"Are you excited for Spider-Man 2?"
If you asked me this question 2 years ago I would've said "Hell yeah man! I love Spider-Man." I was really fond of my playthrough back in 2020 and was also among many others pretty pumped when I saw the announce trailer in September of 2021's State of Play. Needless to say I was looking forward to it at the time but as time passed and my interests changed, so did my anticipation.
My friend Canti did a pretty good job covering how I feel in their Breath of the Wild review. As more developers run out of ways to innovate the open world "Go to this big shiny button on your map" formula, so does my patience and while the web-swinging is fluid, the action and stealth are varied enough and the side content is well there, it reached a point where during my 20 hours spent, nothing really surprised me anymore. I couldn't begin to tell you how eye-rolling it was to hear New York will be twice as bigger compared to it's predecessors especially in a time where games like Elden Ring and Tears of the Kingdom are receiving massive acclaim from critics and it doesn't look like developers won't be trying to cash in on the success of them with Ubisoft's Star Wars Outlaws having just been announced recently.
However, despite all the nitpicking, I can't say I regret the spent with Spider-Man PS4 or Miles Morales. I played this with the initial goal that this would be what I need to retire from the open world genre but I was able learn something from my playthough.
Re-experiencing something can be as ambitious as it is frightening because you might have put aside your bias to keep an open mind and when faced with that reality, you'll come to learn some of the things you loved about it the first time just can't be replicated as you mature and so does your preferences so when something can't extract the raw emotions you had when you were younger, you just have to wonder if those memories were better as just that. Memories.
So where does this all end? A question I'm going to ask and answer for myself.
"Are you still looking forward to Spider-Man 2?"
Yes but I have bare expectations and am so done with open world afterwards.
Oh yeah also this game has a very twisted sense of activism. I'm sorry Insomniac but no amount of pride or Black Lives Matter murals mean anything if you main plot has a eco-terrorist trying to carry out their dead relatives wishes and stop a corporation from making people sick and the best rebuttal you can dish is a grade school ass "Uh guys, that's illegal actually and people might get hurt.".
If you asked me this question 2 years ago I would've said "Hell yeah man! I love Spider-Man." I was really fond of my playthrough back in 2020 and was also among many others pretty pumped when I saw the announce trailer in September of 2021's State of Play. Needless to say I was looking forward to it at the time but as time passed and my interests changed, so did my anticipation.
My friend Canti did a pretty good job covering how I feel in their Breath of the Wild review. As more developers run out of ways to innovate the open world "Go to this big shiny button on your map" formula, so does my patience and while the web-swinging is fluid, the action and stealth are varied enough and the side content is well there, it reached a point where during my 20 hours spent, nothing really surprised me anymore. I couldn't begin to tell you how eye-rolling it was to hear New York will be twice as bigger compared to it's predecessors especially in a time where games like Elden Ring and Tears of the Kingdom are receiving massive acclaim from critics and it doesn't look like developers won't be trying to cash in on the success of them with Ubisoft's Star Wars Outlaws having just been announced recently.
However, despite all the nitpicking, I can't say I regret the spent with Spider-Man PS4 or Miles Morales. I played this with the initial goal that this would be what I need to retire from the open world genre but I was able learn something from my playthough.
Re-experiencing something can be as ambitious as it is frightening because you might have put aside your bias to keep an open mind and when faced with that reality, you'll come to learn some of the things you loved about it the first time just can't be replicated as you mature and so does your preferences so when something can't extract the raw emotions you had when you were younger, you just have to wonder if those memories were better as just that. Memories.
So where does this all end? A question I'm going to ask and answer for myself.
"Are you still looking forward to Spider-Man 2?"
Yes but I have bare expectations and am so done with open world afterwards.
Oh yeah also this game has a very twisted sense of activism. I'm sorry Insomniac but no amount of pride or Black Lives Matter murals mean anything if you main plot has a eco-terrorist trying to carry out their dead relatives wishes and stop a corporation from making people sick and the best rebuttal you can dish is a grade school ass "Uh guys, that's illegal actually and people might get hurt.".