I think for a lot of older games, people's memory is often obscured by nostalgia. A lot of games I hear praise about I've went and tried and not enjoyed. Ultimate Spider-Man is not one of these, surprisingly. I remember playing it a lot when I was 9 or 10 and just enjoying the swinging alone.

Of course now we've all been spoiled by Insomniac's Spider-Man games but I think this is still worth revisiting. Especially as it's quite bite sized when in comparison to modern games.

The art style and the way that story is presented in cutscenes is fantastic. This is a game that is more inspired by comics than any other. Even now the look of the game holds up quite well.

Gameplay is fine, it can be quite janky at times to do anything really but once you fully understand what to do it's mostly fun, especially web swinging. Combat is also just fine, you can only punch or kick and there's a webbing mechanic that can only be used on grunts to keep them down but it's pretty satisfying anyway.

Sadly though, there isn't much to actually do in the world. There are lots of collectibles but the only activity types are races and "combat tours" which just task you fighting one group of enemies after another.

My main criticism is with bossfights. Bosses are too tanky and seem to deal way too much damage. Venom's fights balance this somewhat by providing grunts to feed on. But with Peter you have to be extra extra careful. The late game bosses in particular are pretty frustrating and become monotonous.

Overall though, I still think this is as good as people remember it.

When you think Nintendo, you think Mario. He’s their guy, their mascot. Sure other series like Pokémon make more money or rate overall better (definitely not Pokémon in that case). But Mario is their icon, pretty much the face of the company. And while Sony has struggled for a long time to find a solid “mascot”, Microsoft hit theirs early on with Master Chief and Halo. I grew up with Playstations but whenever I thought about Xbox I saw Chief in my head.

But I never really understood why it was such a huge thing, it was just a shooter set in space. I would play Borderlands or Mass Effect and sure they’re great games but again I couldn’t see Claptrap or Shepherd carrying the branding of an entire console.

(I do want to clarify that I had played ODST co-op years ago but had no real idea of the story and I wasn’t playing Chief, what I’d consider to be the “main” Halo experience.)

That was until I played this game.

To start with the gameplay. Admittedly, the selection and overall feel of weapons is a little limiting. There are still quite a few options to choose from but it always felt like I’d be best off with the same rotation of 3 weapons (pistol, shotgun, and rocket launcher) and that any others were kinda useless. The lack of a sprint button is also something I think is frustrating, although the environments are relatively smaller to account for that there is quite a lot of backtracking that would have benefitted from some extra speed. Other than those criticisms, the gameplay is still very satisfying. Wiping out huge groups of enemies with a sticky grenade and seeing the medals pile up is great. The vehicles found throughout are also really fun to mess around in with a co-op partner.

The story, while mainly relatively simple, is still enjoyable and it’s lifted up tremendously by the lore surrounding everything. It’s cool seeing the origin of so many tropes and story beats that have persisted through to other games.

Despite this being an old title, I still found the level and sound design to be really good. I regularly switched back and forth between classic and modern graphics and while I admit modern is better, I can still see the charm of the original look of the game and appreciate it.

And leading from the sound design, the music is so so good. I had heard the main theme a bunch from random YouTube videos and always found it good but hearing it in-game was something else. The whole soundtrack is just so good and suits the world perfectly, having it play while in intense moments only made things more fun.

I understand as well that this was only the first in a series that has only evolved more. The gameplay is going to only get better, the story is only going to get bigger and better (until it doesn’t), and everything is going to look and sound better. And I couldn’t be more excited to continue my journey through one of the most revered series in gaming history.

A simple yet effective story incorporating some interesting mechanics.

While many of the plot points and setting aren't completely relatable for me, the main theme of feeling like you have to be more than just "good enough" does strike home. And the game does a great job at not just showing that, but showing why people might contribute to such an unhealthy obsession. Characters throughout the story are flawed, they feed into the obsession but their motives are realistic and their flaws don't make them villains. It just makes them like everyone else.

My only negative mark for this game is that, while the blink feature is interesting, I find that for people who may have some form of eyelid droop (or they're even just tired) they might find themselves accidentally skipping forward. Calibration does exist to try and fix these issues but after 3 or so calibrations in a row with the game still thinking that me looking at the bottom of the screen was me blinking, I decided that I'd rather just accidentally skip stuff and deal with it. You can play with a mouse instead, and that will work to prevent any accidents. But with the blink feature being a prominent method of gameplay I feel it's still a valid criticism.