Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Spider-Man 2 Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

Tim, Blessing, Greg, and Andy give their reviews of Marvel Spider-Man 2 on PlayStation 5 by Insomniac. Time Stamps - - Start - Housekeeping - Our Spider-Man 2 Review - Blessing’s Thoughts - Greg’s Thoughts - Andy’s Thoughts - Side Activities - Boss Fights & Combat - Peter’s Face, Overall Looks, and Performances - Does the story live up to the hype? - Does this take Insomniac to new heights? - The Writing - Pete Gameplay vs. Miles Gameplay - The Costumes - Small Gripes - The Overall World - Back to the Story, Themes, and Plot - Is it Game of the Year? - Play Styles - Final Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the kind of funny games cast. Of course I am Tim Geddes. That was an amazing intro by the one and only Cameron Kennedy. I didn't even ask him to do this. He's just is such a big insomniac Spider-Man fan that he's like, I got, I gotta do this. And he sent it over, I'm like, well, we gotta use it because that shit is hot.

But of course, I am joined by the new face of video games, Blessing Adioia Jr. Good day, Tim. Game Over Greggie himself, Greg Miller. I like how the sun came out when you went to this shot. Beautiful. And round it out. round and out our review crew today,

the nitro rifle, Andy Cortez. Smells so good in there, smoke. Yeah. That on-cam live smoke. Not the rehearsal smoke. It never smells this game. It never does smell the same. Of course, today we're talking about Spider-Man 2.

This is going to be our review, but I assure you this will not be the last you hear us talk about this game. We have so much content coming out over the next couple weeks. We've got a whole bunch of TikToks coming out. You can follow us on the Kind of Funny Games TikTok channel to see all of those. We also have a full spoiler cast with Brian Intohart. So I'm next Brian Intaire making his return.

We did a spoiler cast for the first game that, hey, maybe you should go back and listen to to get a little caught up before you play Spider-Man. We nailed it. Honestly, one of my favorite pieces of content we've ever done. So, of course, we have to do the sequel. We'll be doing that shortly. In addition to that, even sooner, tomorrow, what do you got going on? Greg?

PSLVU XOXO is, of course, your Spider-Man 2FAQ. You are watching this review. I'm sure you're reading other reviews, listening to other reviews. you have a couple hours to write in to Kindofunny.com slash PSI-L-Y so Janet Blessing and myself can answer those spoiler-free questions as part of PSI-Love you, of course. Come to patreon.com. com slash Kind of Funny.

Watch it live with us. Ask us more questions. And of course, this is going to be as spoiler-free of a review as we can possibly do. We do not want to ruin this experience for anybody. We know that this game in particular is one of those ones that there's a lot of things you can get spoiled out and people don't want to. So we're going to try our best to be really sensitive to all of that.

So you should not fret my friend. friend. Thank you PlayStation. Of course, this is provided by PlayStation. Thank you so much for giving us the coach to this game. I want to give an extra shout to them for giving as many coats as they gave. They really went above and beyond to make sure everyone it kind of funny that wanted to play this game. Was able to play. They were kind of confident, it turns out.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. For good reason, we'll have to wait and see. But of course, this is the Kind of Funny Games cast. Each and every week we get together to talk about video games and all the things that we love about them. You can get it on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games or roosterteeth.com. as a video. If you want to get the podcast version, though, search your favorite podcast service for Kind of Funny Gamescast, and we will be right there for you. If you wanted to go above and beyond, though, Patreon.com slash kind of funnies. Is where you want to go. You can be one of our cool

Patreon producers like Jedi Master Deadpool or Delaney Twining, who get the show ad free. They get to watch shows live as we record them. They get a whole bunch of bonus content, and you can join them over on patreon.com slash kind of funny. Today we're brought to you by BetterHelp and Emersion fragrance, but we'll tell you about those later. We got to get into it. What I want to do is I'm the lead reviewer here, kind of funny for Spider-Man, but I want to go around the table first

and ask how much you've played at the game, how many hours, and what your completion level is. Blessing, let's start with you. I've played about 25 hours, the Spider-Man 2. I have platinum Spider-Man 2, which means I've also gotten 100%. Greg Miller. PlayStation clock says 30 hours for me. I'm 100%.

I've platinum Spider-Man, too. Andy Cortez. I'm going to assume close to the 30 hour mark, but he always, you know, I would take a couple hours off because if I just sit there and scroll TikTok. My first ever platinum, everybody. Spider-Man 1 was my first ever platinum.

Wow, look at that. I'm ditching PC gaming. We are full on. We did it. Trophy. Let's go. And then Barrett, you're running the show right now too,

but how much have you played? How much have you completed? Yeah, my PlayStation clock again, It's never really consistent on tracking, but it says 29 hours. I have also 100%ed and platinumed it. Oh. I am at 30 hours and I have also 100% in it. Man, we hate this game.

I know. That makes, so Spider-Man 1 was my first ever platinum that I ever got, and I got Miles Morales and I got Ratchett and Clank, both of those before we hit the review embargo. Here I am again, platinum in a game. A rare feat for me to do, but it just shows how much is in the game for you to love. But I want to start off saying, Spider-Man 2 is a 5 out of 5.

Yeah. I absolutely love this game. And honestly, I think it's going to be kind of hard for me to put into words how actually glowing I am about my experience with this game. I feel like what Insomniac has accomplished is, for me, cementing that for the taste I have in video games, they're the best out there doing it. This is what I look for when it comes to AAA video games,

when it comes to a PlayStation 5 experience. This is an all-timer for me. I feel like I've never enjoyed doing what I'm doing moment to moment to moment in a video game as much as this one. And that stayed up for the 30 hours that I played. If it was even longer, I would want to keep playing even longer. And just like Spider-Man 2018 and Miles Morales, this will be a game that for years to come, I will pop on whenever I have 10 minutes just to swing around and stop some crime. There are so many set pieces in this game that I feel are as good as the best set pieces in me.

many other games. And honestly, I think that the sheer quantity of set pieces in this game might out rival any other game. Like, it is insane how many big things happen that feel like a bespoke experience that aren't anywhere else in the game or are different or tackle a location in a way that we never thought possible. I was completely blown away by that. And the intro of this game, we're putting up our first hour experience with it. And you'll be able to see just my genuine, like, freak out moments of what's going on, even from the jump of this. It's full of stories that actually matter. There's surprises at every turn.

And I think this might be the best use of an established world of characters that we've seen in a game. And I feel like that's so, or in a game based on an IP. So that, we've seen Star Wars in like Jedi Fallen Order, Jazz Survivor. I love them dearly. Insomniac just has so much fun with the breadth and depth of the world of Spider-Man. And now they are three games deep and they're able to have that much fun with their own interpretations of these characters. I feel like it is the ultimate Spider-Man simulator. It's the best example of what makes a PS5 game, a PS5 game.

And the biggest compliment I can give it is it's a game that I would recommend to literally anybody. Like, this is what video games can be with as much mainstream appeal as possible, as much fun as possible. To say it's just more Spider-Man would be ignoring so much of what makes the game such an accomplishment, I think. Because, I mean, to start there, it is more Spider-Man. It is everything that you love about those Spider-Man games. And it takes so much of the good and just enhances that, but I feel like it's less in all the right ways. There's less of the trivial things you have to do.

There's more variation in all the side stuff you have to do. There's more options to not do the things that you're not really having fun doing, but still able to complete the task that you need to if you want. And I feel that it is absolutely wild how many quality of life improvements this has and just how snappy everything is. This goes back to the PS5, but it also shows how good insomniac is of using, using the tech. The dual sense has never been better.

And I think that's true in terms of how it feels with the haptics and how it sounds. They've nailed the use of sound in video games. It's you get a little phone call, a little thir-th-th-th-th-you-don't get the voices. It's just, it's a great immersive experience between you holding the controller, seeing what you're seeing. The sound mix is unrivaled. Unfortunately, the Dolby Atmos mix wasn't there for launch for me, but I can't wait to get back in and fully see what they got with that because I guarantee it's going to knock it out of the park.

But I feel like little improvements like the wing suit took one of my favorite mechanics and video games, which is swinging around New York City and made it even better somehow. Constantly you're being rewarded with things, whether it's suits, whether it's fun gameplay elements, the podcast playing in between the missions that you're doing. I just, I can't believe how much I enjoyed this. Tons of little things that aren't my favorite story ever in terms of Spider-Man, my favorite take on this character. Oh, we've seen this before, whatever. All of that, I think, falls by the wayside when it looks at,

when I look at the characters and the moments they have and the fun that I had with this game, this one's truly special. Hell yeah. What do you think, Bless? Yeah, so I'm going to give it a four out of five. I agree with so much of what you're talking about. I think for me, the thing that's going to make this interesting in terms of how we take it and how I think the audience and the internet takes it in terms of the critical sense is

it being more Spider-Man, right? And for me, Spider-Man 2 is more Spider-Spider-Man, and it's more Spider-D-Man in the best ways possible. And then in some ways that I think hold it back at the same time. but what I'm talking about in the best ways possible, I think what's special about this game and what was special about some of the previous Spider-Man's is that New York is a character in Spider-Man 1 and in Spider-Man Maas Morales, right?

It's not all about the Spider-Men. It is about the citizens. It's about characters like Haley. It's about characters that you meet doing side quests. And the way in which they follow up on certain characters, the way in which they follow up on certain communities, I think is done in a way that's really fascinating and really cool for a superhero video game, right?

And I think that stuff is awesome. You talk about some of the little additions, like the wing suit, the wing suit is incredible. The wing suit for me is single-handedly my favorite edition in this game, right? Like, I never thought that they'd be able to step up the traversal in a way that made it multiple times better than it was in the original Spider-Man game. But, like, it really does make a difference. And there are activities that are built around the wingsuit that really do enhance it. Like, if you're watching the video version right now, right?

Like, there's an activity where you are chasing after these robots and you had to use the wing suit essentially to glide and get it. the draft off of the robots they're chasing after. That stuff is super fun. And again, it's a really good way to enhance the way in which you're exploring New York. The overall story, I would say I enjoyed just as much as Spider-Man 1, not anymore, not any less. Characters like Craven, I thought they did a fantastic job with.

Then there's Venom. And for me, in terms of Venom story, a lot of the Venom stuff reminded me of Venom stories that I've not necessarily loved, right? There are shades of it that give me shades of Spider-Man 3. There are shades of it that make me wonder, like, oh, man, could have been, could have been a better way to do this? Or is this just what Venom stories are? And for me, it's not necessarily my favorite aspect of the story.

But there's that stuff. But for like, the tough thing with the story is that for every part of the story around like, there's another part around like, oh, this is fantastic. Like one of the ones for me is the mission from the demo that we got when we first got the extended gameplay demo from the PlayStation State of Play or the PlayStation Showcase where you are doing the stuff on the water and you're chasing after Lizard. that moment in the game when you actually have your hands on the sticks and you are actually experiencing that moment firsthand, one of my favorite missions in the game, probably one of my favorite Spider-Man missions ever, it is chaotic, it is awesome, it is incredible.

But on the other side, right, like talking about things where I'm like, man, this feels like more Spider-Man. In the same way that I had the same critique in Miles Morales, I had the same critique in this game where I wish characters would talk to each other more. Like there are certain things where I'm like, man, this conflict, this issue would be solved if characters, were just speak to each other and communicate. And I feel like the more interesting side of the conflicts would have came from if we actually had the conflicting, like conflicting morals or the conflicting perspectives as opposed to, oh, man, I'll call you later and then hang up.

And then it's like, oh, but like if you talk, we could solve a lot of this, right? Like, there's quite a few of that in the story, and for me, that holds it back for me. But then on top of that, there are certain elements of stealth missions where they take you out of the shoes, Aspired Man and put you into somebody else's shoes where I'm like, ah, man, like we had this complaint in the first one, you're bringing it back again. There are science puzzles that make a return here.

I'm like, ah, I feel like this is one of those things that, again, takes you out of the shoes, Aspiring Man, and has he doing something that you don't like? And there are moments where they're being really creative in terms of side quests, where you're doing a thing. And it is like, oh, man, I wouldn't expect to be doing this as Spirter Man, but for me, I'm always asking the question of, is this fun and is this additive?

And at some points, it is additive, right? At some points, they use those moments to give you really poignant quests about what the state of some of the citizens in New York is, right? Like, hey, let's put you in the shoes of somebody that you wouldn't have expected to get a kind of story in a Spider-Man, Spider-Man game. But there are others where I'm like, ah, do I really want to do this? Like, the way this controls, the way this feels, like, I just want to be playing a Spider-Man, and I think they do that more often than I would have liked in this game.

But overall, like, you know, in terms of the recommendation, I couldn't recommend this game more. I think it is better than Spider-Man-1 and Miles Morales. I think if you're somebody who's a Spider-Man fan, if you're somebody who's a PlayStation fan, or if you're somebody that is looking to play the hot video games of the year, I could not recommend Spider-Man 2 enough. But I think for me, it is just shy of that five out of five. Gregory Miller.

Hi. What would you give it? I'll continue the trend of going down. I would say this is a three-out-I'm just kidding. This is a five out of five for me. For what's interesting about it, right, is that I feel like when I started playing and was getting going, those first couple night impressions, right,

when I talk to Jen or talk to you guys around here, very top level, because we have not had a real discussion about the game, would be, yeah, it's more Spider-Man. And that was kind of me flirting with the fear of, is it just going to be more? Is it just going to be the same? Is it just going to be whatever?

And there's a point in the game that I feel is story-wise, but also then I think just in terms of breath-wise, right, that we hit and turned, and it was like, oh, okay, and we got off to the races. You know, we just did, we recorded, or we just did, we just talked about Spider-Man on our PSI Love You X-O-X-O. We're doing so much Spider-Man content. It's kind of a blur.

We did our top five of all time, right? And in there, I talked about for Spider-Man 2018, I had the critique, and I think I worded it poorly in the review, but I kind of feel it still. Like, some of the Spider-Man 2018 felt like well-worn territory in terms of story stuff. Like, you're talking about it. We've seen a lot of Spider-Man in our years,

so is this the same? Is this the not? I like this better than that, et cetera, et cetera. I was fascinated that the more I played this, the more I got into it, and the more I was like, oh, that's an interesting choice. Oh, I didn't see that. Okay. In terms of both the major storyline and then the side threads we are getting.

I want to say, you know, before I forget, and I'm sure we're going to have a million conversations about this as we go, the side content, the side missions you're doing, I think rival the best of what Arkham was ever doing. And I mean, it's a series in terms of giving you a very interesting slice of the Marvel universe, Spider-Man's universe, what's going on here, you know, to, you hinted at it, I think, blessed, but, you know, calling back to characters we've met on side missions before that are still there in New York. Of course they would be. And then breaking your heart with it. Like, there's so much emotion in this. You know, I talk a lot about Miles Morales and why I love that game. And like,

you know, for me it was always the morning after beating it, recapping it for Jen and getting choked up at a couple moments in that game. And that I found myself doing the exact same thing here, not talking to Jen about it, living the moment, like watching something happened on screen and tearing up about it. Like, it was hitting on that level at the end of the game and what they were doing. And, you know, I mentioned to you, I think when we were talking about it, a top level of like, man, I've been playing, you guys keep saying you beat it an X amount of hours, and I'm getting to that point. And I still haven't even, I don't know what's going to, you know, I mean, like,

I don't want to say anything or anything. But it was like, are they about to Spider-Man 3 this? Are they about to, you know, do it? And I was so happy they didn't. And I did really enjoy the venom take on this and what they do with it, and the symbiote and everything else they do. And how they included Craven in this. Like, I thought this game is, I mean, spectacular.

Right. We haven't gone through the kind of funny scale, but a five is amazing. A four is great, right? And for me, this is an amazing game. This has leapt to the top of my game of the year. Like, this is for me, like, why I play video games. And I think, you know, even though we're to go on, I'm sure to keep giving it flowers, the best criticism or the best praise I can give it, I should say, is the fact that I am actively depressed that it's over. Like, you know, before this, it was like, all right, cool, I've already moved on to a couple different reviews. Let's boot it back up. Let's go swing around. Swing around. I'm like, I just wish there was more to do in this game because I love it that much. Andy Cortez. I am probably the closest here to blessing as far as his thoughts go, but I still can't look at this whole package of side quests and story and collectibles and everything and not give it an amazing score. Like I think this game is amazing

and is one of the easiest recommended must-buys of the year. I got a lot of kind of God of War Ragnarok from 2018 vibes where I think this is an overall better video game, but I didn't have like the same amazing experience like I did back with 2018 or 2017 rather. And I think a lot of that is just, wait, was it 2018? 2018. They were both 2018. They were both 2018. And I think a lot of that is the story and just the novelty of having this next genie. experience of Spider-Man done the best way possible in 2018.

And now, like, this is overall a better video game, right? When we're talking about mechanics, when we're talking about level design, when we're talking about NPCs and side quests, I think this game did what Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart did, where when Rift and Part came out, I was like, this is my favorite insomniac game. Because not only is all the main stuff incredible, but the side stuff that they have you do in Ratcht the part.

Klanck Rift Apart, I still found incredibly enjoyable. And I feel like this really ramped up a lot of the side quests where I didn't platinum 2018, not only because there wasn't a whole lot of costumes that I didn't really care about, right? Or there were a decent amount of costumes I didn't care about getting and fetching. And in this one, I just wanted all of them. But I just felt like a lot of the side content was just not really engaging and not stuff I wanted to be doing.

this does all of the non-spitey stuff so much better than 2018, I think. When we're talking about the sneaky stuff like Bless was talking, the science missions, all those little things that aren't you in the Spidey suit, I think, are done so much better than the 2018 version.

I still think that 2018 story and plot and just going from beat to beat was a lot, a decent amount stronger for me. This one just didn't quite hit, unfortunately. And I think a lot of that could just be what Blessie was mentioning, like, man, this whole venom story just isn't quite working for me as much as I would like it to be. But it's still an incredible experience. Highly recommend it.

Yeah, I love this video game. Very, very good. Very, very good. I mean, I feel like something that we all touched on really loving was the side content. And I feel that this game does such a great job of having its main quest. just like Miles Morales and Spider-Man one did, but having the main quest easily accessible, clear to what you're supposed to do. But the way that the side quests are even presented in this being more embedded in the world, and it's as simple a change as instead of everything just

being in the menu and you go through and click and like waypoint and get to it, like just finding the tech that's set around the city. Like I found myself having even more fun than I've ever had swinging around. And I know I've talked about this for years, how much I enjoy just doing that. But trying to look at all the different rooftops as a, as we were swinging by. And again, the graphics of this game are just absolutely insane.

It's gorgeous. And I want to give a major shout out to just the performance of this game in the options. And I feel like Insomniak did such a great job with Miles Morales and then with Rift apart of giving the different options.

But the VRR 120 hertz where it's the 40 frames per second with ray tracing all the bells and whistles. My God, it's magic. I'm so impressed with what they're able to pull off there. And whether you're playing on performance, Fidelity, I had a great time every which way.

through all of that. And it just enhanced the experience of the seamless SSD of loading, flying through with the wings through how fast everything was. But how often I am pulled off the main track to go do these side things that's, oh, I see a little glowing thing over there. I know what that's going to be. Let me just grab it. Get that.

Oh, a photo location. Let me take the photo. It felt more seamless than the other games. It's a lot of the same stuff. But because of how snappy everything is, it kind of just felt like less a detraction from the main quest and more part of the adventure. more with seamless is like the best word I can use.

But then when you get to a side quest that slows down a little bit and like starts to have like these little like more story based things, I'm completely blown away. Like I feel like there are a handful of side missions in this that are like as good as any game that I've played. And that's where the Arkham stuff comes up for me, right? Where there's certain one that we, you know, I hadn't finished you guys. Have you finished this? Oh no. It's like you get to the end. Like, holy shit.

Like if you didn't do this side mission all the way through, you're. missing a pretty crucial piece of the puzzle of what the future of Spider-Man, if they do another one, which of course they will, would be, right? And I think that's awesome. And like even there, Barrett showed, you know, collecting a spider bot, right? Like, there are these little things and blah, blah, and the last game was filled with backpacks and little things to get. But even Spider-Bot, as soon as I, that story started unfurling of like, I was like, wait a second, what are we doing? Like, oh, then this bumps to the top of my to-do list, right? The story will be there. And it's not just the, I want to get every suit, I want the reward for it. It was like, oh, this seems like it's going to

matter. This is going to be cool. And they have all sorts of storylines and peppered in there. And just jumping off that with like the spider bots and the tech packs I was talking about. Like, I feel like this game has the best balance so far that we've had in the previous ones of the number of the things, not being too high because I feel like the backpacks, there was just too many of them. Whereas with this, there's enough different things that make you feel like you're not just doing the same thing over and over and over. where the quantity of elements you have to get and the different styles of gameplay that they present,

I think is just a lot better, even when it comes to like the hideouts of the villains. Like, we know we're going to get that. Like, that's what the open world gameplay is of this. And I can do that all day and day. And exactly, but they don't make you do kingpins, construction yards a hundred times. It's you go through the different area five times.

And then there's five times for a different one, five times for a different one. I just feel like it kept it a lot more. I remember platinum in 2018, right, in all, like, the Sable installations at the end, right? So I was so sick of doing those, right? I was annoyed with them. And I was never annoyed with anything I was doing here. And I think the closest I would have gotten would have been, all right, do this puzzle,

this little science thing or right, whatever. And the first time you get one of those, they're like, you can skip these. Anytime you want it, you can skip them, you have to do them, right? So I eventually was like, I don't want to do this. Hit options, skip puzzle. It was done. It's like, you got to read the pop up. You should have, you got to read the pop up.

Because I think what it was, I was like, well, I like puzzles. And so, yeah, I'm going to do all these. But then later on, I'm like, fuck, I'm stuck on this for 10 minutes right now. The sound effects are so good. I love the science. Yeah. I love it. Science puzzles are cool.

I didn't skip every time, but there was times where I was like, all right, I was on my way to something else. And I've landed here. And I know I could do this. I don't want to. I want to shout out also. I think boss design is so much cooler this time around. And I think they took a lot of, um, sort of influences from the stuff that I love and a lot of other people love when it comes to

perfectly timing parries and, you know, webbing up a big enemy and then kind of like having these awesome boss fights that are paced out really well. And it's not just you, the game can get pretty button mashingy in a lot of moments. But I do think that these boss fights are paste out well enough to where it's not just bullet sponge or punch sponge in this case. It is you doing a variety of different things and different stages of these boss fights. And I think that they, they were so enjoyable for me this time around compared to when I think of what I, just one of the more annoying boss fights experience I had in a Spidey game was in Miles Morales against Rhino near the very end. I just, I was like this, this freaking stinks. I don't like this right now.

All these boss fights I enjoyed the hell out of. One question I have for you off of that is you said they can get button mashy. Were you just slamming attack without thought? Because I wasn't. I always felt like I was very much like, okay, I'm using this gadget, I'm doing this thing. One of the things I want to compliment them for is you saw the combat up there if you haven't been paying attention. Obviously, you have your gadgets and you have your powers, right? The powers are swappable, right?

You can go in and you have different ones to put in there so you can build out your little load out, or load out very, very minimally. But in terms of like what you want on that thing, which I thought was cool. Yeah, but it was constantly like, okay, cool, I'm going to use the web deal that I forget the name. It shoots every, pulls everything together. Then I'm going to use this power. All right, they're on cool down. So I am hitting square, square, square, but I'm paying attention. But I am paying attention to, you know, hitting circle to get out of there with Spitey Sense and do all these different things.

It reminded me of, you know, maybe I just got to work on my fingers a little bit more, you know what I mean? But some of my experiences with me, I mean, I don't want to stop you, but have you noticed what happened since 2018? Huh? You went from doing this a lot to doing this year a lot. Oh, keyboard mouse. You're right. You're right. That's on you, but.

I mean, it reminds you of my time with Final Fantasy 16 when you are just like, you are constantly in motion. And in this game, it's very similar to where you're, you have four abilities, five, six abilities, eight, I guess, with gadgets and with abilities. And you're constantly looking at your cool downs. To say that it's not, like, I don't want to say that it's mash you, like you're just playing a fighting game,

but you are constantly, your fingers are always moving. But the boss fights, I thought, were really well thought out and kind of methodical in a lot of moments of knowing, you know, right here, I'm going to have to dodge this. And that, when the blue indicator's up there, I can't parry that or whatever. Like, I enjoyed the hell out of these boss fights. And speaking on the combat, staying in line with a little bit of this is I really, to me, it's a quality of life thing.

Like, playing through Miles Morales and Spider-Man 1, like, the, you hit L1 or R1, I don't even remember what it was. And then you kind of have to use the analog to, like, do the little, like, circle check of, like, what ability you want to have, then you get out, whatever. This is just such a great use. So much better. L-1-face buttons, R-1-5. buttons. And it's like, oh, wow, what a simple little thing that, like, it's the same gameplay.

It just makes it feel so much, again, I keep saying snappier, but that's what it is. I feel like overall, like what would have taken me 40 hours in Spider-Man 1 to platinum and do everything took 30 here. And there's no less content. In fact, there's probably more, but there's just so much cut out of loading and getting somewhere that's not fun. And the slowdown time of the combat of having to do the wheel before you get into it. Like to close it up on combat or where I want to end it for my thoughts on combat, right? It was for me, I felt like we were crushing,

I was crushing him being Spider-Man. I'm talking like Venom now. But it was this idea, right? That like, for me, it felt like a dance. Like, it was that fluid, right? Like, I felt it's simple inputs, but it's making me feel like I'm doing cool stuff. And I also felt like I knew what I was doing.

It wasn't just randomly spamming stuff. But then to swing back to what you were saying, right? Of, like, how fluid, how much time's cut out, like, not having those load screens because the PS5 loads so fast. was insane, right? You die, you're right back into it. You're doing this, whatever. Cool. Then it was the fact of, like, the way they've broken up the map this time

around, obviously humongous. You can travel so easily with the wings or swinging, but then once, you know, you have basically this progress bar for the amount of things you've done in a territory, right? And it'll fill in and give you some tokens usually. And then the mid one is always going to be fast travel. And I was like, oh, cool, I can fast travel around the map when I do that. That's nice.

I didn't realize at first that it was going to be wherever I dropped the cursor, it's going to drop me. Like, it was so simple now to get around, It wasn't like you're fast traveling to, oh, I can go to Madison Square Garden and then from there go do things. No, it was you're going to, yeah, thank you very much, bear it with the B roll. It is very much like, no, you want to drop yourself on Avengers Tower, put it on Avengers Tower and we'll move a little bit to the side on the road and drop you right there. You're swinging in and you're like it was for being a trophy hunter, for trying to get around, for just trying to get to a mission for when I thought the story was really, really cooking and I just wanted to get to the next beat. It was so easy. So player friendly. Yeah, 100%. And that's what the game is, right? Player friendly. Yeah, I want to keep talking about this game. But real quick, I want to tell you a word from our sponsors. This episode's brought to you by BetterHelp.

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That's immersion fragrances.com. The fragrant journey begins here. A lot of flowers for it. The one thing I do want to say, and I'm not doing it in the, I'm making an internet problem here or anything. You know what I mean? But like, I still do not like this Peterface. I don't either I'm with you

I here's the thing I know what you mean about the internet problem thing when I first saw these you know people chirping bumping their gums I'm just like everybody's annoying

just like who cares like the new Peter looks fine and I always felt like the new Peter looked fine even in the remaster something about it here just did not work for me at all and I was always like

the type that like I like new things and oh it's a new it's a new character actor oh cool though oh the model looks great and I feel like it worked so much better, but I did notice that there was a Day Zero patch that went out to improve, like, character lighting and stuff.

There are moments early on in this game that I'm like, Peter and Mary Jane are probably the main characters of this game, like aside from Miles and stuff, but, like, right now these characters look really not great. In this lighting, I don't know, there are so many moments where

it's like the green screen effect where, like, it's a video game so it doesn't really make sense but it's like those characters aren't standing outside you just put a bad light on them that makes them look like they're in sunlight and I feel like I saw that in a lot of moments I think the game is insanely gorgeous

when you are in an interior of a building doing a story quest and you are like looking for a bad guy or whatever and like they have awesome like these scenes are so crafted and beautiful with like how the lighting's gonna hit certain areas and shadows are casting all over the place. But whenever there's sequences outside, it just doesn't look great.

Peter's neck is real wide. And he looks like Kurt Angle and he's turning. He does the Batman like Michael Keaton when he has the whole like cowl on and he can't turn his neck. So he just turned. It just looks really awkward in a lot of moments. And it's the neck and the haircut. Yeah, I don't love the hair either.

But it what's, I guess what stinks the most for me is that like, I feel like every other character in this game looks better than Peter Parker. And like he's the main, he's like one of the main co-stars in this game. So that really bummed me out. I think Miles looks incredible. Miles looks awesome. I think Craven looks damn good. Like when you get those close-up shots of Craven and there's so much good detail in his beard and stuff,

something about Peter just did not work for me this time around. Like it worked for me in the remaster or, you know, the PS5 version of the 2018s. Yeah, unfortunately, I really agree with you there. I feel like Yuri's performance is It's perfection. Like I, Spider-Man is so important to me And there's so many iterations of the character that I love. And you guys have heard me talk about spectacular Spider-Man.

Like Josh Keaton's Spider-Man is so like, yeah, you nailed it. Yuri might be my favorite. Like, Yuri might have now like officially after multiple titles. Like there's just so much personality. There's so much Spidey. There's so much Peter. Like, it feels so, so right. This is also my favorite Miles performance that we've had so far.

I've never been the biggest fan of this take on Miles Morales. But I feel like this game's been turning me around on that for sure. I still feel like there's like a little bit of a disconnect between how Miles sounds and how he looks and how Peter sounds and how he looks. It just doesn't feel right to me. But in terms of performances from the voice side, I thought that they were awesome. It's just, yeah, really just don't like Peter's look and Mary Jane's look. for me personally i yeah miles performance is amazing and it's naji right uh he just crushes i think they do for me for me youri and it's not even like well it's what was first i just feel like

original 2018 peter parker matched better with yuri's voice and what was going on uri's performance is amazing and what i want to give credit to there is that you know when we saw that PlayStation showcase demo right and it was at the end like oh man is he ever always act like that no and it was like, you know, he was being mad, Spider-Man. There was definitely a part of me that kind of, not rolled my eyes, but was like, all right, we've seen this so many times, right? We've seen this so many times in the over-the-top I'm mad out of nowhere, yada, yada, yada, the stuff he gets to do to layer that in, like, it's so much more than that.

And so to get that throughout the game and see what was going, I was like, oh, man, this is so well done, let alone, of course, when he's no longer under the symbios power, right? You know what I mean? Like, when Venom has to come around. You're really ticking me off. Like, I just, like, just such a. nice, innocent dude, like just trying to be angry. It was like, oh,

man, I'm really angry. So question for you, Tim, because you are the biggest Spider-Man fan period around, right, in our office. Being Barrett, it's a time, but yeah. Is he on fucking the show? No. It doesn't matter about Barrett right now, right? And he can't be the Batman fan, the persona fan. I'll take Spidey. I'll take Spide. The Wonder Years fan.

He can't just be every chainsaw man, whatever weird anime of these kids like these days. Anyways, question for you, though, was, you know, you mentioned like, oh, you've seen this before, did that, were there enough surprises for you in this? Undenidly. I feel like, again, the scene this before stuff, I feel like for the most

part is the stuff that I like and the stuff where yeah, they did justice to the stories and characters of this world. I've always kind of been a Venom heater, I would go as far as even saying. I'm like, I don't think I've ever really, like, since I was a little kid, which Venom was the coolest thing I've ever

fucking heard up in my life in Black Suit Spider-Man. Are you kidding me? You know, I think as you kind of go on, like, I really like the ultimate comics take on Venom and like some of the different ways they change the backstory to make it feel a little bit better or whatever. I think that this one, for the most part, it worked for me. It's not the best version of the story I've ever seen.

It is not even in the bottom half of worst I've ever seen. But to me, this is so much more than a Ven-up story. So it's like that stuff I'm fine with. I think how far they take it and the characters, the surprises, the amount of the rogues gallery that's seen that I don't know why I didn't expect. I played the other games. and the other games delivered in spades in terms of even going to the Halloween party and in 2018 and seeing lizard. Shirtless Spider-Man.

Shirtless Spider-Man. Sure at the party. But people dressed as the lizard and I dressed as shocker, like, all of that stuff. Like, it just made it feel like a real New York that Spider-Man has lived in for a long time. That's crazy. Imagine dressing as like a terrorist. That's crazy. That's wild.

You walk in the party, you see like, that guy killed my father. Yeah. It's problematic, man. But I mean, literally, literally from the opening moments of this game, I was like, God damn. Like, what are they doing? This is awesome. This is one of the strongest beginnings to a video game. And I just feel like those surprises kept hitting, kept hitting.

And Greg said this earlier. But like, there'll be side quests you're going through. And just some of the character reveals, some of the name drops, some of the, it's like. And you get that thing where it's like, wait, are you going to, are you about, oh, my God, they did it. That's what they're doing. And the amount of times that happened to me. And it was like, oh, you're about to do this. And then they do something that's even better.

what I thought. Like that to me, like this game is in such good hands. Like they care deeply about Spider-Man. and that comes across so much. I feel like throughout my entire time playing it that I just, I can't wait to see what they do next. Yeah.

Well, Wolverine, right? I mean, well, that's the thing, and we got Wolverine coming. And like no one in Somiac. I'll bet that games next year.

I feel it in my core, Grank. Yeah. And I'm so excited. I'm so excited. Guess what? I'm a platinum that shit. But we'll review too probably because insomniac doesn't miss.

Damn. Now blessing. You're the four out of five. You're talking about all this different stuff. Do you think this, one of the conversations we have over and over again on PSI Love UXOXO is the S tier, PlayStation Studios, and then the A tier?

Does this change your opinion? Because we've talked a lot in the buildup to this, that Insomnia X constantly A tier. They're MVP, they're doing all this stuff, but they're not having the last of us moments, right? These like, oh my God, this isn't a game. This is cinema shit. Like, do you still consider them an A tier after the?

Also, yeah, I still put them in a tier. I think it goes back to a conversation we recently had of like, I think Spider-Man 2 is going to be one of, if not the biggest game of the year, right? And I think it's one that like, you know, as we go around the table and all of us are on the positive side, it's hard for me to think of anybody that's going to come out and be like, oh, man, this disappointed, right? Like, this came out and it's like, you know, below par or a seven out of ten or whatever, right? I'm sure those will pop up. But I think the common consensus is going to, is going to be that this is a W for insomniac. Yeah. And like, I think the fact that you're, you're when you look at PlayStation First Party this year, right, PlayStation Studios games this year, obviously you can count Burning Shores, call them out and all that stuff. But this is like the singular PlayStation Studios title, like game, full game that is dropping this year. And it's coming out and it's going to own the fall in terms of like conversation and popularity. And the fact that, yeah, like we're talking about Wolverine coming out possibly next year, possibly within the next two years. I think for sure they're in the A. I still don't put them in the S. Like I still, this still isn't one that I'm walking away from being mind blown. I think that is still where I

come down on the four as opposed to five is like, you know, I don't feel the way I felt after finishing God of War Ragnarok or last was part two after finishing the game, but I still feel the way I felt after playing Spider-Man 1, right? Which is, oh, damn, what a fantastic time. I'm sorry. What fuck are you doing? I wanted to talk about some of the, like, character writing. As much as I love Uri's performance, something about like the moment-to-moment writing that Peter, you know, Peter's barks here and there and stuff like that just didn't quite hit for me all of the time like I expected to in the way that I'm always smiling when Andrew Garfield is talking in his spidey movies and even though those movies weren't super great right

I still crying over Gwen and Andy's just smiling away this is awesome I just feel like there weren't a whole lot of moments of me laughing at little like one-liners like I feel like I did during the 2018 I was also think about the same thing, and I don't know if it's maybe age, if it's maybe like I've grown past like the Peter Parker random lines they'll throw into combat, because I used to find Peter Parker hilarious as a Spider-Man. And for whatever reason, like,

playing this game, I'm like, shut up old man. I'm like, all right, he keeps making jokes. I think maybe they leaned more into Peter Parker makes dumb puns that you roll your eyes at if he's like your friend. But like, I don't feel like it was always

that. I feel like this time around it was a lot of just like, you know, oh, don't mind me, just swinging around or like stuff like that. You just kind of like, wait. I feel like Miles was doing a lot of the same too. You also used to do like funny stuff too. Like in addition to the goofy puns that you kind of like, ah, there's Greg. He's making a little fun. I love it.

I feel like it all worked for me, but I agree that it's not the direction that I personally want to see Peter go, but I think it is because it's Peter and Miles. And they're trying to make them different as possible. And I mean, essentially they're trying to, they're making Miles what everyone expects Spider-Man to be, which is a little bit more like kid like making all those things and yeah peter at this point is becoming the old man like the the uncle of it all and so it makes sense it works to me again not my favorite take with this but like i i had no issue with the writing in terms of ways i feel like there was only one moment that i legitimately laughed and not that i'm playing it like pissed off all the time

right i love this game but there was a there's a great line from a character who says you're getting old pete or something like that and he's like i'm not like he kind of like He took real offense to like, what do you mean? I'm not that old. What the fuck you're talking about? I thought it was just a really great kind of reaction from your low and tall. One thing I want to shout out that I think we've not talked about, right, is the fact that they've done such a great job of making Miles and Pete feel different,

let alone Pete feel different from regular Spider-Man to symbiot Spider-Man. Like there was, you know, I obviously grew up with Peter, right, and I grew up with the red and blue. So just like last time, right, as soon as I got the ability right back into the classic Spider-Suit. never saw the white spider until it forced me to or something. But then I was surprised by when I really got going with Miles and really got into his power set and really started moving things around, how much I enjoyed playing as him and was doubling back to B Miles

because I was enjoying that gameplay more than I was necessarily. Not a bad way, Spider-Man's normal thing. But then once Symbiot really gets going, I was like, shit, fuck, this is great. And I found a lot of reasons that I was never bummed out to switch between the Spider-Man, nor was I ever like, oh, God, I got to be this. Yeah. Dude, I mean, the costume options. Come on, man.

Like, holy shit, dude. Like, there's so many, there are really good story unlockable ones that happen when certain things in the story happened, or even side quests that I thought was kind of neat that I wasn't really expecting. But the idea that, like, 80% of these have four colorways is the coolest shit of all time. Ideal dream world. Let me get some destiny shaders system.

Yeah, but goddamn. I, like, that's the main reason why I went for. this platinum is like not only was not only were a lot of the other side missions still fun and engaging to do even after uh like i guess the post game content but knowing that like oh if i get a couple more city tokens i'm getting that new thing and what are the colorways with this costume and any time it was like opening a little gift every time you get a new costume you'd i was always hurrying back right back to hit the touch menu oh i got a new unlocked let me see oh my gosh dude it was such great little flow for me.

And you mentioned, like, you know, like, they're awesome. These suits are awesome, whatever. But then, like, you know, we're talking about being surprised, right? And we're also talking about story on locks. We're like, there's a moment where Spider-Man K-U-U-U-N. And it was like, fucking I was Tim Getty's. But I'm like, oh my God, yes. A K-P?

You spring up. You spring back to your feet from your back. You're on the back. K-I-P. You-O. That's what they call it? Yeah. I'm with you, Andy.

I only know this because I break danced. I mean, I know it from professional wrestling. I mean, I watched a lot of Sean Michaels. I used to do that all the time because it was called KIPUp. Yeah, Kipap. What the fuck? Anyways, it's a great moment where I was like, oh, my God. I was like, let's fucking go.

You know, goosebumps. I must have said that a hundred times in this day, man. Like, especially in the beginning. But you know, I don't usually say it. You know what I mean? The suits, though, man. I mean, like the story suits, incredible. I think they did such a great job of constantly.

You know they did a good job when I've unlocked dope suits that I'm in love with this. And then a story one comes with Mike. Well, I guess I did it's a good job. Well, I guess I gotta use that one for a bit. Yeah, I was very much the same, just to bounce off of just like, I love trying to sync up, like, Peter and Miles's look of, like, trying to find similar suits where it's like, I want them to be, like, a team and a unit. So, like, I kind of played it basic and safe, just because I like the original suits that they made for their world and their story. And so it was just fun just playing around, even with the basic stuff. Like, I loved that shit.

By far, I changed my costume more in this game than either. the other games. Like in the other ones, I had my eyes on one that I'm like, that's going to be it. And then I got it. And maybe I'd switch between the cell-shaded style. Right. Just to like see something different. This one, like, I swear to God, every 30 minutes I was changing. Purple and teal? Fuck yeah, dog. Let me go get that shit going. Like, there's so many that I can't wait to talk about this one and stuff. There was something that I'm like, somebody made that for me. Yeah. There's no way that somebody cared that much for to do this shit. The one thing that breaks my heart is my favorite suit from Miles Morales,

the game, is in this one again. And the, it had four color options. And I was like, we're about to get a fucking white and blue version of my favorite suit. We didn't. We did it. Still fucking cool. I don't with you, Eddie. I wish you could just customize that. Yeah. That aside, my God, could not be happier with the suit selection. This one broke me because I'm the kind of person that I want a staying character. Like, I don't like entering a cut scene and just wearing some like fucking wild ass suit. I'm with you. Rio's talking to me and I'm like,

I don't know what I'm wearing right. Yeah. This one broke me because I was like, I got to wear some of these crazy suits. Yeah. Yeah, there's a clip I'm going to put up way later. You know what I mean? Because it's just at enough of a moment where I'm like that. But it's exactly that where it's a super serious moment.

And Miles pops in looking like a complete clown. I'm like, goddam. Yeah, as far as art styles go, I love some of the cell shaded takes on them like we saw with the prior iterations. but I think they do such a great job with just material work. There are some suits in here that you like zoom in. I don't want to, I mean, you would assume, I'm not going to spoil it, never mind, but just some of the material differences that when you get a close-up look

and like, wow, that's like a clear kind of plastic, but over a leathery sheen sort of, and like the artists in this game just absolutely popped off with the amount of different materials because, You know, 10 years ago, it was something's metal or, like, leather or concrete, right? And here there's, like, so many different things that they can play around with. And I thought they did such a bang-up job. Another great photo mode, too, that we have a box on. I wanted to call that out of that was amazing.

One thing I would like to double back to in terms of gripes or, like, the things that aren't perfect. Because it's not a perfect game. No game is, right? There's a couple different, there's one section in particular where you're doing a bunch of little mini-games, right? And to Insomnia X credit, they're optional. You could just go right to the objective, but you do this and you do it and you get to talk to Mary Jane a little bit more, right? And I was doing this and people were asking me out. I was like, oh, it's very yakuza, right?

Where it's like there isn't a karaoke bar or whatever, like you go to a nonstop. But there's these little mini games they built for you to go do it. And my problem with them was that the gameplay never felt that much fun. And then the conversations I got were never that rewarding. It wasn't like I was in when I was like, well, I'm going to do everything. Maybe there's a trophy attached to it, right? I'd go in and do it, and then I would have a very much longer, but not more fleshed out conversation to something we had already said.

Like, I get it. Yeah, you're not happy at your job, MJ, but you really didn't give me a much more than you're not happy at your job because Jay Jonas sucks. Like, okay, or whatever. But then you can hit like a button to make your character go, woo! Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, there are a couple of those too. Holy shit. And it's like, again, to their credit, they're optional. So if you're like, you get in this sucks, you bounce. But it is, it was like one of those things like, oh, this, especially early on when it happens in the game, where I was like, okay, what is the vibe here? It feels like it should be more elevated.

Like it definitely like that. I feel like that is the lowest point of the game in terms of the moment to moment gameplay stuff where that last one. I mean, you do all of it 15, 20 minutes or so. But like it does kind of feel like every time you start a conversation, I'm like, oh, this is going to go somewhere cool. And then it doesn't.

It kind of just circles a little bit. It ends in some cool stuff. But as a player, I didn't know that because every other thing you're doing this game, you're kind of rewarded for the things. I didn't really feel like you were rewarded there. I feel like there could be an analog, like immediately just comparing it to Ellie and Dina walking around in the beginning of the last of us part two in that city and kind of like going to different parts of the city and you getting to know the area but also getting to know these characters a little bit more. And yeah, I'm with you all. I felt like it was like a lot of effort was put into this whole thing, right?

This is like there are a lot of different activities that can be done, but it just never quite. never felt like I was like not wasting my time, you know? Yeah, exactly. On the flip side of that, though, I feel like this game has, I don't know, four or five locations like that in terms of there's a lot of little things you can go around and check out. And I thought that all of those were way better than that. And maybe not all of them perfect,

but I feel like something I really enjoyed about this game is it tripled down on the Miles Morales game stuff of the supporting cast of characters that aren't just the traditional ones that we know, but really getting into, like, I can't believe how much this game focuses on Peter and Miles as opposed to Spider-Man. And the other ones did too. But I feel like that was a strong suit of the Miles Morales game of the sense of community that he had and that district feeling so much more alive than the rest of New York.

This game makes it match a lot more and everything feels very distinct. And the amount of in-building locations I was very surprised by because there was a couple in the other games. I feel like there was constantly things we were doing in this one that had a ton of different interactive things that did reward me. It did have a line of dialogue that made me go, oh shit, this is cool.

Or like some things that just felt totally like unrelated. Like some, I don't even want to say some stuff, but it just like did not feel Spider-Man at all. But then I feel like because of that, that gives Spider-Man a new identity. Like it felt like it fit even though it's not something I expected. You're on top of a lot of there,

but I think to call it for me is how much insomniac respects their own universe, if that makes sense, right? We've talked about that, and that's one of the things I loved about Miles was like, oh, man, like, this is their universe,

this is their Spider-Man, which, of course, sounds silly, but what I mean is that, like, Spider-Man won, Miles Morales and then this game, right? When you get to this game, the events of all those games, DLC's included, right?

Matter, happened, are referenced, you know, you'll see you're not, maybe you don't see everybody, but, you know, you get touches of, like, where I had said stuff before, of like, I wonder if this will happen.

Are they going to mention that, or what about that thing from this thing? Like that all gets in there. And again, if you didn't play DLC or you didn't play Miles Brown, I was like, you still have a great time in this game. You still catch up to it. But it's more to be like, oh, wow. Okay, they did make a call back there. Oh, wow.

They are referencing that in a lot of ways I didn't expect, right? Yeah. And on top of that, I am shocked at how much this game references itself. Like, there are events that happened in this game, whether they're early on or later in the game that affect the world. And then the world stays that way. And I'm very impressed. Again, that's some PS5 shit. That is Insomniac like using this.

and I feel like it was especially nice because it on some hand could just feel gimmicky and just like, oh yeah, cool, congratulations. You can make a different area look different. But I feel like this did a good job of separating New York, New York that we've been through multiple times now. This one is double the size because there's the other boroughs now, or at least some of them.

But I feel like the variation between everything, like felt a lot more distinct than it ever has. And I think the areas that wouldn't have felt distinct now did because of the, well, this event happened, so now it looks like this type stuff. Yeah. I wanted to just applaud them for not making swinging feel useless. I thought the wing suit would have just completely overtaken anything about,

you know, I love swinging through New York. And I didn't want to feel like, well, I could just be swinging or I could just be using the wing suit all the time. I thought they were so perfectly balanced. And it works so well in tandem. Yeah. In addition to the way that you can upgrade your traversal. and add emitter boost, an emitter dash,

and then finding those wind tunnels. Like, I just feel like all of it was so perfectly in concert with one another. Like, they did such a great job with balancing, different traversal mechanics that didn't make the other one feel like obsolete, you know? 100%. I do want to, this is a tough thing that we'll get fully into in the spoiler stuff, so I'm not going to even touch on spoilers here. But I will say that while the plots of the game,

take it or leave it here or there. Is it better than this, better than that? I am not really sure. That's a conversation for everyone to have individually. I feel like the themes of this game are incredibly strong and the stories and character moments and side quests and everything backed them up so well. And that to me is where the Esther insomnia stuff starts to come in,

where so much of the villain stories, how they tie into the hero stories, how they tie together, how the heroes tie together, the communities around them tie together, all of that. It's all backed up with words I don't even want to say right now. But I just feel like they surprised the hell out of me that they even would go that deep with it. But I feel like they really did something special. And it reminds me of a story you would get from The Last of Us. It reminds me of some of the ending story bit moments from Ragnarok that I'm just like,

you did the damn thing. You used the Spider-Man archetypes to go beyond and tell something very special that I think actually matters. And it's not just, oh, this is a fun story. People seen Venom before. So people like people like, no, this shit matters. This is going to affect people. and Miles Morales did that a lot. I think this game took it and just ran with it.

And so many of the character and moments from Miles Morales that are in this, Ha! Chef's Kiss. Yeah, a lot of very emotionally well-written side quests in addition to what you were just mentioning, stuff that isn't necessarily like a plot, but it's like B-plus plot, like right there, you know, right next to the sort of the main characters.

And there are some really cool character moments that I didn't, see coming and when they hit I was like how are they going to pull this off and when they hit it's like god damn that is some like really good writing and crafting of characters you know it's good when I like I stopped the game to open slack and send myself the quote

where I was like I don't want to forget that that was that good right that's god of war from rag rock right you get a little tattooer one yeah you know shoulder blade Aunt May deserve to die whoa and it's MJ saying it for me it was the C&D plot stuff where I'm like

this came out of nowhere and I'm surprised that like this stuff is touching me in the way that it is right like I did not expect just a random side quest I picked up for a character that is close to no name yeah yeah that is one degree removed from random NPC yeah exactly like that kind of stuff actually hitting that's the stuff that surprised me yeah yeah it's a good video game yeah real real good video is it your game of the year oh man I hate that you're even asking me that I figure within the first hour you walked up to me and said I think this clears for game of the year. I don't know how you've...

I didn't say that. What I said was... I haven't quoted it. Where's your journalism? Kevin pull up those security. I think I might have even said this during that that hour bit, but then this was like the next day or two after I'd actually

played more at home too. And I was selling you you and Raj like, if this game keeps up at this pace, like I could see it being my game of the year. Right. And it did. I think that it definitely like it kept at the pace. I think that like it's whatever. I've like been glowing enough about this. People understand how much I love

this game. This is the best year for video games for me. And like I, that could be a question of is it the best year for everyone overall. I don't know. For me at this point, undeniably it is between Final Fantasy 16, Tears of the Kingdom and this. I think in terms of the game of the year for what I think that should mean, it's Tears of the Kingdom. And I don't think that anything could have taken that down. But God damn, I'm fucking living. I'm thriving out here. But yeah, I think Tears the Kingdom for so many reasons of like just, I don't even know. It's so close. It's so close. But there's something in my heart. heart that tells me it's still Zelda.

But I feel like, if anything, that's unfair to this game. What about you, Andy? Is it your game of the game? No. No. Who's up there? What is yours right now? It's a contender.

Ah! But it's, you know, it's probably going to be, I don't want to say anything. I like surprise of people. I like surprise of people. Yeah, we got a surprise of me. You know, lies of pee. Yeah, it's Liza P and it's definitely Ghalem. Oh, of course, of course.

I'm looking through my notes right now to see if there's anything else I can I just feel about stuff I feel like this one they herded down slash gave you different tools like one of the things that I really like from Spider-Man one was like the idea of having the trip wire

that I could use to like you know perch I can have people like attached to walls and shit and there was never they don't have like the activities that forces you do stuff obviously you have the option to do that if you want to but this time around they introduced like a webline mechanic where you can make your own make your own way where you want to

like in the in the air, essentially, and walk over people and do those same perch take down stuff. That I thought was fascinating. I liked that as an addition. But overall, I was surprised by how much they don't make you do stealth in this game compared to the previous. Well, I think, again, it's, I think the word there is make. And when we talk to Brian on the spoiler cast in a couple weeks, that'll be the interesting thing to talk about, right? It's like, again, you don't have to do the puzzles.

You don't have to do these weird little side missions, right? I was, it's, you don't think about how other people play the game, right? And so I was like flabbergasted when Tim was on Slack and was like, oh, hey, like, I might have screwed myself here. I need to get all these stealth takedowns, webline takedowns, but I've already fit. And I was like, I had that in like the second one. Yeah, I am so stealthy. I did it. And like, yeah, the ability to shoot the webline out and then like, oh, right, I can make my own web up here.

Turn, shoot a webline that way, shoot a web, like make your own thing to have all these even tendrils to go. Like, I did it for everything, everything. And I would come up on random street crimes where they're doing. doing a drug, or not drugs, probably, but whatever, in the alley, right? And I would go, do, do, and I would just go up there and, like, you know, ping the trash can over there to get them all to look at it to snatch this guy. And I could have dropped and I could have beat them all in 30 seconds, I'm sure, but I was like, I love the vibe of this so much.

I want to do it this way. I think the functionality of what Blessing was just mentioning, like making your own kind of places to perch on, I feel like that took away and maybe oversimplified. a lot of the rest of what could happen in stealth when you're talking about trip wires and little gadgets. I feel like all the gadgets are essentially just combat related. There's nothing really else there to...

Like there's no stealth gadgets. Yeah, there's no stealth gadgets, right? Yeah. But, I mean, that being said, what I said earlier, it's like, I could do that shit all day. I loved doing those, you know, as simple as they were, maybe you get caught, you swig away, you hide for a little bit. It's like, this is not, we're not talking like, you know, dishonored stuff or anything like that here.

It is the most simple. Two people are together. I just upgraded this thing. Let me get that dude. You get that dude. And I feel like for as simple as it was, I still found it incredibly enjoyable. Or else I would have just ran in there and, you know, gone buck wild on everybody. But I really enjoyed those moments.

Because to see, like, to challenge myself, can I get through this gigantic complex without triggering a warning? See, that's what I essentially just did. It was like, I went in and I just fucked up everybody. Right? Because like for me it was more of a, well, if I could stealth this, but if I stelt this, this is going to take me 10 minutes as opposed to me jumping in it and killing all these guys Yeah, me two minutes, right? Yeah, right?

And so, like, that was always my route. And it did make me miss the bespoke stealth activities that you had in the previous game of like, hey, if you do this under one minute, you get three stars, right? If you do it in two minutes to get two stars and that kind of thing of don't get caught, I really like that stuff because they give you a bunch of tools to do that. So I was pretty surprised that it felt like they pared it down. But like it also, I think it is also the thing of they want to make it a bit more actiony and a bit more engaging in the way. And so I didn't know what the balance of that was for them.

Yeah, plus it's funny you say that because I'm pretty much right there with you with all of it where I would use the stealth stuff pretty much just as initiation to beat the shit out of people. So it's like, yeah, do the one webline, get two people done. And then, yeah, I'm going in and just fucking use the abilities to clear everyone out. Get the heavies out, maybe. Yeah, exactly. Love the webline as a concept. I feel like I used it as much as I wanted to. so I was kind of happy with the amount

that was in the game. I didn't even realize till right now though that yeah there weren't those missions like the first game had and Miles Morales had where get to the ceiling or the roof of the building and there's snipers everywhere and like the timed missions of like getting through this or whatever and those are parts of the game

especially when you're trying to platinum Spider-Man one that in the moment can be so frustrating and like on your 15th attempt after getting caught you're just like I fucking hate this and I'm not having a good time at all But then once you beat it, you're like, that was fucking great. Dude, right?

And that's the thing is I keep having flashbacks of, there were recordings I put on my PS4 of like me just basically zigzagging around a base and fucking taking everybody else super quick. And like that was a satisfying feeling. At the same time, I totally understand the platinum run of like, I'm 100% of this thing and I'm stuck on the stealth mission.

I'm fucking frustrated now. Yeah. So with the web line, I would have loved if there were a set of those type of stealth missions that really like play with you being able to make lines anywhere you want. Maybe that's for the DLC. but also I did like the balancing because I was similar to you, Bless, at the beginning

of like I missed the, not the trip wire but like the one like kind of heavy shot that would automatically take people to a wall. I use that all the time. Stuff like that's missing in this one. But I did like, it felt a little bit rebalance like Greg was saying of like you could kind of make your own stealth missions

and I found like a lot of kind of bases in Spider-Man one. If I wanted to do the first like round essentially all stealthily, after that first round, round two would always then turn into a fight. And I love that like the entire, like for this, if you want the entire side mission or activity or whatever to be all stealth, they're not going to force you back into a fight, which I felt like there was probably a lot of thought of how they wanted to rebound that, especially with like player choice and stuff. So I grew to appreciate it.

And back to it, one of the things that they don't make you do anything in this game, right, which is obviously to beat the game, if to do the story. But in terms of it, there are, like, I don't know how much of this is revealed, so I'll be very vague. There are challenge rooms that you do enter into and do stuff on. And they reward you with hero tokens that you obviously use for unlocking stuff in the game, suits and I think maybe gadgets, but suits mainly. And when everybody is platinum it before me, I was talking to Roger and I was like, hey, like, I finished one of the challenge rooms and I did a shit job at it. You know, I got the one star star, so I only got so many. And I turned, I'm like, is this one of those things where I got a three star out?

Am I going to have to come back and grind on this? What was their name in the last game? the speedball. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm right there with you, man. And so I was like... Having to get the gold was like, I'm like, am I going to have to?

And Raj's like, I don't know, I did it. Raj's like, I just liked him. So I did it. I'm like, all right. So as I was playing through it, and I was like, oh, I'm okay. I don't have to go back and do this. I'm going to have a surplus of hero.

You get a bronze and you're good. Yeah, I was like, that's awesome. I'm really, I'm really appreciative of that. I will throw a gripe related to the hero tokens. Sure. I feel like the hero token economy is fucked up. Like when you're as you're going through the game, right, you're unlocking these different currencies that you're using to unlock. I guess upgrade gadgets, upgrade abilities, and then also buy suits as well.

And like all of them, you get from doing the different activities in the open world and they're pretty plentiful, right? You don't usually have a problem getting in. And what's really cool. Like for suits, it would be like, you're short of this thing and you could hit triangle and it would tell you where to go together. Yeah, exactly. The one though that isn't as plentiful is the hero tokens. And like there is a midgame gap to where, you know, early. on you have access to so many activities that give you them. And then you don't, there comes a point

where you can't really get more until end game because like new things unlocked that actually give you hero tokens. And so for me, I was unlocking suits, like spending the hero tokens to unlock suits. And I hit like a wall with all my upgrade. Yeah. Yeah. Because like all of your gadgets at some point need the hero tokens. And so midgame I'm like, oh, I can't upgrade anything. I found myself doing the opposite where I was like, I want more suits. I'm going to stop upgrading my shit because I'm going to stop upgrading my defense or my offense, you know, a health or all that stuff, because I just want more suits. That's the idea I concentrated on. Playing for me, it was like looking at all, what suits am I going to want? Okay, I will unlock those, but everything else. I was kind of just doing the

dragon method of hoarding it all. Like, I'm not spending anything until I know what I need. I played this game like an absolute psychopath and I literally did every single thing I could before moving on to the main mission. And that was just because I felt like I kept getting rewarded with great story beats that felt additive to the main plot. So I was like, I want to know what happens here before I move on to this next thing. And I'm very impressed with how designed to do that, the game feels. And I can see getting in the way of people that, like, weren't doing that and want the hero tokens for different things.

But I liked the way that they segmented the side quest and the optional things that you can do. And they don't give you it all at once. They kind of like piece it out in like chapters and waves. And like playing it through when you do everything, it was like, Like this feels great, but I can totally see if you weren't doing that, that it just doesn't happen. My thing is like I was doing all the side stuff. Like I ran out of side things that gave me hero tokens. Like that was my main thing is that like my main, um, mess up was that I kept

spending the hero tokens on suits because I was like, oh yeah, this thing looks cool. And that's all spend them. And then it's like, oh, fuck. Okay, I just can't upgrade until I get to like the last 30% of the game. Gotcha. Uh, we're closing out here. Uh, and any final thoughts you guys want to get out there. Please do now. One thing I wrote down is, uh, Tony Todd's venom is going to not get talked about enough because he fucking nails it. Like I feel like he did such a great job. That's what Venom should sound like. Like the way he was written, what he's doing, that's fucking venom.

Take it or leave it. But I think Tony Todd elevated it and the sound design around it all. It was menacing. It was fierce. It was deep and boomy. And I loved the performance. The sound mix on it was very good. There's a lot of performances I'd like to shout out that I'll wait for spoiler cast.

But I think in general, like everybody, I think, stepped up a notch in terms of like, oh, man, these are the main players here. Everyone's doing. And I mean, like, people I won't mention to Ganky to Danica just doing the podcast. To J-Jona Jameson, and of course. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you meanly incredible. Gangi, I give a major, major like,

yo, you fucking showed up for this one. Yeah. Well, I'm sure we're going to talk a lot more about Spider-Man 2 over the coming weeks and months and years. Let us know in the comments below. How excited you are for Spider-Man 2. If you're going to be going back and listening to our old spoiler cast for Spider-Man or Miles Morales.

And just, hey, anything you want to say, you know, just do it. Leave them comments. But until next time, have a spectacular day. Send all your comments in for the PSLW FAQ. And don't forget, thank you, PlayStation, presenting it.