Spider-Man Catch-All

I'm excited about everything I've heard from the reviews. Hearing that the main story is 10-12 hours with a more completionist run taking closer to 30 sounds great to me--if I enjoy the side stuff, 30 hours isn't an overwhelming commitment, and if I reach a point where I just want to see the ending, it sounds like that should be pretty simple.

I pre-ordered my copy from Best Buy, and at least for now, UPS is claiming they're going to end up delivering it today (I bet it ends up getting "rescheduled" for Friday, but a guy can dream). As I await my disc-based copy, I wish there were a way to hit a flag on my PSN account to have my PS4 download the day one patch in advance, before I have the disc. (I guess I don't know there will be such a patch, but it seems a safe assumption in 2018). All too often these days I put in a new game, wait for it to install off the disc, and then, when I go to play, see that there's dozens of gigs of data that still need to be downloaded. I suppose since there aren't meaningful online features (that I know of, anyway), it shouldn't be a problem to play when it's installed and let the patch download overnight. But I'd prefer to play with the most up to date version possible.

3ds actually did that for Smash Bros. a few years ago. You could download the 1.1 patch like 12 hours before release so at midnight you could play immediately.

EEEEEEEEEE!!!!

EDIT: I mean, I'm excited for this. It's pre-loaded on my machine - now I'm just reverse-Cinderella, waiting for the chime of midnight to start the party.

Can We Swing Across New York in Marvel's Spider-Man Without Touching The Ground?

This is coming to me via a Target deal I jumped on last year for $40, but I won't get my copy until late next week. Pretty excited.

I'm pretty bad at the combat so far. I died many times in the opening sequence. All the other stuff has been great.

What? Who would set an alarm to wake up in the middle of the night to play video games because their timed unlock happens well after they should be asleep and they don’t want to just stay up?

...something something two thumbs and an alarm clock...

(Also, it’s awe some for at least the first couple hours. )

Must not buy it just at the moment... Must not buy it just at the moment...

Higgledy wrote:

Must not buy it just at the moment... Must not buy it just at the moment...

Exactly where I'm at, Higgledy!

The game seems to be very good mechanically, and have a strong story. However, it also seems to be repetitive and to have a fairly unengaging open world. This should be perfect for me at £34.99 at Christmas...

And yet... my only other options this weekend, and until RDR2 releases, is Elite Dangerous on PS4 or Vanquish or Crysis 3 on PS3 (my Vita is for travel only). I need to not go for a walk at lunchtime and end up in HMV...

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

What? Who would set an alarm to wake up in the middle of the night to play video games because their timed unlock happens well after they should be asleep and they don’t want to just stay up?)

Someone who isn't such at work all night, I'm sure.

*grumble*

I ended up canceling my pre-order because I bought a Xbox One X on a whim. After spending that much cash on a new console I didn’t feel like I should buy this too. I’ve hinted to my wife that I REALLY want it, so hopefully I’ll get it for Christmas. Looking forward to reading everyone else’s impressions though.

Yep, I caved.

I'll be breaking the cellophane on this one in 4 hours.

Ugh why must work be a thing. 8 hours to go.

Best Buy/UPS came through and actually did deliver a day early! Better yet, a dentist appointment for my daughter afforded me the opportunity to pop the disc in the drive and start the download of the patch in the afternoon, so I was able to jump right in when ready. Hooray! (Also, the patch was a relatively modest 5GB or so, not one of these 30GB day one patches that sometimes happen)

I didn't love the tutorial/intro part--something abut the way they pause the game at times to give you prompts for learning the next move, while at other times just an instruction flashes on the screen that I'm trying to read while also battling bad guys rubbed me the wrong way. But once I emerged into the open world, I really started having a great time. Although I can see them getting old eventually, I spent most of my evening opening up radio towers, stopping random crimes, and acquiring backpacks and landmark photos. As a comic book nerd, I am very excited to get the various spider suits. I am most looking forward to the 2099 suit, but I am pretty happy swinging around as the Scarlet Spider.

I'm really glad that this game has a photo mode, but so far have found it surprisingly challenging to catch good shots of Spidey swinging through the city. The animations look good in motion, so it may just be that I'm bad at photo mode, though perhaps the animations are better tuned to movement and viewing from behind, but just don't look as good when you rotate the camera around to the front since that is a view players will generally not see.

Very excited to play more of this!

Still figuring out how to grok the combat. Playing on “spectacular” difficult (can more games please use entirely arbitrary and dumb difficult names please!) and so far it’s not very hard but getting into the flow state a la Batman combat has been a challenge. The camera is a little wonky and often times I have to resort to the mini map to find enemies.

But hot damn the swinging is GOOOOOOOOD. It’s really not something you can understand by watching, you have to do it and oh wow, it’s beautiful. The physics make perfect sense and yeah, I can’t imagine it was easy to code but bravo Insomniac! (I really want a Thor game now)

staygold wrote:

Still figuring out how to grok the combat. Playing on “spectacular” difficult (can more games please use entirely arbitrary and dumb difficult names please!) and so far it’s not very hard but getting into the flow state a la Batman combat has been a challenge. The camera is a little wonky and often times I have to resort to the mini map to find enemies.

But hot damn the swinging is GOOOOOOOOD. It’s really not something you can understand by watching, you have to do it and oh wow, it’s beautiful. The physics make perfect sense and yeah, I can’t imagine it was easy to code but bravo Insomniac! (I really want a Thor game now)

Oh god, are the difficulty settings named after the various comic runs? Spectacular, amazing, etc?

thrawn82 wrote:

Oh god, are the difficulty settings named after the various comic runs? Spectacular, amazing, etc?

Friendly, Amazing, Spectacular

I missed the comic book era so I don’t know but that would be a brilliant piece of fan service!

staygold wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:

Oh god, are the difficulty settings named after the various comic runs? Spectacular, amazing, etc?

Friendly, Amazing, Spectacular

I missed the comic book era so I don’t know but that would be a brilliant piece of fan service!

Well i do know The Amazing Spiderman and The Soectacular Spiderman were comic runs, friendly might have been too? or just a reference to Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman

thrawn82 wrote:
staygold wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:

Oh god, are the difficulty settings named after the various comic runs? Spectacular, amazing, etc?

Friendly, Amazing, Spectacular

I missed the comic book era so I don’t know but that would be a brilliant piece of fan service!

Well i do know The Amazing Spiderman and The Soectacular Spiderman were comic runs, friendly might have been too? or just a reference to Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman

Indeed it was. 2005 - 2007

Other similarly named runs included "Astonishing", "Avenging", ""Sensational", "Superior", and "Ultimate".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend...

Deleted (accidental dupe).

vypre wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:
staygold wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:

Oh god, are the difficulty settings named after the various comic runs? Spectacular, amazing, etc?

Friendly, Amazing, Spectacular

I missed the comic book era so I don’t know but that would be a brilliant piece of fan service!

Well i do know The Amazing Spiderman and The Soectacular Spiderman were comic runs, friendly might have been too? or just a reference to Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman

Indeed it was. 2005 - 2007

Other similarly named runs included "Astonishing", "Avenging", ""Sensational", "Superior", and "Ultimate".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend...

Easiest setting should be Spidey Super Stories.

My problem with combat is that I'm so used to Batman and Assassin's Creed is that I keep forgetting that I can actually go up.

The open world crime fighting and exploration is really good. I'm prioritizing upgrades that should make the combat easier, such as making the dodge reactions more forgiving.

Played for about 80 mins last night, overall good first impressions. Manhattan looks great, although I'd like to see if it holds up as well if you slowed down & actually explored the city streets.

The web slinging itself feels more nuanced than I was expecting, the X button for those mid air sling boosts that enable you to change direction easier are a great touch, I look forward to mastering it like I felt I did Arkham City's flawless traversal.

The combat has a good chunk of Arkham in it but doesn't feel like a carbon copy, the spidey sense (to indicate incoming attacks) seems to give you somewhat a bit of leeway with avoiding enemies. There are cool moves like dodging side to side to avoid gunfire, the God Of War style air juggling attacks is good & shooting webs feels like a delightful 'encumbered an enemy' style attack that can leave goons stuck to walls or at least nullified while you deal with more dangerous targets.

I picked the hardest difficulty then went back down to normal then back upto hard after the

Spoiler:

Fisk fight, at the top of his tower, him plus his goons were tricky to manage at the same time

I'm not even sure the difficulty drop made that much of a difference in that fight. I'm getting better but I just don't have the timing & selection of attacks down quite yet, especially when you add jumping ones into the equation.

Dialogue so far seems good & appropriate with Spiderman with sort of standard supporting characters, I can't see anything being as deliciously involving as the Batman & Joker dialogue in Arkham Knight but I'm hopeful it pulls itself above the norm.

The skill tree seems very cool, going to possibly focus on the defensive one.

Who all is going with the toughest difficulty btw?

Spikeout wrote:

Who all is going with the toughest difficulty btw?

I’m playing on Spectacular (Hardest) and it’s really not been a challenge outside of situations with two brutes or four rocket guys. And I’m not normally very good at Arkham combat.

My advice, and I should have followed my usual open world advice, go through the main story first to unlock a bunch of things. Finishing Act I would be a good idea to unlock all the world collectibles. I finished the backpacks and towers in the first 5 hours but now have to backtrack to a bunch more stuff.

This game makes me hate console exclusives.

I couldn’t help myself, so I went and rented it from Redbox for three nights. My god it’s good, easily the best Spidey game I’ve ever played. Combat has taken some getting used to, definitely different from Shadow of War which is what I’ve been playing the last several days. I’ve died many times, but it’s slowly starting to click. I just did the:

Spoiler:

Shocker boss fight in the bank. That took a few attempts before getting it right. He would always blast me before I could get the column or piece of rubble webbed up. I’m still having trouble with the dodge for some reason, always late or early, getting better though and I bought both skills that help, forgot their names. Already hacked all the towers so I have the entire map open. Also just did my first couple research buildings so I was able to unlock a couple more suits. Lots of things to do so far, but not to the point of ridiculousness where I feel overwhelmed.

I don’t think I’ll be able to return it without buying myself a copy, it’s just that good. Maybe if I can finish the story, but still would like to do all the extra stuff regardless. Looks and runs really good on my original PS4 too, fan is pretty much running constantly though. Played for several hours and it’s been stable and bug free, save for sometimes getting stuck on something where I don’t want to be.

SallyNasty wrote:

This game makes me hate console exclusives.

Yup! It's a sad state of affairs. This game would sell tons on PC.

Forgot about red box. Maybe I should try that and get my fill. Don't think I can drop $60 right now.

Glycerine wrote:

Played for several hours and it’s been stable and bug free, save for sometimes getting stuck on something where I don’t want to be.

I’m playing on an original PS4 and I’ve had 4 hard crashes (with no real trigger, two happened in stories, two happen in open world swingin around) and two hard freezes where I had to quit. So I guess YMMV?