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Spider-Man 2 (PS5): COMPLETED!

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It’s not often I play a big all-the-graphics modern games these days. In fact, even Spider-Man 2 is now a few years old. It does look amazing but the important thing is how it plays.

Very few games are this much fun to just get from A to B. Batman: Arkham Knight was, and the first Sony Spider-Man was, but most other games don’t give you the freedom and the tools and the verticality that just make it a joy to get around. This adds gliding and air-streams to the original, making long distance travel even faster – which is just as well as the map now covers more of New York. Or you can just be boring and fast travel, which actually looks all fancy because there’s no loading thanks to The Power of the PS5 SSD. Which, as I said before, is only fast in-game, not when doing file management. Tch.

So actually being the Spider-Man, or Spider-Men, or Spider-Mans (it is debated in the game as to the correct term) is a lot of fun, but the story needs to be good in order to take you through. And it is, if not quite as good as the previous instalments. You’ve got Pete still dealing with the death of Aunt May, and trying to mentor Miles while getting fired from a teaching job and generally not having any time or money, and you’ve got Miles who has college applications to sort and his dead dad to get over and him feeling increasingly concerned about Pete when, well, spoiler if you’ve not already heard about it, Venom makes an appearance. Plus all the Spider-Stuff they’ve both got going on, Harry Osborn on the brink of death for most of the game, and a number of Spiderfoes all being broken out of jail so that Kraven The Hunter can take them down meaning, weirdly, the Spider-Men have to save them.

It’s a lot.

And that’s before you get all the random side quests and street crimes and Sandman B-plot and photos you have to take and everything. I think this might be partly why the story just doesn’t hit like it did in the previous games – there’s too much distraction. That said, Kraven really isn’t a top tier Spider-Man villain like Doctor Octopus was, so it’s not the only reason. Sure, there’s Venom, but, I was expecting the Green Goblin. Maybe in Spider-Man 3? If they ever make it.

In conclusion (written like an AI, I know), it’s an excellent game, with lots to do and some amazing combat and traversal mechanics. Please don’t make me buy a PS6 for the next one.

Spider-Man 2 (PS5): COMPLETED!

Posted on Written by

It’s not often I play a big all-the-graphics modern games these days. In fact, even Spider-Man 2 is now a few years old. It does look amazing but the important thing is how it plays.

Very few games are this much fun to just get from A to B. Batman: Arkham Knight was, and the first Sony Spider-Man was, but most other games don’t give you the freedom and the tools and the verticality that just make it a joy to get around. This adds gliding and air-streams to the original, making long distance travel even faster – which is just as well as the map now covers more of New York. Or you can just be boring and fast travel, which actually looks all fancy because there’s no loading thanks to The Power of the PS5 SSD. Which, as I said before, is only fast in-game, not when doing file management. Tch.

So actually being the Spider-Man, or Spider-Men, or Spider-Mans (it is debated in the game as to the correct term) is a lot of fun, but the story needs to be good in order to take you through. And it is, if not quite as good as the previous instalments. You’ve got Pete still dealing with the death of Aunt May, and trying to mentor Miles while getting fired from a teaching job and generally not having any time or money, and you’ve got Miles who has college applications to sort and his dead dad to get over and him feeling increasingly concerned about Pete when, well, spoiler if you’ve not already heard about it, Venom makes an appearance. Plus all the Spider-Stuff they’ve both got going on, Harry Osborn on the brink of death for most of the game, and a number of Spiderfoes all being broken out of jail so that Kraven The Hunter can take them down meaning, weirdly, the Spider-Men have to save them.

It’s a lot.

And that’s before you get all the random side quests and street crimes and Sandman B-plot and photos you have to take and everything. I think this might be partly why the story just doesn’t hit like it did in the previous games – there’s too much distraction. That said, Kraven really isn’t a top tier Spider-Man villain like Doctor Octopus was, so it’s not the only reason. Sure, there’s Venom, but, I was expecting the Green Goblin. Maybe in Spider-Man 3? If they ever make it.

In conclusion (written like an AI, I know), it’s an excellent game, with lots to do and some amazing combat and traversal mechanics. Please don’t make me buy a PS6 for the next one.

Puzzle Bobble (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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New Evercade cartridges arrived last night! one of them is the Taito Arcade 3 compilation, the highlight (for me) on it being Puzzle Bobble. The original one! In the arcade!

As I already knew, it’s great. Only, because it’s the arcade version, it only has 30 levels so I was done within an hour. 30 levels! I’m sure later home versions had many hundreds of them or randomly generated endlessly, but no.

Spider-Man 2 (PS5)

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Well this has been a long time coming. Yes, I could have bought it at any point but it was seventy paahnd or something else obscene so I didn’t. Then I got it for Christmas and it was added to the pile and in the last week, I finally got round to playing it. Just as Sony gave it away as a free rental on PS++++++++. The secret to comedy, is timing.

Let me first tell you about the install procedure. It took several hours to install the disc (remember those?) to the PS5’s internal SSD. Then, it took FOUR DAYS to download the 81GB update which presumably replaces the entire game I’d already waited impatiently to install. Then, it took TWO MORE DAYS “copying”. Exactly what it was copying, either from or where to, isn’t clear, but that was a long time for what is supposed to be the fastest storage media on any console ever. And then, when it finished copying, I had to wait another 17 minutes for “…”. Literally, that’s what it said it was doing. Just “…”. For 17 minutes. And people used to complain about Spectrum games taking two minutes to load.

Anyway. That furore overcome, I finally got into the game and oh my is it fun. I remember really enjoying the previous two games, and this is just more of the same, but it just plays so well! There’s loads to do, it looks fantastic, and – as has been the case for decades worth of Spideymens games – the web swinging never gets dull. Insomniac have even added “web wings” to let you glide, and there are paths that follow wind currents you can use so that getting around the (even bigger than before) city of New York is quick and fluid and a joy of acrobatics.

The plot this time centres on Harry Osborn’s miraculous recovery from the terminal illness he found he had in the first game, how the cure is actually, well, a spoiler, and how Kraven the Hunter has turned up in the city trying to find the ultimate prey (and finds the array of supervillains he hunts first are somewhat disappointing). The gameplay, however, is the same super athletic baddie juggling and/or Batman Arkham style sneaky takedowns as before, just for different reasons.

So far, I’ve met and nearly died at the hands of Venom, beaten the Lizard and Kraven, completed Sandman’s “mission”, and taken down (mostly) the cult that I’m pretty certain is going to return in Spider-Man 3 led by Carnage. Oh, and saved a museum from closure because I found a stolen sax-a-ma-phone.

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time (Switch 2)

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Aaaaand I’m done. Yes, I completed it a couple of weeks ago, but I had to go back and do some more, getting my different Lives levelled up and completing some of the side missions and ranking up regions in Ginormosa. I also collected the remaining Strangelings, and delved to deeper depths in the dungeon tree.

But, I realised – everything now is just grinding. There’s no purpose to anything. Sure, I can get to higher levels, and get better weapons, but why? It doesn’t really do anything. Grinding to achieve something is (mostly) fine, but grinding just to make numbers go up for no reward (there’s no more story content either) seems… pointless.

Maybe I’ll go back in at some point, because it wasn’t that I wasn’t enjoying things any more, it was just that I had no purpose and I’ve still got a big pile of other games vying for attention.