The game is pretty fun. Pretty much meets my expectations for Spider-Man and Beenox games, which is pretty low. The webswinging is pretty fun and I've managed to do some cool things with it. It's pretty fun to Web Rush to an antenna on top of a skyscraper and push forward on the left thumbstick to keep the momentum going and then immediately go into a fast free fall. At the end of the day, this feels like the game TASM1 should have been.
I'll say the loading screens are absolutely ridiculous. What's the point of having events in the open world if you still have to sit through a loading screen to start and end them? The fun is in swinging along and then coming across a crime in progress and immediately helping out. You know, like the folks who built SM2 managed to do 10 years ago with the purple crime icons (the green icons meant you needed to talk to someone to trigger the event, sort of like TASM2). I'd be fine with some events needing an intro loading screen to set up a car chase or fire. But even then, all events should just end and then let you immediately swing away. Not force you to listen to the same newscast over and over. It's also really annoying that just landing near a petty crime will force you into that fight (and also trigger regular missions). That's just so ridiculous. Those simple combat situations at the least should be happening in the open world and allow me to ignore them or leave after I've initiated the event. And missions should be initiated by interacting with something, not just landing near a specific location. I just don't think Beenox has the technical ability to pull off what nearly every other open world game can.
I will say that even though the types of events aren't extremely varied, I do like the variety in locations for some of them. The police standoffs are cool and take place on different rooftops or different construction sites, some below street level and others in tall buildings. That adds a little bit of nice variety, and allows for a combination of stealth and combat.
The open world photo missions are even worse in this game than TASM1. They really shouldn't even be here. You just show up and take a picture of some static thing over and over. It's so pointless. At least TASM1 gave you 3 clues and made you hunt a little bit for them. Now you just find the CK symbol, the police detective or the 2 guys in suits and sunglasses standing blatantly still somewhere and snap a photo. So lazy.
I'm really liking the mechanic of using different triggers for different hands. I feel like it gives me a little more choice and variety in where I shoot a web sometimes. But this system needs to be blown out to its logical conclusion -- letting you shoot out a second web while you're swinging on your first. The speed boost should be moved to the Xbox "A" button like Web of Shadows had it. That's probably an underrated mechanic from that game, because it felt so natural to press the jump button to get a boost and then jump off your web when you let go of the jump button.
I still can't believe Beenox refuses to give us a sprint button for normal running and a useable jump. Part of the reason that Spider-Man 2 is so good is because it has more than just swinging. You can sprint across rooftops and charge your jump to jump over to the next skyscraper 40 stories up. That's exhilarating. If you miss, you still have several cool locomotion options to get where you want to go. Also, charging your jump and jumping up the sides of buildings was awesome -- way more fun than just holding a button to automatically run all the way up the side of a building. Sliding down buildings and jumping off (though kind of silly) was cool, and Web of Shadows even had a cool mechanic where holding the jump button near a building would cause Spidey to perch, then letting go let you jump off with some speed.
So these games really need to give Spidey some proper parkour abilities. I don't expect Assassin's Creed level of parkour (and Spidey doesn't need that), but they need to at least match Batman's running ability from Arkham City. I'd suggest having the jump button be the sprint button if you're holding it down and not releasing it (yes, just like Arkham City). Then when you release the jump button, you jump higher than just a simple press of the button would do. But more importantly, if you held the jump button while sprinting towards the edge of a building then Spidey should jump far, similar to a charged jump from SM2, to start his freefall with more speed than just dropping off the edge of a building like he does now. If they also made the jump button the speed boost button while swinging, it would be very consistent. Press and hold to go faster whether you're running or swinging, let go after holding down to jump farther than just tapping the button.
I think they could also take away the default dive that Spidey is constantly going into. Wouldn't it be more fun to control that? So make holding the jump button while falling put Spidey into a faster dive, and if you're not holding it while falling then he keeps his arms out and falls a little slower. That stays consistent with my proposed scheme. Maybe initiating a dive with the button could perform a cool trick similar to SM2 so it satisfies that fan desire as well.
One final suggestion would be to bring back the jumping from Web of Shadows where pressing jump just after landing from a swing or jump would immediately act like a quick charged jump. That was fun and encouraged you to keep your momentum going. All of this or something like it would help make navigation more fun. Swinging is great, but Spidey needs to be able to sprint and jump both short and far to give that extra layer of control and fun.
I heard so many positive opinions about this game but I have never had an opportunity to play it. Unfortunately, at that time I had only my old PC... and I would rather not remember how SM2 looked like on computers, lol. These ridiculous webs in every corner of the city are the worst thing that could happen to SM game.
