one more.

[firstpuffin]

Possible improvements to the potential second Spider-Man PS4 game: gameplay

Don’t get me wrong this game was great, even if I can’t fully figure out the dodge mechanic after almost maxing the damn thing (minus the DLC). Maybe that’s just me though. But there is no such thing as perfect and the very nature of this article is constructive criticism so remember that this isn’t an attack on the game.

  The first list that I whipped up was surprisingly long and I don’t want to write another 2000 word article because I don’t know how popular those are (I like them though) so I’m going to write a couple of 1000 word articles with what I see as the main issues and maybe slip some of the smaller things in with them. And I’m not going to focus on the petty things, such as the occasionally weird physics if you just let Spidey swing up and don’t release the webline.

  I’ll also ignore how the targeting system seemed to get a bit erratic towards the end, although maybe that’s just my copy; that’s a weird flaw not to have been noticed during testing. So as I’ve brought these up, let’s start with gameplay issues.

Gameplay: ordinary combat

I always thought that the Batman Arkham series had gameplay better suited to Spidey thanks to his Spidey sense, superhuman agility and gadgetry (although the latter traditionally suits Batman more), so I was elated to see that this game was doing the same. There’s the dodge system, the web shooting and using said webs to pick things up and swing them around, usually to huck them at someone’s face; this last system is really useful but the issue comes along when you pick up a cinder block or something equally lethal and yeet it at someone’s face.

  Yes, the obvious answer is that it’s using video game logic which is distinctly different to that of our real world. And that would they be fine had they not gone out of their way in other areas to keep these people alive. You throw someone off of a building and some gadget webs them to it, preventing a pavement and thug pizza that no-one ordered.

  All they needed to do was not have obviously lethal objects to throw.

  Another related issue is that whenever you web something, Spidey swings it around his head like the Hulk with a god, which is really annoying given there are a number of side missions that require you to, say, yank off a car’s boot (trunk to you American folk) and Spidey just swings it around and lobs it into the crowd. Now civilians can’t get hurt, which is great, but it brings you out of the game somewhat.

-who calls a car boot a “door”? ah well- credit to u/VidantV on Reddit-

Boss battle combat

One thing that I’ve noticed about modern games is that a lot of the boss battles feel scripted; maybe I was too dumb as a kid to notice but I remember that even in games when there is a set way to defeat them there was usually some freedom in how you approached it. But sometimes, it feels like the entire fight is repetitive and that there is only one way to approach it.

  I felt like that thrice during this game. For the first one against the Shocker I figured it out after four, maybe five losses; for the second against Electro and Vulture then maybe I was just overwhelmed, that happens, but the final boss was kinda restrictive. They give you a new ability that I found was useless and Doc Ock just keeps doing the same thing, again and again. Just to make things worse, throughout the game in ordinary street fights you get to see a large number of imaginative and fun special moves, but during the final boss you get the same one again, and, again. In the final part against Octavious, you are fighting on the edge of the building and you are forced to do the same thing again, and again.

  I’m saying again and again a lot, aren’t I?

  I’m not asking for too much, just more of what they did for the rest of the game for the freakin’ climax of the damn thing. On the plus side, his damaged costume looks great.

-it’s just this scene; punch; back to this; punch; back to this…-

Stealth

Don’t get me wrong, I really, really liked the stealth in this game; I would just like it to be expanded on in the next game. Spider-Man is kinda perfect for stealth: he can crawl along surfaces and he has his webs and sixth sense (plus tech in this incarnation).

  Unfortunately the most we get is a bunch of rooftop sections where stealth is optional and a couple of inside sections that don’t really allow for much. I’m not going to say anything about the MJ and Miles stealth sections except for no. No.

-do all superhero love interests have to be journalists these days?-

  What I really want is more options, more indoor settings, more takedowns and more powers. There are like, two suit powers that are supposed to help with stealth; one I found useless and the other I couldn’t figure out.

  This would actually be a really good time to start talking about the suits and powers, but I’ll save that for another time as we are almost at the word count.

-noir suit: not quite the same as the comic book version, but it’s not bad-

So let’s just make this clear: these aren’t complaints. Even the points I’ve brought up here are not bad, I still enjoy these parts of the game but they can be improved and if the moral of Spider-Man is not to become better, then I don’t know what is.

  Well actually, this article is so…