PlayStation Nation |OT| Playing Astro Bot on the Horizon Until Dawn

[DonFerrari]

JWeinCom said:

Found a useful glitch in Spider-man 2 for those playing through it. Not the first person to discover it I'm sure, but I did just randomly find it.

I was doing one of the symbiote hive missions, and thought it would be a good time to change my costume. So, I did, and when I unpaused the game... The mission was over and the hive was destroyed.

So, yeah. If you want you can complete the symbiote hive missions, you can do so in literally five seconds each. And they're kind of repetitive, so I won't judge you for cheating. 

Leynos said:

I'm near the end of the game and I am enjoying it. Tho Insomniac is doing the same thing with this series as R&C. They make the same game over and over. Spider-Man 2 has the same story beats as Miles and Spidey 1. A lot of the same kind of boss fights and sequences. Lizard can be Rhino. Harry, Flynn and Doc Oc all serve the same purpose and enjoy the same exact type of character arc.  From a Helicopter to a Rhino to a Lizard, you will chase a big thing through a city and crash through stuff. It's well made don't get me wrong but you can swap out a lot of this game for the other 2 and nothing really changes. I hope they do something entirely different for 3.

Yeah. I liked the game a lot, but I was a bit underwhelmed and I think this is part of the reason why. The same game is a bit of an overstatement but the structure of the story is similar, and there are a lot of repeated beats. There's the ones you mentioned and a few more. In the first game, when *spoilers* devil's breath was released and the whole overworld became hostile, it was a great choice that really made the stakes feel higher. Maybe that also happened in Miles? I don't remember. At any rate, this time it was just like, "yup, it's about that time again". 

I think this is a great game... but not a great sequel. There are some great set pieces and story moments, but in terms of the overall structure of the game and its mechanics, there is not a lot of meaningful evolution beyond some QOL improvements. And in a lot of ways I think it's a step back. The overworld stuff in the first game weren't always the best, but now it feels like pretty much every activity is just "beat up a bunch of enemies". In the first game there was at least some variety in the types of crimes, and the occassional stealth challenge or web swinging test. There was room for improvement, but instead they just went for streamlining. Like, we couldn't really figure out a way to make it better, so we'll at least make it less intrusive. Which I guess is better, but not as good as it could have been. 

The main addition to combat is the parry system, and no thank you. When games use multiple dodge options, it's usually done in a way where you can either choose to use an easier option to be safe, or use an option with a stricter window for a bigger advantage. Here, both options have similar results. Certain attacks have to be blocked with one or the other, but it's kind of arbitrary. There's no way to really tell based on the opponents movements, except that they'll flash either blue or yellow for certain attacks. It's not super intuitive, and makes you have to second guess all the time, which just gets in the way of the flow of combat. 

Overall, there's kind of not a great reason for this to be an open world game. As fun as the webslinging is, there's no real purpose for exploring beyond going to the particular points on the map. Compared to something like Skyrim or BOTW where there's a feeling of "who knows what I'll find here". It's more of a giant version of Peach's Castle than a living breathing world.

Sounds like a lot of complaining, but just to be clear I really liked the game. Not withstanding my dislike of the parrying system, the combat is still really fun. The symbiote is super satisfying to use, especially at first. Webswinging is still the most fun way to get around in any game that I've played. There are some really great story moments. Now that we know and like the characters, they're more willing to show us their flaws and have them act more like... you know, people. Sometimes they're moody and even resentful of other people in their lives. The same relationships that can strengthen us can also drag us down, which I think was the main point of the story.

It's just that most of the things that work really well in this game are the same things that worked really well in the first game and to a lesser extent in Miles Morales. As I said, great game, but not a great sequel. 

Those seem to be very valid criticism, I'll probably start playing today, and yes Spider-man is an open world but not a exploration type of title =]