Spider-Man: The game! (x2)
Jan. 15th, 2011 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficYou know, one surefire way of getting me to see the Spider-Man reboot would be for them to continue the "street musician covering Spider-Man theme" gag from the Raimi films... with the incredibly catchy Spectacular Spider-Man song.
Speaking of Spider-Man, I've recently rented both the current-gen Spidey games, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, and since I'm never going to think of a better segue than that, I think I'll review them.
Both games suffer from a bit of repetition in level design, with a philosophy of "enjoy doing that? Then do it three more times!" instead of the more active game design you see in, say, God of War where beating a giant boss will involve cutting off his hand then poking out his eyes and so on and so on instead of cutting off four hands. That said, Shattered Dimensions is the clear winner. It just has more of a fun factor.
SD does have basically an excuse plot, with Spidey accidentally shattering a mystical tablet and then having to save the world from the cataclysm that unleashes. A bit disappointing, since instead of foiling some Big Bad's evil scheme, you're cleaning up after your own dumbass mistake, but I guess it would be too hard to have an overhanging story arc between the four separate worlds. Anyway, I played games back in the 16-bit era, so I'm cool with a simple plot that exists mainly to justify setting up continuities too uncommercial to have games exclusively set in them.
Then you have Web. It's a more traditional Spider-Man game, open-world, with a more linear narrative instead of a bunch of random missions. But even though I enjoyed the grander scope of the story, it's still brought down by a fatal combination of bad writing and incredibly bad voice-acting. To put it bluntly, Spider-Man's voice-actor is bad. Like "is English his first language?" bad. In Shattered Dimensions, they have four good voice actors playing Spider-Man, but here, they couldn't scrounge together one.
Take the opening moments of the game. Spider-Man is walking around, depressed, as the city goes to hell around him, then he hero's up and starts kicking ass. Okay, so far so good. Then he opens his mouth and starts asking where MJ is. Now, think back to a third of Harrison Ford's filmography. When he goes "Where's my wife!?", you can tell he's concerned, but he's also determined and heroic. If anyone's laid a finger on her, you damn sure don't want to be in his shoes.
When Peter says "Where's my wife!?", it's as if he's saying "If anyone's happened to her, I am going to watch like a million hours of Gossip Girl and eat Haagen Dazs and nobody gets to say shit!" Then we flashback to how this all started, with Spider-Man fighting Venom. Okay, you're thinking, since this is "normal," he'll be cracking jokes, dropping one-liners, mocking Venom. Right?
No... that would be the kind of hero you'd write a videogame about. Instead, he's cringing in fear as Venom is about to devour him, and is only saved when part of the symbiote detaches from Venom and costumes him. Given that the first few hours of the game focus on the Kingpin and some mysterious robberies of his, you'd think he'd have something to do with the eventual crisis, but no, it's all a big waste of time, forgotten once the symbiotes show up. The symbiote detached because Peter was so afraid. That's right... Spider-Man being a sniveling coward is a key plot point in this game.
By the way, I hate to be so pedantic when there are much bigger targets, but given that this game takes place shortly before Civil War (with Spider-Man a member of the New Avengers), why is Spidey so easily declared a fugitive by the police (well, he's chucking bad guys off the roof at the time. Yeah, that's in-character)? Why is he so cavalier with his secret identity (at one point, the Vulture is able to eavesdrop on a phone call with his wife)? And why is Eddie Brock Venom and not Mac Gargan? If you make a game which at one point has a boss battle involving trivia questions about Marvel continuity, shouldn't it... fit into Marvel continuity?
Anyway, Mary-Jane was wounded in the fight with Venom, so Spidey escorts her ambulance to the hospital. When he gets there, some gangs are having a gunfight in the parking lot. An EMT tells Spider-Man to break it up, to which he goes "umm... oh... okay." Not paraphrasing. What would he have done if some random guy hadn't told him to stop a violent crime from being committed right in front of him? Just sat there with his webshooter up his ass?
And on and on and on. I get what they're doing, which is to provide a contrast between regular Spider-Man and the more badass Black Suit Spider-Man, but it's completely unnecessary and just hack writing. If your hero doing the right thing manifests itself as him being weak, passive, childish, and generally a wuss, you're not a good writer. And really, this split shouldn't be that hard to characterize. Make do-gooder Spider-Man glib, goofy, and good-natured, with lots of nerdy pop culture references and adorkable moments, then make Black Suit Spider-Man more snide, sarcastic, mean-spirited, and dickish. Both options leave a lot of avenues for fun writing, they're just different kinds of humor.
Although I can see why they couldn't go that way, since there's no quipping in this game. I think there may be a dozen "jokes" told by Spider-Man in the whole game. (And even when the occasional zinger comes up in dialog, the VA cannot sell it at all.) Man, we had this down when Duke Nukem 3D came out. As Spider-Man beats people up, play a sound file of him joking about beating people up. Stagger it so that the quips are situational, or every hour you play unlocks a new "tier" of jokes (to avoid repeating jokes, which was a problem in the otherwise excellent Shattered Dimensions).
What's worst is that most of the cutscenes are done to follow the "good" alignment, so you'll have Black Suit Spider-Man threatening to rip someone's head off, then in the next cutscene, he's all "oh fiddlesticks, I burned the darn muffins." C'mon, guys, go the extra mile. Put some effort into this game. How about having the points actually unlock something, instead of just building up? I swear, there's no point in trying to find all the Spider-tokens or accomplishing all the side missions, since just by rushing through the game, you'll have enough experience points to buy everything you need. There's no alternate costumes, no concept art, really no point in playing the game as anything other than Black Suit Spider-Man (the VA is mildly better at that characterization, and there's some redemptive value in getting to play out a Peter/Felicia flirtation).
In fact, the whole game is humorless, grim, gritty, and depressing. Yes, like the 90s! Everyone Spider-Man meets seems to hate, dislike, or mistrust him. When he runs into Luke Cage, he actually gets lectured by Mr. Tiara on how he's been wasting his powers, and Cage tutors him on how to fight. Mr. Cage, you have a call on Line 1, it's "I beat Firelord while you were fighting Mr. Fish." Would you like to take it in the office, or should I put him on hold while you take "Cram it up your cramhole" on Line 2?
Then you meet Black Cat. Okay, who doesn't love the lighthearted flirtation between those two? You'd think they'd have a level with her running away and him chasing her while they make jokes about getting webbing in her hair. Or... they could beat the crap out of each other while Felicia makes S&M jokes? Holy shit! This is a Spider-Man game, right? I mean, kids are meant to play this? Even more insultingly, the game has a system where Spider-Man can call in either heroes or villains to help him out, depending on his alignment (you'd think this could play out like the co-op in Uncharted 2, with Spidey being assisted on a mission by an NPC, with hilarious bantering back and forth. Or they fight some mooks while making one or two quips over and over again). Black Cat is on the villain side of the alignment. Wolverine is on the good guy side. So, gutting people for a living and trying to sleep with another man's wife = good guy. Being a reformed cat burglar and fighting evil = bad guy. Right.
And on and on, all without any lightness, reprieve, or fun. I know this is supposed to be a darker take on Spider-Man, but it's still Spider-Man, right, not "Broody Asshole Who Fights With Webs-Man." In SD, you've got the Spectacular Spider-Man VA (MY BB!) fighting Nolan North's Deadpool on a twisted reality show. In Web, you have a guy stabbing himself until he's un-symbiote'd. So, your call.
Speaking of Spider-Man, I've recently rented both the current-gen Spidey games, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, and since I'm never going to think of a better segue than that, I think I'll review them.
Both games suffer from a bit of repetition in level design, with a philosophy of "enjoy doing that? Then do it three more times!" instead of the more active game design you see in, say, God of War where beating a giant boss will involve cutting off his hand then poking out his eyes and so on and so on instead of cutting off four hands. That said, Shattered Dimensions is the clear winner. It just has more of a fun factor.
SD does have basically an excuse plot, with Spidey accidentally shattering a mystical tablet and then having to save the world from the cataclysm that unleashes. A bit disappointing, since instead of foiling some Big Bad's evil scheme, you're cleaning up after your own dumbass mistake, but I guess it would be too hard to have an overhanging story arc between the four separate worlds. Anyway, I played games back in the 16-bit era, so I'm cool with a simple plot that exists mainly to justify setting up continuities too uncommercial to have games exclusively set in them.
Then you have Web. It's a more traditional Spider-Man game, open-world, with a more linear narrative instead of a bunch of random missions. But even though I enjoyed the grander scope of the story, it's still brought down by a fatal combination of bad writing and incredibly bad voice-acting. To put it bluntly, Spider-Man's voice-actor is bad. Like "is English his first language?" bad. In Shattered Dimensions, they have four good voice actors playing Spider-Man, but here, they couldn't scrounge together one.
Take the opening moments of the game. Spider-Man is walking around, depressed, as the city goes to hell around him, then he hero's up and starts kicking ass. Okay, so far so good. Then he opens his mouth and starts asking where MJ is. Now, think back to a third of Harrison Ford's filmography. When he goes "Where's my wife!?", you can tell he's concerned, but he's also determined and heroic. If anyone's laid a finger on her, you damn sure don't want to be in his shoes.
When Peter says "Where's my wife!?", it's as if he's saying "If anyone's happened to her, I am going to watch like a million hours of Gossip Girl and eat Haagen Dazs and nobody gets to say shit!" Then we flashback to how this all started, with Spider-Man fighting Venom. Okay, you're thinking, since this is "normal," he'll be cracking jokes, dropping one-liners, mocking Venom. Right?
No... that would be the kind of hero you'd write a videogame about. Instead, he's cringing in fear as Venom is about to devour him, and is only saved when part of the symbiote detaches from Venom and costumes him. Given that the first few hours of the game focus on the Kingpin and some mysterious robberies of his, you'd think he'd have something to do with the eventual crisis, but no, it's all a big waste of time, forgotten once the symbiotes show up. The symbiote detached because Peter was so afraid. That's right... Spider-Man being a sniveling coward is a key plot point in this game.
By the way, I hate to be so pedantic when there are much bigger targets, but given that this game takes place shortly before Civil War (with Spider-Man a member of the New Avengers), why is Spidey so easily declared a fugitive by the police (well, he's chucking bad guys off the roof at the time. Yeah, that's in-character)? Why is he so cavalier with his secret identity (at one point, the Vulture is able to eavesdrop on a phone call with his wife)? And why is Eddie Brock Venom and not Mac Gargan? If you make a game which at one point has a boss battle involving trivia questions about Marvel continuity, shouldn't it... fit into Marvel continuity?
Anyway, Mary-Jane was wounded in the fight with Venom, so Spidey escorts her ambulance to the hospital. When he gets there, some gangs are having a gunfight in the parking lot. An EMT tells Spider-Man to break it up, to which he goes "umm... oh... okay." Not paraphrasing. What would he have done if some random guy hadn't told him to stop a violent crime from being committed right in front of him? Just sat there with his webshooter up his ass?
And on and on and on. I get what they're doing, which is to provide a contrast between regular Spider-Man and the more badass Black Suit Spider-Man, but it's completely unnecessary and just hack writing. If your hero doing the right thing manifests itself as him being weak, passive, childish, and generally a wuss, you're not a good writer. And really, this split shouldn't be that hard to characterize. Make do-gooder Spider-Man glib, goofy, and good-natured, with lots of nerdy pop culture references and adorkable moments, then make Black Suit Spider-Man more snide, sarcastic, mean-spirited, and dickish. Both options leave a lot of avenues for fun writing, they're just different kinds of humor.
Although I can see why they couldn't go that way, since there's no quipping in this game. I think there may be a dozen "jokes" told by Spider-Man in the whole game. (And even when the occasional zinger comes up in dialog, the VA cannot sell it at all.) Man, we had this down when Duke Nukem 3D came out. As Spider-Man beats people up, play a sound file of him joking about beating people up. Stagger it so that the quips are situational, or every hour you play unlocks a new "tier" of jokes (to avoid repeating jokes, which was a problem in the otherwise excellent Shattered Dimensions).
What's worst is that most of the cutscenes are done to follow the "good" alignment, so you'll have Black Suit Spider-Man threatening to rip someone's head off, then in the next cutscene, he's all "oh fiddlesticks, I burned the darn muffins." C'mon, guys, go the extra mile. Put some effort into this game. How about having the points actually unlock something, instead of just building up? I swear, there's no point in trying to find all the Spider-tokens or accomplishing all the side missions, since just by rushing through the game, you'll have enough experience points to buy everything you need. There's no alternate costumes, no concept art, really no point in playing the game as anything other than Black Suit Spider-Man (the VA is mildly better at that characterization, and there's some redemptive value in getting to play out a Peter/Felicia flirtation).
In fact, the whole game is humorless, grim, gritty, and depressing. Yes, like the 90s! Everyone Spider-Man meets seems to hate, dislike, or mistrust him. When he runs into Luke Cage, he actually gets lectured by Mr. Tiara on how he's been wasting his powers, and Cage tutors him on how to fight. Mr. Cage, you have a call on Line 1, it's "I beat Firelord while you were fighting Mr. Fish." Would you like to take it in the office, or should I put him on hold while you take "Cram it up your cramhole" on Line 2?
Then you meet Black Cat. Okay, who doesn't love the lighthearted flirtation between those two? You'd think they'd have a level with her running away and him chasing her while they make jokes about getting webbing in her hair. Or... they could beat the crap out of each other while Felicia makes S&M jokes? Holy shit! This is a Spider-Man game, right? I mean, kids are meant to play this? Even more insultingly, the game has a system where Spider-Man can call in either heroes or villains to help him out, depending on his alignment (you'd think this could play out like the co-op in Uncharted 2, with Spidey being assisted on a mission by an NPC, with hilarious bantering back and forth. Or they fight some mooks while making one or two quips over and over again). Black Cat is on the villain side of the alignment. Wolverine is on the good guy side. So, gutting people for a living and trying to sleep with another man's wife = good guy. Being a reformed cat burglar and fighting evil = bad guy. Right.
And on and on, all without any lightness, reprieve, or fun. I know this is supposed to be a darker take on Spider-Man, but it's still Spider-Man, right, not "Broody Asshole Who Fights With Webs-Man." In SD, you've got the Spectacular Spider-Man VA (MY BB!) fighting Nolan North's Deadpool on a twisted reality show. In Web, you have a guy stabbing himself until he's un-symbiote'd. So, your call.
