Is there anyone out there who can tell me the proper usage of colons, semi colons, hyphens, and parantheseses (?!) when it comes to titles of things? Because Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix is practically a sentence, but Super Street Fighter 2: Turbo "HD Remix" just looks gay.
ANYWAYS.
I asked myself this morning if I really wanted to move everything I did (or rather, intended to do) on that other gaming blog I started over here, or if I wanted to try and keep them separate or if I just wanted to give some of this shit up entirely because it was inappropriate or not per-brand (thank you, John Edwards) or some-other-meaningless-literary-construct to this blog. In the end, I decided; Fuck it, I'll write whatever I want. I'm doing this collaboration with my friend and that gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside which makes honesty a little more forth coming. Plus the cleverness of our subtitle is sure to draw a few more random internet searches so somebody might actually read them here. So, with that said, guess what game I got to pop my new (read: refurbished) 360s cherry with last night?
Now I'm not going to bore you with the typical Spiderman 2 vs Spiderman 3 vs Ultimate Spiderman vs Spiderman Friend or Foe rhetoric, because its tired and everybody already knows that Spiderman 2 is the best spiderman game ever made and Spiderman 3 was a trainwreck and anyone who disagrees is wrong. If you really want the gritty details, go read any other spiderman video game related article on the internet anywhere, seriously. We can't get enough of it.
So Web of Shadows is the latest and is trying desperately to be the greatest. From where I sat (with a pounding headache and healthy amount of angst towards the Cleveland Browns, so excuse the lack of enthusiasm) it seems Shaba Games have taken great lengths to infuse the game with something new and not just make Spiderman 2 again which sadly, is what the fanboys (myself included) have been clammoring for the hardest. Honestly, I applaud it, but the hour or so I put into it last night was not enough to decide if it will pay off.
The so far so good of the thing is this. The game appears to have a story, which is important to me, and not just a bad guy shows up spider-man beats him, then bigger bad guy shows up and spider-man beats him one either. This one starts with a taste of a chaotic New York with spider-man hinted as both cause (by way of the black suit) and solution (by way of being spider-man) then Tarantino's its way back to days before when Spidey first gets the suit and things are still normal. It wets the appetite for whats coming and serves as a decent vehicle for the 'this button punches, this button swings, and this button throws fucking cars at people' tutorial that it bookends.
Which is important because that is the meat and potatoes of the thing. The fighting, I mean. Spider-man has perpetual access to both suits from the beginning and for once actual appear to function differently. Not to the point where one can swing and one can't, but their differences in combat are obvious even at this early stage. Best of all, the on the fly switching is so well integrated that you can actually switch suits in between individual hits of your canned combos. At this point I don't have the upgrades necessary to really call one better or worse and it will probably boil down to use this suit for the following enemies and use this one for others, but the tailoring and application of them to your playstyle is obviously going to be a big part of this.
The mission structure I am less thrilled about as so far it used GTA style "Mr. Johnson hunts" and akward dialogue trees to get a reason to fight and then go and fight. Granted, 'fight' means use your tendril arm to yank people off the top of buildings or throw a car down the street, but every time I beat up a bunch of guys for Luke Cage, he simply asks me to do it again, only do it twice as much. Why not just tell me to beat up 200 guys to start with, Luke? Why 15, then 30, then 150? The reality is these dumb missions say [OPTIONAL] in big bold letters next to the conversation selections, and I could probably just ignore them and advance the story, but the old school gamer in me knows (or at least has been deluded in to believing) that nothing is truly optional when you're trying desperately to justify the $70 you just spent on something. We both know that if I don't see every single ounce of content this game has to offer then Activision wins.
At this point, one can only hope the awesome move list can keep up with the tedious optional missions and that the main story can cash the check its opening has written. The current presentation and promise have already projected its quality light years beyond Ultimate and 3, but that will be meaningless if its way too short or face plants on these [OPTIONAL] missions. Even then, if all goes as I hope, it will still take some serious direction to top the rose tinted bias aura that Spider-man 2 still projects in my heart.
-F.
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