Spider-Man: Web of Shadows – First Impressions

I was out on Tuesday last week to pick up a launch copy of Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (a.k.a. WoS), and again on Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday. In fact, it took until Saturday to finally get my hands on a copy of the game. That being said, I’ve taken what time I could yesterday and today to get started on the game and I wanted to post some of my first impressions. Please note: these are just first impressions, and there’s still a lot of game I haven’t played yet. Also, I’m a Spider-Man fanboy, so be aware of my bias.

I’m not really very far in the story so far. I’ve been spending a lot of my time just swinging around and beating up some low-level bad guys, so anything I say should be taken with a proverbial grain of salt. Thus far, the story has some solid fan service (they got Venom’s dialogue style right), but I found it a little too vague. You start the game a few-days into the invasion and then flash back to when you first get the black suit. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if I hadn’t read or seen anything about the game, the intro would have been a little jarring. Then again, perhaps that’s how they wanted it.

Graphically, this is the best looking open-world Spider-Man game of its kind (that is to say, I still think that Ultimate Spider-Man looked pretty damn cool). Spider-Man looks awesome, especially as he soars through the sky in the black suit. I did also notice an attention to detail so close that the webbing comes out of the back of Spider-Man’s hands in the black suit. There are some obvious drawbacks to the game being sandbox-style, and that really shows during the in game cut scenes. My only other graphical disappointment is the in-game dialogue with other characters. Visually, there’s nothing to see there. The character models tend to just stand there as the dialogue plays over, sometimes they don’t even look at each other. In a game like this, however, it’s really the world that’s important, and that looks fantastic.

Now for what the game’s really all about: gameplay. As anyone who’s played a bad Spider-Man game can tell you, if the controls suck then the game sucks. Fortunately the controls are pretty damn good. I don’t find them as intuitive as Spider-Man 2’s controls, but it handles better faster than Spider-Man 3. I remember that one of the first trailers Shaba put out was all about the combat, and it’s fair to say that this is really a combat-driven game. The story is nice, but they’re creating a custom story to suit their combat style.

I had seen the videos ahead of time, and I expected to be able to pull off some amazing Spidey combat moves from the get-go, which you shouldn’t. In fact, the first while I was playing it felt really awkward. That’s because I hadn’t unlocked enough combat moves yet. As you progress and acquire new skills, the controls feel more and more intuitive. It really is all about the combat, and that makes this game like no other. I like to think of it similar to Ultimate Spider-Man. In Ultimate Spider-Man, it was all about mobility, and the controls made it really easy to move around, but the combat took some work to get used to. Combat just wasn’t what they were really focused on, and so you had to work a little to get really good at it. In WoS, the combat is what most of the buttons control, in various combination. The movement is fairly intuitive, but I find myself running down walls sometimes and occasionally bouncing off buildings I want to stick to. Not bad controls by any extent, just with a bit of a learning curve.

I miss being able to tie bad guys up to lamp posts like I did in Spider-Man 2, but they took the idea of combos a step further. The combat is a lot more realistic in that way. You wouldn’t stop during a fight to tie one guy up while another shoots at you with a shotgun, so they left that out. Instead you have a ton of really cool moves which really revolve around Spidey’s agility and webbing. If you’re like me and wanted more web-snapping moves in the previous games, you’ll like what WoS has to offer. I haven’t been playing as the black suit too much, but they have some nice tendril-based moves in there too.

Alongside the combat is the levelling system. As you level up you get to spend experience on new combat moves, either for the red suit or the black suit version of Spider-Man. You level up by stopping crimes and doing little quests, and also by collecting Spider tokens throughout the world. These things glow and they’re everywhere, so it’s hard to miss them. I’ve already collected over 100 of them, and that’s not even half (Update: I’m past 300 and still don’t have the achievement for half – damn.). I’m reminded of Crackdown’s green orbs, but the rewards for these tokens are pretty good.

The levelling doesn’t just revolve around the combat system. You also gain red suit or black suit points during the game. I have yet to find out how these are involved in the game (I can’t check how many points I have, so your style of play pretty much determines which suit you’re partial to), but they show up as you do things. Where I’m at now, I’m pretty much getting red suit points for rescuing civilians who get hurt next to gang fights, and if I ignore them and just get my fight on they die and my black suit points go up. You don’t get as many black suit points, presumably because you may miss a civilian in the heat of combat and being unobservant doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person.

There are also some elements I haven’t quite experimented with yet, like calling in allies. You get these allies from the Marvel universe and can call them in to help out from time to time, assuming your gauge is in the right place. So far, the only one I’ve unlocked is Luke Cage, but I’m assuming Wolverine, Black Cat, and more will show up as I progress. And I assume that Black Cat will show if you’ve got more black suit points, but I may be mistaken.

Overall, I’m pretty impressed so far. There hasn’t been a huge variety in quests so far (still no symbiotes, just gangs), but that doesn’t bother me one bit. Swinging through the open city feels visceral, and there’s nothing quite like web-zipping from one enemy to another, smacking each of them in the face as you go. If you’re a bit of a fan boy, I definitely recommend checking this game out. Now I just have to figure out a way to make room for Fallout 3 at the same time…

Fall Release Limbo

I’ve been racking my brain all day to try and come up with a unique and entertaining post, but I just can’t think of anything that stands out over this last week. It actually kind of reflects my gaming situation right now. With all the awesome games coming out between now and Christmas, I’m trying to save my gaming time for the ones I can really value.

Here’s what I mean: This month there are four big games I plan on getting: Dead Space, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, and Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. Now of these four games, the one which I plan on getting first is Web of Shadows. I know it’s hard to see how it would rise above those other AAA titles, but I’m a die-hard Spider-Man fan and Web of Shadows looks like it could be the best Spidey game since Spider-Man 2. I’m therefore willing to wait a little longer for Dead Space and Fallout 3, especially since I want to really dedicate some solid time for them. Case in point, I just finished Bioshock for the first time because I wanted to get some other games out of the way and really give it some serious attention. Far Cry 2 looks like an awesome game, but since it comes out one week before Web of Shadows, I’m worried if I buy it on release day I’ll end up playing a few hours, loving it, and then leaving it on a shelf while I play something else. It’s important to me, and my budget, that the games I buy are ones I’m serious about playing through.

So that kind of leaves me in a bit of limbo until the 28^th. What will I be doing until then? Playing more Pure for sure. Probably going back to some old games to try and nab a few extra achievements, and revisit some Halo 3 multiplayer for sure. I might actually use this time to explore a few Xbox Live Arcade titles I’ve been neglecting due to lack of time. That should clear the deck and get things ready for when the heavy hitters arrive in my home.

Addendum: It would appear that Web of Shadows hits this week.  I guess it won’t be such a long wait after all.  Still sticking to my plan of Halo 3 and Pure until then, but I hope to log some serious time with Spider-Man.  You can probably expect a fanboy post next week, unless something more immediate grabs my attention.

When Should Things Be Secret?

I know I’ve posted about Achievements before, but since they play a factor in my gaming I’m pretty sure they’ll be brought up a few times here. This post is about secret achievements, a topic which may be relevant with all the top-tier games coming out over the next few months. Specifically, should there be secret achievements? And if so, which achievements should be, or not be, hidden from the player at the outset? Also, how do these rules apply to achievement requirements?

I think the first question is pretty easy. Of course there should be secret achievements, so long as achievements exist for completing plot elements of the game. Especially since many games contain a “twist” towards the end. These twists should be kept undisclosed until the moment the gameplay reveals them. That just makes sense. I do believe, however, that this doesn’t mean all achievements should be secret. Hence question number two.

Assuming you’ve agreed with my first statement, the next question could go either way. Why reveal any achievements? I suppose they could all be kept secret until you unlock them. A pleasant surprise of another 20 gamerscore here or there for using a special combo isn’t the worst thing in the world. For this question, however, I think we need to look at the purpose of achievements. What I mean is I’m going to tell you why I think achievements exist, and for the purposes of this post it’ll have to do. I believe achievements are there to encourage the player to explore the game, often in a variety of ways. For example, in Bioshock you get an achievement for upgrading your weapons. You don’t have to do this to complete the game, but the designers wanted you to try it, so they give you a bit of a carrot to nudge you in that direction.

That being given, if achievements are meant to motivate you to explore the whole game, should any of them be kept secret? Well we’ve already decided that yes, some should. I think it’s safe to say that the linear plot should be kept secret, since it’s the progress the player will make in order to complete the game. Completion ought to be its own motivation. If the only way I’m going to want to finish your game is for a few gamerscore, then there’s something wrong with the game (or I’m taking the achievement whore thing a little too far). I also understand collectables. If I know there’s 100 coins/bricks/comics/doodads to collect, I can probably figure out that once I get them all I’ll be rewarded in some way. Besides these achievements, however, there may be various game mechanics which a player need not explore to finish the game, but which may be a focus of development. I already mentioned Crackdown’s driving for me personally. In theory these achievements might not be obvious, so I would say you shouldn’t keep them secret. I recently started replaying Marvel Ultimate Alliance with a friend, and after checking out a website I discovered there’s an achievement for throwing 500 enemies off ledges. Nice idea for an interesting challenge, but not something that would have popped into my head without being told. So I would say that no, not all achievements should be created with equal levels of secrecy.

The last question relates to my inspiration for this post. As I said, I started replaying Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Like any good comic geek, I have the Hero and Villain expansion DLC, but I didn’t really investigate them the first time through. This time I figured I’d pick up those missed achievements. In particular, the ones for Magneto talking to Charles Xavier and for Scott talking to Jean. All the descriptions say is that these people have to talk. What I didn’t realize until it didn’t work is that these are tied to specific times in the game. Like the achievement for Sabertooth being mistaken for Wolverine. Are we expected to create a party with these three characters and play through the whole game with them on the off chance we’ll get our achievements? They don’t need to give the whole instance away, but a hint (like which Act it’s in) would allow me to get the achievement on my own, because let’s face it, most people are looking on-line for lists these days rather than spending hours hoping they’ll stumble across a secret achievement moment.

I also think it’s worth saying, with respect to both secret achievements and requirements, that the end user should not be regarded as a tester. Players are willing to experiment for a few extra gamerscore, but just because we game doesn’t mean we’re inclined to try the abnormal. That’s why they employ testers, and why not every gamer can be a tester (sorry folks).

What does all this mean? I guess it points out that still, after these years, not all designers have the achievement thing down to a science. Some reveal too much before they should, and others make it so difficult to decipher their requirements that they steer us towards spoiler websites and walkthroughs. One, last thing I did want to mention is that I’m not opposed to the few achievements that are secret and not obvious. I don’t think it’s wrong to have, say, one achievement for a few gamerscore which you get if you really invest yourself in the world and think a little outside the box. I think it’s fair to reward such invention. I just don’t think it should be expected.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some gamerscore to collect. Happy hunting.

Stripped Gears

I try to use this blog to discuss positive things about the videogame industry. I figure there’s enough negativity out there to spread around. In fact, my original intention today was to talk about how much I’m loving Pure right now (get the demo, and probably the game, if you haven’t already), but it would seem that everyone in the press is giving it love right now and I don’t think they need my little voice added to that cry. Instead I’m opting to point out why I wasn’t impressed with a game everyone else loves: Gears of War.

What got my brain swirling about Gears of War was the announcement last week about the Gears of War 2 Zune. That’s when I started really thinking about why I’m just not that impressed with the franchise. I want to state up front that part of the reason I feel I can be so bold is that GoW has a die-hard following who probably won’t read anything I write and I’m sure Cliff’s ego will not suffer at my comments. Hopefully my impact, if any, will encourage improvement in this franchise, and perhaps others as well.

Many people are anxiously awaiting the release of Gears of War 2. I actually heard Cliff Bleszinski say in an interview before E3 that GoW2 was the most anticipated Fall game of 2008, and I think many people would agree with him. I, however, am not one of them. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t get the original GoW when it first launched, but I really didn’t feel that it met expectations. I’ll try to break down what it is that bothered me, and my impressions so far regarding GoW2 (‘cause let’s face it, you can’t read as much as I do about videogames and not catch that coverage).

1) Narrative: I’m all about the narrative in any medium. I realize that’s a bias I bring to the table, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to do so. Especially since many scholars and critics are discussing videogames as a new medium for storytelling. With this in mind, GoW fails in the narrative department. Let’s begin with the lack of preparation in the game. Say you didn’t read the manual (which not everyone does these days). While the tutorial levels of the game prepare you for how to run and gun, the story is lost on you. Why is Fenix in jail? You wouldn’t know. Who are these enemies? Perhaps alien invaders or mutants from grotesque government experiments? Possible. It’s just unclear without the dry little blurb at the front of that little booklet.

Moving on from the back story we can see that the narrative doesn’t really grow throughout the game. The only real story that’s well explained is your mission: map the enemy encampments to blow them up with a big-ass bomb. Dom’s wife is mentioned once. Since I didn’t get the game when it came out, I heard that Dom’s wife was brought up briefly and I was waiting for it when she was mentioned one time. In fact we don’t know why any of the COG’s are fighting. Oh, did I forget to mention that the whole game is full of jargon which is never explained? Apparently a COG is some sort of military personnel, but I still don’t understand which military. Are they the new Marines? Are there fighters other than COG’s? Does COG stand for something? It’s just not mentioned. And who the hell is RAAM? You wouldn’t know his name if it wasn’t for the objectives menu on the final level.

There are a number of other problems with the narrative. I read an article about Karen Traviss who’s writing the GoW books. She talks about how there’s so much to explore in the world. I don’t think that’s such a good thing. I understand needing to hold something back for the sequel, but GoW doesn’t even seem unfinished. It never got started.

2) Things Don’t Make Sense: That’s the best title I could think of for this section. My point of contention really has to do with two things: Jack and the Reavers. These are two examples of things in the game that just don’t hold up under any real examination.

Let’s start with Jack, shall we? Jack is Fenix’s robot helper. Essentially he’s an R2 unit that floats instead of rolling and has a cloaking device. These properties make no sense in the GoW universe. First, the floating: how does he do it? There’s no noise, making Jack truly nonexistent when he’s cloaked. That would dispute any kind of engine propulsion. Why, if you possessed a silent flight apparatus, would you not equip your COG warriors with it in a jet pack, especially since they lack the ability to hop without pulling themselves over a barrier? It’s the same problem with the cloaking device. In a war against an enemy who’s movements are essentially invisible since they live under ground, wouldn’t you exploit that little battlefield advantage? And what about power? Jack’s slightly bigger than a breadbox and can run all this junk without changing his batteries. I guess he saves energy by not having the simplest of defence mechanisms. The engineer who thought of a battlefield robot with an acetylene cutter and no defence program should be fired. No wonder the humans are loosing.

What’s more bizarre is that Jack could be easily replaced by things that don’t make you wonder why the GoW universe is so poorly managed. Jack serves two functions: he cuts open locked doors and downloads data. The data thing is easy. We have tech today that could turn a USB key into a network node for data downloads. The cutting could be accomplished by a “futuristic” block Fenix could wear on his belt. When he encounters a tough lock he could snap this box over the lock, flick a switch, and wait for it to open the door. It wouldn’t be such a stretch that some small mechanical device could open a lock on it’s own, and you wouldn’t have to change the gameplay at all. Given these simple solutions, why include an R2 unit that defies physics and/or common sense?

Then there’s the Reavers. These squid-horses have a similar issue to Jack: they fly on nothing. They don’t seem to have any sort of biological wings, technological turbines, rockets, or any other means of propulsion. I would assume that if the GoW universe had some advanced silent and super-efficient propulsion unit your companions wouldn’t be swooping in on a Blackhawk at the crucial moment. Now I understand that since Epic already had an R2 unit they might have been hesitant to include speeder bikes as well, and they went the biological root, but giant bats have wings to fly. Giant squids make sense in an aquatic battle. Don’t get me wrong, the Reavers look cool, but they make no sense, and you can see item number one for how well they’re explained in the story.

3) The Game Doesn’t Fit the Mechanics: This statement can seem a bit vague. Here’s how I understand game structure versus mechanics: a game with unique mechanics encourages you to refine your use of those mechanics through exercises which escalate in difficulty until a final battle that uses those same mechanics to their fullest. Fundamentally GoW is not a game about movement. It’s a game about the use of cover. You can go through almost the whole game without using the roadie run. Each battle encourages you to find the optimum cover location and use a combination of blind fire and peeking to eliminate any threats. I learned this the hard way by trying to run and gun through the first few levels and getting torn apart. So far so good.

The last level, however, isn’t about cover. It’s about movement. In fact, the whole train sequence punishes you if you don’t move enough to avoid enemy fire. This consequence is exemplified in the final battle with RAAM. If you sit in one spot you will die. You’re forced to move about the arena of the train in order to avoid death. Moving isn’t enough though. You have to move in precise patterns at precise moments. This precision isn’t something that GoW controls suit. They suit the cover mechanism, not movement. The problem is simple too: the run button also causes you to stick to walls, detach from walls, and jump walls. That means you’re trying to run, but you’re unexpectedly sticking to walls when you don’t want to, or standing up when you mean to jump over a wall, or not running when you want to because the engine needs to figure out if you really want to run. This one-button mechanic puts a lot of stock in the understanding of the game engine, and let’s face it: programs just aren’t as advanced as we would like them to be yet. The reason behind the use of the “A” button for all useful tactics became clear when I saw an interview with Cliff about the future of games. Cliff wishes we had less buttons to worry about and believes that would broaden the gaming demographic. I think he’s right, but I’d rather have games that work. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you map the run function onto one of the other seven gameplay buttons available.

Don’t even get me started on having to stick to a wall and crouch before jumping over it.

Gears of War 2? I’ve read a lot of press about GoW2, probably because I want to love this AAA franchise. I’ve heard that they’re exploring the world more, expanding on plot elements like Dom’s wife and Fenix’s father, creating a more vibrant colour palate, bringing forth more varied enemies with stories of their own. At first I thought this might mean I could love the second installation, but the more I think about it the more I think it’s best to stay away altogether. I thought the meat-shield mechanic looked really slick at first, but then I realized that it’s an attempt to combine the cover mechanic with movement. That’s mixing something I like with something I hate, and I don’t think the result will be an improvement. Not to mention all the other AAA titles coming out this November. I’m sure that GoW2 will still sell millions of copies and that legions of fans will have their minds blown, but I think I’m going to opt out of this one. I’ll probably sink my time into Fallout 3. The guys at Bethesda seem to really know how to do narrative.