The Ringer-Verse - First Impressions of 'Spider-Man 2' and Revisiting 'Marvel’s Spider-Man' and 'Spider-Man: Miles Morales' | Button Mash

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

Ben and Jess are back, and they are getting us ready for the highly anticipated 'Spider-Man 2'! They got the game early, so they provide their spoiler-free first impressions of the game. Then, they revisit 'Marvel’s Spider-Man' and 'Spider-Man: Miles Morales' (15:30). They talk about what made those games good, what you need to know from those games heading into 'Spider-Man 2,' and more. Hosts: Ben Lindbergh and Jessica Clemons Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And together we host The Big Picture, The Ringers Film Podcast for New Releases, career retrospectives, director interviews, movie drafts, top fives, and so much more. Twice a week, we break down the latest releases,

argue about whether movies are doomed, and debate our modern film canon. Listen to The Big Picture on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Trimfaya.

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and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis, serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections, lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more, or visit Tramphiatoradio.com. This episode is brought to you by Nass Energy. Every ounce of dirt, sweat, and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised, every lap, every rifted. every hard-fought place.

They're all jammed inside every can of Nass energy, high-performance energy for burning the midnight oil in the garage, and pedal to the metal human horsepower for the streets. Go ahead, crack open a can of Nass energy and get after it. You're Spider-Man. You're the amazing Spider-Man. You're the spectacular Spider-Man. And a few other choice adjectives Jameson uses.

Look, that was really brave. But next time, leave the fighting to the pros, okay? Okay, but what if there aren't any around? Well, you can't just go swinging at someone twice your size. I mean, don't get me wrong. I fight guys stronger than me all the time, but when I do it, I have... Oh, like that time you fought right on the Brooklyn Bridge? That was so awesome.

Perfect example. If the other guy's bigger, you got to be quicker, okay? Okay, but that's easy for you to say. Sorry, I just can't do what you do. All right, put them up. Seriously, yeah, come on. Hello, and welcome. to The Ringerverse, your nexus podcast feed for all things fandom.

I am Ben Lindberg, a senior editor for The Ringer. Much as Peter Parker teams up with Miles Morales to keep New York City safe, I team up with my co-host, Jessica Clemens, for the equally important task of bringing you with a button mesh. Hello, Jessica. I like the idea that I'm Miles and you are absolutely Peter Parker. Maybe not Peter Parker in the... You are Peter Parker.

I think I'm not really Miles, but you are kind of Peter Parker. Yeah, I think for more than one reason, probably, if you had to assign one or the other to each of us. I think that is probably the better way to do it. Not just because I'm older, although that's part of it. Oh, no. No, I think you have the mannerisms of Peter Parker, older Peter Parker a lot. I think you absolutely do. He's a very sweet boy, I think, I guess.

No, he's a sweet boy. We like Peter Parker. Oh, he's a very sweet boy. Yeah, I'm a sweet boy. Okay, I'll take it. Well, whichever what we are, our spidey senses are tingling because at long last, it's Spidey season. This is the first of back-to-back Spider-Man episodes on Buttonmash as we mark the release

of Insomniac's Marvel Spider-Man 2 for PlayStation 5 this Friday. So five years after the first Marvel Spider-Man, three years after its spin-off slash sequel, Spider-Man Miles Morales, the true team up we've been waiting for is swinging on. on to our systems this week. And today, to get you ready for that, to get you hyped, we are going to talk about the first two insomniac Spider-Man games and get into what made them so successful, how they set up this latest release.

And then a week from today, once the new game is out and everyone who wants it can see it for themselves, we're going to do a deep dive into Spider-Man 2. And we'll give you our full breakdown, top to bottom. We don't want to torch you that way today when you can't play it yet, and would just be bragging about how we got our hands on it early. And we also don't want to spoil anything pre-release. And it's kind of tough to talk about the game without getting into some details.

However, the review embargo has just lifted. And we are free to share our general thoughts on the new game, which we have had advanced access to. So for anyone who's wondering, is the game good? Should I get it? Jess, what's your take on Marvel Spider-Man too? You should get it. And it is good. I feel like we're, I feel like no one was expecting anything less than.

Right. And it's correct. It's true. Yeah. Yeah. It's perfect. I love it. I love every moment of it.

Yeah. I mean, is it perfect? Perhaps not. Perhaps I will have some small critiques as I have had about previous Spider-Man games, which we'll get it to next week. But to say it's imperfect is not a slight. It's not an insult because it's a great game. And yeah, that's not very surprising, probably.

100%. We're not really breaking anyone's brains here by saying that this is a great game. Like, I don't pre-order games typically because why should I spend money before I really know what I'm getting in return? But this was about as safe a bet as could be, right? I mean, it's insomniac. It's the third Spider-Man game that they've made. It's the power of the PS5. A lot would have had to really run off the rails for this not to be a good game.

Yeah, 100%. So, yeah, we are not disappointed, and we'll get into all the detailed reasons why next week. But I think you could say just broadly, most consumers want from a sequel and most creators try to deliver in a sequel bigger and better, right? And you're going to get both of those from Spider-Man too, right? I mean, you like playing as one Spider-Man? How about two Spider-Men? You were impressed by one New York City borough. How about three boroughs?

You like swinging? How about flying? They fly now, they fly now. You're used to dodging now. Try parrying too. You thought the finishers were cool. Well, now they're even more powerful, fancier special attacks. So I've been so busy replaying previous Spider-Man's Spider-Men that I've yet to finish this one, though I will by the time we talk next week. So I'll reserve my full judgment for now.

But this game just grabs you from the first scene and set piece. And it doesn't really let go in ways that are exhilarating a lot of the time and almost overwhelming at others. Right. Like there's just there's a ton of stuff in this game. Oh, yeah. It's a huge amount. But I also don't, I'm not trying to spoil anything. I also am not.

Let me see how I'd say this. Without spoiling. Don't be worried people. I'm not going to spoil it. There's a lot, but I don't think it works against it. I, it's weird because I think there's a lot of times in games where I'm like, this is too much. It's too much. I don't want to do this.

But then I'm dealing with a situation right now with like Diablo where I'm like, I can't go back to this game because there's not much else to do. And this game I genuinely was like, oh, I there's so much to do. Yeah. There's so much to do. I'm not going to explain what you can do, but there's so much you can do. Right. Yeah. And as with the previous Spider-Man games, I don't think it's giving too much away.

There are some moments where you're not Spider-Man. That's kind of a hallmark of Spider-Man games. And some of those moments don't always work as well. I guess there's a reason why they call it Spider-Man. And as always, there's some side stuff that can be kind of varying levels of compelling. But look, it's the first PS5 exclusive in the series. It looks and plays and sounds great. It's not as groundbreaking, right?

It doesn't toss out the formula of the previous two games and reinvent it, which is fine, honestly. Right? Like, it's only the third game in the series and the second full-length game. So it's not as if they've run this formula into the ground. And the economics of AAA game development are such that you can't completely reinvent the wheel every time out. You know, you take the time and trouble and expense to create open world high rule. You don't retire that foundation after one Zelda game. You know, you build on it.

You iterate. I think it looks, I think it looks great. But I'm also, you're watching the trajectory over time from playing all the Spider-Man. And you just see it keep getting better and better. And the map, there was at one point in the game, I was like, damn, I'm doing a lot. And then I expanded the map and the one full side of the screen was just not lit. And I was like, wait, I didn't visit this entire side of the map yet.

And I was like, there's so much to do. But it's all so entertaining and so fun. And that and I was, I like the design and I like the voice acting and everything. I was also like, it does maybe speak into your part. That part doesn't need to like change that much. That part doesn't need to really go off the way. wagon. But I always, I always, but since Spider-Man, the first one, I've always liked it and respected it. Yeah. Especially after playing Assassin's Creed Mirage, where I got very upset.

Yeah, it's funny how what you play is kind of influenced by what you were just playing or what you're anticipating playing. Maybe that, okay, so we've had it for a minute. Not long, but I have played because we're talking in on a podcast where we talk about video games every week. I have played other games alongside it. And I do think that did not work in my favor with Assassin's Creed Mirage. I think it genuinely did not work in my favor. And I got very mad, at very minuscule things in Assassin's Creed Mirage, especially because it's like a person that's parkoring all the time.

And this, you're using webs. And I'm like, this seems more practical using webs. Why am I parkoring in this? Yeah. Why doesn't Bassim just use a web to swing around everywhere? All the skyscrapers in 9th century Baghdad's. Why was he not taking advantage of that? Yeah, I had a moment like that in Mirage where I thought I had seen the entire map,

which was not the biggest map ever for an Assassin's Creed game. It was still sizable. And then there was a whole part that was just blank. And I was like, oh, no. I go out of my way in games to go venture around just to like get those not being blank. I do it all the time. And that's what I did in Spider-Man. I was like, I don't even have anything to do over there.

I just need to go check it out. Yes. All right. So Spider-Man, too, most likely will be exactly. what you wanted. I think it was what we expected, but also what we wanted, right? It might not be what you didn't know

you wanted in the sense that you could kind of see coming how they were going to expand on the formula. It's unsurprisingly great, I think, by which I mean both that I'm not surprised that it's great and that I'm not surprised why it's great or how it's great most of the time. But that's

about the only critique I can muster. That's so funny. You know, it's great in the way that the previous games were great, but maybe a little more so, which is great to repeat that adjective again. And I think it's good that we are rewinding here a little bit to look back because Spider-Man 2 succeeds, I think, in large part because Spider-Man and Miles Morales just give this game a great foundation in every way, just narratively, mechanically, graphically, geographically, you can absolutely play Spider-Man 2 without having played Spider-Man or Miles Morales.

100%. But I think it's best if you've played through all three. And the reason that it's so polished that it works so well that it's so stuffed with stuff is that they got it right the first couple times out. And they just keep finding ways to make it a little bit better and add things that we're missing. I guess story-wise, you'll hear things that you'll be confused about. But I also think as long as you know Spider-Man, you kind of get the juice. There's no surprises. It's like, yeah, someone's under uncle's going to die. That's how it happens. That's how it happens. Yeah, we'll talk about the relationship between the various on-screen depictions of Spider-Man soon. But we'll get back into this at much greater length and depth next week once you've all gotten your hands on it. But not a surprise that we're joining the chorus here of, yeah, you've got to play this game as expected.

So now that we've given you some sense of what you have to look forward to when the game drops later this week, let's tell everyone what they can anticipate on this podcast feed. Yes, it is time for the programming reminders. So on Thursday night, the Midnight Boys will record their reactions to Loki episode three. And on Friday, you, Jess, will have your splash page Loki video breakdown. It's the halfway point of the season already. Yeah.

I like it. Is it the halfway point? I mean, it will be. Oh, it will be. Okay. It will be. episode two. I was like we have four more episodes. No, these short TV seasons, they get pruned from the timeline so quickly that they're over before you realize it.

Sometimes they're over a little bit too soon when it comes to the story. But hopefully not in Loki's case. We'll see. But you'll break it down either way. Over on House of R, no Joanna Robinson this week. Sadly, Joe's just a little bit busy being the author of a new blockbuster book you should buy, MCU, the reign of Marvel Studios. However, Malory Rubin will carry on in Joe's temporary absence and will be joined by Rob Mahoney for a Loki episode to deep dive that'll be up Tuesday night. And on Friday, I will be subbing in for the traveling Joe to talk to Mal about a franchise that hasn't gotten a ton of attention from the ringerverse, The Walking Dead. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah. One spin off, Daryl Dixon just ended.

Another fear the Walking Dead is coming back for its final episode. So we're going to get into what's going on with the Walking Dead. walking dead these days, whether it's worth getting back into if you've lost touch and what the future holds for the franchise. Are you or were you ever a walking deadhead? Oh, dude, absolutely was. I'm a shame to say once a specific character died, I got so angry. There is never a program in my entire life. Maybe Orange is the New Black that a story pissed me off so much. Yeah. That a character dying hit me so hard that I, and like, I'm in, we're all in entertainment. We're all in the business of watching TVs doing this or writing stories.

And I was like, I get that it's a story. I get this as an actor, but I ain't living knowing that he's dead like this. I'm doing it. And so I stopped. But I wanted to go back for Daryl. All the clips, everything I've seen about it looked amazing. So I probably will. Yeah, you're not alone.

A lot of people have checked out of this franchise over the years. That'll sort of be the purpose of this pod. Hey, if you're a lapsed walking dead fin, catch up on what's been going on and should you give it another look. And as for us, we're going to be busy button mashers because we are cramming three pods into the next two weeks. Can you remind everyone what's up next? Yes. Next week we have two pods. Yeah.

That's insane. That's crazy. Who are we? Who are we? I'm going to lose who I am. Next week we have two pods because we're doing Spider-Man too. We're deep diving into that. we get to reveal every spoiler.

And then we're also doing the Mario Bros. Wonder. Yeah. Which, how are we doing this? Because Nintendo and its wisdom and Sony in its wisdom, saw fit to put two massive blockbuster games out on the same day.

I love that for them. And I love that for us. I just don't like it for my hands. I will say playing Spider-Man too and then going back through all the games, my hands started hurting. My hands started hurting really bad. I had that with Mortal Kombat.

I was like, I'm going to get. blisters. Like I have other games to play. Yeah. Someone invents something for me that I'm sure already exists. And then the following week. Yeah. My favorite week. Not only because it's Halloween week. Yeah, but we have a themed episode for Halloween. We're doing Alan Wake and Five Nights at Freddy's. And I'm so excited. I just, I'm so excited because I love Five Nights at Freddy's. And I like Alan Wake. I'm terrified. I'm looking forward to you explaining five nights to me as someone who knows nothing about it. Are you going to play it? Oh, yeah. Oh my God. I'm going to play out in Wake and I'm going to see you Five Nights and I guess I can try playing it.

You can play the first for you for content. I can't. Maybe it's the sister school. One of them is very short and you can't play it. It's just you will. It's bad. It's only jump scares. It's only jump scares.

But it is the story and the lore for Five Nights of Freddy's, it feels like it's a lot, but it's not. And it's very fun. And if you like creepy true crime kind of stuff, this. is perfect for you, a fictional version of it. Well, you made me play Outlast. It can't be worse than that. So I've survived. Everything else is easier and less scary.

Outlast was way worse. Alas was way worse than five next to a phrase. That's reassuring. Okay. We've looked forward a bit. So let's look back at two of the best superhero games of all time. 2018's Marvel's Spider-Man and 2020s Spider-Man Miles Morales, possibly surpassed by the latest sequel,

but certainly not forgotten, played an essential part in laying the groundwork for Spider-Man to great games in their own right. Hold up well. I've been replaying them. So here's a big picture prompt. What do you want from a superhero game? What does a superhero game have to do to satisfy you? Ooh, you answer that question first.

Let me tell you. Well, actually, no, I think I got it. I think I got it actually. Because they did talk about this when I interviewed them. And I think a big thing is the balance between being a human and being your superhero self. I understand that like if you're playing like Guardians of the Galaxy, it's like they are the guardians. But it's also like, yeah, but he's also still not only Star Lord. And I want those kind of humanistic characteristics to come through.

Humanistic. Human characteristics to come through that are like, oh yeah, let's keep it grounded. Let's remember where we are. It's not only space time and thwipy. through New York City, it's also a boy dealing with a lot of stuff and dealing with his family. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, you don't necessarily want them to

devolve into, if it is a devolution into sort of the last act of a lot of Marvel movies or shows where it's just kind of punching each other. Now, it's more fun to do the punching, I think, than to watch the punching. So it could still be fun, but it does kind of have to

have sort of a street-level connection, which is a strength of Spider-Man historically. And And I think for me, maybe it's kind of a cliche, but you really have to feel like you are embodying this superhero, right? And that's kind of a tall order because I've said this before, but almost every video game character is a superhero, right? You're almost always superpowered. I mean, Assassin's Creed, you're essentially superpowers. Like almost everything we play, you have some sort of superpower.

And so when you play a superhero game and you have superpowers, like they better be super duper powers. They better make you feel like extra empowered, right? And in the specific ways that that hero has those powers, because you can't just be a generic video game character in a generic world. Like you have to go above and beyond the typical video game. And it has to put you inside that suit, inside that costume, inside that mask. It's got to make you feel like it would to be that superhero. And I think these games have done maybe the best job of that ever.

or there haven't been many that have done better jobs. I mean, Spider-Man has starred in dozens of games going back to the 80s, and there were plenty of high points along the way, right? There's Spider-Man 2 is a classic 2004, which was really the first open-world superhero game. There was Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions, which came out in 2010 and had sort of a lukewarm, positive reaction at the time. But in retrospect, the legacy of that game, like, that was a moment. multiversal story with four Spider-Men.

It was co-written by Dan Slot before the Spider-Verse comics. So the game influenced the comics, which in turn led to the movies. We might not have the Spider-Verse animated movies, if not for Shattered Dimensions. So there have been a lot of great Spider-Man games. And I guess you would say that there's a top two when it comes to video game representations of superheroes, right? It's Spider-Man and Batman and then everyone else, or the other way around Batman and Spider-Man and everyone else.

Like, who's number three? Is it like the X-Men, I guess, maybe, might be? Yes, I want to say X-Men. I feel like there's that, I'm not saying, and this is Jessica as a Marvel person, I'm just saying there is that weird click of people that will hold on to Superman until the day they die. Yeah, yeah. And that's why I want to put him as third just because it's like that, like, Van is that person.

Man is that person. And they have like a good group that they're like, I'm loyal forever. And I'm like Superman's kind of lame. I mean, I understand liking Superman the character, but Superman the video game character. Oh, no. Yeah. I'm not saying there haven't been some good or decent games. I remember, you know, notorious like Superman N64.

It's kind of the opposite end of the spectrum. But like it's hard to do a Superman game well because he's so superpowered that what are your limitations, right? Does Superman have a health bar? I mean, if he's fighting doomsday, I guess. But like, who can kill him? You know, how do you, how do you, that's a challenge telling any sort of Superman's story. But especially if it's in a game, plus he flies more so than Spider-Man does in Spider-Man too. And that has been historically kind of a technical challenge or limitation.

Like, he can go anywhere, you know? Like, are you going to have an invisible skybox that limits Superman from going somewhere? That dude can, like, fly into space and fly around the earth. and reverse its spin. Like, you can't just have an invisible boundary that stops Superman. So that's the challenge. I think it makes sense that Spider-Man and Batman have been so successful in this medium. Like, they are two of the most popular superheroes, period.

But, like, they fit because they're street-level heroes, or at least they started that way. And they're not invincible and they're not immortal. And traversal is obviously a big part of both of their games, just like getting across the world. And both of those heroes have entertaining ways to do it, whether it's swinging or gliding or driving the Batmobile or whatever it is. Plus like gadgets, you know, especially with Batman. G gamers love gadgets. So you get those. There's like a stealth element to Batman, especially, but also sort of Spider-Man. So you get kind of like a mix of genres. So I guess they're kind of built for video games in a way. Maybe it makes sense. Going back to what I said earlier about

what I need in a video game. And what applies to the Batman and Spider-Man video games is like, those stakes need to be there for me to be like, oh, this matters. And they are always in high stakes in those games. Right. So, yeah, yeah, I would say those two. It sucks because I'm like trying to also think of, but I didn't, did you play the Guardians of the Galaxy game? I didn't. And I've heard great things about it.

Yeah, especially the story. I want to get to it at some point, but I have not. I still think Spider-Man and Batman are beating it. Because there's more of it. Right. There's so much more. Yeah, decades and decades of games. But because of all that, because of the history and the rich legacy of Spider-Man games,

it was a very big deal when it was announced that Insomniac was making a Marvel game, starring Spider-Man, because here's one of the most successful, dependable studios, known for creating its own characters and franchises doing a license game and taking on one of the biggest characters in IP. So you have the studio that did. Spiro and Resistance and Ratchet and Clank and Sunset Overdrive and is bringing all of its various strengths to Spider-Man, and it didn't disappoint. And by the way, Sony bought Insomniac in 2019 for reportedly $229 million, which seems like

an absolute bargain given that that was after Spider-Man became the best-selling game based on a comics character and just given the track record of Insomniac and some of the sums that other studios have gone for in the acquisition spree that we've seen over the past few years, that's like, that's a steal. You know, you look back at like Disney buying Marvel and Star Wars for billions, but still in the grand scheme of things, not that much given what they've gotten out of that. Like bringing Insomniac in-house as a first-party developer exclusives for your system and they're just cranking out classics like this. Like that is, that's my deal. Maybe they just trusted Sony enough, but also it's nice to have that like backup that company.

Not again, oh God, I am trying to start beef with different fandom today. Not only the Superman people, but like I would, I would if someone was like, hey, Marvel wants to back you or Sony wants to back you, I would go to Sony or Disney or Sony. I'd be like, I'm going to Sony. I think they'll give me more freedom to do what I want. Right. Yeah, there has been a commitment to first party games, right? And really committing to first party campaigns. Obviously, Sony is now into live service games and buying.

bungee and all the rest like everyone is, but without abandoning kind of the classic God of War Horizon Spider-Man model. And Marvel Spider-Man was, I think, the first video game to get the Marvel flipbook intro, you know, that lends that kind of air of authenticity to it. And I'm not saying I enjoy the game more because, like, it has the standard Marvel graphic at the beginning that you're used to from the movies. But the fact that Marvel was willing to put that stamp of approval on. there, I think for the first time, kind of tells you what you need to know about just the

production quality of that game. Like this is this is not like a movie adaptation. This is not we're going to make some janky version of Spider-Man that you can play. This is like, we're going to make a playable movie basically. And Marvel was like, yeah, that's what you made. Yeah. And it starts so strong. Like if you haven't played Marvel Spider-Man, just like, do yourself a favor. Go just watch the first scene on YouTube. It's just like, this economical masterclass in two minutes, the game sums up the essence of Spider-Man. Because you just, you pan over his room, you know, he's in his shoddy apartment, he's got his leftover takeout, he has a cracked computer screen, he's like scribbling diagrams about

his web shooter and everything. And he's fallen asleep, he's exhausted. Spider-Man is always sleep-deprived, right? And he's like immediately torn between two worlds, you know, He's got the overdue rent notice slipped under the door and he's like, am I going to take care of that or am I going to go to this emergency in progress? And he walks toward one and then nope, he's out the window just like that. And two minutes in, you're swinging. And it has that like great, you know, I'm always a sucker for when a cutscene transitions into game play seamlessly.

And this does that. You know, you're watching him swing. There's parts where like between Spider-Man and Miles Morales, where I was just like, This is too quick. I have to press square and I don't have enough time. And that was one of the first questions I asked the people that were working on Spider-Man or Spider-Man 2. I was like, how do you choose when we have to get into the game? Because sometimes it's still a little too seamless where I'm like eating and I'm watching it.

And then I'll be like, hey, you got to stop this car. And I'm like, shit. Right. Yeah. They're very good. Also, I want to add when you were to when you were explaining Peter Parker in his room, sleep deprived. As it, Ben.

Yeah, that's me again. Except for, you know, being torn between the mortgage to rent and just like existing. But I was like, this is you. I'm not fighting crime, but I'm still sleep deprived because I'm, you know, playing video games and podcasting about them. I guess it's a little less essential. For our live show, you should dress up a Spider-Man. Oh, okay.

I'll take it under consideration. It is the day before Halloween. So it's such an official. set up. And yeah, you're right. It's like one second, you're like, I'm watching the movie. This is fun. I'll sit back and relax. And then, oh, nope, I'm up. It's me. I've got to press some buttons now. And so it introduces you to the swinging. And then you're taking on Kingpin right off the bat and it ramps up right away. And you just get a feel for the character. And it like pans over his wall. He's got like cutouts of, you know, Kingpin, Wilson Fisk and like vulture and all the enemies that you're going to be opposing in this game. It's just sort of a taste of. of what's to come. And then the swinging, like, it all comes back to the swinging, right? I mean, that's make a break for a Spider-Man came. That's, that's it. Like, that could be the selling point. If the swinging alone is good or bad, that will determine whether I play your game or not. And they just completely nailed it. I mean, the swinging was and is just probably the best

thing about these games. Yeah, no, 100%. I agree. I love the swinging and the swinging is not bad. It Kind of feels like I'm just playing like Grand Theft Auto and Spider-Man's world. Yeah. But no, I, yeah, the Flipbeats perfect. That's what I'm playing it for. That's all I did when I first played it. I was like, oh, I'm just going to jump around. Right.

Yeah, no, it is fun in the same way of GTA. Just like, hey, I'm going to drive around and cause mayhem. I mean, the mayhem part, maybe not quite as much. You are Spider-Man. Too bad. But I do like how they do throw you into it kind of very quickly in Spider-Man and at Miles Morales. I can't.

It was a minute. And I replays Miles, but at the beginning of the game, I barely remember. But I do remember at the very beginning, you are going against the rhino. And you are jumping through malls and you are doing too much. And I was like, oh, my God, they threw my ass in here. I was like, I don't even know what I'm doing. I was like, what's going on? I was like, this is crazy.

Yeah. That's Spider-Man's life. There's some discussion of like, how hard should the swinging be? Like, should the swing be a challenge? Because you look back at Spider-Man to other good Spider-Man swinging games. games, sometimes there's more manual input required, you know, like you actually have to time it, right, or aim or something. Whereas in this game, it's, it's very much automated and sort of seamless. And I love it. Like, is there any part of you that's like, this is too easy or like,

I'm not even having to give this any thought or? No, because I think they did a great way of making it seamless and easy. And then if you want the added addition of making it harder, you can do tricks. You can do the double th whipping, because I double thwip all the time to like a specific location. And you have to look through the like the target hole or whatever and choose a corner to go off and I immediately press X and like shoot myself off. So it's like it may it's like here's baseline. Easy to do. Do you want to do some other cool shit with it? Here's a bunch of other buttons to press. And that's, I love that. Make it easy. And there's so many subtleties to it that You don't even recognize that I didn't realize I interviewed the director of that first game when I wrote about the swinging for the ringer.com.

What a wonderful website back when the game came out. And they do these little things like the streets are narrower than they are in real life because if you attach to a higher point rather than a point off to the side, it gives you greater control of your forward movement. And there's like sort of a subtle outward force from the buildings that like repels you into the center of the street. You don't even notice. You don't feel it. But it's just it's easier to swing down the center of the street without being pulled toward where the web is. And there's like an animation where Spider-Man kind of like tucks in and dives a little bit when he's above a building so that you can get down into a range where you can attach and keep swinging. And then like if you swing into an awning or a fire escape or a water tower, there's sort of a special animation so that you go through that.

and it all feels very dynamic and organic and immersive. So I would play these games just like as a swinging simulator. Yeah. If that was all it was, it was just like, hey, swing around this lush realistically modeled NYC as Spider-Man. Yeah, okay. I would do that for a while. But to upgrade your suits and to upgrade your things, you know, you got to do the work. Yes.

It's not just it. It's not a chore to do the work mostly. It is for me. Sometimes. And I never fast travel in these games. No. You can, but I just never have wanted to. And especially on PS5, you know, if you're playing the remastered Spider-Man or Spider-Man 2, it's instantaneous with the SSD drive.

It's not like there's loading times, but it's just fun to travel. It's fun to travel. Yeah. I agree. I completely agree. And also, I think somehow, which I don't think this is true, when I'm thipping and doing a bunch of stunts off buildings, I'm like, oh, I can get better at thwipping and doing stuff.

And I'm like, I don't think you get better at it. I think you just continue doing the same things, Jessica. You just like doing it. Right. But I for some reason, feel like, oh, because I mean, there is stuff. Like in Miles, you have to like, or well, I think it's also in Spider-Man, the first one. You are always constantly like the velocity you go down, come back up, you shoot up. So I'm always like, how far can I go?

I've also been doing how many tricks can I do? Because I like getting those skill bonuses. Yeah. I'm, yeah, I'm just thwipping all over the. place. That's all I did the first time I played Miles. I was like, this is more fun than actually fighting. It's like sunset overdrive, but faster, or it's like Zelda, where I never fast travel for a different reason, not because it's so much fun to navigate as just like there's just so much stuff to do and you want to sort of stumble across things that you'll see on the way. But this, yeah,

it's just that mechanic of swinging. They nailed it. And that's half the battle. And it helps, I think, to have the adaptive triggers, right? Because, you know, that can be gimmicky. in some games with the sort of the PS5's more sensitive force feedback. If it's not implemented well, it might just feel like any other rumble. But with the web swinging in particular, it does add kind of a kinetic element to it that just, again, places me inside the suit, which is what I want. And the city is beautiful, obviously. It's not like a one-to-one recreation, but you recognize things.

And as a New Yorker, obviously, I enjoy swinging around my neighborhood. And it changes as the game goes on. It sort of reflects the narrative. So late in Spider-Man, and we'll have some spoilers for these games potentially here. But, you know, when the inmates are out of the asylum and everyone's out of Rikers and the raft, suddenly they're just running roughshod over New York City. And it's dangerous to traverse. And things are kind of going to hell.

It's anarchy out there. And so that just reinforces the narrative setup of the game as well. This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus. Beth and Rip are back in a new series. Dutton Ranch. Kelly Riley and Colehouser returned, and this time they're taking on Texas. As Beth and Rip build a future together, peace will have to wait as they face corruption, danger, and a ruthless rival ranch, willing to protect its secrets at all costs. Legacy is a beautiful thing, but only if it survives. Dutton Ranch starring Colehouser, Kelly Riley, Annette Benning and Ed Harris,

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and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply, visit the website for full terms and conditions. we talked about the swinging. What do you make of the combat? Because these games are often comped to the Batman Arkham games, right? That's kind of the easy comp.

And I think they were influenced by those. But how do you think they compare or what do you think they do well? As the, okay, first off, that was a great question. Can I include the new Spider-Man, the third, the Spider-2 in this? Yeah, go ahead. I shouldn't spoil it too much. Yeah. Okay.

So, yeah, the combat's really fun. I think it's very simple. I think the hard part for some people that might come in to play is that you have to memorize a lot of buttons. Yes. And it's not like button mashy buttons. It's like, it's easy. It'll just be like L1 triangle.

And I'll be like, but I forget. So you're always having to remember to just do L1 and press like triangle square circle. You'll eventually hit it. And as the games kept progressing, they just made it kind of, the only challenging part they added to it is just making it like the way the NPC is playing will be a little bit more aggressive.

I think our style kind of didn't change as Spitey's. Yeah, I find it intuitive in some ways and almost overload in other ways. Like when I find a move that works, sometimes I'll just spam that, you know, just like get them up in the air and just punch them over and over again. And I'm like, there are so many moves I could be using right now. And I'm just defaulting to the same one that's working. and it'll give you the prompt to remind you that you have all of these other things you could do and you have these special abilities and you have gadgets and you have all sorts of ways to just take down your baddies. But I think, you know, it does make you feel like a superhero again, going back to the cliche of like what a superhero game should be. When it's working, when you remember everything that's kind of at your command, you know, all the abilities feel like things that Spider-Man would be able to do and should be able to do, right?

Yeah, I also like that they make you like I was spamming to or I was like, oh, I know this move. I'll just keep doing it. I'll keep doing it. But when you're certain fighting, like if you're crime fighting, it'll be like, well, you'll get bonus points if you do this specific combo. And I'm like, okay, I'll practice. And then I die. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's maybe a little simpler than the Arkham games. There's not as much emphasis on like stringing together combos and that kind of thing. but on the whole, I think it strikes a pretty good balance between just being so complex that I feel like I don't remember all the commands and I need to memorize too much stuff. You can button mash your way through it if you want.

I think it's more rewarding if you take some time to actually remember all the different attacks. It's not as hard. It's not as hard as like Mortal Kombat or freaking street fighter. They're easy combos and you choose which ones you want to take on when you're upgrading your skills. but most of the time I'm like, oh, is it R1 or R2, L1, L2? I'll just do this.

I'll just press square. I'll just press square. Yeah, right. Square and Dodge. Square and Dodge. Yeah. And it seems like the powers have ramped up in Spider-Man 2, as maybe the enemies have too.

But again, we don't want to give up too much right now. So we'll get to that next time. And also, always appreciate at this late date in our superhero culture, when we can just skip the origin stories. Right? So there's no origin story in Marvel Spider-Man, except of Miles Morales, of course. But Peter himself, he's an established Spidey by this point. Technically, we got kind of an origin for Harry, didn't we?

Yeah, that's true. I mean, you do get introductions of characters. But, like, yeah, and you get set up for villains to come in future games and in Spider-Man, too. But Peter himself is sort of a veteran by the time the game begins, you know. Yeah, you don't have to go through the, oh, I got bitten. No, I don't feel well. Oh, I woke up and suddenly I'm sticking to things. You know, we've seen it.

I was thinking that while playing it and replaying and the older ones. I was like, do they just write this assuming that we know these? Because even the villains don't really get like introductions. They get like backstory to them. And we see like they were actually good people or this. But we're not like, they just throw in black cats. like we know who Black Cat is. And I was like, do they know that we don't know?

Or do they just assume those playing the game are fans of the comics and movies and they would know? I guess, and that's the fun in looking at the writing to this is being like, oh, I guess technically, even if you didn't know who Black Cat is, she still worked very well in this game without getting a full backstory on her. It still worked very well. Yeah. And especially with the even more famous villains who starred in the movies, yeah, we know. by this point. There may be some people who don't know, but there are more people who do know and will be bothered by having to be reintroduced to them all over again. But the relationship with

the movies is really interesting because you can't avoid it. I mean, Spider-Man's been so omnipresent in the culture over the past 20 years. I mean, there have been 10 movies, right? And so when you play a Spider-Man game, you have so many Spider-Man storylines in your head, whether it's Peter Parker or Miles Morales, you're thinking of the comics. storylines. You're thinking of the video game storylines. You're thinking of the Sony movie and Spider-Verse storylines. You're thinking of the MCU storylines. And it just all blends together into this postmodern mix, this sort of multiversal soup. And it can be confusing at times. It can be repetitive at times, but it can also be used to its advantage, I think, if you sort of riff on those

established stories and archetypes. So like with these first movies, I mean, you know, you have one of Stan Lee's last cameo as he shows up as a short order cook in Marvel Spider-Man. And you have all these little winking references to things. Like Peter in the first game references the subway stopping set piece from the Ramey movie and jokes about how it worked last time. Or, you know, Peter jokes about kissing Kingpin when he's hanging upside down, obviously referencing the Spider-Man MJ movie kiss. And so there's sometimes when it's like it wants to play. on the movie lineage, but then it doesn't want to be too close, right? Because you don't want to just retrace the steps.

So do you ever find yourself thinking, I've seen too much of this or this is too close or I wish it were more different? It's different for me. And I feel like it's different for you. It's different for people that did watch all those movies religiously or just like our overly Marvel fans because I like seeing another take on the villains, especially a take that maybe worked in its favor. So I was like I'm trying to think of like an example of Rino hasn't really shown up in

was he and Toby Maguire's Briefly right Yeah yeah yeah so it's like I do think they maybe did a good share of like Oh we only put in villains that we didn't see that much of It's like because even seeing Norman Osborne it's like Yeah it's just Norman Osborne So I genuinely like seeing the difference

Because I'm like oh there taking it from a comic book standpoint where this character is actually huge, massive, a monster, something they can't do in the movies, something that they can do in video games. And I think that translation worked really well, and I liked it. Yeah, we were robbed

of the spectacle of Paul Giamatti as Rino in The Amazing Spider-Man 3. I need more of those terrible special effects and Paul Giamati Hayman out, but it's true. I mean, a Spider-Man movie or game it often comes down to the

villains and how intriguing they are. And so Spider-Man, the first game, and I guess you could also probably say this to some extent about Spider-Man, too, but we'll talk about that next time. There's just a whole lot of villains in these games. Arguably too many, right? So yeah, go on, go on. Well, so in Spider-Man, the first game, so many, you reassemble the Sinister Six, right? And And the nice thing about it is you get Mr. Negative, who is fairly fresh. Like, you know, he hadn't been in a movie by that point. He was like 10 years old in the comics, but a lot of people weren't going to be familiar with Mr. Negative. So he's sort of one of your main big bads.

But then you also get, you know, the Sinister Six. You get Doc Ack, of course, in the mix. You get Scorpion. You got Fulcher. You get Rhino. You get Electro. You know, the gang's all here. And then you get cameos from, as you said, like Black Cat, Silver Sable, Tashabell,

taskmaster, shocker, kingpin, tombstone, hammerhead. So many people in the first one. So many people in the first one. It worked fine. And it sucks because normally I'd be a prison that was like, there's too many people. But I think the story made it work really well, especially because it's like, this is the main line.

And then here comes a bunch of other shit that just happened. I was like, oh, this works. But I was also like, this is like 13 people. Yeah, right. And it's like, save some for the sequel, you know, except they did. Yeah. And Spider-Man has been around for a long time and has had a lot of nemesis over the years.

So you can have Spider-Man too. And, you know, you get Sandman and you get Craven. I'm not revealing anything here. If you've seen any trailer or preview material, there's just a ton of characters who haven't been featured. And, of course, the first two Spider-Man games have been setting up Harry and Green Goblin all along. So there are hints and teases, but we haven't really gotten into the meat of that yet. So it could have fallen prey to the too many villains problem of, say, Spider-Man's, three, the movie, where you have Green Goblin and Sandman and Venom or The Amazing Spider-Man 2,

and you have Rhino and Electro and Goblin. And sometimes it felt like, you know, pick one or pick two here. It makes sense when you're using it and like the, oh, and this is the game storytelling-wise, it's like, yeah, if you are doing the main mission and then you break, like all these people break out of a prison, like in Miles Morales, it, uh, Rhino just like escapes from like a truck. I'm like, oh, this makes sense. Now you have to go handle that for a minute. And then you can come back.

I'm like, this makes sense. But in the movies, you're paying Paul Giamati a lot of money and you've got to give him his stage time. Right. Yeah. And there's a difference between a two-hour movie and a 20-hour game, right? Like in a two-hour movie, yeah, you want to build up a confrontation and a relationship between two characters, like good guy, bad guy. But in a 20-hour game, you're going to need more than that. You're going to need a bigger cast to keep you interested, right?

Or you'll be fighting the same. Exactly. So, and they do the villains really well, I think. Like, the villains are relatable. I'm not saying, yeah, I would do that too. But, but you understand where they're coming from. There's a human side, which I think is the strength of some of the Spider-Man movies, too. You know, you feel bad for Sandman. He didn't ask to be made a sand. I will always feel bad for Sandman. It is not fair. It is not fair. Sam-Man is not a good example because we all should feel bad for Sam-Man. And every property they put Sam-Man in, he's just like, I always feel bad. I will. I always feel bad. to see my daughter. I know. He's like, I'm alone and I'm dying and I'd never want to be a sand person. Yes. Let the guy be solid again. You know, that's all he wants. I mean. But like black cat, it's so funny because like black cats like the very, it's catwoman. Basically. And nothing she does is good. She's always like, I just like to steal. But I loved her. I loved her and replayed Spider-Man. I was like, I forgot why I loved her so much. And it was probably that she was lying about being pregnant. I was like, this is insane. I was like, that is. I was like, that

is a crazy thing for you to do. And she did it. She was like, whatever. Bye. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Peter's like, I have a baby.

Oh. Yeah. Peter's like, great. A million things now. And then she's like, there's actually no child. And I was like, why would you lie and joke like that? Black cat, that's crazy. Yes.

This is, we should note. There's a city that ever sleeps, DLC for, for Spider-Man. But some of this were referencing a three-part, three-part, DLC, kind of an epilogue to the main game. lot of this other stuff happens. People that didn't play that are like, wait, what? Yeah, what? I miss that.

Wait. Yeah. But it's like Doc Ock shows up. And look, Doc Ock is maybe the best or second best Spider-Man villain in the movies. But you see him again and Peter is working for him and learning from him. And you're kind of just like, well, I know where this is going. Right. Like we've seen Doc Ock before he's going to end up being, you know, not the friendly, benevolent

Dr. Otto Octavius, but he's going to be Doc Ock, and he's going to have his brain possessed by AI, and he's going to try to take over the city. And so you expect it to be totally predictable and kind of old hat. But then you end up really feeling for the guy, I think. Not that you don't when he's Albert Molina, but like, you know, the whole game is sort of set up like Peter is being mentored by Dr. Octavius as Peter is mentoring Miles himself. And so there's kind of this mentor, master, an apprentice vibe that's going on here, almost like Asoka. And you feel kind of bad for Doc Haq because he has this whole backstory of, you know, he has this degenerative disease and he's losing the control of his limbs. And so, you know, he wants to do good and the best intentions and, you know, the road to evil, you know. I see the argument you're making. I see the argument you're making. And I get it. Like, it truly is.

Like, I should feel bad for him. My first thought was like, there is too many people in the Spider-Man universe. that is afflicted with something bad that's incurable. And they die or they're not gonna die or they're on the verge and then they go a villainous creating some kind of serum or some kind of fix. And I'm like, I'm tired of it.

I'm like, I can't feel bad for the ball. Doc Ock. The only part about the Doc Ock storyline that I felt bad in the game was like the fact that what was it was it? Because I didn't, at the end I hated it. I was like, kill him. I was like, kill him.

He knows who you are. Kill him. And he's also like not going to change. He's not going to change. So kill him. But when he was like fighting with Norman Osborne and being like, this is all bad. None of what you guys are doing is good. I'm like, yeah, I get that.

I sympathize with that. But I'm like, the rest of it was kind of an asshole. Yeah. In the game. In the game. And I kind of didn't care for him that much. I get it. I get it.

Also, I think one of the ways in which the games and the movies kind of overlap in almost a disconcerting way. like there was the whole controversy over the face of Spider-Man being redone from the original for PS4 to the remaster in PS5. So the performance in both games is by Yuri Lowenthal, and he does, I think, a really great job of just the more somber side of Spider-Man and also the quippy, funny side of Spider-Man. But they redid the face and they never said that this was why, but the new face model looks a lot more like Tom Holland, right? which I mean, it seems like it probably is not a complete coincidence. And a lot of people were very upset about that doing like death threats and things the way that gamers just blow things entirely out of proportion and just hound developers in ways that they absolutely should not do, especially about something so insignificant as this, not that they should do it about anything. But in my mind, if that was part of the rationale, like I do think that the older face suits this version of Peter a little bit better.

Not that it really hampers my enjoyment of the game and you forget about it and you get used to it really quickly. But the original Peter face was older, you know, befitting an older Peter who is not a high school kid. He's not even a college student. He's out of school. He's graduated. And now he's not balancing Spider Manning in school. He's balancing Spider Manning and work, you know, and his relationships, of course, and MJ and all of that. But he had a little bit more of a mature look to go along with the mature phase.

the character was in, whereas like with the redone face, he looks like he's Miles' age, or maybe he looks younger than Miles, and it's kind of like off-putting. It's like he's supposed to be the older, wiser one here and doesn't really look at anymore. I'm also not trying, again, third times a charm, not trying to fight a fandom. Not trying to fight a fandom. When I woke up this morning, the last thing, I was like, you know what? Let me go to war with some fandoms. He, I just looked up the image because I just wanted to make sure that I was like,

Yeah, I remember when that debacle was happening. I didn't really think twice about it. He resembles Tom Holland in the eyes. He also looks just like a generic white man. And so does Tom Holland. Yeah. So like it looks like. So do I.

Another way in which I'm Peter Parker. And why I'm not Miles Morales. But like literally if Tom Holland was not famous. If Tom Holland was just a normal boy and he was coming out of a bar, you'd be like, yeah, that's just like, that's a white guy. Which is part of Tom Holland. Howard's appeal, right? Yeah.

He's just like the every man, you know, yeah. He's just a normal boy looking face. And that's what this character looks like. It has, the only part is like it has what I kind of have with my eyes where I have like an extra little bag under like right there by my lids. But I'm literally like, this is just a generic white coating. That's someone put into a game. Yeah. And there are some moments that do really hit hard.

So as you said, you know there's always going to be an uncle or an aunt that dies at some point, right? It's a Spider-Man game. But Aunt May's death in the original Marvel Spider-Man, it really is, it's one of the more heart-wrenching ones because, well, A, this was before no way home, right? So it's before that whole death happened. And also the way it goes down where Peter has to make a choice, he has to decide to let her go. So it's not the Uncle Ben unintentional.

I didn't realize the consequences. And now I regret the air of my ways. and I feel guilty about it. It's in real time. He has to decide, hey, I have this anti-serum, right, to this plague that Doc Ack has loosed on New York City that has made everyone sick,

including Aunt May. And he has to decide, am I going to save Aunt May or am I going to use that antiserum to save everyone else? And he makes the choice that Peter Parker, Spider-Man, has to make. And Aunt May would want him to make, but it's still just a gut-wrenching choice and seeing that play out.

it really lands. So yeah. I think that's the saddest one. In my opinion, it is the saddest canon event of the Uncle or Aunt dying. Because it was like, this could have been stopped, but you can't stop it.

You know as a hero and Peter Parker, you can't. And also, May probably wouldn't want this. And she knew you were Peter Parker all time. So it's okay. I hated, that was the only thing I did hate with Doc off and with her.

It was a quick like, I knew you the entire time. I knew who you were. And I was like, then why didn't we have? have a conversation. Because if there's anything I learned from the Miles storyline, it's that like, once people know it makes it a lot easier to do a lot of things in life.

I know it sucks to always put like people you love in harm's way in that way. But I'm like, do you know how easy it is once like, ganky new? He's like, oh, I'm a friend that can cover for you. I can do all these things. I can help you. Peter. And that's the, I mean, that's why we love Peter. And that's why we like Miles in their separate ways.

They have different lives. They have different motivations. and Peter's just like, I can't because I will lose everything that I love. But that was, who. That scene in the newest movie of seeing all the canon events and to see one where it's like, you could have stopped it. It's like, injury to insult. Yeah. Yeah.

You mentioned Genki. That's another way in which all of these different Spider-Man stories overlap surprisingly. Because, like, Genki in the comics and in these games is Ned Lee. from the MCU essentially, right? But Ned Leeds came after Genki. And so if you saw the MCU first, you'd be like, this is a rip off of Ned Leeds. But no, it's the other way around.

But they're all just influencing and informing and sometimes borrowing from each other. I feel like the first Spider-Man, because you said 2018 was the year? Yes. That was before, was that before the first animated movie? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. They were, they, in I, I got this from the interview to the same kind of vibe that it was like that movie blew out. Like it was out of the water and then everyone was like, we're into Spider-Man now. And then they went to the Tom Hollins and they did everything. And they were like, okay, we can't do any more jokes about the Sam Ramey universe. We can't do any more jokes about the other like the amazing Spider-Man. Like we are now needing to separate it.

And you can kind of see it. If you go play back the Spider-Man movie or the Spider-Man game to the Miles Morales one, You see that they really did try to disconnect from being the cinematic universe that they are. And it's kind of crazy. I was watching it and I was like, I could, Miles is not at all trying to be anything like what we see Miles in today. Right. Yeah.

It was months after. So the Spider-Man game came out in September 2018 and then Into the Spider-Verse came out in December 2018. So all of a sudden, yeah, that was everywhere. And Miles was huge. And they still talk. They don't do like a lot of stuff. together, I assume, I assume. But from the interview, they told me that they were like, yeah, we have conversations.

And that's probably you're just making sure you don't want to step on each other's toes. It's different with Marvel because at least there were Disney. It's like, here's the one sheet of everything, don't touch, please. But when you're within the Sony universe, like you're working for Sony, Sony now is like, okay, both teams, animation studios and game studios. You guys have to talk it out because you guys can't overlap too much. You guys can't touch too much. And that's probably honestly a little bit harder.

Yeah. And then also Sony Animation Studios, that Spider-Man is making so much money. Miles is making across and into the Spider-Verse making so much money that it's probably kind of hard for the games to be like, Hey, hey, I'm doing this. Don't touch it. Do not touch this storyline. Although those make a big amount of money too, at least by the game standards.

I mean, this is the golden age of Spider-Man, I guess. Like we've, at least on screen, we've got just like three simultaneous or four. I mean, just bangers. like in different media, you know, games, MCU, animated, Sony movies, like everything is hitting right now for this character. Such a bad problem to have. Yeah. Such a horrible problem.

When is it going to be Spider-Man overload? Not yet, clearly. Never. Never. Spider-Man speaks to the generations. And as soon as you made him older, we fell in. And then you may have older in two properties. Like, the game and in the animated series.

Like, and technically in the MCU, because when he came back, I mean. Right. Toby McGuire is old and the new ones. And he even talks about it in the movie. But I was like, yeah, as soon as you started making it possible for Spider-Man's, especially even like variants of Spider-Man to relate to people, they were like to everybody, it's going to be going for another like 100 years. Yeah.

They can keep it going. It seems that way now. Once we're ruled by cats, they'll make a spider cat and we'll be into it. Superhero fatigue, except when it comes to Spider-Man. because Spider-Man's just killing it constantly. So both of these games are setting up the third game or Spider-Man 2. It's hard to keep track. But I hate that they did that with the titles.

I hate that they did that with the titles. But both of the post-credit scenes to Spider-Man and Miles Morales are showing us Harry Osborne, suspended in this solution kept alive by the symbiote, teasing Venom who comes out to play in Spider-Man 2, right? So you're getting these little teases of things. And there are some other things teased. I mean, you know, you've got Yuri, who's, you know, with the police when the series starts. And you kind of get a tease of, oh, she's going rogue.

And it's going to be race. And this is sort of in the DLC to one of the criticisms. I remember our pal Justin Charity wrote something after the first game came about just like how closely Spidey cooperates with the police. Like he's basically an honorary member of the police force in these games. You know, he's like just working hand in hand with them much of the time. Don't get me started. Do not get me started because I've mentioned that. That's like the one thing.

And that's what I like when they approached any version of Batman now. They're like, let's talk about how this person's bad. Because he's constantly being a weird vigilante. And I'm like, Spider-Man is like the police and Spider-Man, they're like bros. And then with Miles Morales, it's like, yeah, well, my dad is a cop. And I'm like, God, great. They just keep doing this. I'm like, stop making him.

That's why, again, like, so. animation studios making different Spider-Men and giving us the punk rock Spider-Man. I'm like, no, that's my Spidey. I wonder if it would have been that way if it had come out later, like post-2020. I wonder and what the criticism would have been like at that time. And that was the thing is like they didn't like him at the beginning. They didn't like him at the beginning. And now they like him now.

And I'm like, okay. Yeah, it's again, it's tough to keep track. It's like, okay, in this storyline, this universe, everyone thinks he's bad. And J. Jonah Jameson has convinced everyone that he's just a nemesis of everyone and the police are against them. And now he's just buddy buddy in these games. So again, it can be a bit jarring, but it's also good to preserve some sort of differences between these properties and among these properties. So you have these teases for the upcoming games. You also just, I shouted out, Yuri Lohenthal, Najee Jeter, of course, is excellent as Miles always as well.

and you get a post-credit scene in the City that Never Sleeps D.L.C. establishing that Peter has been training Miles. Miles is bitten and introduced in Marvel Spider-Man as well. Also, got to just shout out the theme, John Pisano's Spider-Man theme for the games and the first game is just really up there with any of the movie themes. It's just instantly recognizable if you hear a snippet of that. You know it holds up to to any of the other themes out there. And there's just so much to collect, right?

And I'm not a huge collector in games. I'm not much of a cosmetics guy in games or in real life, I guess, for that matter. And so I kind of like, unless it's like an MMO or something, it's a game that I'm going to be playing for hundreds of hours and investing in creating this character. I don't care that much about just cosmetic differences and different skins and suits. Ben. If there are different powers and abilities that go along with it, that's a different matter.

If it's not just how you look, I want to look good. But I don't care that much if I'm just playing a game for 15 hours or whatever it is and then it's over. But there are so many suits, right? And then there's the photo mode so you can just capture all of that. And there have been so many just viral memed images from the Spider-Man games. And of course, all the gadgets and everything. And I think Miles Morales took a step up in that respect when it came to. The suits and also the different abilities because in Marvel Spider-Man, I didn't find myself

switching that much, you know, because I just kind of stuck with the base enhanced suit. But in Miles Morales, it's like, oh, okay, these are different abilities that I actually want to try out. Okay. Okay. Oh, oh, my God. Okay. So for, yes, Peter Parker Spider-Man, I didn't change the suit at all.

But in Miles Morales, I was going crazy with those suits. And I was, like, I would upgrade the suit so I could use different things. But I was like, or well, just like the boosters and your skills and stuff. But like the actual suit that's just design, I was like, I'm changing this up. And I was reading an amazing article that was like saying why they think Miles Morales was better than the first Spider-Man game. And it was because they were able to like pull that through with Miles Morales. Like the character, Miles Morales has like the swagger and this teen angsty thing about him that like, oh, you're like, I want to change him. I want to make him like, or not change him, but I was like, I want to put him in his world.

want to, like, do all these fun things. And then Peter Parker, I was like, yeah, it's Peter Parker. He can do whatever you want. So I was having a lot of fun. And also, like, Miles' abilities are, I mean, not only are they new, but it's so fun. It's so fun. Me and Charity did a show in Atlanta talking about video games. And I mentioned how they keep putting black characters as electric kind of characters,

like Storm, Static Shock, Black Lightning, Electro. And then I was like, and then he went Miles Morales, and I went, I was like, oh no. And I love playing as Miles with his electric abilities. It's so much fun. It's so much fun. Although it's very confusing that they're called like Venom abilities. And now we have Venom.

But we'll get into that next week. But that is true. I think it's true. Like on an hour per hour basis, I'm totally on board with the idea that Miles Morales is a better game. It's certainly just as good because it's the same sort of framework. It's a more compact package. right? It's about half as long, roughly. But, you know, it takes place. Yeah, I, that's my recollection. It's, you know, maybe instead of 15 hours, it's maybe eight or something. It's, it's, it's fast. It goes fast. Like, the whole city is, is open to you, but it's more of a neighborhood story. It's more of a community story, which I appreciate, you know, you get to see Miles's family and Rio's running for council. And, you know, it's, it's just like you're in Harlem where he's moved, of course, and he's.

still acclimating himself to the new neighborhood, but you get a better sense of where he is than I think you do in the first game where, you know, you're not actually in Queens. So you have Queens and Spider-Man 2. You're mostly in Manhattan in the earlier games with Peter Parker and, you know, the whole city is your oyster, but you're not necessarily limited to one specific place or you're not spending so much time and getting to know the neighborhood and the bodegas and everything. And you are in Miles Morales. Yeah. Again, it's going to project. It's just going to get. It gets better. They take what they know from the first one. They're like, oh, let's fix that for Miles Morales. They take that knowledge of what everyone said for Miles Morales. And they were like, oh, let's make it bigger and do more things like that in the next game.

My only note, which goes across Miles and the first game, is I like the story. And I normally fight for stories all the time. In the first Spider-Man, I did think we focused too much on, like, Peter Parker, being Peter Parker. And I was like, I need to get back in the spider suit. I was like, get me back in there. And same with Miles. There was a good storyline and Miles of stuff. But like, I would be like, oh, I'm kind of done being Miles.

I want to go be Spider-Man. And they would be like, oh, like, I keep getting calls on my phone. They were like, come over. You said you were coming. And I was like, damn. I was like, they won't even let me live. They won't let me live. Yeah.

Yeah. Twice as many calls and texts in Spider-Man, too. But just twice as many characters. Dude. Twice as many characters, though. And that's the fun part is you get the switch between the characters. Sometimes they allow, we'll get into it next week. Yeah.

It's hard. It's hard not to get ahead of ourselves here. I know because we're talking about the first two. And I want to talk about like the upgrade from the first two. Yeah. Right. But it's a steady progression, you know? Each one gets better in some respects.

And they differ enough in their animations and their move sets that you know which spidey you're playing. You know, Miles Browns feels different in his game than Peter Parker does in his initial game. And I love the Christmas setting. I'm a sucker for the Christmas spirit. So you get that kind of hawk-eye vibe of the city around Christmas and snows on the ground and everything when you're playing Miles Morales. So that helps differentiate it from the original Spider-Man too. So it's just- I hate it.

I hate that the holiday. No, that it like persuaded. Because I did too. I love that everyone kept saying like, happy holiday Spider-Man or just like, happy Hanukkah or whatever you celebrate, Spidey. And I was like, this is so sweet. There's snow on the ground. Lights everywhere. I'm doing Christmas things to my family.

And I was like, ooh, this is a bonus. And I was like, why is this a bonus? Yeah. If it was Halloween, would I give it a bonus? And I was like, no, it's because it's Christmas. It's because it's Christmas. Yep, yep. It works for me.

I fall for that every time. And the Miles Morales story is emotional and affecting too, right? I mean, you know, it's the relationship between him and his mother and his friends. And then Miles and Finn, his friend, the tinkerer, right, who's sort of a gender, flipped version of the tinkerer and much younger than the traditional tinkerer. They're both dealing with grief. They've both lost someone. Finn's lost her brother.

Miles still dealing with the after effects of losing his dad in the first game because this is like a year after the first game. So not that much has changed, although he had a growth spurt in the interim. But, you know, yeah, that's the time when you spread up. But it just works really on every level. And it doesn't overstay. It's welcome. And, you know, it just builds on the foundation.

I mean, in that sense, like Marvel Spider-Man just establish the model and the world and how it feels to play and what it looks like. And then you can just keep building and refining and polishing. And that's what they've done. And in many ways, Miles is a more compelling character, certainly a newer one and one that we've been less just bombarded by over the decades, although certainly got our choice of, stories these days, but I think it just added a level of freshness to the formula. And now it's with our powers combined. You know, we form Spider-Man 2 and it's back and better than ever. I love it. I want more. It also like, no better time for Spider-Man 2 to drop than with like the announcement that they're not, they're pushing like the second one very far, like 2024, 25.

And I was like, great, I'll be dead by then. I'm very dramatic when they push movies. I, They'll be like 236. I'm like, I'll be 82. I'm going to die. With the next Spider-Verse movie, they were like, oh, it's coming out next year. And everyone was like, no, it's not. It is not even close. I was a dummy.

I was a dummy being like, yes, it is. Yes, it is. Nothing will happen. You read anything about the making of those movies, the behind the scenes turmoil. I fall for it every single time. Every crazy movie you can think about. I was like, yeah, it's going to come out at the assigned date that they said they were going to do it. You're like Lucy and the football and Charlie Brown and they just pull it away every time.

Keep doing it. I'm going to keep doing it because I'm an idiot. And I'll think about it too. I'll be like, they're probably going to push this. But then that's the thing. The optimism that it will be pushed and then I will mess up getting the game or the ticket or doing something. Like something will happen because I'll be like, they're going to push it. And then they don't.

I'd rather be prepared for it to actually come out. Fortunately, there's no shortage of superhero content out there. So they can push a Spider-verse movie, and that's all right because we will have a brand-new Spider-Man game, plus a couple of classics that we can revisit and still hold up. Anything else you want to say about the first two Spider-Men before we call it a pod today? No, great game. Love them. Hate them. Who do I hate in the games?

I don't think I hate a single person. You hate Doc Cock, it sounds like. No, I like Doc. I just don't like this. I was like, I don't feel sorry for you. I was like, I don't feel bad for you. You and literally every other villain in the MC or in Spider-Man has been like, and I'm trying not to come off as asshole.

I think I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, that I'm like, you and every Spider-Man villain has had the exact same situation of like, I need a serum, I need to create something to fix this. I am a villain. It's not my fault. And I'm like, I get it. I get it. Yeah.

But don't make it my problem. There are certain spider tropes. that repeat themselves. So you got to put a fresh spin on it. And I don't hate it. I don't hate it. It's just more like even like in the movie, the lizard, I'm like, okay, dude, come on.

Come on, bro. What are you doing? Electro, I'm like, come on. You did this. You did this. Okay. Regardless, I don't hate any characters. They're very fun.

Love, I love them. They're very fun to play. It's very simple to just turn on, sit in your, your gamer chair and play. Now you're just trying to make them in. You're trying to pander to all the fan bases you've anchored in this. in this episode. I love it. It's the best thing

in the world and I love Superman. Woo! Fly with a cape. Okay. Lastly, without any spoilers, anything you think people should know

story-wise, if they didn't play these first two games, what do they need to know going into Spider-Man too? I mean, you need to know, obviously,

that those post-credit scenes for the first two games, we teased Harry, who had the same disease that his mother died of, right? One of the Osbournes is always suffering

from some sort of debilitating disease and to keep him alive. Norman puts him in a tank, right? Puts him in a Bacta tank with some green solution and a symbiote and keeps him in suspended animation there. And we know Dr. Cliff Connors, aka the lizard, he's working there too. So he's in the picture. Anything else we should know or tease for people? I genuinely, if you know Spider-Man,

even like the lore of just Spider-Man, you watch the movies, you, good, you're fine. But if you don't know anything about Spider-Man and you aren't going into Spider-Man too, the only thing I would say to look up maybe is just like if you have free time, free time, the villains that are in the games

or the villains in general, if you just want to see the villains from the movies, just because they'll play parts in the games and you're like, I don't know who this is. Like Black Cat showing up, she has not shown up in other properties. So when she showed up for me, I was like, oh, this is my first time being interested in Black Cat. And I loved her. And I didn't need to know any information behind the scenes.

But it was just like, good to know who she is. Yeah. And also, I guess, important to know, of course, the MJ Peter relationship. So they're kind of on again, off again in classic Peter MJ way. But the first game, I think it's one of my favorite actual representations of MJ and Peter, you know, because it's like you can understand what's keeping them apart. And so, you know, they like each other. They love each other. They're just the real life keeps getting in the way. She's an ace reporter.

He's a superhero. It's tough to make it work, but they patch things up. Not for me. It was a no for me, dog. It was a no for me, dog. I was like, be with Black Cat. Sure. Well, yeah.

Be with the thief. She's amazing. When you're single, when you're separated, go ahead. I mean, will she tell you that she had your baby when she didn't possibly? Well, she lured you. And that was the way she lured him to help, like, help her. She was like, hey, you have to help me get my son out of this. Might be your son. He's like, whoa, oh my God. Yeah, absolutely. Shows up. Wait,

you trick me. Bye. And also, I, there is no son. I said, dude, that is what? What? What? Black Cat. That was a mind. I need to like you. Yes. So, but by the end of that game, Peter and MJ, they're back together. And then Miles Browness, they're off on a trip, you know, And that's why Miles kind of has the Spider-Manning to himself for a while. And that's kind of the conceit of that game. But yeah, otherwise, I mean, there is a little recap at the start of Marvel Spider-Man 2. So if you don't even want to go to the trouble of looking up a explainer or YouTube recap, there is one at the start of the game, which I think more games should have.

But that'll situate you. And yeah, you know. And hopefully you haven't missed these games. If you have, go back and play them. You know, Spider-Man 2 will be there for you. And you might enjoy it even more, but again, you can dive in whenever, wherever. And we will be back next week to talk to you all about it. And we know that by then a lot of people will be playing it.

They won't have finished it. And so we will mention when we're going to spoil stuff. And we'll probably have maybe a separate spoiler section. So we won't ruin the game for you. But we will get into it in all of its many layers and flavors. And we will convey our love for Spider-Man 2 to you. So thank you to everyone who has made this episode. possible, namely Arjuna Ram Kapal, who has scheduled us for so many

button mash podcasts this month, which was what we wanted. He didn't tell us we had to. He didn't ask me. No, no, I'm joking. He did, he did. He suggested it, but, you know, we were all in. We wanted to do pods on these games because they're important and they mean a lot to us. And it's a huge month. So if we're going to have a video game podcast, we got to do podcasts about all the big video games. And thank you to Isaiah Blakely for producing. He's been replaying Spider-Man himself. And we'll be soon. embarking on his own Spider-Man 2 adventure as we hope a lot of you will.

So, happy swinging. Contact us via email at ringerverse at gmail.com. Catch up on what you've missed, and we will be back to walk you and swing you through Marvel Spider-Man 2 next week. All right. Lessons over. Gotta go. Hey.

Thanks. You know. Anytime. Punch Spider-Man.