"Another Bland Serving Of Content"
"Marvel's Spider-Man" had some problems with its open-world design, but overall it managed to be a great game with its solid gameplay cycle, fairly solid story, and large amounts of spectacle. It's DLC offerings, however, have not really been able to achieve any of these things, and "Turf Wars" marks a new low for Insomniac's newer "Spidey" games.
The plot here is as predictable as it can get: Mafia is out of balance, some new guy shows up and tries to take power, angry cop wants justice (and will go to any length to do it), and the hero saves the day. There is nothing in this plot that is remotely engaging because it takes all of its components from other stories while boiling it down to a formless palette. The characters are boring and one-note, and it just somehow feels underbaked while managing to have a few hours feel like twice the length.
The gameplay is the most solid part, since its mostly untouched from the main game. The only real additions are some new shielded enemies, and I didn't like them. They felt cheap to fight against while simultaneously being more broken than the normal shielded foes.
Missions are not very memorable in any good way, but holy crap did they fumble the side content. The legendarily annoying "Screwball" is back once again, and she's got another serving of awful side missions. These things were super cheap and repetitive, but the killer part of them is just how irritating her character is. Like I get it, she's supposed to be annoying, but there isn't anything else to her or her story other than being evil, childish, and constantly online. The writers clearly stretched their imaginations with what they "think" online culture is like, and it shows just how out of touch and talentless they are at times. This pretty much ruined most of the previous DLC for me, and this time it derailed all of my enjoyment.
There's a development with Yuri Watanabe where she essentially goes "Bad Cop" and kills a bunch of Hammerhead thugs as well as the boss himself, but I didn't really buy any of her character progression. I never found her particularly interesting in the main game, so here it just feels like forcing the issue with her whole angsty persona. Real cringey stuff honestly, since it just comes off as some pretentious look at a one-dimensional character.
This DLC just kind of sucked. Yes, you still have an open-world and decent combat, but the story is thrown out of the window, the characters are portrayed as cliches, and the mission design is just boring. Insomniac clearly just rushed this out to capitalize on the main game's success, but I wouldn't really push anyone to play these DLCs. When they're just decent at best, you know there's a problem.
Final Verdict: 4/10 (Below Average)
"Marvel's Spider-Man" had some problems with its open-world design, but overall it managed to be a great game with its solid gameplay cycle, fairly solid story, and large amounts of spectacle. It's DLC offerings, however, have not really been able to achieve any of these things, and "Turf Wars" marks a new low for Insomniac's newer "Spidey" games.
The plot here is as predictable as it can get: Mafia is out of balance, some new guy shows up and tries to take power, angry cop wants justice (and will go to any length to do it), and the hero saves the day. There is nothing in this plot that is remotely engaging because it takes all of its components from other stories while boiling it down to a formless palette. The characters are boring and one-note, and it just somehow feels underbaked while managing to have a few hours feel like twice the length.
The gameplay is the most solid part, since its mostly untouched from the main game. The only real additions are some new shielded enemies, and I didn't like them. They felt cheap to fight against while simultaneously being more broken than the normal shielded foes.
Missions are not very memorable in any good way, but holy crap did they fumble the side content. The legendarily annoying "Screwball" is back once again, and she's got another serving of awful side missions. These things were super cheap and repetitive, but the killer part of them is just how irritating her character is. Like I get it, she's supposed to be annoying, but there isn't anything else to her or her story other than being evil, childish, and constantly online. The writers clearly stretched their imaginations with what they "think" online culture is like, and it shows just how out of touch and talentless they are at times. This pretty much ruined most of the previous DLC for me, and this time it derailed all of my enjoyment.
There's a development with Yuri Watanabe where she essentially goes "Bad Cop" and kills a bunch of Hammerhead thugs as well as the boss himself, but I didn't really buy any of her character progression. I never found her particularly interesting in the main game, so here it just feels like forcing the issue with her whole angsty persona. Real cringey stuff honestly, since it just comes off as some pretentious look at a one-dimensional character.
This DLC just kind of sucked. Yes, you still have an open-world and decent combat, but the story is thrown out of the window, the characters are portrayed as cliches, and the mission design is just boring. Insomniac clearly just rushed this out to capitalize on the main game's success, but I wouldn't really push anyone to play these DLCs. When they're just decent at best, you know there's a problem.
Final Verdict: 4/10 (Below Average)
Reviewed on Mar 19, 2023