The Ringer-Verse - 'Spider-Man 2' Review | Button Mash

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

Ben and Jess swing by with their review of 'Spider-Man 2.' They begin with their spoiler-free review of some of the early scenes in the game, the graphics, the combat, and much more. Then, they begin the spoiler-filled section of the show by going more in depth on some of their previous observations and discussing some of the villains we see, the story's ending, what’s next for the franchise, and much more (1:05:57). Hosts: Ben Lindbergh and Jessica Clemons Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, and welcome into the Ringerverse, your Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. I am the Linder, a senior editor for The Ringer, and just as there are two Spider-Men than Spider-Man 2, there are two co-hosts of ButtonMash. So if you open up your podcast app and select Switch to Jess, you will instantly hear Jessica Clemens. Actually, podcasts don't quite work that way. But I can switch to Jess just by saying Jessica. Hello. Hi. I wonder when they're going to put us in the little thing in Spider-Man. You know how they're listening to podcasts and the radio? They should put us in it. Yeah. They got Danica and Jonah just constantly recording. Like, I don't know if it's like a live recording route. Those podcasts

just pop up. Like, does Spider-Man want to listen to Jonah Jameson's podcast? Because I wouldn't, if I were Spider-Man. I wouldn't either. But also, Jonah seems like they're weird. always an emergency. So it's like, how are they able to get on the radio that quickly? And also, why the radio? Yeah. Is it the radio? I thought it was a podcast, but then why does it play automatically?

I have so many questions about podcasts. I have a lot of questions. I thought Danica's was an actual podcast. Jonas, I always kept imagining as like a radio station. Right, because he's like old media. Yeah, he's got the Alex Jones vibe going on there. But we'll get back to that, I think. We have so much more to talk about.

this game, not just about the podcasts. Last month, we previewed Marvel Spider-Man 2. Last week, we gave you our very brief review of the game before revisiting the first Spider-Man and Miles Morales. This week, we burrow all the way to the heart of the symbiot nest to discuss Spider-Man 2 in full. We're going to talk about the newly expanded New York City, the newly expanded combat mechanics, the newly expanded traversal system. Expansion is sort of the theme here. And it sounds like Sales have expanded also because Sony announced that this is the fastest selling PlayStation Studios game ever with two and a half million copies sold in the first 24 hours. So we know a lot of our listeners are playing now. We also know that many of you haven't finished the game yet.

So here's what we'll do. We'll start spoiler-free with things you're introduced to in the trailers and the beginning of the game. And then at the end of the episode, we will discuss the story and what might be next for the franchise, for Insomniac. for superhero games in general, but we will let you know when we're entering spoiler territory. So if you want to, you can pause there and come back when you're ready, except for our producer, Isaiah, who's just out of luck. I told him. I apologize.

I apologize before we started recording. I did too. He said he understood. It comes with the territory. But, damn, he's Spider-Man, just like Spider-Man. Right. But don't worry. The spoilers won't start for a while.

So let's begin with our big picture reviews for anyone who may. missed our pre-release impressions last time. Jess, what is your verdict on Spider-Man 2? I love Spider-Man 2. I love it. After, I love it. I love it. And just like, with like, I'm comparing this to Loki because we're all watching

Loki at the same time, when you have like something that was so good so many times, you're going to get nitpicky with your notes. Right. And so I will always say that I really love this game, but I do have some notes and they're very nitpicky because overall I will, I will, I'm going to continue playing this game after this podcast is done. Yes. Yeah.

We'll just stipulate great game and all of our criticisms will come in the light of mostly, this is a really great game. And we'll get into why it's a great game. I hadn't finished it the last time we talked and now I have. And if anything, my opinion has improved. I've just thoroughly enjoyed my 20-ish hours with it. There are certainly aspects I like less, which we'll get into. But Insomniac just more or less took what worked about Spider-Man and Miles Morales.

which was a lot, as we talked about last week, and just made it tighter and faster and bigger and prettier. So the weak points, such as they were, got sanded down, sometimes literally, thanks to Flint, Marco, our man. And almost all the additions enhanced the whole package. I think it's just more or less what everyone wanted it to be. It's just a very polished, playable blockbuster. It's like a summer superhero flick in interactive form.

So it was worth the way. I think. Yeah, I think it was, it was definitely worth the weight. It, to me, it just keeps getting better from the first Spider-Man to Miles Morales to this. I'm like, this, it just keeps getting better for me. I'm very, what's going to happen next is always going to be my question, especially with like how it looks. I'm like, how can you evolve from this?

Maybe we'll get into that when we're talking spoilers, because for me personally, it took me a really long time to notice what my notes were. And then on top of that, I was still like, I. I don't, this map is huge. It's massive. And normally it would make me so mad because I'm like, there's too much to do. But it worked really well.

And I don't know what the math is on it. The math isn't math for me. If I normally hit it, why do I like it here? Well, there are only three burrows in this game up from one in the previous. So two more burrows to go, right? Spider-Man 3,

Staten Island get hyped. For the East Coasters, the New Yorkers are going to love watching this. When I was playing at the entire time, I kept being like, I wonder of Ben knows. I wonder if Ben gets this because I don't. He does.

He does. He did. All right. Before we start dissecting this thing, like we're Kurt Conner's experimenting on the symbiote, let's tease up what's next in the ringerverse. So the next podcast coming on the ringerverse feed is, believe it or not, more button mash. Back to back button mashes. So to keep up with the pace of high profile releases this month, we've gone from biweekly every two weeks to weekly. and now for one week only to semi-weekly or twice a week.

So on Wednesday, we'll be back with our takes on Super Mario Brothers Wonder, which came out the same day as Spider-Man 2. So our PlayStation's and switches runneth over. And remember, you can contact us at Ring Reverse Gaming at gmail.com to tell us how you are reacting to one of the greatest gaming years ever. On Thursday night, the Midnight Boys will record their reactions to Loki episode 4 and on Friday, you, Jess, will have your splash page Loki video breakdown of episode four as well. Over on our sister feed, House of Our, Mal, and bestselling author Joanna Robinson,

returning from her book tour, are currently recording their Loki Episode 3 Deep Dive, which should be out around when this episode is. And on Friday, they'll be back with part five of their Doctor Who Primer on the 12th Doctor. Finally, next Monday, the day of the Ring or Verse Live show in L.A. We will have one more October button mash for you, a Halloween horror themed two topic pod on Alan Wake 2 and Five Nights at Freddy's that Jess has been looking forward to for months. I, you guys don't understand. You guys don't understand. I feel like horror people, you got into get it.

But if you're a horror person that played Five Nights at Freddy's, you really get it. And I think we're all excited in different ways for this movie. And for me, I'm just so. excited. I love horror. I love Matthew Lillard. I love Josh Hutcherson. And then you put them in my favorite game and I'm hey, I'm just going to go off. I'm just going to go off. We're all excited in different

ways. My way of being excited for this is to be deeply apprehensive and anxious. But I can't wait. And I've got to say, going from Spider-Man to Mario to Alan Wake, I'm experiencing some slight tonal whiplash here, you know, just a little

different thematically. I, what, okay, so Okay, yes, exactly. And this is the situation that happened when we were playing Spider-Man and also playing Assassin's Creed. Playing Spider-Man and Mario in the same time is so weird. Also because Spider-Man 2 is kind of fast. And it's also as fast as you want it to be. So you can do a million things at ones if you want.

And Mario is Super Mario. So you're just like, well, running the course in these coins. And I'm like, I'm like, kill someone. Yeah. Murder someone, Daisy. I mean, you can jump on some coupas, but it's not. quite as violent. It's very cute, though.

But we'll save Super Mario Wonder. Yeah, I mean, both guys who like to wear blue and red outfits and jump a lot. So there's definitely some connective tissue here, even if it's not web tissue in Mario's case. So you know what? I think it's good that we're going just rapid fire from one game to the next because gaming contains multitudes. October is just a boss rush of great games of all different kinds, none bigger than Insomniacs, Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

So last time we talked about how the first Spider-Man game does a great job of setting the scene and introducing its characters from the gecko. If anything, Spider-Man 2 starts even stronger. Can we discuss the Sandman set piece for a sec? Because when I said last week that this game grabs you right away and just never really lets go, this is what I was referring to. It's just like my face just being blasted by this game from the second I started. So good.

So good. Starting with Sandman, already starting with like Peter and Miles in the same room, makes complete sense. It's like, oh yeah, a teacher and a student. They're like, hey, a bunch of sand's coming into the classroom. Let's jump into it. Let's jump into it. And no matter what property Sandman is in, you feel bad for him. I always do. I just want the best for him. I do. There is no villain. I genuinely, someone please tell me because maybe I'm wrong. I don't think there's a villain I've ever felt more bad for in the Marvel like universe than Sandman. Like Samman, I know. never not feel bad for. And they still got me feeling like, I'm like, damn, he didn't want this. And he's terrorizing the entire city. He didn't want to be a bad guy. He just, uh, happened to stumble into a test that turned him into Sandman. And then, you know, every time he's out, they pull him back in. Poor guy. And it's, but it, yeah, it throws you in. It also a great way of like, if you've never played a single Spider-Man game, you jumped in Spider-Man too, that kind of hand-holdiness of like, oh, you're jumping through the air, press triangle, do this. It's sort of

still works throughout the game. So I think they did a really good job of being like, here's your, you're going against the biggest thing in the city right now. Right. The biggest character. Jump into it will help you a little bit. And you can still use these keys later on. Yeah.

It's almost like a god of war scale boss fight. It's just, it's huge. It's just bigger, I think, in scope than anything in the previous games. It introduces you to the character switching and the web slinging. And I think it, it hammered home for me. what one of my main takeaways about this game is, and you can tell me if I'm overselling it, but it feels to me like the first truly next-gen experience I've had.

And I know we've been in this current generation for three years now, right? PS5 came out in 2020, but because there were so many delays with the hardware and all the chip postponements and everything, so people had trouble getting their hands on these systems. And for a while, many of the companies were still making cross-platform cross-gen games, right? Like, you know,

previous Spider-Man games where you could play on either console, PS4, PS5. So between the fact that this is PS5 only and, you know, the devs have had a few years to figure out how to harness the power of the system. Like, later in the generation, games always

look better than the launch titles. This one just felt to me the first time that I was really playing a game and feeling like, oh, this is different. Like, this could not have been a PS4 game. Like, this is, This is an evolutionary leap here. 100%.

I don't think I have actual any notes about the look of it. It was gorgeous. It was insane. There is a part where I was looking at Haley and I was like, they really did her face. So it's every curve. Like it is, this is a PS5 game. It is 100% echoed out a PS5 game. It's disgustingly beautiful.

It takes a lot to impress me. graphically because I think the leaps between generations have gotten smaller over time, like going from 2D to 3D or first-gen 3D to HD. These were huge, huge leaps. Now it's a little more subtle, but this game just regularly blew me away. I guess it's partly the product of the fact that it's insomniac. They're a first-party studio. So like everything that you can do to make something distinctively a PS5 game, they did. So the directional saccharacterial. You know, if you have a surround sound system or if you have headphones in, like, you can just tell where everything is. Like it echoes in such a way that it reflects the surfaces around you or the triggers, right? The adaptive triggers, the haptic feedback. That I think totally changes like web slinging, you know, gliding when you can feel that in the triggers. That can be a gimmick sometimes. But when it's done well, it really does make a difference. And just the non-existent loading times, I mean, you will never really wait. And. And stare.

Like, you know, even in Assassin's Creed, you're waiting for a place to load. Like, they're loading screens. They're, you know, tips and tricks that you can see. Like, there's none of that in this game. It's just, it's ready to go. And there's just so little friction in this game, like nothing to bounce off of. You just, you start and you'd never stop. It just kind of drags you along for the ride.

100%. I agree. Are you a performance mode person or a fidelity mode person graphically? Explain. So you can choose performance mode. Generally, it allows you to see the game in 60 frames per second, right? So you get sort of the smoother experience, but it sacrifices some visual detail. You know, if you turn on Fidelity, you get the full 4K ray traced experience, but maybe it's locked to like 30 frames per second.

And so you can sort of see some slowdown at times, but you get the full visual detail and the gorgeous look and all the reflections and everything. I'm ashamed to say that I'm absolutely a performance person. Yeah, no, don't be ashamed. Not by like, not by preference, just by like not changing the settings. I try so hard, especially with video games. Like, I just, I want to be a person that looks at how visually, like how stunning. I'm always stunned by anything. That's just where it comes from.

That when something's really bad to me, I'm like, oh, this must be bad if I am literally swayed by anything. But this was so good that I was like, oh, this is just perfect. If I knew that I could make it better by doing Fidelity, I probably would have. But I genuinely, also my TV kind of sucks, to be fair. My TV is really shitty. I have a bad TV. Okay.

It might not make a difference then. But I've been a performance mode person too because I find that it just makes such a difference to have the frame rate be higher and just not to see any slowdown. Especially if it's like an action game like this and you're swinging around. You just want that to move quickly. Right? And so this generation, when you can often switch between performance and fidelity, you can sort of see them side by side. You might not notice if you can't switch between them. But when you can, it's like, oh, wow, this is a totally different experience. And something that Insomniac games have, if you have the right setup, the right monitor and TV and everything, they have kind of a hybrid mode. They have like a 120 hertz mode. So it's like if you have like a variable refresh rate screen, I'm dropping a lot of tech terms here, but you can have kind of a happy medium, best of both worlds where it looks great, but also it moves really smoothly. And that's what I was playing on.

And maybe that's why it just kind of made my eyes pop out. It's just, you know, like all games look so good now compared to how they used to look that it is sometimes hard to tell the difference. But with this game, you can. Like, they all look incredible. But it just, it really is better, I think, than anything I've played, just graphically in terms of polish and everything. And you can see everything.

Like, as you mentioned, the city is so huge, but you can see all of it, you know, if you go up to the top of a building and you look out, there's almost nothing that you can't see from far away. Like the draw distance is amazing and not only is that impressive, but it actually helps from a gameplay perspective because you can set your sights on something you want to go to and you can do it without even consult. the map. You know, you can just look around and you'll see something glowing and you'll think, oh, there's a side mission over there, right? And you can just set your target. And there's no

pop in or anything. It's not like buildings up here as you're swinging. It's just, it looks smooth and seamless. Like, I can't rave enough. I think about how this game looks and feels to play. I have to sit three feet away from my TV to play this game. I not only have bad eyesight, but my TV is very small. And I, this is. is why I also always play on my PC unless it's like just to put games on my PlayStation because my PC is made for these things. I have great graphics for my PC, but my TV in my bedroom, very small and I have to sit three feet away from it in my other computer chair. But it did look great. It did look great. It was a very, it was also like, again, I know those developers were like,

look here, we got to make this as good as possible. The first one was great. Miles Morales was great. how do we only make that bigger? How do we actually explore this? And so they probably just made it as best as they could with the PS5. They're like, this is what we're going to do. We've got to get you a new set up here. We got to upgrade your rig now that you're a professional gaming podcast.

Yeah, business expense. I'm going to buy a 75 inch TV. Sure. Why not? Vizio, the worst of the TVs. I'm going on record right now. Don't get a Vizio. Vizio, if you're listening, I have a bone to pick with you.

I've had to email Vizio for issues with, with both my TVs. And I found out, unfortunately, both my TVs, my living room and my bedroom is a Vizio. Hopefully Vizio is not a sponsor of the Riggerverse, but. Oh, God. Truth in advertising. I said he also has a Vizio. I'm just saying right now, that computer, that TV will die in like four months.

It'll start acting weird just so you all know. And then it's not that great on graphics. Keep going, Ben. Continue. Sometimes you save somebody up front, but you pay a price later, one way or another. Which I did. I learned buying the cheapest. of the biggest TV's wasn't a good idea.

I'm an LG man myself. This is not SpawnCon. That's just what I went with. We'll have to do like a gaming setup episode someday. Oh, that would actually be very helpful. Yeah. That would be very helpful for me. Maybe one of these weeks when there's not just a new massive game coming out to play.

So I think Insomniac is just the best at leveraging the power of the system. They did the same thing with Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart. And another thing those games have in common is taking advantage of the solid state drive of the PS5 that loads incredibly quickly so that you can just go from one place to another. Now, we'll talk about the traversal system in a sec. I feel almost bad that I never fast traveled in this case. Like, I fast traveled twice, I think, just to see it, just to see how it worked, which wowed me because you select a place on the map you want to go after you unlock fast travel

to that region. And you're just there. Like, there's no loading time if you want to switch from miles to Peter or vice versa. Like, you just do it. Like, there's an animation and that's it. There's no waiting or anything, which again is one of these moments that's just like, wow, we're living in the future. It's the next gen. Wow. Fast travel and video games. I know. But it really fast, really, really fast travel. I only did it when I had to like go somewhere within an hour, but I still wanted to keep playing the game, only to speed up. Someone at IGN recently like

compared the two, which was faster. Gladi. or flipping. And flipping was, no, gliding was like 11 seconds faster. But it was like so small that they're like, you can do both and still make it there in time. And I was like, you know what? This seems more fun. So I'm just going to do both of them. Yeah, that's the thing.

I did fast travel just to see how it worked. And I was like, wow, that was really fast, just as it said. And then I never used it again because getting around this world is still, I think, probably the best part of this franchise and it's better than ever. Well, and also making it so, like, you can fast travel if you want, but if you're thwipping or you're gliding, you also see all the stuff on the ground, like you can solve the crimes, do a bunch of stuff like normal Spider-Man and Miles Morales did, and you need those tokens. If there's anything I learned from my mistakes is maybe stop doing the main story and go.

They did such a good job of making that very apparent that it's like, you need to go do some crime fighting or you're not going to be able to update your gadgets. And I was like, well, who really needs the gadgets? And then I was like, I need these gadgets. Yeah, exactly. I need these gadgets. Yeah, I had a lot of city tokens. I never had enough hero tokens. I hate the hero tokens. Yeah. Also, yeah, it's like, I have no hero tokens. Well, being Spider-Man means being a hero. Well, not right now. Yeah. Am I not heroic enough for you is saving the city? Not enough. I have to go, like, save someone's cat from a tree to get the hero token. I'm done doing this. Yeah, I'm done doing this. Even though there is, this isn't a spoiler.

I think it's in the trailer, or enough people have shared it a lot, that saving Spidey Cat was very fun. It also isn't Spidey Cat. It's just a cat that starts wearing a Spider-Men. Right. Yeah, Spidey Cat will be the DLC or a spin-off or something. Oh, and I. The Web Wings are incredible. Like, I was skeptical when I heard that there were going to be Web Wemings.

I was like, why mess with a good system? I love the th whipping and the slinging. It already works really well. They're going to add something else to this. It's going to overcomplicate it or it's going to make it too easy or too fast or it just won't feel right. And it totally does. Like it takes a little while to get used to it, I think. But once you do, it's indispensable.

Like I'm glad I revisited Spider-Man and Miles Morales before I started this game because as good as those games are, it would be a bummer to go back and not have the webwigs. I love them. The web wings are amazing. This was the reason why I kind of messed up when I got to go play the demo. You get like three hours to play the game. Everyone around me was like finished with the game. And I was like, damn, I'm catching up because I was too busy having fun with these web wings. Yeah.

It's amazing. And then when you find out all the abilities you get to do with it, I will, actually, I'll say that for the spoiler part. It's great. It's perfect. I glide everywhere. Yeah. It makes it feel like a new game, I think, more so than anything else.

And partly it's by necessity that they have. had to add the web wings because they expanded the city so much. You have to cross rivers. You have to go to areas without skyscrapers. So it would be sort of a pain if you couldn't glide. There wouldn't be that much to sling on. But it just totally turns getting places into a game in itself. Like, it's so much fun to go from one place to another. I'm almost disappointed when I get to my destination and the mission starts. It's like, I just want to keep swinging and gliding. Like, it's not overpowered. It doesn't turn you into Superman, right? You can't just free fly anywhere. And it's, you know, a little sensitive and finicky. You have to get the hang of not like overcompensating and dive bombing,

right? But you really don't want to stop. Like I know Spidey is a street level hero, but it's kind of deflating to be on the ground at any point, you know? You just, you want to stay up and soar around. And so you have to time everything. So it's like, okay, if I sling off this building, then I can glide to that building and here's a vent or you know I can catch this air current and I can it's like stringing a combo almost to to keep going and stay airborne and it's a little bit faster from that person that did the test they said they did the test a dozen times and it was each time it was faster to do the glide um I found myself just climbing to the tallest building and then just launching myself off with the glider because it's so fun and also again it is it is it is much quicker and with the um the like rings that

you get to shoot through that makes it faster for your glider, even better. Yeah. Even better. And you can do the slingshot thing so that you can go to the top of the building and just launch yourself and get some air and get some speed. And the problem for me is that I enjoyed the traversal so much that I wanted to put all my points into that in the upgrades, you know? And I kind of neglected the attack and defense because I was like, no, I want to sling faster

or I want better handling on the web wings. And then it's like, oh, I have no health bar because I just put it all into just crossing the city. But it was worth it. Like when you fully upgrade that and you get the max swinging speed and the max maneuverability on the web wings, it's just a joy. And even though the city is bigger, you can move so quickly. And it's so much fun to move that it doesn't take you that long to cross the city. Even if you're going from one end to another, you know, there are games with maybe smaller maps, but like you're just walking or running. running across them.

And so it takes a lot longer to cross them than it does to cross the three boroughs of New York City in Spider-Man, too. There was one point in the game that I had to cross the entire map. And it took me forever. And when I say forever, I am a little baby brat. And I'm like, this was too long. Why was I doing this? And I think it's also because I was like, I have to be somewhere in 30 minutes, but I really

just want to finish this quest. I was like, I just need to finish this. I need more points so I could act. I need some rare tech. That's what I needed. I needed rare tech. And I was like, God, I got to go do these three things on the other side of goddamn map.

Yeah. But still, again, once you're using you and your, I didn't max out my stuff in like the thrifting and gliding. I should have. I did mine more in attack because I was like, that's smart. Yes.

I, my biggest thing was like, if there's a gang of people, I want to make sure that I can take them all out in bigger groups. And it make it easier because one versus 12 is not fair. It's not fair. fair. So I was like, it took me so long. But again, going between the thwipping and the gliding is helpful. It's great. Yeah. And wherever you go, you'll stumble across stuff you want to do because

there's a lot of side activities, which we'll get into. But it's, it's almost like that kind of Zelda feeling of like, all right, I'm just going to go here. And then on the way, you take 10 detours. Because you see, you know, there's like some tech parts on the roof that you want to go open. And then there's a prowler mission or whatever. There's a photo op over there. Right. And so every time I was like, okay,

I'm going to stop now. I just, one more thing. There's one more thing right over there that I can do first. I cannot stress enough though. Anyone lives in him in playing. They put those up there for a reason.

You need to go down on the ground and do those things. Yes, it is my biggest mistake in playing this game was not doing enough of those missions. Like you need to do them to up anything. Yes. They make them like, together connected. It's like, well, if you want to get the best stuff, you may, I make sure to do these. I'm like, damn it. Damn it. I did not. I wish. I was taking photos sometimes,

but when it came to crime fighting, I was like, nah, I got to do something else right now. Yeah. Yeah. I made the same mistake sometimes. But I think the side missions, they're not a burden. They're not just a chore anymore. So we'll get to that in a minute. But the city, it's stunning visually, as we said. And yeah, so many small, specific NYC, touches things. What is it? What is it? Tell me. Just like, you know, like you walk in Central Park in one mission and there's like the, where the NYC summer stage concert series are. You know, there's like bands playing there. And you wouldn't know that if you're not a New Yorker necessarily. Like obviously they put the time and they did the research. Like it's, it's

overwhelming to think of like, how do we recreate New York City in a virtual form? And it's not one to one or anything. Like I tried to go to my apartment building. And it wasn't. there. I was sad. Wait, but you can even do that. That's the thing is you can even do that. You can be like, I'm going to this borough in this place. And that's where I live. I'm like, that's insane. And I don't wake, I'm not going to Olympia Washington. No, no. It's, I mean, it's, you know, there are actual neighborhoods. Like I live in Hell's Kitchen, IRL, like Daredevil, right? So I, I went, I live on 42nd Street. I went, you can see 40th Street and then it skips to 48th Street. It's like, wait, wait, hold on. You just erased my whole little neighborhood there. But, But it generally looks like where I live, right? More or less. I've been to New York once in my entire life. I am so blind to the East Coast because I've been born and raised the West Coast my entire

life that I thought Hell's Kitchen was the show. And when I went to New York and I went to Hell's Kitchen, I was like, oh, they named it after his show. That's insane. And then my friend was like, you dumb idiot, you dumb, dumb idiot. I was like, wait, what? I was like, damn, I can't believe that they named the city after his show. That makes no sense.

It didn't realize Gordon Ramsey had that kind of pull. That's how ignorant I am to the East Coast. That's how I don't know. I get my New York from Marvel. Okay. Well, it's a pretty good representation. Thank you for that. Just as in the first game, the city changes to reflect the story.

I won't say exactly how because that gets into spoiled territory. But, you know, later in the game, as you, some things happen, the city itself visually reflects that. And again, it just drives home kind of that. that synthesis, like that relationship between the story and the setting, which just works really well. So let's talk about the combat where we might have a few more critiques, right? So what did you make up the combat in this game? I want to wait.

Now I'm thinking about what note I have for it. My critique for the combat was just like I was nervous that I didn't update the right skills, which could just be me. Because everything that was bad was I was like, oh, I think this is me. I think I didn't update my stuff correctly. So the combat felt kind of the same to me as Miles did. It just got like tougher. It was just tougher for me.

And I just assumed it was my fault. What did you know? I had the same feeling. I don't I don't think it's our fault. I'll say, I mean, I'll acknowledge it might just be us being bad at the game. But, but I had these feelings. I've seen some other people express these feelings. It's kind of, you know, there's so many guys that it throws at you, right?

It's just so many. Like there's one fight where Peter says out loud, how are there this many? And I was like, yeah, I've been asking myself that this whole game. Just too many henchmen. Like, how many hunters does Craven employ? Like, how many hunters are on the payroll? Yeah. I mean, like, what are the benefits packages of like Craven Hunter LLC?

Like he's brought over like thousands of goons with him. And you're just constantly waiting through just as you said, like sometimes it's, 12 on 1 or whatever, and you just can get kind of overwhelmed. I, as someone that like immediately for my skills branch for like, well, for mainly Peter, I went for like all the attack stuff first. I was like, let me advance this. Let me make sure I can hit like 20 people with this. I just realized I was using, this isn't a spoiler.

I was using like all my ability, not all my ability. What is the special thing? The special skills. I was using every special skill as much as I could. And then every single one of my gadgets, every single time. And I was still having a hard time. And I was like maxing out these powers. So I was like, okay, what did I do wrong?

But I think you're just meant to actually exhaust every option you have in that game. Like they made it so you're just exhausting everything. And then you're going to have to fight with your hands. Yeah. Which is, who. I mean, I did a lot of stealthy things in this game. I realized sometimes I was like, I can't take on 30 people. So I'm just going to have to hang from above the ceiling and sneakily attack people.

Right. in order to break it down to at least 12. Yeah, yeah. And we talked during the Assassin's Creed pod about our reservations about stealth in general, right? Like we like to just wait in and take everyone on hide on. But in this game, I did find myself going more and more in a stealth direction because of the difficulty and sort of the repetiveness of the combat. And this game has a new mechanic called the webline, right, where you can shoot a line just between walls,

almost anywhere and then you can just go across that balance on it and you can pick people up or you know, attack them from above that way. It's almost like overpowered because you can place it basically anywhere. But it was fun and I was using it more and more because again, I didn't want to get involved in a free for all with this many dudes. So I don't know if that was intentional or not, but whenever I broke stealth accidentally or there was a sequence where I couldn't be stealthy, I was like, oh, here we go. It's just wave after. wave. And like, after you take out the first wave of guys, then a truck will pull up with another wave of guys, you know, inevitably. That is true. That is true. I was getting so mad. Okay, so I started

doing this thing where I would just get the higher ground every time. I would just be like, I'm going to get the higher ground and I'm going to wait for them to climb and get to me. Right. That's smart. Yeah. For them to climb and get to me. Take them out one at a time. Because sometimes, you guys, you are fighting like, and then half of them are shooting guns. Yeah. Half of them are shooting guns at you. Some are on the ground and some are using heavy attacks. So you're dodging the bullets, dodging the heavy attacks or parrying the heavy attacks.

And then you're just like, hopefully I can do this. And then here comes the van, the van with a turret on top. And I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to weigh in the back corner. You guys can come at me. At least I'm in a corner. No one's getting me from the back. I see whatever is happening.

Right. But then there will be those big guys, like the brutes or whatever that you can't. Oh, my God. It's like, oh, just, you know, that you kick them the same way you kick everyone else. and they're just like, I was unaffected. I was telling Isaiah this. I was like, they felt like mini bosses sometimes. And I was like, I'm getting tired.

Yeah. No, they were like as hard as some of the actual bosses, just the generic mini boss guys. I actually, I switched to the friendly difficulty level, which is one below the default, because partly because I'm trying to cram in every game release this month, but partly also because I found it just got a bit tedious. It's like the combat is fun, but it does start to wear a little thin, or at least it did for me, when it's just fight after fight after fight with so many guys. And I'm sort of spamming some of the same attacks over and over again. So it wasn't a fun kind of challenge for me when I would die. It was just like, oh, I have to do that all again, you know?

And I just liked it better when there was still some hint of challenge, but I wasn't having to replay because it was repetitive enough as it was without dying and that. and having to restart at the latest checkpoint. The part I liked about it was, and I don't think they were trying to do this at all, I just took it as this. Once I realized to stand on top of something and go to the back corner and let them come to me, I was like, okay, I'm just finding new ways to defeat them,

which is helping me. So now I did this again later on down the line in the game. But also I, since I was like updating all my abilities and I was trying to update my gadgets, I would use them in those battles and then be like, okay, I need to go to my last checkpoint and actually re-up on a bunch of, of other stuff before I come back and do this because this is impossible for me to do without

like extra focus or like getting focus quicker. Yeah. So it helped me like actually battle eventually later on, but I don't think they were expecting like, oh, we're going to keep doing this a million times so you just get better at fighting because I'm like, I could just go crime fighting and get better. I don't need to go against 30 people every main story mission. Yeah. That's excessive.

But I didn't hate it. I liked it because it helped me find innovative ways to defeat them every time. Did you have certain go-to attacks, like combos that you would use over and over? We'll talk about this when we get into the spoiler section, too. I loved playing Miles in situations where there was a million people because I would use his like down punch move that had the, it was like a circle and I attacked anyone in that vicinity. So it helped me when like 40 people ganged up on me. I hated every single one of Peter's moves until he got the symbiote suit. It did not help me at all.

None of his, like, what was he? He would do like this web shooting that also had electricity. Yeah, he has the iron spider thing comes out. This helps. But then this guy's hitting me in the back of the head. Right. Yeah. I need you to get better about something, Peter.

Yeah. This isn't working for me. So it sucked because it was like most of the main story fighting scenes were with Peter. And then like Miles were on the side. And I was like, I need to switch this up real bad. Like, yes. Agreed. I need Peter to be doing some of Miles stuff.

Yeah. Miles is better. with crowdwork for sure. Definitely. And also, I will say, like, even though we're nitpicking a bit here, there are so many options, accessibility options, and customizability in this game, which I told you, you're like, wait, what?

Like, I could have changed all this stuff? Yeah. There's so much. Yeah, you can tweak almost every aspect of this game, which is great for accessibility, but also if there are certain parts that you're not finding as fun, you can just kind of dial those down. Like you can not just change the difficulty level, but change it in very specific ways.

So if there are certain things that you don't like, then you say, I want less of that. You know, and it's all about just making the experience, tailoring it to the way you want it, which I didn't do that much. As I said, I turned down the difficulty, but I didn't do that much tweaking otherwise because I kind of feel like, I don't know, I want to experience this game the way Insomniac designed it or like, you know, they thought this would be the right. balance. I want to see sort of how they calibrated the game. But if anything doesn't work for you, you can change it. So it's very powerful. I do not care. I would have tweaked that game so quick if I knew that I could. I thought I genuinely, a piece of me too was playing and was like, I should be able to go to the settings and do something. But then I was like, no, once you set the game in, you can't change it. Like I realized, I thought for some reason, like, if I wanted it to be

easier, I would have to start an entirely new game. I don't know. I didn't even look at it. If I would have known, if I would have known then what I knew now, there is one battle, and we'll get into it, that it took me 16 rounds. 16 rounds, you guys. I think a normal person probably like, you know, six. Me though, 16. And I was getting mad every single. And it wasn't even like the boss, boss, boss. It was just one person that was pissing me off enough that I was like, I keep getting killed.

Again, though, my gadgets were really bad because I didn't do any of those. Grounded stuff. The one new mechanic, and again, when we did the preview pod, I was asking you, like, is it too much? You know, did they add one thing too many? Because there was already a lot to keep track of and then they keep layering in new systems. The one thing that just didn't really work for me was parrying. I don't know about you. Again, it might just be me being bad at the game.

But I'm so used to dodging. It's like, okay, I just, I roll or jump out of the way. They've added parrying. And visually, I found it really. tough to tell when I was supposed to parry, you know, because like you're constantly looking, not just at all the goons who are surrounding you, but then as you said, people shooting you from afar. So you're watching like these, these red targeting things from, you know, people shooting at you and you're watching for them to be red. And then you dodge when it goes from

white to red. But also there's parrying. And the indicator for that is yellow, but then it turns to red. And you have to find the right time to parry against these big guys who you maybe can't Dodge, right? And my parry success rate was like, it was like a coin toss at best, you know, I just, I was kind of overwhelmed by how many different things I was trying to keep track of. And then I'd be like, oh, I'm supposed to parry. Oh, too late. And it was just there's so much visual information that I found that that was just one, one thing too many for me to try to keep track of. Yeah. And certain people, uh, that do those heavy attacks that you have to parry or you don't have to. You can jump out of the way, but it's not going to really work. You've got to try to carry. Yeah. Yeah. Those people, they hit at different moments. So some people are using a hammer. Some people are using abilities. Some people are using like swords. And I'm like, oh, they all hit at different times.

And that does. It was very hard. If you are a person that is visually stimulated, there are a million warnings for five different hits that are about to land on you. And you don't know which one to actually use. There is going to, there was, at the beginning for a very long time, I don't think there was actually a way to time when to Perry.

I was just button mashing L1. I was like, literally, I would have to leave my right hand off the game to press really hard on L1 because I was like, I don't know when this is going to hit. I made it an ability that like when I parried and I pressed square or something,

it gave like extra extra damage. So I was always trying to parry. But it is very hard to time that. But there is one battle you'll have where you mainly have to parry. And it made it easier to kind of test the waters of when you think it's going to land. Yeah, yeah. So that's the thing. There's definitely a learning curve there. And I don't know that I ever learned it really as well as I wanted to. And also the boss fights won't get into any specifics right now, but I'll just say they are really long, really, really long.

Did you know there's an indicator that tells you how many rounds you have with one? I realize that belatedly. Because like the end of the game is a bit of a boss rush, not to give away any specifics, but it's, you know, one boss after another. And there's there's no. rushing through these bosses. It's just, you know, every boss has like three health bars, right? And as you said, yeah, there's like a little indicator that tells you that, but it's tough to tell. And it's not just that they shake off losing a whole health bar like it's nothing. You know, like you, you wear down their whole health bar. It's gone. And then there's a cut scene and they're just back to full strength. Like it's it's like it didn't even phase them. So you didn't feel like you accomplished anything. It's like I just got that whole health bar empty. And now it's just full again. And we're ready. And we're ready. And we're ready. And we're. And we're. It's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, back to square one and often there's a chase sequence in the middle of the boss fight. So like you take out two or three health bars and then, you know, never go to a second location with a supervillain, but you have to, you chase them through the streets and then you fight in a different place. And it's just like this endurance effort. It's just like a war of attrition. It's not that it's not fun, but man, like settle in because you are going to be fighting those bosses for a long, long time.

100%. I completely agree. I absolutely agree. It took forever. I think it took me maybe like average minimum. And this could just be me. It was almost an hour. Yeah. Because it's a long, it's long and cinematic.

Also, I can't wait until we get the spoilers because I cannot wait to talk about these boss battles. Yeah. Because they are insane. In a good way and a bad way. Yeah. I hated them and loved them at the same time. They were the worst thing I've ever endured.

But then I also was like, I love this. I love these characters. I hate this idea. I hate every part of it. Yeah, definitely love-hate relationship, feeling of frustration, but also feeling of accomplishment when it's over. Sure. Look, sure.

Depends on how many times you die in it. Because there's one boss. I'm going to, I cannot. I specifically, I, my roommate was playing with their friends in the living room. And they could hear me. screamed. I would go, like, I would just be like, so mad. You guys, I had to play one boss

16 rounds. 16. That's insane. That is insane. No, give up. Skip the game. Skip it. Jessica would have probably thrown in the controller out the window, but I do this for a job. I do this for a living and I have to calm down. If only you had known, you can turn down the difficulty.

And you know damn well, it was during that fight that I was like, there has to be a way that I can make this easier on myself. Yeah, it's, I wonder if it was a response to one of the criticisms of the earlier games, which was the boss fights were, were not that long or elaborate or challenging for the most part. Maybe they just went way too far in the other direction, just overcompensated. It's like, you want boss fights.

You're going to get some boss fights. I don't want three. I don't want three rounds every time. You in the next game, give me two. I don't care if they're the hardest thing in the world. But if it's two, at least after the first one, I can be like, okay, it's just one left. after the first one, I was like, I got two more rounds with this. The one thing I'll say, at least at the difficulty level I was mostly playing on,

the checkpoint placement is fairly forgiving. So you wear down one health bar. You don't have to start again from the beginning. You can start at the beginning of the next health bar. And sometimes you even want to die and restart there because you're back to health and have your stuff charged up again. But yeah, it would be way worse if you had to do the whole thing over again every time. Then I would have rage quit.

For sure. Dude, I should have recorded myself. There was one boss battle, not the 16 round one, where if I didn't hit the combo as soon as I started that round, it took me maybe like five rounds to be this guy. If I didn't hit the combo right, I just stand there and let him kill me. And I was so mad you could see my face of like, no. I was like, no, we're going to start this over again. So I get it right. Like, it's not how it goes.

Yeah. So it takes a while to get the hang of it. And there's so much stuff to upgrade, right? Of course, there are the cosmetics. Like they're a zillion suits. which a lot of them look great, and you can customize those suits and Peter and Miles have their own wardrobe

and a lot of looks you know from the comics and the movies. But in terms of actually upgrading stuff, I mean, there are three separate skill trees, right? Because Miles has his own, Peter has his own, and then they have a combined one with abilities that apply to both of them. And then they're also the suit upgrades, and then there are the gadget upgrades.

So there are several different things to upgrade, each of which has kind of its own currency and economy and tokens and tech parts. So again, at first, it's like a little overwhelming. Like there are just so many menus and so many ways to get better. And at the end, like you do feel fully powered. You feel like a superhero because you can do all this stuff. Although the more you unlock and upgrade and the more combos and abilities you have, the more you forget to even use, or at least I did in my case. And sometimes it'll prompt you and remind you, hey, you. you can do this special move right now.

But also sometimes I'd be like, oh, man, I just did that whole fight without remembering to use my gadgets or my specials or some combo that I unlocked, right? Because I would sort of, you know, I'd do the web swinging, kicking thing. And then I'd, you know, punch people up in the air and keep kicking them and do all that basic standard stuff kind of combos. But then there's so many other things you can do, which when you remember it all and you feel like, oh, this is at the tip of my fingertips and I'm in command here. It feels great.

But also sometimes it's like, man, this is more than my puny little brain can actually keep track of. I think I only remembered because I was when you're dealt with like 40 goons coming at you all the time, I was like, I need to exhaust every single option. I was looking at every corner of my bar. And I was like, as long if anything is open, I am using it right at the second. And again, after you like lose a couple of times, you start like, noting how you can get more innovative with things. And I kept forgetting, there's a,

you can use like a special ability where you press the left and right trigger, or not left right trigger, the stick, the joystick. And you get like, you're like, yeah,

it's like rage. And that's when I was like, oh yeah, I forget this happens. Because you don't have it every round. You have to build up to it. So use it sparingly and use it correctly. Maybe you says your,

you're like last option because it takes a minute for it to come back. But yeah, no, crazy that I forgot about the costumes and I left Miles in the like old timey like like it was like a 50s like gangster outfit he had like a top hat and like a chain and like this yeah yeah I left a minute and there would be like very sentimental cinematic scenes and it would look at him and he'd be like that was like a 50s little gangster and I'm like oh I need to change yeah I did that too I had Peter as like Spider-Man noir and you know I had like you know

2099, all those Spider-Verse skins. And there are some, you unlock one and you can unlock like Spider-verse style animation, you know, and it looks cool, although I felt like it was going to give me a seizure. So I turned it off really quickly. But you can have like comic book effects, you know, when you punch people and you can have different filters and movie styles of, so like you can customize that too. And again, it's just more of the like interplay, the overlap. between all the different incarnations of Spider-Man that we're seeing these days.

So even though usually I'm like, I don't care that much about the unlockable cosmetics, whatever. I don't, you know, I barely pay attention to how I dress in real life. I don't care how my character looks. But in this case, there were just so many options. And they all looked pretty good. So I actually wanted to unlock them. I just kept to look at you. I thought it was funny if they looked as dumb as they could.

So I made them that 50s gangster for a very long time. But I kept Peter Parker as Ben Riley, like 90% of the game. I love that outfit, though. I was like, ooh, this is fun. And I kept it as that for a very long time. Yeah. So let's talk about some of the other aspects of the gameplay here because, yeah, it's mostly the traversal, the swinging, the gliding.

They fly now and also the combat and the stealth. But there is so much packed into this game. So many side activities, so many mini games, so many other little mechanics that You're like, they went to the trouble of, like, creating this way to play the game for one level sometimes. So, like, you know, in the middle of these big cutscenes, you'll have a lot of quick time events for one thing, right? You know, like pressing the button that's indicated on the screen. How do you feel about we're still doing quick time events in the year 2023? This is, you know, Shenmu was 25 years ago and we're still doing the like press triangle, press circle, like mash the X button for a while to resist us.

someone crushing you or whatever. Like, do you like that or does it feel like, man, this, this feels so retro. This feels like old school in a very new school game. The only reason I hate it is because I can't name the amount of times, and you can ask my roommate, they watched me do this. Then number of times I was shoveling my face with something and then it'd be like, press square. And I was like, and then I like, I died. But I think they lessened up on it because remember in the Miles game, they have you like press

square to stop the car and I messed up every single time and would get hit by. the car. They don't even have you doing that anymore. And they make it a lot more simpler to grab people out of vehicles or like to attack people while in motion. And I was like, oh, thank God. Thank God. So they did get rid of it a little bit. But there are a lot of times where it's like, press L1 now. And I'm like, oh, and I have a bunch of my face. That is the only reason I though hate it. I don't mind. I'm sitting there and I'm watching it. So I am, I'm still playing the game. Don't worry. Please don't throw those things at me because I'm usually just shoveling my face in that moment. Yeah, I don't mind it. It feels a little rudimentary. You know,

you're controlling this guy and then suddenly it's like press square, press triangle. But yeah, because you feel like a passive participant. You're like, I'm in spectator mode now. I'm just going to sit back and watch this cutscene. And it's like, oh, I died because I forgot to press the button that was on the screen there. So there's that. And there's so many like little mechanics that could be like games in themselves, except often they're kind of half baked. But like, the rhythm game in the Mysterio, Mysterium side missions, or like the science mechanics. I don't know if you did any of those in the foundation when you're... I loved it.

Yeah, like you can, you know, drive around drone bees. And like, there's so many puzzles and like isolating chemical compounds. There were some of this in the first game, too. And it felt weirdly tacked on, especially because you could skip it. And it's like, you really don't have confidence. that we're going to enjoy this. If you're just letting us skip it, and most of the time I did. So there are a lot of like little puzzle and rhythm kind of things that I guess break up the action in an interesting way.

It's, you know, it adds variety. But it's also like, wow, I didn't expect to be doing this. Like there's a level later on that's just a straight up shooter, basically. It's like a third person shooter level, right? So there's a lot of that that's built into this game that you just don't expect it. At one point you go to Coney Island and you're playing like, all the activities at Coney Island, it's like games within a game, right?

Some of them more fun than others. With the most respect, if I knew I could have skipped all of Coney Island, I would have. No problem with it. There was a lot of parts in the game where I was getting like, only frustrated in those little things

that were so mundane. And I was like, I am not here to play mundane. I'm here to play Spider-Man. Because they had you even like walk. Just walk and talk. Or ride a bike and talk. and do these things where I was like,

this is cutting in to me being Spider-Man. And the Coney Island was one of those moments where I'm like, the quest literally was like, check off, you have to go do 10 things here at Coney Island. And I was like, I don't want to play Smack the Weasel. I want to be Spider-Man. But I mean, I understand. The designers spent so much time in this world.

It's like, hey, we're going to play in this world. We want you to see this world. Also, the little bits like that put you into the world where you're like, yeah, you are a person. You're not only Spider-Man. You're also Peter Parker, just being Peter Parker. I understand why they put those parts in there. It was me with a child brain being like, no. Well, they made most of the game just so entertaining and so high-octane, like in your face, fast-paced excitement that in a way it sets the bar really high for the other stuff because it breaks

up the pace. But also you're like, I really want to get back to swinging and flying and pounding people, you know so so some of it is nice i think as a change of pace and to really ground you in this world and other stuff it's like this was this could have been left on the cutting room for potentially you know because yeah and it's it's spider man so whenever you're not playing as fighter man again it can be good from a narrative perspective i don't think this is a spoiler because this is you know something that's returning from the old games but when you have sort of the stealth missions where you're playing as mj let's say and here you're at least she can fight back a little, right?

She's got like a taser, so she's not just at the mercy of everyone. But that again, it's not bad, but it's not what I'm here for, I guess. I don't even want to get into it right. Okay. I will save her for the spoilers. I will save that part for the spoilers. Okay. Because I have a lot to say about MJ's stealth.

Okay, we'll get there in a minute. And MJ has a new face now, too, which is, you know, like we talked about Peter's new face going from four to five or the remaster. And he kind of looks more like Tom Holland now. And also MJ kind of has a different face now. Like a lot of characters, I get why they would look better and a little different because, you know, you're up-reszing and you're going from PS4 to PS5. But it's just like different looking people, which is a little off-putting if you've been playing all these games. Didn't they get like a little older? Well, Peter got younger, really.

The original Peter got younger, which didn't seem to suit his character as much. I don't care. I don't mind that much. And the performances are great, right? Like the, you know, Naji Jeter as Miles, Laura Bailey as MJ. Like, Yuri Lohenthal as Peter, like they're all just really, really good. They totally sell it. So the face models, some of them are uncanny Valley kind of weirdly bland, dull-looking faces.

But the writing on just a dialogue level and the performances are all top notch, I think. So the other thing that I think is an improvement is that the side activities, you know, all this stuff is optional, but they connect to the narrative much better now or they have their own narrative. Whereas before it was a lot of just collectathon, like let's go find backpacks or whatever, just stuff that's stashed around the city. in this one, you're actually doing some rewarding stuff in some of the side missions. And we can get into that more in the spoiler section in just a second. But like some of the stuff, you're not working like for the police anymore, which is kind of nice, you know, as in the first Spider-Man game. And so you'll do stuff like, you know, you'll help out the firefighters or there's a really nice mission where you're just tracking down a woman's grandpa who's like, you know, on a bench wondering off. reminiscing and you can go find him like a lot of that smaller scale stuff I think is really nice because it does connect you to the you know friendly neighborhood spider man street level hero and it is kind of a nice break that tells its own satisfying story yeah and sometimes those characters come back I'm specifically talking about spider cat

because as soon as I as soon as I saw they had spider cat and this guy and then you later see spidey cat again and I go oh that's the same guy I know about spider cat yeah I'm not spying. Yeah. Yeah. And some of the stuff like the prowler stashes, which is, you know, Miles's uncle, the former prowler, you're just going around and finding stuff that he hid on various rooftops. It's not really that fun. I don't think it's, it's nice just for the story of it, but I wasn't really doing it for the gameplay. Or like the science experiments kind of hit or miss for me, you know, doing the hunter blinds and the symbiote nests and all of that. Again, there was so much combat in the main game. that my appetite for just even more target of combat was was kind of low. But some of the side stuff I really did enjoy. Like, you know, the main like on the Spidey app, just doing side missions in the city, the cultural museum stuff that Miles does to find instruments that have been stolen. You know, the unidentified targets when you're just kind of chasing these drones that I found kind of fun.

Like a lot of that stuff, you know, and the crystals, the Flint, Marco stuff, even though that was repetitive, just, you know, pounding sand over and over again, just getting some insight into his history and that character were cool. So a lot of that I thought was pretty satisfying, even though I didn't do it all. And it's all optional, obviously. Yeah, you don't have to do it. It would help you in your abilities and gadgets if you do do it, unlike me. I think the only reason I was able to update anything was because I kept doing the Sandman ones because I liked listening to the little tidbits of Sandman being sad. None of them are happy.

He is talking about how he's afraid. Yep. And I was like, I'm only laughing because I was like, I enjoy, like, this character is so easily, like, such a sad, good villain that I'm constantly, like, enamored with who he is in any franchise. Yeah. I kept doing it. I just kept going to fight. I felt like fighting the sand people were like, we're like, like, like, like, like, the, tutorials. It felt like you were just like, yeah, have 30 seconds to go crazy for a minute, learn,

and do stuff. And then I would go get that crystal and it would be Samman saying something very sad about forced to do a lot of things he doesn't want to do. I know. Oh, poor, poor Flint. I was like, I would rather help him. Yeah. Not keep doing this. Is there anything I can do physically to help him? Yeah. And I also like even the collecting stuff like collecting the spider bots that are hidden around the city. Again, like there's a story that's tied to that that kind of connects to the main narrative. And the photo ops, I enjoyed the photo ops too. Yeah, the photos are fun. Reconnect with Peter's photographer background. And every time you find one, you get this call from Robbie Robertson, not of the band, but of the bugle, where he just, he's like, New Yorkers do the

darnest things. Like, New Yorkers, yeah, they'll just play basketball sometimes. They sure do do that. I always enjoyed his little messages explaining the photos. When I got to interview the writers for the Spider-Man 2, they were talking about the man that did. There was a single man that wrote all the stories for the photo ops. So if you go do every single photo op, know that there's one man that really put in a lot of his work in time to make sure they're like entertaining for you to keep doing it. Because I mean, they are kind of silly. I remember I took a picture of a bunch of like people standing outside. This is a very New York thing.

And tell me if this is true. It's terribly an exclusive club, right? It's like an exclusive club on top of a rooftop inside of a hole. And there's a line outside of it. And inside there's three people wearing Spider-Man mask dancing in this little hole. And I got to take a picture of that hole. And I was like, wow, New York. Yeah, that's totally my experience of New York.

New York's hottest club is the hole where you dress up as Spider-Man and dance. Yeah. I mean, look, I can get into any club, obviously, in the city. I'm just huge on the nightlife. So I don't have to wait in line personally. They just lift the red rope for me. But for others, I'm sure that that is more like their experience. So the last non-spoilery thing I'll say about the story and the narrative as a whole,

I think they really nailed the stress of being Spider-Man. Like the game is a great hang, you know? Like, you just have a good time with this game. And, you know, people are hopeful and optimistic and everything. But you really do feel just how overburdened both of the Spider-Men are. Like, there's so many lines of dialogue where people are just like, don't push yourself too hard, don't do too much. Or they're like, I can't do everything I'm supposed to do.

I can't help everyone I'm supposed to help. And that's, I mean, that's the essence of Spider-Man. He's always, he's juggling school and his relationship and crime fighting and everything. And here it's multiple Spider-Men. And you're just constantly getting calls and texts and podcasts and notifications. And people want you to help them. And you've got to go to school or teach at school. But you can't like the very first scene.

You know, Peter's trying to get a job as a substitute. teacher, right? And he's in Miles's class and immediately duty calls. So I think it's just a great representation of what it must feel like to be Spider-Man in that you're just harried and stressed and everyone wants you to help them at all times and you can't do it all. And yet the game itself is still really fun. So it's it's not that stressful at experience. We'll probably get into this more in the spoiler part. But like it felt like that those parts made it feel like, yeah, this is really hard to be a Spider-Man. But it didn't come off that way to me by the end.

At the end, I was like, you guys really, especially Peter, you took one part and made it your entire, like, stress when there's a million and other, like, three things to be stressed about. You really took this part in, which I wasn't getting at all from gameplay. I was like, at the end when he is talking about, like, what really stressed him out, I was like, oh, I didn't even know that. I thought it would have been these other four things that are happening right now. So it was interesting to be like, oh,

Yeah, I guess you ostracist. It just didn't come off in that way. Miles, though, I was like, yeah, but I think it's easier to convey that when you're, like, a teenager about to go into college and your mom is now widowed and also still, like, in a political part. That, that, I was like, yeah, this is understandably very stressful. Right. You're new to this.

You're coming up. Yeah, Peter's the veteran. So he learned the ropes already. But, yeah, there's a lot of multitasking that goes along with being Spider-Man. Okay. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce, and some very tasty limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, Market Peach, Apricot, Rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch. As is their trending mango, Yuzu chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale sign. storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring.

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Hit the street, grab a can, and get after it. after it. This episode is brought to by the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me, the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms of play. All right. Let's, end with the spoiler section here. So beware. We are now treading into spoiler territory. You can stop here and return later or you can keep going. Isaiah, cover your ears, except you can't because you're producing this episode. Sorry, it'll still be fun. I think this is a game that is sort of spoiler proof. I mean, you know, it'll be fun even if you know what's coming. But here we go. So let's talk a little bit about the villain roster, the overstuffed expansive villain roster. And maybe we can start with. Craven, right? Because Craven's sort of the

centerpiece of, I guess, the first half of the story, at least, right? And he's hunting the most dangerous game, supervillains. And so he has come to New York because he hasn't found any prey that's enough for him. And also, we learn he is dying. And he

wants to die well. He wants to go out in a fight. He wants some prey to conquer him. And I guess the Craven conceit, it allows Insomniac to bring back a bunch of villains, right? because he's collecting all the villains that you fought before because he wants to fight him too. And so that means that you, you know, get to fight the lizard again, right?

And everyone comes back who you've beaten before. So what did you think of Craven's role in this game? I loved it. And I'm also, I think I'm biased because after talking to Lauren and them for Spider-Man 2, she works specifically with Craven and the voice actor for Craven. and building out that story. And I loved that reveal of like, he's dying. And he just wants his final hunt to be one worth fighting for.

And he finally finds it in this game. And they made Craven the hardest man. Like, yes, he has a million people that are fighting for him. But once you go against him, it's like going against like a small mountain. And so that was the game. The second round, Bruce Craven took me 16 years. Because you're going against. him a bell and his robot dog.

That was a tough one, yeah. And he was beating my ass every time I would turn that bell off. He was Wamp. He was Molly Wapping me. Regardless, the story for him, I really loved. I admired it. I loved every cinematic part where he was introduced. Loved it.

Even if it was just the hunters without him, but they made that reveal. Like, we knew Craven was coming. Everyone knew. It was in the trailers. But even us, we had to go against his hunters a million times before we saw him. And then when we saw him,

it was like, oh, this is the guy. Or, well, saw him actually go against Peter. It was like, oh, this is the guy. This is the guy that we're supposed to be afraid of.

Even when we're delivering the steak, we thought that his like Coon was the cat. Yeah. But yeah, I loved Craven. I loved his ending. I loved his justification. I love that he was just bad.

He's just bad. He's just like, yeah, I just want to kill. Yeah. Yeah. My man is juice to the gills. Like,

he is super strong. And also, I think one thing that really worked in Craven's favor, we talked about just how when you play a Spider-Man game, you're constantly thinking of the movies, whether it's MCU, whether it's the old Sony-Spotty movies, whether it's the Spider-Verse movies, right? Like, there are so many echoes of all of that. And I think it really works in this game's favor that we haven't seen Craven in a movie yet, right? He was supposed to be in Sam Ramey's never made fourth Spidey movie. there were some tentative plans to have him appear in the movie that morphed into No Way Home. And of course, he's getting his own standalone movie next summer. But I think it really helps with sort of the spidey universe fatigue or the feeling that we've seen this before that we haven't actually seen Craven before.

Like obviously the character goes back decades and decades in the comics, but because it hasn't been in the movies, it felt like the one thing that was unique to this game. whereas all the Otto Octavia stuff, all the Harry and Norman stuff, all the symbiote venom stuff. You know, like there are canonical on-screen versions of that

that we can't help but compare to. Exactly. Yeah, this is Craven. Craven is this game's thing. And that's the one Folly to like, this entire game is like, you're going to compare it to the movie characters. You're always going to.

And thank God we don't have a Craven yet. And again, I just love having a villain that's just a villain. that's just a villain. This guy is like, I don't mind killing every single person

in my way to get what I want. I'm going to do it. I am literally about to die. I just want to kill. And I was like, yeah, when, like, I told you guys how much I love Samman because I feel bad for him.

I don't feel bad. Craven is literally like, yeah, I just want to murder people. Like I need, I'm the best and I need to defeat the other best. Right. And he's just been conquering all of them.

So he's like, none of them are worth the challenge. It's like having Gladiator in America. having him just run wild. And they, thank God, this came out before the movie because the movie, I'm sorry, they're going to try to justify his actions. They're going to be like, well, he was raised this way. The game is like, no, he wasn't.

He's just a villain. Right. Well, as you said last time, so many spidey supervillains have some debilitating illness, right? And so does Craven. But it's not like, oh, he's misunderstood. He's actually a good guy. No, he just, he wants to be an apex predator. And he's out of his, his element, his normal.

habitat, you know, like he's usually in the jungle, like, taking on big game. And here he is in the cityscape, right? So there's that nice contrast of the aesthetics of the hunters versus New York City. You know, and this will be my last thing I will say about Craven. When you mentioned, like, all of them do have a debilitating, like something's wrong with them. They're trying to find a cure or do these things. He's not trying to find a cure. He's not trying to do it. He literally, when you're fighting him at one point, he's like, I'm dying. Give me my, give me a good fight. What's wrong with you? You even mentioned I was dying. Why are you? plane so weak. I'm like, and that he doesn't even want you feeling bad. He's like, no, I am,

I've never been stronger in my sickness. And God, thank God, this came out. So we don't have to compare him to. I don't think the Craven movie's going to be bad or anything. I don't have any regards that. It's just like when you do have something to compare it to, you're going to compare it to something. You're going to choose which one's better. You're going to say this worked better. This, this did a this. We can separate it because we haven't seen him in anything other than the comics. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised at the Craven movie. is bad for the record, but better goods. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I'm just trying not to prejudge it. I appreciate it. You're going in with an open mind. But the rest of the story, again, like, I think it's really written well on a line by line level. I like the characters and everything. But the big beats of it, there's not a lot of surprise, you know? Like, once the symbiote shows up, I mean, we've seen Peter go down this road before. We kind of know where it's leading and it basically leads there, right? So I kind of felt like, again, like it was just a little

too either influenced by the movies or just similar to the movies that it wasn't shocking me. There weren't twists that I never really saw coming. It wasn't quite as satisfying narratively as, say, Rocksteady's Arkham games, which do some things that you just don't expect. I don't know if it's just the difference in the source material or not, but it felt like it went along. some predictable paths. Did you feel that way too? Ultimately, yes. Ultimately, yes.

I am very gullible and you can easily fool me. I will never expect the twist that came in any, not a single M. Nichamaw movie, not a single one, even the bad ones you can think of. I never saw it coming. I didn't know in Devil it was the old lady. Regardless, I, so this to me,

I wasn't like expecting, like, once you see Harry, and Norman, you're like, I know how this is going to go. Right. I thought Harry was going to die at the end. And I was like, damn, this is crazy. And then when he didn't, I went, oh. I was like, oh, okay.

Well, I was kind of hoping he would. And then Norman is like, my wife and my son. He's doing that regardless. But, yeah, I mean, they're the heroes. So they have to end it with a hero note. I guess I wasn't expecting it to be crazy, crazy. Is that where I'm wrong? Well, it sucks also because I didn't notice this until someone mentioned it.

they were like, Miles doesn't really have that great of a storyline in this. And I was like, yeah, no, he doesn't. And they were like, why did you say it was a perfect game? And I was like, oh, I guess I should have been more clear that like I thought fighting and the new stuff was fun. Miles still doesn't really have a good storyline. That's why I hate that I have to play as Peter Parker 90% of the time. I was going to say, like, is this more Peter's story or Miles is I think it's pretty unquestionably Peter's, right? I asked them.

I asked them in the Q&A. I said, how are you going to? And this is me just venting, you guys. Don't take it out on them. How are you going to balance these two games? Because they're two very big characters. And arguably Peter had a lot going on in the last game. Miles just is coming up.

He just got there. So how are you going to balance that? And they're like, we did it. And I went, I don't think you did. Because Miles' story is arguably not that his mom is dating. He's just doing stuff with Haley. The college stuff, he doesn't even focus on that much. And also, how is that supposed to make me be like, oh, you know what?

forget going to OzCorp and fighting. I'm going to go find that college admission essay. I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that. Go to Brooklyn Visions and find the missing mascot. I did all that stuff. It was fun. I'm also like, I'd rather go fight the symbiotes. And I'd rather go be a symbiote.

And I'd rather do these things. It just didn't feel like that balance was there. And also, like, it didn't hit. Miles Estoria did not hit like it does in the movies. I'm sorry, I had to compare them. Sorry, I had to compare that. It's hard not to. Yeah.

And I didn't switch really except when I was told to. Like when you have, you can only do certain missions or certain side activities as one or the other. So I would switch when I had to do those things. I wasn't just sort of constantly switching for fun, really. But yeah, you're with Peter Moore. And maybe it's because he's older and he's, you know, juggling even more concerns. Whereas Miles is still in school and everything. But in a way that's more compelling.

what's there I still enjoyed, but because Peter is the one getting the suit on him, right? The symbiote suit. He's the one who's got venom wrapped up in him. And of course, MJ is a big part of the game. I know you have thoughts on that. A much bigger part than Haley, right? Who's, you know, making appearances. You even play as Haley in a side mission, but there's just not as much depth. And again, like, you know, that relationship is in its earlier stages. And MJ and Peter are talking about moving in and real life, you know, work concerns and everything. So I get it. But it's definitely, I think the balance leans more toward Peter.

Yeah. And even if the Peter storyline, like, if you didn't like it, you are still playing more as Peter. Yeah. I also want to say, I don't hate MJ. I don't hate. It was just ridiculous in the idea that she could go up against the mega symbiote. Yeah. And when I had to go up against the mega symbiote, I went.

What am I doing? I said, what am I doing? Like, it was, it was very stressful every time I saw her with a taser gun because I knew I was going to have to play as her with a taser gun. Yeah, I got to say, I lost a lot of respect for the hunters because of how easily MJ tases them. And throws a rock to disd. Yeah. I threw a rock so often. I was like, yeah, no shots at MJ.

She's very capable, but she's not like a trained combat veteran, you know? she's a reporter for the Daily Bugal or for Jonah in this game, she's really great at her job. But the fact that she's taking down just legions of hunters with ease just kind of make me feel like, are we sure the hunters are good? Are these guys overrated at hunting? Two things. One, Craven even mentions it when you get far enough fighting the hunters with MJ over the radio. He goes, you guys are being taken down by this woman with no powers. What's going on over there?

Do I have to show up? And then secondly, yeah, it was like, you can say whatever. Me personally, I was getting irritated playing as stealthy MJ. But what I didn't get irritated was with that, was that reveal with Black Cat. The Black Cat, I didn't get to play as Black Cat, but it was so fun playing Miles with her. That was, I ate that up. I went crazy for it. I'm only comparing Peter's exes because I'm like, which one did I have a better story with?

Black cat. I like the black cat. Yeah. So many villains make cameos here or have major roles in this game. I mean, it's just everyone, the laundry list, right? What did you think about the redemption of Mr. Negative Martin Lee? Did you not like it? Because I liked it.

I was okay with it. He's not fully forgiven, right? Miles says he can't forgive him for having killed his dad, but he just can't hate him anymore. And ultimately they team up and they use his powers to take down the symbiote. It's like, Yeah, I enjoyed it. You know, there's always, there always seems to be a hallucination or, like, go inside the hero's psyche scene in superhero games or a dream sequence.

And it's the same thing here when Miles and Martin Lee go into Peter's head. But I, I kind of enjoy that, you know, you get a sense, again, of like, Spider-Man just so many demands made on these people. Like, his inner fear is that prisoners will keep escaping after he puts them away, which is true. that always happens in superhero stories, the raft or Arkham or whatever it is. You can't keep anyone in those things for very long. So between that and, you know, just he says like I'm finally everything.

Everyone needs me to be when Peter's with Venom. You know, it's like he's trying to be everything for anyone. And one way you see that is with the team up between Miles and Martin Lee. So yeah, it worked for me. I, yeah, it's so interesting because normally I'm like, corny. Like, I'll be like, boo, tomatoes for situations, but I think because the storyline was really fun. And also, I don't really hate Martin Lee. I didn't like that he killed Miles' dad.

But I also, he was a villain that was like remorseful about it was like, oh my God, I made so many mistakes. Like, I wish I. And I think I like that part in this game so much. Like, even when you see Tombstone, you're like, these people can change. Instead of working for the cops, you're more so now like, people change. Yeah, right. Which, like, there's a lot of people that go to jail for things that are drug activities and they can come back out and be fine. Regardless, that's me. That's me on a, on my soapbox. But I like that reveal of like, even Harry was like, yeah, he's, he works for my dad now.

Like, he's fine now. He's not a bad person. Yeah. Change. MJ changes too. And it's pretty relatable as someone who works in media. She's like, she's worn down. She's like chasing the clicks and the traffic and click bait. She's like, I can't do this anymore. And then she'd be. comes a podcaster in the end. And Isaiah, you got to cover your ears when you get to the seat at the end because she records a podcast and then publishes it instantly with no editing whatsoever. She has no editor, no producer. She just speaks into the bike and then she presses click and it goes publish and it's live. It's like she said one take only. Yeah, if you did that with our pods, it would not be a seamless experience. So we appreciate our producers. It's just her. It's just her. So she's like, I just have to, I'm good at this. Also, this is spoiler, super spoiler. Her turning into scream. Yes. So I, that was the one person. Well, I understand, we went into Miles's

mind. We figured out what his insecurities were and how his fear. And it made sense. It made sense. especially after his father dying. He feels like he's ignoring his friends, putting too much stuff on his friends because he is and all those things. When we go into Peters and he's like, the raft people keep escaping. And then when he's like the symbiote or when he's explaining like his and then May dying and then he's like, I just want to be a hero. I want to keep heroing things. I want a hero.

And I was like, I thought your issues were the other things. I was like, I didn't know as being a hero. You were doing a great job as being a hero. No one's asking too much. You got a second Spider-Man. Regardless.

When MJ was going off as scream, I went, damn. This hurts and it's real. It's like she literally took this job to help keep them. a float because he cannot. And I'm like, damn, I went, ooh, he's hurt and it's really good. Like, Scream's dialogue was like, damn.

Yeah, those lines hit harder than the punches. It was. I was like, I don't even care that you're whipping your hair at me. That was the move that I was talking about with the Perry that was hard. Because when she flips her hair, it's so slow. And then it goes quick. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Literally, Mortal Kombat style that I was like, that one was hard to Perry because it would start slow and then go fast. But she as Scream, I actually really liked involving Scream in that way. It was very fun. Yeah. It's another one of these. I guess this is a common theme in Spitey stories, but you have to wonder, where are the Avengers?

Like, where are the other superheroes during this existential threat to Earth when the entire city is overrun with symbioteness and like, you know, everyone is getting pod peopled here? It's like, where are the other superheroes? Are they busy? I wouldn't have asked that question. And I wouldn't have asked that question if they didn't involve Black Panther cameos and Wong

cameos. Because I was like I was like, okay, not only are we staring at Avengers Tower, but we also have a Wong like little cameo during Black Cat and then we also have the Black Panther suit and the Wakanda Forever Museum or Wakanda Forever, the Wakanda Museum and I was like

there is a lot of damage being made and for some reason only two Spider-Men are here. I was like, I kept thinking there was going to be a cameo of like Dr. Strange or a And there wasn't. Yeah. It was just you. Yep.

So let's talk about what is next for this franchise and this company and superhero game. So what do we want for the next game story-wise? And what do we think they're going to do where are they going to go? Because we have mid-credits and post-credit scenes, right? So the mid-credit scene, I mean, we had Norman say, get the G-serum ready, right? So you get the feeling. It's goblin time. It's goblin time.

You know, whether Norman or Harry will be the Green Goblin, don't know. We've seen both, obviously. So it seems like we're heading for that again. And another potential team up between Norman and Doc Ock, right? So that, again, that felt like, gosh, are we going down that road again? I mean, I guess you can't avoid it. But I thought Norman was, not Norman. I thought Doc Ock was dying.

He was or is, but he's not dead yet. Yeah, he's. I didn't know if he was going to. Okay, this is how I took it from that scene. I thought he was dying. He wrote every single bit of information to his life in that book. And then maybe he passes away and Norman is trying to get a hold of that book. Yeah.

He's like, I need that book. Right. Otto says he's writing the final chapter, which could be a reference to the final chapter comic storyline or it could be a reference to the end of Insomniak's Spider-Man trilogy here. I don't know. Maybe it's both, right? Oh, true. So that makes me think he's going to play a part or they're going to play a part. No love loss between this Doc Ack and Norman.

Obviously, they hate each other. They hate each other. I was like, yeah, they hate each other. I love Doc Ack being like, good. My son is almost near death. He went good. We all should experience loss. And I was like, well, his wife died.

So he already asked. Yeah, he knows. Yeah. And also, like, I feel like Norman and the Spitees have to just sit down and talk this out. Because like, Norman's... That's what he does. That's what he does. I said the same thing.

I was like, this is insane. For a man with a lot of money, owning a science, everything, you are being really stupid. He's blaming Peter the Spider-Men for ruining his son. It's like, dude, you know, accept some responsibility here. You're the one who brought the symbiote into the world here and inflicted it on everyone. You know, they were just trying to help. Maybe they could have gone about it in a better way, but you're on the same side here. I was literally like the scales, you are.

are completely in the wrong, dude. You were, even you were talking over the intercom trying to calm your Venom sun down from destroying everything. And let me tell you, when I was playing Venom, I destroyed everybody in sight. So I was like, I was killing everybody. Right. So there's the possibility that those guys will be the big bads of the next game or they'll be among them, right?

Because every Spider-Man game has multiple major villains. And then in the post-credit scene, we finally find out who Rio's love interest is, right? I believe it's been teased all along. She's dating someone. Miles keeps skipping out on dinner, which, you know, as much as it is, as a lot as it is to have all the responsibilities of Spider-Man on your plate, it's also got to be nice sometimes to get out of stuff by just being like, oh, got to go. I got, I got Spider-Man stuff to do. I wouldn't mind having that as an excuse. It's like, you know, when I had a baby, it's like, I can't, can't come.

Sorry, I got a kid, you know, that can get you out of any social engagement you want to get out of. similar with Spider-Man. Just I got to go save someone. Whether you do or not, it's just a ready-made, built-in excuse. But we finally find out who Rio has been dating. And it's Albert Moon, father of Cindy Moon, aka Silk. Right. So we just get a glimpse of silk at the end.

And, you know, this is another character who's been bitten by the spider. This is, I guess, she originated in 2014 in the comics. And so you figure, she'll be a big part of the next game or DLC or a spin-off. You'd never really know where they're going to show up. So between Silk, Norman and Doc Ock, of course, you got Venom in the mix, right? Who's destroyed but could come back and maybe we get a Venom spin-off of some sort. If you do the side missions, there are other possibilities.

Because if you do the Raith missions, then you encounter carnage, right? the flame. And then there's another mission if you do like the Who's Craven hunting side missions, then you get a glimpse of Miguel, right? In another, or I guess, you know, chameleon is, is part of this. Miguel, like in another multiverse, right? So there are just a lot of possibilities here. And I don't know which way they're going to go. Do you have a preference? Cindy, I, as soon as I got that reveal that silk was coming, I would, yeah, I always was screaming my head off. The most successful tactic for Spider-Man as a franchise,

keep bringing in different variations with Spider-Man. Because luckily, Spider-Man's just a title, not a person. So I love showing off as many variations of Spider-Man as possible, and Silk is very cool. And the idea that there's a possibility that she could be Miles' step-sippling, like, makes me be so weird, because I'm like, they're just going to be brother and sister, th whipping through the air doing things.

Like he's going to teach her like or she already knows. I don't know. Like I'm very excited for this presence. Also it keeps that establishment of like we I like when Miles and Peter work together. So as long like there should be always a second spidey. Yeah. A second spidey should always exist. I like there being more than one at a time.

Right. And if Peter's temporarily retired at least in the mentor role giving advice but not playable perhaps then you need another. Spider-Man or Spider-woman or spider person. And this one lives, like, is near you in the house. You're like, we both got to go. We both got to do. Yeah.

Yeah. And also, Silk isn't in the Spider-verse movies, right? One of the few variants that hasn't shown up there yet. So a smart choice, I guess, right? Because, and maybe it's because Silk, you know, multiple spider people in the same universe would kind of go against the story that the Spider-verse movies are telling. But smart of them to pick one of them to pick one of them. the few prominent spider people that's not already appearing in that franchise and build around

that. So you get the originality that we got with Craven here. So I hope that there's DLC. Like, you know, I'd be interested in going down the road of more symbiote stuff, more venom carnage. But I don't know whether there will be sort of a spinoff game the way there was with Miles Morales before the full-fledged Spider-Man 3 or whether we'll just see DLC for this and then we'll go straight to Spider-Man 3. I have no idea, but just a lot of pieces in play, a lot of directions they could take this. Yes. And I mean, gameplay-wise, it's hard to imagine how it could be much bigger or better than it is. I'm sure they'll find a way. But I do wonder about what Insomniac will do next, because of course they have a Wolverine game coming. And there are some hints in this game that

maybe that'll be said in Madrepoor. And I don't know how the Spidey style gameplay will translate to Wolverine, but I'm obviously excited and optimistic, given what Insomniac has accomplished with this franchise to see them take on Logan. I guess it'll have to be a different format, right, a different kind of game, but I trust them to do that right. I think fighting and attack could be the same, but that's the problem is you could only fight kind of the same, or like the same style for the gameplay would kind of look the same. You have to add something like how we get gliders and we are now like I can only imagine what Norman Osborne becoming the goblin those gliders are going to be so hard I'm going to be so mad he's

going to be soaring at me and I'm really trying to keep up yeah but you got to do something additional with Wolverine something yeah something yeah doesn't bother you at all that in Saniac is just in the Marvel machine now it's just like they're going to keep pumping out Spider-Man and Wolverine like are there other things so well I'd rather I I know. That's the thing. They do it so well. Please keep. Please don't like I am honestly like Marvel.

Do whatever you can. Like if Insomniac was like, hmm. Yeah. No more money. Here you go. Cut. Cut everything. Let's just blow ourselves up or something.

I don't know. They're so good. I don't want them to ever change. Keep me. I mean, I talk about Marvel 24 seven and any way we can like support it in a good way. Yeah. Yeah. And these games are definitely amazing.

Yeah. In a way, it is kind of ideal. obviously if you're a fan of Marvel and these characters and superhero stuff to have Insomniac just be dedicated to that full time. I hope that they still have the freedom to make other things at times. It's not like they haven't gone all the way in on franchises before. You know, they've made nine Ratchet and Clank mainline games. And I love Ratch and Clank. So I hope they occasionally still find time to do that or to, you know, make a resistance or make a sunset overdrive or do something new because it's kind of like they've been taken over by Marvel.

But they do it so well. And it's such a people pleaser. Like so many people are buying and loving these games that from a utilitarian perspective, it's like, you know, bringing the most joy to the most gamers. Maybe this is the way to do it. Yeah. If they're breaking records, it sucks because it's like if they're breaking records knowing this property is breaking records. Yeah.

They're making money off of it too. So it's more about finding the time. It's like, please can you guys keep finding a time to do other things? It's like, well, we're making another Spider-Man. Yeah. And another Wolverine. Yeah. And an Wolverine.

So like, you're going to have to give us 20 years. Which, I mean, for me, though, personally, I'm like, okay, because I love Marvel. But for I understand. It's huge for Sony. I mean, this is a system selling type game for PlayStation. Just it's an exclusive. You can only get it for PlayStation right now. And it's as good as advertised.

So, yeah, from their perspective, you want, you want Ensonniac to keep doing what they're doing. And superhero games don't always do well. It's not like a guarantee that you put superheroes. and stuff. And not even because of superhero fatigue like we talk about with the movies of the shows, but just the execution and the quality of these games, like, there have been a lot of flops. I mean, Avengers wasn't as successful as people wanted it to be. Gotham Knights wasn't what people wanted it to be. Suicide Squad from Rocksteady, the established masters of the genre,

was delayed after it got a really negative reception to the first footage. And even some games that get good reviews like Midnight Suns, which I didn't love. personally, but it got good reviews and it just flopped from a sales perspective. So did Guardians of the Galaxy, which, you know, as we acknowledged last time, we're part of the problem. We haven't played it yet. But it's not like you just stick a superhero in these games and they'll automatically be big hits or good games. And there are a lot of superhero games coming. In addition to the Insomniac ones, Electronic Arts is making, I think, three Marvel games, including an Iron Man game and a Black Panther game. There's another Black Panther game in the works from Skydance. There's a

Wonder Woman game coming from Monolith. And you can't necessarily bank on these being successes. Like Insomniac lately has been the company that has perfected this genre. So keep them coming. I guess it sounds like they will. Any closing thoughts on Marvel's Spider-Man 2 before we wrap things up? If you heard my notes and think they're all negative, just know that I love this game so much.

I love this game so much. I can't express how much. I really love this game. And I'm going to play it forever. Don't take my notes as negative all notes. It was just because the game was so good. I have to get nitpicky. Yep.

Yep. I love the two. All right. Well, we went a little long this time because there is so much to get to. And this is such a big game. We hope you made it to the end, even if it's after the fact, even if you came back to finish it after you finish the game. It's been great fun to play and to talk about it with you.

Jess. Thank you. Yeah. Of course. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely for not only producing this episode, but also subjecting himself to spoilers. Sorry, you know everything that's going to happen now or most of it, but the game will still be good regardless.

And thank you to Arjuna Ram Kapal for scheduling. This are many buttonmashes. We will be back later this week with Super Mario Brothers Wonder. Email us. You can contact us at ringerversegaming at gmail.com or on all the various socials. We'll talk to you super soon.