January 13, 2025 • 51 mins
In this episode of the Soul of a Gamer podcast, hosts Scott and Stephen dive into their gaming experiences, discussing what they are currently playing, including Final Fantasy 16 and Spider-Man: Miles Morales. They explore the development of Miles Morales, highlighting the attention to detail, cultural representation, and the innovative use of the DualSense controller. The conversation also touches on the challenges faced during development, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of voice acting in bringing characters to life. In this conversation, the hosts review the game 'Spider-Man: Miles Morales', discussing its release context, gameplay mechanics, character development, and overall experience. They highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of the game, including traversal mechanics, story issues, and the length of the tutorial. The conversation also touches on the game's achievements, Easter eggs, and the importance of character dynamics, particularly in relation to villains and antiheroes. Ultimately, they provide their ratings and thoughts on the game's place within the Spider-Man franchise.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We are a weekly podcast, soul of a gamer.
(00:03):
Hey, I'm smart this time.
I did this time.
Let's not go that far, okay?
I will fuck it up again.
I love pressing that button.
That was my favorite.
This game gets really fucking weird.
Um, yeah, so you do acid and then you go into the hamster.
(00:24):
And this week is Night Trap.
Night Trap.
They're right behind you, Night Trap.
10 year old birthday party.
Next scene, kill the kid.
You got to kill the kid.
Sha la la la la la car is coming.
Throw your body into the car and die.
(00:47):
All I could do every time I was playing Ethan was just
I would start walking around and go, Jason.
Oh, God.
It's just.
I just started usually by saying, hey, everyone, welcome to soul of a gamer
podcast.
Wow, that was pretty good.
Yeah, I'm Scott.
I'm Stephen.
And every week we play a game, we tell you about the game and we bitch
(01:08):
about our experience in the game and bitch about other things.
And a lot of like a lot of things is particularly about him.
I bet you a lot about him.
I mean, I deserve it.
I mean, just how bald he is and how short he is.
I don't know if you know this guy.
He's five short.
One.
I am definitely not five foot one.
His hair is ten, five, eleven ish.
(01:31):
He has hair on his face, but he like glued it on there.
So it's not even real.
It's your pubic hair.
Just everything he's doing is so weird that you just have to bitch about it.
He's lying.
I mean, five, ten, five, eleven.
Dude, I've met him.
He's five, one and a half.
Maybe in a form.
The same exact height.
Maybe one of us is just slightly taller than each other.
(01:52):
I don't even know.
Yeah, yeah.
Slightly taller by nine inches.
Yeah, no, definitely not.
You dig?
Well, guys, let's just jump right into this with what are the fuck are we playing?
So, Stephen, what are you playing?
All right. So actually, I'm pretty excited about this one because I find
we start there. I'm going to stop you for a second.
Oh, she's we hope you enjoyed our last week's game, which I completely.
(02:14):
We do say last week's episode was a bonus episode of us
just talking about our biggest failures in games.
And you know what games pushed us to become gamers?
I guess you could say you could say gamers, you could like pushed us
over the edge and said, we love doing this now.
Yep. Like this is my life now. Part of me.
I am a true this.
This is always going to be a part of my life.
(02:35):
I'm picturing myself as old and I'm hoping that I'm just still playing video games.
Dude, seriously. You never know.
But I'm hoping I am.
Oh, no, I'm really hoping we get like full dive gear
by the time we get like pretty old so that way.
Yeah, we still get to have like the youth in gaming feel
because we'll have a different like avatar that we're controlling in a whole new world.
I am so hoping for it.
(02:56):
Like I I I know Sword Art Online is a scary tale, but I'm all for it.
Put me in a Sword Art Online world.
Yeah, yeah.
I have a police guy machine on the outside
that's giving you a constant blow job while you're in there.
Oh, that way you're feeling your best at all times.
Although I eventually you're just going to get really, really tired.
Dude, you might be the best at that game ever then,
(03:17):
because you have post net clarity always.
Yes, exactly.
And also, I feel like you will be exhausted the entire time.
That's also true and dehydrated as fuck.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, you're saving time.
So now that we've had that little rant,
let's jump into what are we playing.
So, Stephen, please continue.
Oh, OK, I can I can go now. Thank you.
(03:39):
You're allowed to go. I give you permission.
Permission to swear, sir.
Fuck you. OK, thank you.
So, yes, I've actually been playing Final Fantasy 16.
I've been kind of really excited to play this one.
I really like the old Renaissance feel of this.
I like not the turn based style.
I like the more kind of linear gameplay.
(04:00):
The most recent one that came out, right?
The one that everyone was super the Kaiju battle ones.
Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. OK.
Daikon battles. Yeah. Yeah.
It is fucking sweet, dude.
That combat feels so fluid, so smooth.
It's such a beautiful fucking game.
I'm absolutely loving it.
I put way too much time into it and stayed up too many times playing it
(04:22):
because it is just incredible.
Like this is exactly what I wanted.
And I hoped it was going to be.
And I'm glad I bought it.
Yeah. You know, I do at some point.
I've played the first first Final Fantasy.
I played the second one, but it's technically the third one.
It's very confusing.
And then I played the seventh one.
(04:43):
And that's pretty much all my experience of Final Fantasy.
I think I played tactics back in the day, but that was so long ago
that I don't remember it.
But it would be cool for us to like jump in and maybe do them in order.
Like every once in a while, throw in a Final Fantasy game
and see how far we can get at some of the ones that aren't as popular.
I mean, I'm totally down because the worlds always are interesting.
The stories are always incredible.
(05:04):
The music is always well, the first one.
You clearly haven't played the first one, dude.
OK, so for me, I've only I started with
I played a demo of one on the PlayStation portable. Yeah.
And then I think I did a little bit of Final Fantasy 15 when it came out.
I did maybe like 15, 20 hours of that.
(05:26):
And then I did a no, right?
14 is the MMO.
15 is the.
One where you have the car and it's just a big
like open world one and it's huge as fuck and it takes forever to do everything.
Everything's so slow and it's a big grind.
But it's still just like really awesome.
(05:48):
But then I did after that, I did Final Fantasy Rebirth,
seven rebirth or whatever.
So the remake of it, I played almost like probably 80 percent through that.
But then just that game is so long.
It's so bloated. There's so many walking.
You watch a 40 minute cut scene, then walk for five minutes,
then watch another cut scene, then walk for another 10 minutes.
(06:09):
Then you'll do one battle that takes you two minutes if you're good at the game
and then watch another cut scene.
I'm like, I want more gameplay.
I need I didn't want to watch a movie. I wanted to play something.
Yeah, that's the problem with JRPGs in general.
The cut scenes are fucking long.
Yeah. So I love them.
They're beautiful. They're gorgeous.
I have nothing against people who enjoy them.
(06:31):
But I need a little bit more action and gameplay because that's what I was there
for. I I've watched movies in between playing games and stuff.
So when my gaming becomes watching a movie and I wasn't prepared for that,
I'm just like, well, now I don't actually get to play anything today.
Like that kind of sucks.
Yeah. Yeah, that's life.
All right. Well, I've been playing.
(06:54):
So I've been kind of going off and on on what I've been playing, right?
We play the games that we're supposed to play, but then like in between,
I've been trying to like do extra stuff.
And one thing I've been trying to do for a long time, guys, is get pretty OK
at bowling. And so I bought this bowling game on VR thinking like, OK,
well, maybe I could use this like not.
And I was trying to find a controller that was like a weighted bowling ball.
(07:16):
Because I wanted to make it feel like real bowling.
Is the weight is the problem.
And I learned that when I went back and I bowled in my first game was
horrifyingly bad. That's fair.
Whereas I was readjusting to the weight of a ball.
But the accuracy on them are like it's sweet.
It teaches you really good accuracy to play on the VR bowling games.
So I've been playing premium bowling on MetaQuest, which has been a lot of fun.
(07:41):
And then also I've been playing a little bit of Dragon Age, just jumping into
I was playing on the Xbox and then realizing that they don't.
For some reason, EA did not release any of the fucking downloadable content
except for adding the extra character in the original Dragon Age.
OK. And it really bummed me out.
So I got like 90 percent through that game.
I'm in the last part of the game.
And I'm like, all right, well, let's just start over from the computer.
(08:03):
And just do it.
Because I don't want to fucking finish this and then jump on the computer
and realize everything I was missing.
That's fair. OK, that's fair.
Yeah, that's a bummer.
I've already done. Yeah, I've already done all the DLC.
So and I think they maxed out the level cap a little bit more,
like 25 or 30 or something.
OK. So at some point in the game, I should be beyond the level cap.
(08:24):
So I think the enemy's level cap at 20 and then you can get up to 25 or 30 maybe.
OK. Oh, OK. That'll be fun. Nice.
Yeah. All right.
Well, you want to just jump right into what we're doing then?
Yeah, I guess so.
This week, we are playing Speeder Man.
Yes. Males Morales.
(08:44):
No, no, no. It's just called Speeder Man.
Speeder Man. Speeder Man and the Speeder Devils.
Two speeders, but then one speeder goes away for a while
and leaves the other speeder in charge, even though he's only 17
when he's the king of responsibility.
Is he 17? Yeah, I think he's actually younger.
I think he's only 15.
(09:05):
I was questioning. I saw a video where someone said 17.
So don't quote me on it.
But I don't know. I feel like I picked up 15 from somewhere
because also remember he hasn't seen his friend in two years.
Or a year and a half, I think, at this point.
And like he looks a lot older, but even in the in the cut scenes of the past,
he looks the same fucking age.
(09:26):
I'm like, how old are you?
That's fair.
But he's still in high school and he's not a senior.
So I don't think he's 17 for that reason.
He's more than likely 16, but he might even be 15 based on.
I feel like I heard that at some point in the game.
That's fair.
So I mean, even younger.
It's crazy. It's just weird.
It's just crazy.
(09:47):
But OK, so a little story on Spiderman.
Spiderman, Males Morales is an act and adventure game where you play as Males.
Also, for some reason, I spelt it ass.
Would you play ass miles?
I don't know why you want to play it.
I had an extra ass for some reason.
All right. As miles and have to stop a war between two rival factions
(10:08):
in East Harlem in order to protect the community, as well as your loved ones.
Yes. Boom, boom, boom.
Yeah. All right.
So the making of the game starts with the making of the first Spiderman game
for the PS4.
The creative director for the game, Brian Intihar,
Intihar, something like that.
Wanted miles in the game.
He really wanted to have a character, the character be fleshed out
(10:29):
and to have their story told in the main sequence of the games
that would feature Peter Parker, Spiderman.
They soon realized that telling such an intricate origin story
would prove to be too much in addition to the stories
that were intended to feature Peter Parker.
So pretty early on in the development of the idea of Miles,
they decided that it would be best if it had its own game.
(10:49):
That's fair. They also wanted a game that could showcase the PS5.
They had a lot of ideas for how the game could be the flagship
game of the PS5 and were excited for the opportunity.
And I didn't put this in here, but one thing they talked about a lot
and I might have put it in here, I don't remember,
but it was the DualSense controllers.
Yes.
They were super excited about the fact that like you could feel something
(11:11):
on one side of the controller and then it reverberates to the other side
as something else happens.
So like when you're charging up a special attack,
you'll feel it on the left side and then when it's ready to go,
you'll feel it on the right side.
So then they were really cool and excited about all these cool things.
I will always love the feel of Xbox controllers more than PlayStation
controllers, but I will say this DualSense controller, dude, it is fucking wild
(11:33):
because the haptic feedback even on the triggers is crazy because even
on Spider-Man swing, you can feel the tension on the web on the triggers.
Yeah.
Like that's ridiculous.
I didn't hit that because I played it on a PS4.
But yeah, I know, but it's so cool when you actually like get to experience that.
And it's got to be the sounds coming from it, like everything that you can do with it.
(11:55):
And the game goes to Shizima or not.
And goes to Shizima.
Yeah, I think it is in that one.
You can actually blow into the controller and then a guiding wind will guide you
where to go in the game.
Weird.
I'm like, okay, it reminds me a lot of the I mean, it's not the first one to do
that because in Nintendo DS, I remember playing Pokemon Pro.
That's true.
And you go to the underground and sometimes you get caught on fire and you have to
(12:19):
blow into your mic and I remember my mic didn't work too well.
So I'm like going just like blowing my hardest on it.
Oh, that's funny.
Okay.
So the controller.
Yes.
Sorry.
Yes.
Enough about the fucking controller.
Insomniac games famous for games such as Spyro series and the Ratchet and Clank
(12:40):
series, as well as the first Spider-Man game decided they wanted to make the game.
They started development of the game in August of 2018.
The team had decided to use the slice method for making the game with this method.
They would make 50% of the game in the first five months of making the game.
Damn.
Isn't that fucking incredible?
That sounds wild.
Yeah.
(13:00):
This included quests, missions, activities, bases, trainings, and collectibles.
Crazy.
Okay.
Yeah.
The first part of this process was to flesh out the art of the game.
The art team had a few goals in mind when creating the aesthetic of the game.
First, they wanted the game to feel different from the first Spider-Man game.
They knew most of the game would take place in a similar, in similar areas.
(13:22):
So they wanted to be different in another way.
So they made the game take place during winter due to the winter aspect of the
game.
The second goal was to make the colors of the game more vibrant.
They chose to try a neon style for the game that the team was really proud of by
the end of the development of the game.
And the final goal was to make the East Harlem as authentic as possible.
(13:43):
This included adding real places from East Harlem in the game and having several
missions involved these places to make sure, or make the character and the player
have to learn about East Harlem.
They also sent pictures and videos of the inside of Miles Morales' apartment to
individuals and families who lived in East Harlem so they could give pointers on
how to make the apartment more authentic.
(14:03):
Oh, nice.
That's cool.
Isn't that crazy?
Like, just like, Hey, people who live there, here's a fucking picture of a game
we're making.
How cool is it?
Is it, is it shit compared to the game?
Is it shit compared to your apartment?
No, that's awesome.
I love the attention to detail, honestly, to a lot of things that they do,
especially like the, even the deaf community in this game, all the ASL in
this game.
We'll get into that one.
(14:24):
Yeah.
Okay.
But what's interesting too is in the game, you're really not inside a lot.
No, you're not, honestly.
Yeah.
The majority of the game you spend outside of areas, but certain areas that are
inside are super fucking detailed.
Like, I feel like they did that on purpose in order to make them so detailed.
Oh yeah.
But I mean, I love that even with the higher graphics, like you can, when
(14:47):
you're scaling the building, if someone's got their light on, you can actually see
into their apartment and you can like see a lot of different styles of rooms
and stuff set up.
So there's always a lot of attention to small details that really hit you hard
if you pay attention to it all.
For sure.
When programming the movements of Miles, they wanted him to feel like he was
still getting used to his powers.
In the first game, you play as a seasoned Spider-Man, so the movements and the
(15:10):
actions of the character reflect that.
And this game, they wanted Miles to feel like he was not always in control.
They did this by adding animations such as arm flails from flying through the
air.
The team was really excited about programming the game to work on the PS5.
The SSD for the PS5 was so much better than the PS4.
It allowed the team to have near instantaneous fast travel, which I did
(15:32):
not experience because I was playing on a PS4.
Honestly, when you do experience it, it's ridiculous.
Yeah, you click the button and you're there.
It's fucking awesome.
It's stupid.
They were so excited in the interview I watched with the lead director on the
game.
He was just like glowing at the fact.
He's like, we really wanted people to understand how fucking awesome this was.
(15:55):
It's ridiculous.
It's really something.
Yeah.
Originally, they said that the game would only be released for the PS5, and I
think they originally did that because literally they wanted to showcase how
cool the PS5 was.
Yes, exactly.
But they changed their minds and made it so if a person bought Miles Morales
for the PS4, they would have a free upgrade to the PS5 as well.
(16:17):
Thank you so much for that.
Yeah, that's so fucking cool.
Thank you.
And that's probably because a lot of people are having trouble at the time
getting a PS5.
Which I will say PlayStation has been doing a really good job about that.
Most games you get a free upgrade or it's only $10 for a PS5 upgrade.
Yeah.
I'm okay with either way.
Xbox will never...
Well, Xbox won't really...
They don't really serve their older consoles anyway.
(16:39):
Like they're barely backwards compatible, any of their shit.
So...
Well, there's a decent amount of backwards compatible.
There is, but it's not all of them.
I have so many games.
Yeah, there's still so many.
Like on my shelf that I can't fucking play.
I know.
I have to plug in my original Xbox to play it, which I tried recently and it wasn't
working.
So I have to maybe get a new old Xbox.
Yeah, my 360, the disk drive doesn't open and I'm sure it's just stuck and I'm
(17:02):
sure I could take it apart and I could fix it.
I really don't want to because I don't understand mechanics in that regard.
Yes.
But I'm sure I could.
That's fair.
If I looked at the video, I probably could do it really easily.
I just don't want to because also I only pull it out like once every five years.
That's fair.
I'm the same way.
They had a free upgrade.
(17:22):
Yep.
They also like the way the PS5 could have seamless transitions.
This led to them making the home screen seamlessly transitioned into the gameplay.
When developing missions for the game.
And what I mean by that, guys, is literally if you're on the home screen, you'll have
like an image of Miles and then whatever he was doing in that moment, it will be
where you start in the game.
It seamlessly, like literally you press start and you're literally in the game
(17:46):
doing that thing.
It's crazy.
Honestly, a lot of the things in it, it's just stupid ridiculous how fast everything
loads.
For sure.
And I'm sure like it's amazing on the PS5.
I wish I would have gotten to experience it, but I really don't want to buy a PS5.
They're getting cheaper now that the PS5 pros out.
Yeah, that's true.
Eventually I'll jump into it.
But for now, I'm going to when developing missions for the game, the team had a fairly
(18:10):
strict timeline.
They had one week for the story writing block out for three weeks.
Block out is just a term meaning times for level design playable for eight weeks.
This is where the team would do all of their play testing.
They specifically wanted this test to test if the game is fun enough or not.
The last eight weeks were meant for art post and polish.
(18:33):
The creative director for the game, Brian Horton, said that at some point, someone
threw out the idea of Miles having a conversation with ASL.
He knew that his son took a few courses of ASL in high school, so he knew it was
possible that Miles could have done the same thing.
He was excited to add a layer of diversity in the game.
So we agreed.
He ended up hiring three experts in ASL to help show how the conversation might go.
(18:58):
So literally hired three people who all they do is ASL.
Yeah.
Just for the fucking game.
It's freaking awesome.
Seriously, I guess we were saying earlier the attention to detail and a lot of these
things.
And seriously, I don't think I've ever seen ASL used in a game.
And I definitely haven't seen it to this detail.
Yeah.
And it's amazing.
It's awesome, honestly.
They did a great job with that.
(19:19):
I'm happy that they actually got experts to come in like and there's a guy in here who
took three courses for 45 years ago.
Have him show you.
You know what?
And the missions with all the ASL, especially with the artists that you can hang out with
quite a bit.
So cool because there's so much appreciation for ASL, but there's also so much appreciation
(19:39):
for art and those missions.
It's just so crazy and so beautiful.
And you're just like, wow, like I can't believe this is part of the game.
Like, I can't believe they did all this on top of a Spider-Man game.
Yeah, honestly, it's completely crazy, guys.
Some early problems that happened early in the game was that they had all cut scenes
with too many shifting moods in them, as well as they were introducing too many characters
(20:03):
all at the same time.
And I didn't really explain what this means.
They showed the first cut scene of the game, right?
It's after the Rhino battle.
Go into this, his apartment and you meet Finn.
Yep.
In that same cut scene, Finn tells you that her brother's dead.
Yep.
In that same cut scene, you're happy that you get to see all your friends.
(20:27):
In that same cut scene, Genki tells you something horrifying.
In that same cut scene, you get a present from your mom.
Like, they just said, like literally, we had 15 moods going on all at the same time.
And it was so overwhelming.
People were like, you got to fucking just change this.
You can just change this.
Yeah.
(20:47):
So they really, you know, as we know now, they split that apart into many different cut scenes
that happened kind of during the thing.
But it is insane that they originally they had all those things happening within like
five minutes of each other.
That's just crazy.
Because there is so much going on sometimes.
You're just like, whoa.
Yeah.
Especially emotionally for the main character.
(21:07):
Like, yeah, he's getting pulled and tugged every direction.
And literally a fucking teenager.
Imagine being a teenager now and just having told that your mom died.
Like, holy fucking shit.
Yeah.
And his dad already died at that point.
Seriously, though.
They had to change a lot of the early cut scenes to avoid this problem.
(21:28):
They took note of these fixes so that the same mistakes could not be made later in the game.
Another problem that the team ran into was the COVID pandemic hit.
A lot of the post-production was done at people's homes because they were not allowed to meet in the
studios.
The composer for the game was John Paisano.
Two songs were written for the game by Boy Wanda.
(21:50):
I didn't look that up.
That was just said in the I didn't double check that.
I don't know who Boy Wanda is.
That was said in the making of the game that Brian Horton did.
It was like a 45 minute interview where he just kind of talked about stuff.
And again, I don't know who Boy Wanda is.
I didn't even look up the songs that he did.
But he said that Boy Wanda wrote two original songs in the game.
(22:11):
So I assume one of them is the out song and one of them is the end song.
I mean, I really like a lot of the songs in this game.
Yeah, they did a really good job, but they didn't really talk about the music all that much.
I was kind of bummed.
Oh, that's really bummed.
No interviews on the music, no interviews on Boy Wanda.
Like, it's just, I don't know, interesting.
Kind of shitty.
Whatever.
(22:31):
Yeah, because a lot of times anything with Miles, especially like the Spider-Verse movies,
they get really praise for their soundtracks.
And stuff like that.
And how.
But if you watch the interview, it's really comprehensive, except for the fact that he
does not mention any kind of musical orientation.
He mentions Boy Wanda and he mentions John Paisano.
I know that because otherwise I would not know how to pronounce Paisano.
(22:54):
Fair.
I mean, I really liked a lot of the lo-fi kind of hip hop kind of background music
for a lot of the city.
And I really enjoyed a few of the songs a lot.
For sure.
Especially in really good moments.
The cast for the game was Naji Jeter as Miles Morales.
Yuri Lowenthal as Jacqueline Pinal.
Oh, I wrote down two names, but I didn't write down who that...
(23:14):
Yuri Lowenthal as somebody.
I didn't follow up for some reason with who that was.
Jacqueline Pinal as Rio Morales.
Oh, Yuri Lowenthal as Peter Parker?
Yes, yes, yes.
Yes.
Okay, I think so.
I think I just fucked up here because I copied and pasted from my notes.
(23:38):
And for some reason it changed the way my notes were doing.
Fred Tatasior as Rhino.
Darren DePaul as J. Jonah Jameson.
Troy Baker as Simon Krieger.
And Troy Baker, of course, I think we've talked about him multiple times.
Griffin Puoutu as Genki Lee.
Ashley Birch, who Ashley Birch is fucking awesome.
(24:00):
If you guys have ever played Life is Strange, she's Chloe in Life is Strange.
Oh, nice. I love Chloe.
And she's also, if you've ever watched,
let's say that show on Apple TV about the video game company.
Oh, Mythic Quest?
Yeah, Mythic Quest. She's in Mythic Quest as one of the game testers.
(24:22):
Nice. I've already watched that show, actually.
I've debated getting Apple TV just to watch that and Ted Lasso.
I believe I'm thinking of the right person. I hope I am.
Fair.
We can look it up the double jack, but I'm pretty sure that's who Ashley Birch is.
She plays Danica Hart.
Jasmine Savoy Brown as Finn Mason.
Which she's in the show Yellow Jackets.
Oh, nice.
Playing basically the same exact character.
(24:45):
Nice.
Pretty much.
Ike Amadi as Aaron Davis.
Todd Williams as Rick Mason.
Russell Richardson as Jefferson Davis.
Yancey Arias as Teo Alvarez.
Melanie Mini Chino as Gloria Davila.
Emerson Brooks as Kayla Bord.
Curzia Bajos as Camilla Vasquez.
Natasha O'Filly as Hailey Cooper.
(25:06):
And Travis Willingham as Wilson Fisk.
And most of those people only have like five or six lines in the game, honestly.
But that's where they put on the thing. So I gave them credit.
The game came out in November of 2020 to positive reviews.
Yes.
Literally in the middle of COVID.
Fair.
It did. It did.
I did. I did. I enjoyed playing it in the middle of COVID.
(25:29):
When I wasn't working.
Because I was an essential worker making signs.
I was an essential worker.
I know.
I'm still an essential worker, unfortunately.
You were actually in the medical system.
Alrighty. So we get into the best and the worst of the games then.
(25:51):
Let's do it.
This game fucking blows.
I fucking hated every second I played it.
I hope the creators die.
I hope their moms die.
Wow.
Damn. He definitely doesn't feel that way.
He's all the bullshit.
No, I don't.
All right. Go ahead.
What was your best for this game?
I think the best for me is the traversal and the combat.
(26:15):
Still as fluid and amazing as ever.
I do like the slight changes, especially with the new abilities.
It does kind of make the game way easier in a lot of ways.
Especially in the combat.
It's just ridiculous being able to just turn invisible whenever you want to.
(26:35):
All the different abilities you can have with it.
It's kind of ridiculous, but it's still like some of the strongest points.
I just love swinging around the city.
I will say every Spider-Man game that has this swing mechanics.
Yeah, I mean that was my best too.
Traversal around the city is fucking on point.
I'm sure Spider-Man 2 has better traversal.
(26:56):
Oh, yes.
Remember when we're talking about when the game comes out, this was really good.
Yes, this was the best.
If I would have played this in 2020, I would have loved this so fucking much.
Spider-Man 2's traversal, I don't think, well, I don't know if...
It's going to take a lot to beat that game.
Yeah, and I'm sure the next generation of like gaming consoles is going to be like,
(27:18):
gaming consoles will beat it easy, but for now it's the best thing we can think of.
The fighting in the game was very on point.
I love that.
The story was really good.
Music was really good.
In general, everything felt very cohesive.
The timeline for the game was really good.
So you didn't spend too long on this game.
It's a Christmas game.
Yeah, it's only like six hours long.
(27:39):
Yeah, it's really short.
It's actually kind of nice being that short because you're not getting bogged down with
too much stuff.
There's only a couple things I have.
This game was really fucking glitchy on the PS4.
At one point, I literally fell through the street upon finishing a mission.
I finished a mission.
It's like a side crime mission where you have to stop the car someone stole.
(28:01):
And I stopped the car, but while I'm stopping the car, I fall through the street and I stop
the car, but it looks like it just blew up.
It looked like it flipped and blew up.
So I'm like, did I fail the mission?
And then as I'm waiting to hear if I failed or not, I just keep falling until I die.
And then I was like, oh, okay.
I guess that just happened.
(28:22):
I didn't have any bugs.
I think it was a PS4 problem.
I don't think that would have happened on the PS5.
Well, and I'm trying to think about it because I played it on the PS4 version and the PS5.
So I'm trying to remember if I had any big bugs on the PS4 and I'm not remembering any.
Well, that happened to me at the very least.
So watch out for that.
That's fair.
(28:42):
It could happen to you.
It might not, you know, it's just kind of up in the air.
Other things I didn't really enjoy about the game.
Honestly, I didn't like the fact of how many things are introduced as the game goes forward.
So like the first thing you get are challenges, right?
And those are just open to the world and happen.
(29:03):
And then they're like, okay, well, now these collectibles are here.
So find these.
And then a short time after that, we have these now bases that you have to invade.
And then a long time after that, they're like, oh, hey, another group of collectibles that you need to go grab.
And then a long time after that, hey, more bases that you need to kill.
But they're from a different enemy this time.
And it's just like nonstop adding throughout the game rather than like, you know, and I get it.
(29:26):
Maybe you don't want to shove those all in the first five minutes of the game,
but I would assume the first two hours would be an okay place to start shoving in all the things you want to do.
So they definitely they definitely fix that in Spider-Man 2 because like the traversal is ridiculous,
but you can also just like scan with your suit and a proximity area around you.
Okay.
And that tells you where all the collectibles and stuff are.
(29:49):
So you're just swinging around scanning the city or flying around scanning the city because you have the wing suits.
And you can actually get in wind currents and fly around.
That was another thing I actually thought about with this game.
I'm like, it would have been great if they had the gliding suits in these games.
Dude, they do it in two.
They do it ridiculous.
It's so cool.
And all the venom powers on top of that, you can do some ridiculous shit.
(30:11):
Like there's even achievements for like how long you can stay in the air.
Yeah, it's ridiculous.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
And the other thing I really didn't like about this game, I don't know why they did this,
but they had some abilities locked to new game plus.
Yeah, I really do.
I kind of hate that.
It's stupid.
It's like, you know, new game plus is not supposed to be add abilities to make the game easier.
(30:35):
It's supposed to be trying on a harder difficulty now that you've beat it on this difficulty, right?
You try it on a harder difficulty and have all the upgrades right at the start so you don't have to like go back to base level and grind again.
I don't know.
I just with that, it just felt really stupid.
To me, it felt really like they restricted me too much in the game because I really wanted those top two abilities and I didn't get to use them.
(30:58):
Which I mean, I know these games are fun and I am the kind of mega fan of Spider-Man that I have replayed these games over again.
Like, I think this is even my second and a half playthrough of the game.
And I'm probably going to even go try to 100% on the PS5 and then go back and do it on the PS4 again, just because I love these games.
(31:19):
But not everyone wants to replay it as much as I do.
And it's forcing people to go into other replays.
It sucks.
Well, when you think about it too, like what if someone like me who just did this started it after Spider-Man 2 already came out, right?
True.
So I'm doing it in continuation so I can get the Spider-Man 2.
(31:39):
Well, then I'm never going to fucking replay this game because I want to play the newest game.
True.
Like, I don't know.
When you restrict too much, it does like kind of belittle my interest in the game.
So that was a big harp that I had during like when it said like you only unlock these abilities with new game plus.
You only unlock the suit with new game plus.
You only unlock these final tier of the gadgets with new game plus.
(32:00):
I'm like, I don't remember them doing this in the original Spider-Man, but whatever.
I guess fuck me.
Yeah, I think they did suits for new game plus, but I think that was it, which I'm OK with like cosmetic things being things you unlock.
That's totally fine, which I mean, always the suits in new games are crazy.
So like that just makes sense for them.
Yeah.
For top tier of like a skill tree, that's really fucking weird to do new game plus.
(32:23):
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
I agree.
Another harp that I will say that some people will have a problem with.
I don't because I love this, but it is the exact same map as Spider-Man 1.
They did make some additions.
They did change some things.
The story did progress and some buildings have changed, which I'll get into some details later.
But it's a lot of people complain about this with like the Far Cry games when they reuse the same map over again, but then just change the game or just change the timeline of when it is.
(32:52):
Yeah.
So if that's an issue for you, I mean, especially if you put like 100 hours into the first one, like a lot of us did, it's the same map.
It's the same combat with a little tweaks.
So it's going to feel a lot of the same.
I mean, it came out within two years of the previous one.
So like, yeah, there's no choice but feel the same, right?
Not a lot happened in those two years.
(33:13):
Yeah.
And I mean, like those missions where they really focus on Harlem are really a breath of fresh air because it is different.
It is new.
It is showing different perspectives a lot better.
And showing different communities a lot better.
But besides those moments, you're just swinging around the same New York around the same buildings.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, but yeah, besides that, I mean, like there's the only thing I always get frustrated with the antihero kind of villain that is like with you, but against you the entire time.
(33:48):
And I just really hate like when she gets presented an option to she has all the evidence she would need to put the main villain behind bars for the rest of his life in the palm of her hands.
And she still decides fuck everybody.
I'm going to blow every the shit up.
I'm going to blow his building up.
I hope he dies.
Like, I want to kill him if I kill it honestly.
(34:10):
And I will kill anybody who gets in my way.
And even if they're my best friend, that's a superhero.
Like, I'm just like, why?
I hate that level of ridiculous.
Like, you can't see anything past.
Just I hate this one person.
Yeah.
Like, it does get a little annoying to me because I'm like, there's no reason.
(34:32):
There's no logic.
You have all the evidence in front of you to totally clear your uncle, totally put him behind bars, get the justice you want.
But it's not the justice you want because you want to see everything burned to the ground.
You want to see him murdered.
Yeah, fuck. That's so annoying.
And clear your brother, not uncle.
But yes.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
(34:53):
You're talking about the other other kind of weird thing.
I did feel like they pushed a little bit too much in the story with Miles's just in general.
Like, so the fact that everything is basically based around Miles, right?
Somebody did not matter prior to becoming Spider-Man.
Suddenly, like, you know, his uncle is the Prowler.
And now that's a big deal.
(35:13):
And, you know, that's big in the comics.
But then the Tinkerer, that's just for this game, I think, because I think the Tinkerer was another dude.
And I think Tinkerer was a dude originally.
Yeah.
But it's like, you're right.
I'm tired of having the thing be like, why is my best friend becoming this new version of the villain?
Why can't it just be this villain?
Like, Doc Ock was perfect as a fucking villain, you know?
(35:34):
I love Doc Ock, especially because it was like his mentor was someone like who was there for him, but like in a different way.
And yeah, yeah.
It was perfect.
It was the perfect fucking villain.
And then they fucked it, you know?
Well, and it also because he was actually driven insane by a machine.
It wasn't that he was actually insane.
And like, because that's the thing with the Tinkerer, there's nothing controlling her to do these horrible things like she's killing people, blowing up vehicles, destroying buildings, like not giving a fuck in the world because of how much she hates one dude.
(36:09):
And I'm like, dude, you could literally you have all the skills in the world to not side with all these criminals and get all these criminals to work underneath you and for you anyway.
And arm these criminals with the worst weapons the city's ever seen.
Yeah, it's just it is just getting a little annoying that we keep having to deal with these like antihero, anti villain situations where you have to care about the bad guy.
(36:35):
Yeah.
Now, to be fair, everyone has a story to tell, but sometimes you just don't give a shit about the fucking story.
Well, and sometimes I love just a really good bad guy who's just a bad guy.
Like, honestly, like sometimes some of the best bad guys are just purely evil.
Yeah.
And also I one more gripe, but this is not on them.
(36:58):
This is on me.
I really, really, really, really, really wish they would just make Willem Dafoe the Green Goblin every fucking time there's a Green Goblin.
I just to me, he is the ultimate Green Goblin.
And I love him so much that there should never be any like, well, this one's based on the comic.
Fuck the comic.
(37:18):
Willem Dafoe is the Green Goblin.
There's some characters and some people that just like that is their role from that day on.
That's this who they are.
And that's one of those people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But let's just move on to our next little segment.
Yeah.
All right.
So talking about just the first few hours of the game, how do you think that passes on your suit?
(37:43):
I think actually it doesn't pass.
Okay.
I feel like the first hour and a half of this game is tutorial.
That's fair.
And that is really fucking annoying.
Yeah.
This is why I didn't put this in the best and the worst, but this is one of the worst things for me.
It is a fail hard because the tutorial is so fucking long.
(38:03):
That's fair.
No, yeah, I get that.
I think for me, again, it's hard because I'm always intrinsically pulled into these.
And I have so much more like heart for all the shitty stuff because it's just Spider-Man.
And the gameplay so much makes me feel like I'm actually being Spider-Man that I just forgive so much.
(38:29):
But I have to agree with that.
The tutorial does feel like really long and it doesn't ever feel like you kind of stop learning throughout the game.
Yeah.
But even like the entire first mission is a tutorial, right?
Right after the first mission, it teaches you all about web dynamics.
Right after that, it teaches you all about combat dynamics.
(38:49):
And it's literally an hour and a fucking half of just learning shit.
I'm like, you can do the basic and everyone can pick up the rest.
If there's nothing weird about the game, you don't need to do a long tutorial.
Yeah.
Man, it was just so frustrating because I'm like, can I just do like I want to explore the city.
I want to fucking go out there.
I want to like even just getting the app.
(39:10):
There was a tutorial on the app too that you had.
Oh, I know.
It just got so obnoxious.
Yeah, I do. There's too much hand holding in some of these games and I do wish some of them.
I wish games would give you the option to just not have tutorials like.
Yeah.
For certain games.
Back in the day, at least.
(39:31):
Yeah, especially with games that are like sequels to other games.
Like if we have a hundred hours in your previous game, you probably don't want to do the same
tutorial that someone new to the game would be doing.
That's true.
I'd agree with that.
And I mean, like I think of games like Knights of the Old Republic 2, where literally there's an
entire first mission that you can just skip because the entire first mission is just a tutorial.
(39:54):
Oh, okay.
And they give you the option like, would you like to play the tutorial or just skip it and go right
into gameplay? And if you don't want to do the tutorial, you go right into gameplay.
Nice.
Yeah.
Yes.
I wish Morgana said that.
Yeah, when they do that, that's perfect.
To me, that's like the best thing you can do.
Yeah, which I mean, there is a really cool thing, I guess.
If it's been a while since you played the first game, there is a previously on thing on the main
(40:18):
menu too, where you can watch what happened in the previous game, which I'm like, that's kind of cool.
Yeah.
But yeah, for me, this 100% fails.
Are you saying it passes just based on fun factor?
I'm intermediate with it because with all the PS5-ness of it all, especially if you are playing
(40:39):
it on PS5-ness of it all, especially if you are playing it on PS5.
Yeah, it probably feels a lot different.
The new stuff to it, it does feel really fresh and new, especially if you're playing with RTX,
because it was one of the first games I had ray tracing, if I remember right,
or it was really showcasing its ray tracing because it was one of the first PS5s.
Yeah, I believe I read about the ray tracing on there.
(41:01):
The stuff is really awesome to see. It's really cool. The new controller stuff is really awesome
to feel, so it does pass because I think of all the spectacles of a lot of things,
but probably not for just pure enjoyment.
All right.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's go on to the next thing.
(41:21):
Steve Achieves.
Steve Achieves what?
So this game is about a...
5-1.
5-1? Steve Achieves are probably not convincing anybody that he's over 5-1 because of you.
You asshole.
All right, so the game is about eight hours long and about 18 to 100% complete the game.
(41:47):
Most of the things in this game are just completing a lot of the things,
getting all the collectibles, completing all the different challenges,
completing all the different app requests. That one's called Five Star Review,
you know, because you want your app to have a five-star review.
I think I did that.
Nice.
There's one that's... JJJ would be proud if you use a sticker and custom lighting in photo mode
(42:12):
because you're being a Spider-Man photographer for him. I'm like, that's kind of clever.
There's... Never saw it coming for taking you out a base without being detected.
Honestly, once you get really good at the stealth in this game, nothing else matters.
It's so much fun to just go through a base stealthy and it's so much easier if you can.
(42:36):
And all the different things you do with ceiling takedowns, wall takedowns,
purge takedowns, and all the invisibility spells, it's fucking wild.
And the gadgets, it's stupid.
But there's also like Rhino in a china shop. This one, you wouldn't think about doing this.
You'd probably try to avoid Rhino destroying a bunch of shit, but you actually get an achievement,
(42:58):
or a trophy, I mean, for destroying 15 breakable objects while riding Rhino through the mall.
And also, I really do want to point out in that scene, there's really cool interactions
with Peter if Miles fails to save someone and Rhino's about to run into them.
Peter actually swoops in at the last minute and will save them and then
if you go into camera mode and turn around, if you look back, he saves them and gives you a thumbs up.
(43:22):
It's the funniest thing ever. It's so stupid, but it's so cool.
That's a cool easter egg.
Yeah, I love it. So that's pretty much what I have for the achievements or trophies.
There's not a lot that is really cool or really hard to get.
A lot of it's just 100% of the game, getting all everything.
So then there is the hunt for all the eggs.
(43:44):
So there's a ton of references, obviously, to the first Spider-Man game,
and it is very much a continuation of the game right from where it left off.
So you hear a lot about what happened in the first game.
So if you haven't played the first game, you will be missing quite a bit of the story.
It doesn't fully matter.
You could play this as a standalone game because it is a standalone game.
(44:07):
It doesn't really matter. You could play this as a standalone game because it is a whole new Spider-Man.
You just probably won't understand what's happening for the first hour of the game.
Yeah. You won't know how he gets his powers.
Yes. As in all the Spider-Man games that I can remember, you can visit the cemetery
and you can pay your respects to Aunt May and Uncle Ben, but now you can also do for Officer Davis.
(44:34):
Nice.
Yep. And I think there's actually a trophy for going to their grave sites.
Also, really cool thing for Stanley, because this was after Stanley's death, if I remember right.
If you go to Mick Steiner, which if you play the first game in Mick Steiner,
Stanley is the cameo in there. He's Mick.
(44:55):
And he comes to the table and talks to them while they're on their date.
There's actually a statue of him outside now.
It's a full statue standing taller than the building.
It's really cool. It's a really cool homage to Stanley. Love it.
Nice.
Also at the Science Center during a flashback, you bump into Otto and Peter
(45:16):
during one of the Miles scenes. So you get to see Otto Octavius again.
I thought that was a really cool scene.
It is a really cool scene.
And then, of course, like a lot of the things in the time capsules have a lot of different
touches and things. Like there's a Wakanda flag in one of them.
And there's a couple of things that go towards Miles.
And I think even like his bedroom, there's like the first ever Spider-Man appearance
(45:39):
of Miles Morales or something is on his desk.
So there's a lot of different nods and stuff, but those are some of the ones
that I wanted to point out the most.
And, you know, I really wish they would have had like Iron Man flying or flying overhead
or something at some point. It would have been cool, you know.
Yeah, I mean, that's always the like the kind of the joke.
(46:01):
And all of Marvel is you have these characters that are just like stuck in one city, but
the Avengers tower is in that city, but you never see them ever.
You can go to Hell's Kitchen and you don't find Daredevil and you.
Because it would be cool to just have them like in the background or like you could go
up to them and interact with them or something.
(46:22):
And even maybe not even interact with them, but like you hear a tale of them or like you
hear Joe Jones Jameson doing a podcast like, oh, did you hear Daredevil stop this fucking
thing? Or even saying, I heard of another superhero down in Hell's Kitchen, some kind
of devil guy. Now we're having superheroes who are devils.
Which the only touches to a lot of other Spider-Man characters were other Spider-Man villains.
(46:46):
Like one of the computers in one of Krieger's Raxxon facilities, you can see a file on Black
Cat, Tombstone and Prowler.
I was like, OK, cool.
And we saw Rhino.
And but then Black Cat was featured in the previous game.
So it's not like that's a.
Yeah.
You know, so was Tombstone.
Tombstone was a DLC.
Yeah.
So like you've seen these characters, they're around and.
(47:09):
Yeah.
I don't know to see the extra characters that are there too.
You know, they're true or just even touches or nods to them.
Spider-Man had his help.
Like it would be really cool to see something for sure.
Yeah, I guess that's it for all that.
So I guess we go into what's it worth.
To our last little thing?
Yeah.
Let's do it.
(47:30):
All right.
You want me to go first or you go first?
I'll go first on this one.
You know, I hardcore debated because I feel like this is probably an average Spider-Man game.
Fair.
I think the first one did better.
I agree.
So I'd give the first one a four.
So I think I'm going to stick with a three on this one.
And then I think the second one, it sounds like most people would give that a five.
So it sounds like this one is just like a middle of the road.
(47:53):
It's kind of just to sate your appetite while you're waiting for the next game to come out.
And that's fine.
I mean, I don't mind it.
It was still a fun game.
I had a lot of fun playing it.
But I will say, I think you could skip this one in the anthology of things, but I don't think you should.
I don't think you should at all because Miles is an integral character in the second game.
(48:16):
Yes.
And in the first game.
Because he plays both. Yeah, but I mean, you play primarily as both.
So you're playing pretty much 50-50 split between the two in the second game.
So he is really important to get his story.
Is he going to be GTA now?
Pretty much.
But also has some other segments in it that I won't give away.
(48:38):
No, I got it.
Fucking awesome and wild.
It's fucking great.
Great, great villains and stuff in that game.
Holy shit.
Nice.
But seriously, I have to agree.
I also, I think I was kind of torn between a three and a four.
The Spider-Man fan, I mean, just always wants to give all these a four or five.
Yeah.
But I mean, you said it right, man.
(48:59):
You said like, it feels like they took everything from Spider-Man and just
included it in Miles Morales, right?
Yeah.
It's like rating this game is like rating Spider-Man only without the fucking amazing villain in it.
Well, and the closest thing I can say to it is if you've ever played,
I think it was, yeah, it was Far Cry 5 and then Far Cry New Dawn.
(49:20):
Literally the exact same map, just different villains, and they made it more neon color
schemes.
Yeah.
Sound familiar.
Yeah.
Almost exactly the same thing.
Little bit lower pricing of a game, shorter game, not as good as the first one,
but still had a lot of like newer touches that were kind of fun.
Both of them I enjoy, but they're not the best in the franchises.
(49:43):
Like, I can't say that I enjoyed this as much, especially playing the later ones.
Like, when did this game out?
I probably gave it a four.
Playing it now after playing two and playing a couple other games, I think I have to go three.
Yeah.
I think three is a good middle of the road score for this game.
Like I said, you could skip it if you want.
I don't think you should.
I don't think you should.
But you could.
(50:04):
In general, like gameplay wise, like fundamental wise,
this game doesn't really bring anything that new to this table.
So you won't miss too much.
But the story won't make a lot of sense without it.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it's good to play through, but also like maybe wait for a sale.
Yeah.
And I mean, when they marketed it, I believe they did market it as a standalone game.
(50:28):
That you don't have to play Spider-Man to play this.
Like, they marketed it as that, you know?
So I think they did a good job marketing.
I think this game deserves a three, but I also think like, yeah, take it or leave it.
You'll like it probably, but you'll like the other ones much better.
Yeah.
Definitely, definitely, definitely.
All right.
Well, then that was that.
(50:48):
That was Spider-Man.
Two.
Spider-Man.
Spider-Man and the Speeders of Justice.
Does he do whatever a speeder can?
Yes.
Next week, we are playing...
Yes.
That Half-Life, Half-Life.
Half-Life.
Yes.
Half-Life.
Half-Life is a very, very, very old game.
Never played it.
(51:08):
Some things that, yeah, I've never played it either, actually.
I played Half-Life 2, but I think I only played the mods of it.
So we're going to jump into Half-Life and tell you what we think about that game.
Oh.
Yes.
See you next week, guys.
Bye.
Bye.
Love you.
No.
Bye.
We are a weekly podcast, soul of a gamer.
(00:03):
Hey, I'm smart this time.
I did this time.
Let's not go that far, okay?
I will fuck it up again.
I love pressing that button.
That was my favorite.
This game gets really fucking weird.
Um, yeah, so you do acid and then you go into the hamster.
(00:24):
And this week is Night Trap.
Night Trap.
They're right behind you, Night Trap.
10 year old birthday party.
Next scene, kill the kid.
You got to kill the kid.
Sha la la la la la car is coming.
Throw your body into the car and die.
(00:47):
All I could do every time I was playing Ethan was just
I would start walking around and go, Jason.
Oh, God.
It's just.
I just started usually by saying, hey, everyone, welcome to soul of a gamer
podcast.
Wow, that was pretty good.
Yeah, I'm Scott.
I'm Stephen.
And every week we play a game, we tell you about the game and we bitch
(01:08):
about our experience in the game and bitch about other things.
And a lot of like a lot of things is particularly about him.
I bet you a lot about him.
I mean, I deserve it.
I mean, just how bald he is and how short he is.
I don't know if you know this guy.
He's five short.
One.
I am definitely not five foot one.
His hair is ten, five, eleven ish.
(01:31):
He has hair on his face, but he like glued it on there.
So it's not even real.
It's your pubic hair.
Just everything he's doing is so weird that you just have to bitch about it.
He's lying.
I mean, five, ten, five, eleven.
Dude, I've met him.
He's five, one and a half.
Maybe in a form.
The same exact height.
Maybe one of us is just slightly taller than each other.
(01:52):
I don't even know.
Yeah, yeah.
Slightly taller by nine inches.
Yeah, no, definitely not.
You dig?
Well, guys, let's just jump right into this with what are the fuck are we playing?
So, Stephen, what are you playing?
All right. So actually, I'm pretty excited about this one because I find
we start there. I'm going to stop you for a second.
Oh, she's we hope you enjoyed our last week's game, which I completely.
(02:14):
We do say last week's episode was a bonus episode of us
just talking about our biggest failures in games.
And you know what games pushed us to become gamers?
I guess you could say you could say gamers, you could like pushed us
over the edge and said, we love doing this now.
Yep. Like this is my life now. Part of me.
I am a true this.
This is always going to be a part of my life.
(02:35):
I'm picturing myself as old and I'm hoping that I'm just still playing video games.
Dude, seriously. You never know.
But I'm hoping I am.
Oh, no, I'm really hoping we get like full dive gear
by the time we get like pretty old so that way.
Yeah, we still get to have like the youth in gaming feel
because we'll have a different like avatar that we're controlling in a whole new world.
I am so hoping for it.
(02:56):
Like I I I know Sword Art Online is a scary tale, but I'm all for it.
Put me in a Sword Art Online world.
Yeah, yeah.
I have a police guy machine on the outside
that's giving you a constant blow job while you're in there.
Oh, that way you're feeling your best at all times.
Although I eventually you're just going to get really, really tired.
Dude, you might be the best at that game ever then,
(03:17):
because you have post net clarity always.
Yes, exactly.
And also, I feel like you will be exhausted the entire time.
That's also true and dehydrated as fuck.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, you're saving time.
So now that we've had that little rant,
let's jump into what are we playing.
So, Stephen, please continue.
Oh, OK, I can I can go now. Thank you.
(03:39):
You're allowed to go. I give you permission.
Permission to swear, sir.
Fuck you. OK, thank you.
So, yes, I've actually been playing Final Fantasy 16.
I've been kind of really excited to play this one.
I really like the old Renaissance feel of this.
I like not the turn based style.
I like the more kind of linear gameplay.
(04:00):
The most recent one that came out, right?
The one that everyone was super the Kaiju battle ones.
Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. OK.
Daikon battles. Yeah. Yeah.
It is fucking sweet, dude.
That combat feels so fluid, so smooth.
It's such a beautiful fucking game.
I'm absolutely loving it.
I put way too much time into it and stayed up too many times playing it
(04:22):
because it is just incredible.
Like this is exactly what I wanted.
And I hoped it was going to be.
And I'm glad I bought it.
Yeah. You know, I do at some point.
I've played the first first Final Fantasy.
I played the second one, but it's technically the third one.
It's very confusing.
And then I played the seventh one.
(04:43):
And that's pretty much all my experience of Final Fantasy.
I think I played tactics back in the day, but that was so long ago
that I don't remember it.
But it would be cool for us to like jump in and maybe do them in order.
Like every once in a while, throw in a Final Fantasy game
and see how far we can get at some of the ones that aren't as popular.
I mean, I'm totally down because the worlds always are interesting.
The stories are always incredible.
(05:04):
The music is always well, the first one.
You clearly haven't played the first one, dude.
OK, so for me, I've only I started with
I played a demo of one on the PlayStation portable. Yeah.
And then I think I did a little bit of Final Fantasy 15 when it came out.
I did maybe like 15, 20 hours of that.
(05:26):
And then I did a no, right?
14 is the MMO.
15 is the.
One where you have the car and it's just a big
like open world one and it's huge as fuck and it takes forever to do everything.
Everything's so slow and it's a big grind.
But it's still just like really awesome.
(05:48):
But then I did after that, I did Final Fantasy Rebirth,
seven rebirth or whatever.
So the remake of it, I played almost like probably 80 percent through that.
But then just that game is so long.
It's so bloated. There's so many walking.
You watch a 40 minute cut scene, then walk for five minutes,
then watch another cut scene, then walk for another 10 minutes.
(06:09):
Then you'll do one battle that takes you two minutes if you're good at the game
and then watch another cut scene.
I'm like, I want more gameplay.
I need I didn't want to watch a movie. I wanted to play something.
Yeah, that's the problem with JRPGs in general.
The cut scenes are fucking long.
Yeah. So I love them.
They're beautiful. They're gorgeous.
I have nothing against people who enjoy them.
(06:31):
But I need a little bit more action and gameplay because that's what I was there
for. I I've watched movies in between playing games and stuff.
So when my gaming becomes watching a movie and I wasn't prepared for that,
I'm just like, well, now I don't actually get to play anything today.
Like that kind of sucks.
Yeah. Yeah, that's life.
All right. Well, I've been playing.
(06:54):
So I've been kind of going off and on on what I've been playing, right?
We play the games that we're supposed to play, but then like in between,
I've been trying to like do extra stuff.
And one thing I've been trying to do for a long time, guys, is get pretty OK
at bowling. And so I bought this bowling game on VR thinking like, OK,
well, maybe I could use this like not.
And I was trying to find a controller that was like a weighted bowling ball.
(07:16):
Because I wanted to make it feel like real bowling.
Is the weight is the problem.
And I learned that when I went back and I bowled in my first game was
horrifyingly bad. That's fair.
Whereas I was readjusting to the weight of a ball.
But the accuracy on them are like it's sweet.
It teaches you really good accuracy to play on the VR bowling games.
So I've been playing premium bowling on MetaQuest, which has been a lot of fun.
(07:41):
And then also I've been playing a little bit of Dragon Age, just jumping into
I was playing on the Xbox and then realizing that they don't.
For some reason, EA did not release any of the fucking downloadable content
except for adding the extra character in the original Dragon Age.
OK. And it really bummed me out.
So I got like 90 percent through that game.
I'm in the last part of the game.
And I'm like, all right, well, let's just start over from the computer.
(08:03):
And just do it.
Because I don't want to fucking finish this and then jump on the computer
and realize everything I was missing.
That's fair. OK, that's fair.
Yeah, that's a bummer.
I've already done. Yeah, I've already done all the DLC.
So and I think they maxed out the level cap a little bit more,
like 25 or 30 or something.
OK. So at some point in the game, I should be beyond the level cap.
(08:24):
So I think the enemy's level cap at 20 and then you can get up to 25 or 30 maybe.
OK. Oh, OK. That'll be fun. Nice.
Yeah. All right.
Well, you want to just jump right into what we're doing then?
Yeah, I guess so.
This week, we are playing Speeder Man.
Yes. Males Morales.
(08:44):
No, no, no. It's just called Speeder Man.
Speeder Man. Speeder Man and the Speeder Devils.
Two speeders, but then one speeder goes away for a while
and leaves the other speeder in charge, even though he's only 17
when he's the king of responsibility.
Is he 17? Yeah, I think he's actually younger.
I think he's only 15.
(09:05):
I was questioning. I saw a video where someone said 17.
So don't quote me on it.
But I don't know. I feel like I picked up 15 from somewhere
because also remember he hasn't seen his friend in two years.
Or a year and a half, I think, at this point.
And like he looks a lot older, but even in the in the cut scenes of the past,
he looks the same fucking age.
(09:26):
I'm like, how old are you?
That's fair.
But he's still in high school and he's not a senior.
So I don't think he's 17 for that reason.
He's more than likely 16, but he might even be 15 based on.
I feel like I heard that at some point in the game.
That's fair.
So I mean, even younger.
It's crazy. It's just weird.
It's just crazy.
(09:47):
But OK, so a little story on Spiderman.
Spiderman, Males Morales is an act and adventure game where you play as Males.
Also, for some reason, I spelt it ass.
Would you play ass miles?
I don't know why you want to play it.
I had an extra ass for some reason.
All right. As miles and have to stop a war between two rival factions
(10:08):
in East Harlem in order to protect the community, as well as your loved ones.
Yes. Boom, boom, boom.
Yeah. All right.
So the making of the game starts with the making of the first Spiderman game
for the PS4.
The creative director for the game, Brian Intihar,
Intihar, something like that.
Wanted miles in the game.
He really wanted to have a character, the character be fleshed out
(10:29):
and to have their story told in the main sequence of the games
that would feature Peter Parker, Spiderman.
They soon realized that telling such an intricate origin story
would prove to be too much in addition to the stories
that were intended to feature Peter Parker.
So pretty early on in the development of the idea of Miles,
they decided that it would be best if it had its own game.
(10:49):
That's fair. They also wanted a game that could showcase the PS5.
They had a lot of ideas for how the game could be the flagship
game of the PS5 and were excited for the opportunity.
And I didn't put this in here, but one thing they talked about a lot
and I might have put it in here, I don't remember,
but it was the DualSense controllers.
Yes.
They were super excited about the fact that like you could feel something
(11:11):
on one side of the controller and then it reverberates to the other side
as something else happens.
So like when you're charging up a special attack,
you'll feel it on the left side and then when it's ready to go,
you'll feel it on the right side.
So then they were really cool and excited about all these cool things.
I will always love the feel of Xbox controllers more than PlayStation
controllers, but I will say this DualSense controller, dude, it is fucking wild
(11:33):
because the haptic feedback even on the triggers is crazy because even
on Spider-Man swing, you can feel the tension on the web on the triggers.
Yeah.
Like that's ridiculous.
I didn't hit that because I played it on a PS4.
But yeah, I know, but it's so cool when you actually like get to experience that.
And it's got to be the sounds coming from it, like everything that you can do with it.
(11:55):
And the game goes to Shizima or not.
And goes to Shizima.
Yeah, I think it is in that one.
You can actually blow into the controller and then a guiding wind will guide you
where to go in the game.
Weird.
I'm like, okay, it reminds me a lot of the I mean, it's not the first one to do
that because in Nintendo DS, I remember playing Pokemon Pro.
That's true.
And you go to the underground and sometimes you get caught on fire and you have to
(12:19):
blow into your mic and I remember my mic didn't work too well.
So I'm like going just like blowing my hardest on it.
Oh, that's funny.
Okay.
So the controller.
Yes.
Sorry.
Yes.
Enough about the fucking controller.
Insomniac games famous for games such as Spyro series and the Ratchet and Clank
(12:40):
series, as well as the first Spider-Man game decided they wanted to make the game.
They started development of the game in August of 2018.
The team had decided to use the slice method for making the game with this method.
They would make 50% of the game in the first five months of making the game.
Damn.
Isn't that fucking incredible?
That sounds wild.
Yeah.
(13:00):
This included quests, missions, activities, bases, trainings, and collectibles.
Crazy.
Okay.
Yeah.
The first part of this process was to flesh out the art of the game.
The art team had a few goals in mind when creating the aesthetic of the game.
First, they wanted the game to feel different from the first Spider-Man game.
They knew most of the game would take place in a similar, in similar areas.
(13:22):
So they wanted to be different in another way.
So they made the game take place during winter due to the winter aspect of the
game.
The second goal was to make the colors of the game more vibrant.
They chose to try a neon style for the game that the team was really proud of by
the end of the development of the game.
And the final goal was to make the East Harlem as authentic as possible.
(13:43):
This included adding real places from East Harlem in the game and having several
missions involved these places to make sure, or make the character and the player
have to learn about East Harlem.
They also sent pictures and videos of the inside of Miles Morales' apartment to
individuals and families who lived in East Harlem so they could give pointers on
how to make the apartment more authentic.
(14:03):
Oh, nice.
That's cool.
Isn't that crazy?
Like, just like, Hey, people who live there, here's a fucking picture of a game
we're making.
How cool is it?
Is it, is it shit compared to the game?
Is it shit compared to your apartment?
No, that's awesome.
I love the attention to detail, honestly, to a lot of things that they do,
especially like the, even the deaf community in this game, all the ASL in
this game.
We'll get into that one.
(14:24):
Yeah.
Okay.
But what's interesting too is in the game, you're really not inside a lot.
No, you're not, honestly.
Yeah.
The majority of the game you spend outside of areas, but certain areas that are
inside are super fucking detailed.
Like, I feel like they did that on purpose in order to make them so detailed.
Oh yeah.
But I mean, I love that even with the higher graphics, like you can, when
(14:47):
you're scaling the building, if someone's got their light on, you can actually see
into their apartment and you can like see a lot of different styles of rooms
and stuff set up.
So there's always a lot of attention to small details that really hit you hard
if you pay attention to it all.
For sure.
When programming the movements of Miles, they wanted him to feel like he was
still getting used to his powers.
In the first game, you play as a seasoned Spider-Man, so the movements and the
(15:10):
actions of the character reflect that.
And this game, they wanted Miles to feel like he was not always in control.
They did this by adding animations such as arm flails from flying through the
air.
The team was really excited about programming the game to work on the PS5.
The SSD for the PS5 was so much better than the PS4.
It allowed the team to have near instantaneous fast travel, which I did
(15:32):
not experience because I was playing on a PS4.
Honestly, when you do experience it, it's ridiculous.
Yeah, you click the button and you're there.
It's fucking awesome.
It's stupid.
They were so excited in the interview I watched with the lead director on the
game.
He was just like glowing at the fact.
He's like, we really wanted people to understand how fucking awesome this was.
(15:55):
It's ridiculous.
It's really something.
Yeah.
Originally, they said that the game would only be released for the PS5, and I
think they originally did that because literally they wanted to showcase how
cool the PS5 was.
Yes, exactly.
But they changed their minds and made it so if a person bought Miles Morales
for the PS4, they would have a free upgrade to the PS5 as well.
(16:17):
Thank you so much for that.
Yeah, that's so fucking cool.
Thank you.
And that's probably because a lot of people are having trouble at the time
getting a PS5.
Which I will say PlayStation has been doing a really good job about that.
Most games you get a free upgrade or it's only $10 for a PS5 upgrade.
Yeah.
I'm okay with either way.
Xbox will never...
Well, Xbox won't really...
They don't really serve their older consoles anyway.
(16:39):
Like they're barely backwards compatible, any of their shit.
So...
Well, there's a decent amount of backwards compatible.
There is, but it's not all of them.
I have so many games.
Yeah, there's still so many.
Like on my shelf that I can't fucking play.
I know.
I have to plug in my original Xbox to play it, which I tried recently and it wasn't
working.
So I have to maybe get a new old Xbox.
Yeah, my 360, the disk drive doesn't open and I'm sure it's just stuck and I'm
(17:02):
sure I could take it apart and I could fix it.
I really don't want to because I don't understand mechanics in that regard.
Yes.
But I'm sure I could.
That's fair.
If I looked at the video, I probably could do it really easily.
I just don't want to because also I only pull it out like once every five years.
That's fair.
I'm the same way.
They had a free upgrade.
(17:22):
Yep.
They also like the way the PS5 could have seamless transitions.
This led to them making the home screen seamlessly transitioned into the gameplay.
When developing missions for the game.
And what I mean by that, guys, is literally if you're on the home screen, you'll have
like an image of Miles and then whatever he was doing in that moment, it will be
where you start in the game.
It seamlessly, like literally you press start and you're literally in the game
(17:46):
doing that thing.
It's crazy.
Honestly, a lot of the things in it, it's just stupid ridiculous how fast everything
loads.
For sure.
And I'm sure like it's amazing on the PS5.
I wish I would have gotten to experience it, but I really don't want to buy a PS5.
They're getting cheaper now that the PS5 pros out.
Yeah, that's true.
Eventually I'll jump into it.
But for now, I'm going to when developing missions for the game, the team had a fairly
(18:10):
strict timeline.
They had one week for the story writing block out for three weeks.
Block out is just a term meaning times for level design playable for eight weeks.
This is where the team would do all of their play testing.
They specifically wanted this test to test if the game is fun enough or not.
The last eight weeks were meant for art post and polish.
(18:33):
The creative director for the game, Brian Horton, said that at some point, someone
threw out the idea of Miles having a conversation with ASL.
He knew that his son took a few courses of ASL in high school, so he knew it was
possible that Miles could have done the same thing.
He was excited to add a layer of diversity in the game.
So we agreed.
He ended up hiring three experts in ASL to help show how the conversation might go.
(18:58):
So literally hired three people who all they do is ASL.
Yeah.
Just for the fucking game.
It's freaking awesome.
Seriously, I guess we were saying earlier the attention to detail and a lot of these
things.
And seriously, I don't think I've ever seen ASL used in a game.
And I definitely haven't seen it to this detail.
Yeah.
And it's amazing.
It's awesome, honestly.
They did a great job with that.
(19:19):
I'm happy that they actually got experts to come in like and there's a guy in here who
took three courses for 45 years ago.
Have him show you.
You know what?
And the missions with all the ASL, especially with the artists that you can hang out with
quite a bit.
So cool because there's so much appreciation for ASL, but there's also so much appreciation
(19:39):
for art and those missions.
It's just so crazy and so beautiful.
And you're just like, wow, like I can't believe this is part of the game.
Like, I can't believe they did all this on top of a Spider-Man game.
Yeah, honestly, it's completely crazy, guys.
Some early problems that happened early in the game was that they had all cut scenes
with too many shifting moods in them, as well as they were introducing too many characters
(20:03):
all at the same time.
And I didn't really explain what this means.
They showed the first cut scene of the game, right?
It's after the Rhino battle.
Go into this, his apartment and you meet Finn.
Yep.
In that same cut scene, Finn tells you that her brother's dead.
Yep.
In that same cut scene, you're happy that you get to see all your friends.
(20:27):
In that same cut scene, Genki tells you something horrifying.
In that same cut scene, you get a present from your mom.
Like, they just said, like literally, we had 15 moods going on all at the same time.
And it was so overwhelming.
People were like, you got to fucking just change this.
You can just change this.
Yeah.
(20:47):
So they really, you know, as we know now, they split that apart into many different cut scenes
that happened kind of during the thing.
But it is insane that they originally they had all those things happening within like
five minutes of each other.
That's just crazy.
Because there is so much going on sometimes.
You're just like, whoa.
Yeah.
Especially emotionally for the main character.
(21:07):
Like, yeah, he's getting pulled and tugged every direction.
And literally a fucking teenager.
Imagine being a teenager now and just having told that your mom died.
Like, holy fucking shit.
Yeah.
And his dad already died at that point.
Seriously, though.
They had to change a lot of the early cut scenes to avoid this problem.
(21:28):
They took note of these fixes so that the same mistakes could not be made later in the game.
Another problem that the team ran into was the COVID pandemic hit.
A lot of the post-production was done at people's homes because they were not allowed to meet in the
studios.
The composer for the game was John Paisano.
Two songs were written for the game by Boy Wanda.
(21:50):
I didn't look that up.
That was just said in the I didn't double check that.
I don't know who Boy Wanda is.
That was said in the making of the game that Brian Horton did.
It was like a 45 minute interview where he just kind of talked about stuff.
And again, I don't know who Boy Wanda is.
I didn't even look up the songs that he did.
But he said that Boy Wanda wrote two original songs in the game.
(22:11):
So I assume one of them is the out song and one of them is the end song.
I mean, I really like a lot of the songs in this game.
Yeah, they did a really good job, but they didn't really talk about the music all that much.
I was kind of bummed.
Oh, that's really bummed.
No interviews on the music, no interviews on Boy Wanda.
Like, it's just, I don't know, interesting.
Kind of shitty.
Whatever.
(22:31):
Yeah, because a lot of times anything with Miles, especially like the Spider-Verse movies,
they get really praise for their soundtracks.
And stuff like that.
And how.
But if you watch the interview, it's really comprehensive, except for the fact that he
does not mention any kind of musical orientation.
He mentions Boy Wanda and he mentions John Paisano.
I know that because otherwise I would not know how to pronounce Paisano.
(22:54):
Fair.
I mean, I really liked a lot of the lo-fi kind of hip hop kind of background music
for a lot of the city.
And I really enjoyed a few of the songs a lot.
For sure.
Especially in really good moments.
The cast for the game was Naji Jeter as Miles Morales.
Yuri Lowenthal as Jacqueline Pinal.
Oh, I wrote down two names, but I didn't write down who that...
(23:14):
Yuri Lowenthal as somebody.
I didn't follow up for some reason with who that was.
Jacqueline Pinal as Rio Morales.
Oh, Yuri Lowenthal as Peter Parker?
Yes, yes, yes.
Yes.
Okay, I think so.
I think I just fucked up here because I copied and pasted from my notes.
(23:38):
And for some reason it changed the way my notes were doing.
Fred Tatasior as Rhino.
Darren DePaul as J. Jonah Jameson.
Troy Baker as Simon Krieger.
And Troy Baker, of course, I think we've talked about him multiple times.
Griffin Puoutu as Genki Lee.
Ashley Birch, who Ashley Birch is fucking awesome.
(24:00):
If you guys have ever played Life is Strange, she's Chloe in Life is Strange.
Oh, nice. I love Chloe.
And she's also, if you've ever watched,
let's say that show on Apple TV about the video game company.
Oh, Mythic Quest?
Yeah, Mythic Quest. She's in Mythic Quest as one of the game testers.
(24:22):
Nice. I've already watched that show, actually.
I've debated getting Apple TV just to watch that and Ted Lasso.
I believe I'm thinking of the right person. I hope I am.
Fair.
We can look it up the double jack, but I'm pretty sure that's who Ashley Birch is.
She plays Danica Hart.
Jasmine Savoy Brown as Finn Mason.
Which she's in the show Yellow Jackets.
Oh, nice.
Playing basically the same exact character.
(24:45):
Nice.
Pretty much.
Ike Amadi as Aaron Davis.
Todd Williams as Rick Mason.
Russell Richardson as Jefferson Davis.
Yancey Arias as Teo Alvarez.
Melanie Mini Chino as Gloria Davila.
Emerson Brooks as Kayla Bord.
Curzia Bajos as Camilla Vasquez.
Natasha O'Filly as Hailey Cooper.
(25:06):
And Travis Willingham as Wilson Fisk.
And most of those people only have like five or six lines in the game, honestly.
But that's where they put on the thing. So I gave them credit.
The game came out in November of 2020 to positive reviews.
Yes.
Literally in the middle of COVID.
Fair.
It did. It did.
I did. I did. I enjoyed playing it in the middle of COVID.
(25:29):
When I wasn't working.
Because I was an essential worker making signs.
I was an essential worker.
I know.
I'm still an essential worker, unfortunately.
You were actually in the medical system.
Alrighty. So we get into the best and the worst of the games then.
(25:51):
Let's do it.
This game fucking blows.
I fucking hated every second I played it.
I hope the creators die.
I hope their moms die.
Wow.
Damn. He definitely doesn't feel that way.
He's all the bullshit.
No, I don't.
All right. Go ahead.
What was your best for this game?
I think the best for me is the traversal and the combat.
(26:15):
Still as fluid and amazing as ever.
I do like the slight changes, especially with the new abilities.
It does kind of make the game way easier in a lot of ways.
Especially in the combat.
It's just ridiculous being able to just turn invisible whenever you want to.
(26:35):
All the different abilities you can have with it.
It's kind of ridiculous, but it's still like some of the strongest points.
I just love swinging around the city.
I will say every Spider-Man game that has this swing mechanics.
Yeah, I mean that was my best too.
Traversal around the city is fucking on point.
I'm sure Spider-Man 2 has better traversal.
(26:56):
Oh, yes.
Remember when we're talking about when the game comes out, this was really good.
Yes, this was the best.
If I would have played this in 2020, I would have loved this so fucking much.
Spider-Man 2's traversal, I don't think, well, I don't know if...
It's going to take a lot to beat that game.
Yeah, and I'm sure the next generation of like gaming consoles is going to be like,
(27:18):
gaming consoles will beat it easy, but for now it's the best thing we can think of.
The fighting in the game was very on point.
I love that.
The story was really good.
Music was really good.
In general, everything felt very cohesive.
The timeline for the game was really good.
So you didn't spend too long on this game.
It's a Christmas game.
Yeah, it's only like six hours long.
(27:39):
Yeah, it's really short.
It's actually kind of nice being that short because you're not getting bogged down with
too much stuff.
There's only a couple things I have.
This game was really fucking glitchy on the PS4.
At one point, I literally fell through the street upon finishing a mission.
I finished a mission.
It's like a side crime mission where you have to stop the car someone stole.
(28:01):
And I stopped the car, but while I'm stopping the car, I fall through the street and I stop
the car, but it looks like it just blew up.
It looked like it flipped and blew up.
So I'm like, did I fail the mission?
And then as I'm waiting to hear if I failed or not, I just keep falling until I die.
And then I was like, oh, okay.
I guess that just happened.
(28:22):
I didn't have any bugs.
I think it was a PS4 problem.
I don't think that would have happened on the PS5.
Well, and I'm trying to think about it because I played it on the PS4 version and the PS5.
So I'm trying to remember if I had any big bugs on the PS4 and I'm not remembering any.
Well, that happened to me at the very least.
So watch out for that.
That's fair.
(28:42):
It could happen to you.
It might not, you know, it's just kind of up in the air.
Other things I didn't really enjoy about the game.
Honestly, I didn't like the fact of how many things are introduced as the game goes forward.
So like the first thing you get are challenges, right?
And those are just open to the world and happen.
(29:03):
And then they're like, okay, well, now these collectibles are here.
So find these.
And then a short time after that, we have these now bases that you have to invade.
And then a long time after that, they're like, oh, hey, another group of collectibles that you need to go grab.
And then a long time after that, hey, more bases that you need to kill.
But they're from a different enemy this time.
And it's just like nonstop adding throughout the game rather than like, you know, and I get it.
(29:26):
Maybe you don't want to shove those all in the first five minutes of the game,
but I would assume the first two hours would be an okay place to start shoving in all the things you want to do.
So they definitely they definitely fix that in Spider-Man 2 because like the traversal is ridiculous,
but you can also just like scan with your suit and a proximity area around you.
Okay.
And that tells you where all the collectibles and stuff are.
(29:49):
So you're just swinging around scanning the city or flying around scanning the city because you have the wing suits.
And you can actually get in wind currents and fly around.
That was another thing I actually thought about with this game.
I'm like, it would have been great if they had the gliding suits in these games.
Dude, they do it in two.
They do it ridiculous.
It's so cool.
And all the venom powers on top of that, you can do some ridiculous shit.
(30:11):
Like there's even achievements for like how long you can stay in the air.
Yeah, it's ridiculous.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
And the other thing I really didn't like about this game, I don't know why they did this,
but they had some abilities locked to new game plus.
Yeah, I really do.
I kind of hate that.
It's stupid.
It's like, you know, new game plus is not supposed to be add abilities to make the game easier.
(30:35):
It's supposed to be trying on a harder difficulty now that you've beat it on this difficulty, right?
You try it on a harder difficulty and have all the upgrades right at the start so you don't have to like go back to base level and grind again.
I don't know.
I just with that, it just felt really stupid.
To me, it felt really like they restricted me too much in the game because I really wanted those top two abilities and I didn't get to use them.
(30:58):
Which I mean, I know these games are fun and I am the kind of mega fan of Spider-Man that I have replayed these games over again.
Like, I think this is even my second and a half playthrough of the game.
And I'm probably going to even go try to 100% on the PS5 and then go back and do it on the PS4 again, just because I love these games.
(31:19):
But not everyone wants to replay it as much as I do.
And it's forcing people to go into other replays.
It sucks.
Well, when you think about it too, like what if someone like me who just did this started it after Spider-Man 2 already came out, right?
True.
So I'm doing it in continuation so I can get the Spider-Man 2.
(31:39):
Well, then I'm never going to fucking replay this game because I want to play the newest game.
True.
Like, I don't know.
When you restrict too much, it does like kind of belittle my interest in the game.
So that was a big harp that I had during like when it said like you only unlock these abilities with new game plus.
You only unlock the suit with new game plus.
You only unlock these final tier of the gadgets with new game plus.
(32:00):
I'm like, I don't remember them doing this in the original Spider-Man, but whatever.
I guess fuck me.
Yeah, I think they did suits for new game plus, but I think that was it, which I'm OK with like cosmetic things being things you unlock.
That's totally fine, which I mean, always the suits in new games are crazy.
So like that just makes sense for them.
Yeah.
For top tier of like a skill tree, that's really fucking weird to do new game plus.
(32:23):
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
I agree.
Another harp that I will say that some people will have a problem with.
I don't because I love this, but it is the exact same map as Spider-Man 1.
They did make some additions.
They did change some things.
The story did progress and some buildings have changed, which I'll get into some details later.
But it's a lot of people complain about this with like the Far Cry games when they reuse the same map over again, but then just change the game or just change the timeline of when it is.
(32:52):
Yeah.
So if that's an issue for you, I mean, especially if you put like 100 hours into the first one, like a lot of us did, it's the same map.
It's the same combat with a little tweaks.
So it's going to feel a lot of the same.
I mean, it came out within two years of the previous one.
So like, yeah, there's no choice but feel the same, right?
Not a lot happened in those two years.
(33:13):
Yeah.
And I mean, like those missions where they really focus on Harlem are really a breath of fresh air because it is different.
It is new.
It is showing different perspectives a lot better.
And showing different communities a lot better.
But besides those moments, you're just swinging around the same New York around the same buildings.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, but yeah, besides that, I mean, like there's the only thing I always get frustrated with the antihero kind of villain that is like with you, but against you the entire time.
(33:48):
And I just really hate like when she gets presented an option to she has all the evidence she would need to put the main villain behind bars for the rest of his life in the palm of her hands.
And she still decides fuck everybody.
I'm going to blow every the shit up.
I'm going to blow his building up.
I hope he dies.
Like, I want to kill him if I kill it honestly.
(34:10):
And I will kill anybody who gets in my way.
And even if they're my best friend, that's a superhero.
Like, I'm just like, why?
I hate that level of ridiculous.
Like, you can't see anything past.
Just I hate this one person.
Yeah.
Like, it does get a little annoying to me because I'm like, there's no reason.
(34:32):
There's no logic.
You have all the evidence in front of you to totally clear your uncle, totally put him behind bars, get the justice you want.
But it's not the justice you want because you want to see everything burned to the ground.
You want to see him murdered.
Yeah, fuck. That's so annoying.
And clear your brother, not uncle.
But yes.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
(34:53):
You're talking about the other other kind of weird thing.
I did feel like they pushed a little bit too much in the story with Miles's just in general.
Like, so the fact that everything is basically based around Miles, right?
Somebody did not matter prior to becoming Spider-Man.
Suddenly, like, you know, his uncle is the Prowler.
And now that's a big deal.
(35:13):
And, you know, that's big in the comics.
But then the Tinkerer, that's just for this game, I think, because I think the Tinkerer was another dude.
And I think Tinkerer was a dude originally.
Yeah.
But it's like, you're right.
I'm tired of having the thing be like, why is my best friend becoming this new version of the villain?
Why can't it just be this villain?
Like, Doc Ock was perfect as a fucking villain, you know?
(35:34):
I love Doc Ock, especially because it was like his mentor was someone like who was there for him, but like in a different way.
And yeah, yeah.
It was perfect.
It was the perfect fucking villain.
And then they fucked it, you know?
Well, and it also because he was actually driven insane by a machine.
It wasn't that he was actually insane.
And like, because that's the thing with the Tinkerer, there's nothing controlling her to do these horrible things like she's killing people, blowing up vehicles, destroying buildings, like not giving a fuck in the world because of how much she hates one dude.
(36:09):
And I'm like, dude, you could literally you have all the skills in the world to not side with all these criminals and get all these criminals to work underneath you and for you anyway.
And arm these criminals with the worst weapons the city's ever seen.
Yeah, it's just it is just getting a little annoying that we keep having to deal with these like antihero, anti villain situations where you have to care about the bad guy.
(36:35):
Yeah.
Now, to be fair, everyone has a story to tell, but sometimes you just don't give a shit about the fucking story.
Well, and sometimes I love just a really good bad guy who's just a bad guy.
Like, honestly, like sometimes some of the best bad guys are just purely evil.
Yeah.
And also I one more gripe, but this is not on them.
(36:58):
This is on me.
I really, really, really, really, really wish they would just make Willem Dafoe the Green Goblin every fucking time there's a Green Goblin.
I just to me, he is the ultimate Green Goblin.
And I love him so much that there should never be any like, well, this one's based on the comic.
Fuck the comic.
(37:18):
Willem Dafoe is the Green Goblin.
There's some characters and some people that just like that is their role from that day on.
That's this who they are.
And that's one of those people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But let's just move on to our next little segment.
Yeah.
All right.
So talking about just the first few hours of the game, how do you think that passes on your suit?
(37:43):
I think actually it doesn't pass.
Okay.
I feel like the first hour and a half of this game is tutorial.
That's fair.
And that is really fucking annoying.
Yeah.
This is why I didn't put this in the best and the worst, but this is one of the worst things for me.
It is a fail hard because the tutorial is so fucking long.
(38:03):
That's fair.
No, yeah, I get that.
I think for me, again, it's hard because I'm always intrinsically pulled into these.
And I have so much more like heart for all the shitty stuff because it's just Spider-Man.
And the gameplay so much makes me feel like I'm actually being Spider-Man that I just forgive so much.
(38:29):
But I have to agree with that.
The tutorial does feel like really long and it doesn't ever feel like you kind of stop learning throughout the game.
Yeah.
But even like the entire first mission is a tutorial, right?
Right after the first mission, it teaches you all about web dynamics.
Right after that, it teaches you all about combat dynamics.
(38:49):
And it's literally an hour and a fucking half of just learning shit.
I'm like, you can do the basic and everyone can pick up the rest.
If there's nothing weird about the game, you don't need to do a long tutorial.
Yeah.
Man, it was just so frustrating because I'm like, can I just do like I want to explore the city.
I want to fucking go out there.
I want to like even just getting the app.
(39:10):
There was a tutorial on the app too that you had.
Oh, I know.
It just got so obnoxious.
Yeah, I do. There's too much hand holding in some of these games and I do wish some of them.
I wish games would give you the option to just not have tutorials like.
Yeah.
For certain games.
Back in the day, at least.
(39:31):
Yeah, especially with games that are like sequels to other games.
Like if we have a hundred hours in your previous game, you probably don't want to do the same
tutorial that someone new to the game would be doing.
That's true.
I'd agree with that.
And I mean, like I think of games like Knights of the Old Republic 2, where literally there's an
entire first mission that you can just skip because the entire first mission is just a tutorial.
(39:54):
Oh, okay.
And they give you the option like, would you like to play the tutorial or just skip it and go right
into gameplay? And if you don't want to do the tutorial, you go right into gameplay.
Nice.
Yeah.
Yes.
I wish Morgana said that.
Yeah, when they do that, that's perfect.
To me, that's like the best thing you can do.
Yeah, which I mean, there is a really cool thing, I guess.
If it's been a while since you played the first game, there is a previously on thing on the main
(40:18):
menu too, where you can watch what happened in the previous game, which I'm like, that's kind of cool.
Yeah.
But yeah, for me, this 100% fails.
Are you saying it passes just based on fun factor?
I'm intermediate with it because with all the PS5-ness of it all, especially if you are playing
(40:39):
it on PS5-ness of it all, especially if you are playing it on PS5.
Yeah, it probably feels a lot different.
The new stuff to it, it does feel really fresh and new, especially if you're playing with RTX,
because it was one of the first games I had ray tracing, if I remember right,
or it was really showcasing its ray tracing because it was one of the first PS5s.
Yeah, I believe I read about the ray tracing on there.
(41:01):
The stuff is really awesome to see. It's really cool. The new controller stuff is really awesome
to feel, so it does pass because I think of all the spectacles of a lot of things,
but probably not for just pure enjoyment.
All right.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's go on to the next thing.
(41:21):
Steve Achieves.
Steve Achieves what?
So this game is about a...
5-1.
5-1? Steve Achieves are probably not convincing anybody that he's over 5-1 because of you.
You asshole.
All right, so the game is about eight hours long and about 18 to 100% complete the game.
(41:47):
Most of the things in this game are just completing a lot of the things,
getting all the collectibles, completing all the different challenges,
completing all the different app requests. That one's called Five Star Review,
you know, because you want your app to have a five-star review.
I think I did that.
Nice.
There's one that's... JJJ would be proud if you use a sticker and custom lighting in photo mode
(42:12):
because you're being a Spider-Man photographer for him. I'm like, that's kind of clever.
There's... Never saw it coming for taking you out a base without being detected.
Honestly, once you get really good at the stealth in this game, nothing else matters.
It's so much fun to just go through a base stealthy and it's so much easier if you can.
(42:36):
And all the different things you do with ceiling takedowns, wall takedowns,
purge takedowns, and all the invisibility spells, it's fucking wild.
And the gadgets, it's stupid.
But there's also like Rhino in a china shop. This one, you wouldn't think about doing this.
You'd probably try to avoid Rhino destroying a bunch of shit, but you actually get an achievement,
(42:58):
or a trophy, I mean, for destroying 15 breakable objects while riding Rhino through the mall.
And also, I really do want to point out in that scene, there's really cool interactions
with Peter if Miles fails to save someone and Rhino's about to run into them.
Peter actually swoops in at the last minute and will save them and then
if you go into camera mode and turn around, if you look back, he saves them and gives you a thumbs up.
(43:22):
It's the funniest thing ever. It's so stupid, but it's so cool.
That's a cool easter egg.
Yeah, I love it. So that's pretty much what I have for the achievements or trophies.
There's not a lot that is really cool or really hard to get.
A lot of it's just 100% of the game, getting all everything.
So then there is the hunt for all the eggs.
(43:44):
So there's a ton of references, obviously, to the first Spider-Man game,
and it is very much a continuation of the game right from where it left off.
So you hear a lot about what happened in the first game.
So if you haven't played the first game, you will be missing quite a bit of the story.
It doesn't fully matter.
You could play this as a standalone game because it is a standalone game.
(44:07):
It doesn't really matter. You could play this as a standalone game because it is a whole new Spider-Man.
You just probably won't understand what's happening for the first hour of the game.
Yeah. You won't know how he gets his powers.
Yes. As in all the Spider-Man games that I can remember, you can visit the cemetery
and you can pay your respects to Aunt May and Uncle Ben, but now you can also do for Officer Davis.
(44:34):
Nice.
Yep. And I think there's actually a trophy for going to their grave sites.
Also, really cool thing for Stanley, because this was after Stanley's death, if I remember right.
If you go to Mick Steiner, which if you play the first game in Mick Steiner,
Stanley is the cameo in there. He's Mick.
(44:55):
And he comes to the table and talks to them while they're on their date.
There's actually a statue of him outside now.
It's a full statue standing taller than the building.
It's really cool. It's a really cool homage to Stanley. Love it.
Nice.
Also at the Science Center during a flashback, you bump into Otto and Peter
(45:16):
during one of the Miles scenes. So you get to see Otto Octavius again.
I thought that was a really cool scene.
It is a really cool scene.
And then, of course, like a lot of the things in the time capsules have a lot of different
touches and things. Like there's a Wakanda flag in one of them.
And there's a couple of things that go towards Miles.
And I think even like his bedroom, there's like the first ever Spider-Man appearance
(45:39):
of Miles Morales or something is on his desk.
So there's a lot of different nods and stuff, but those are some of the ones
that I wanted to point out the most.
And, you know, I really wish they would have had like Iron Man flying or flying overhead
or something at some point. It would have been cool, you know.
Yeah, I mean, that's always the like the kind of the joke.
(46:01):
And all of Marvel is you have these characters that are just like stuck in one city, but
the Avengers tower is in that city, but you never see them ever.
You can go to Hell's Kitchen and you don't find Daredevil and you.
Because it would be cool to just have them like in the background or like you could go
up to them and interact with them or something.
(46:22):
And even maybe not even interact with them, but like you hear a tale of them or like you
hear Joe Jones Jameson doing a podcast like, oh, did you hear Daredevil stop this fucking
thing? Or even saying, I heard of another superhero down in Hell's Kitchen, some kind
of devil guy. Now we're having superheroes who are devils.
Which the only touches to a lot of other Spider-Man characters were other Spider-Man villains.
(46:46):
Like one of the computers in one of Krieger's Raxxon facilities, you can see a file on Black
Cat, Tombstone and Prowler.
I was like, OK, cool.
And we saw Rhino.
And but then Black Cat was featured in the previous game.
So it's not like that's a.
Yeah.
You know, so was Tombstone.
Tombstone was a DLC.
Yeah.
So like you've seen these characters, they're around and.
(47:09):
Yeah.
I don't know to see the extra characters that are there too.
You know, they're true or just even touches or nods to them.
Spider-Man had his help.
Like it would be really cool to see something for sure.
Yeah, I guess that's it for all that.
So I guess we go into what's it worth.
To our last little thing?
Yeah.
Let's do it.
(47:30):
All right.
You want me to go first or you go first?
I'll go first on this one.
You know, I hardcore debated because I feel like this is probably an average Spider-Man game.
Fair.
I think the first one did better.
I agree.
So I'd give the first one a four.
So I think I'm going to stick with a three on this one.
And then I think the second one, it sounds like most people would give that a five.
So it sounds like this one is just like a middle of the road.
(47:53):
It's kind of just to sate your appetite while you're waiting for the next game to come out.
And that's fine.
I mean, I don't mind it.
It was still a fun game.
I had a lot of fun playing it.
But I will say, I think you could skip this one in the anthology of things, but I don't think you should.
I don't think you should at all because Miles is an integral character in the second game.
(48:16):
Yes.
And in the first game.
Because he plays both. Yeah, but I mean, you play primarily as both.
So you're playing pretty much 50-50 split between the two in the second game.
So he is really important to get his story.
Is he going to be GTA now?
Pretty much.
But also has some other segments in it that I won't give away.
(48:38):
No, I got it.
Fucking awesome and wild.
It's fucking great.
Great, great villains and stuff in that game.
Holy shit.
Nice.
But seriously, I have to agree.
I also, I think I was kind of torn between a three and a four.
The Spider-Man fan, I mean, just always wants to give all these a four or five.
Yeah.
But I mean, you said it right, man.
(48:59):
You said like, it feels like they took everything from Spider-Man and just
included it in Miles Morales, right?
Yeah.
It's like rating this game is like rating Spider-Man only without the fucking amazing villain in it.
Well, and the closest thing I can say to it is if you've ever played,
I think it was, yeah, it was Far Cry 5 and then Far Cry New Dawn.
(49:20):
Literally the exact same map, just different villains, and they made it more neon color
schemes.
Yeah.
Sound familiar.
Yeah.
Almost exactly the same thing.
Little bit lower pricing of a game, shorter game, not as good as the first one,
but still had a lot of like newer touches that were kind of fun.
Both of them I enjoy, but they're not the best in the franchises.
(49:43):
Like, I can't say that I enjoyed this as much, especially playing the later ones.
Like, when did this game out?
I probably gave it a four.
Playing it now after playing two and playing a couple other games, I think I have to go three.
Yeah.
I think three is a good middle of the road score for this game.
Like I said, you could skip it if you want.
I don't think you should.
I don't think you should.
But you could.
(50:04):
In general, like gameplay wise, like fundamental wise,
this game doesn't really bring anything that new to this table.
So you won't miss too much.
But the story won't make a lot of sense without it.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it's good to play through, but also like maybe wait for a sale.
Yeah.
And I mean, when they marketed it, I believe they did market it as a standalone game.
(50:28):
That you don't have to play Spider-Man to play this.
Like, they marketed it as that, you know?
So I think they did a good job marketing.
I think this game deserves a three, but I also think like, yeah, take it or leave it.
You'll like it probably, but you'll like the other ones much better.
Yeah.
Definitely, definitely, definitely.
All right.
Well, then that was that.
(50:48):
That was Spider-Man.
Two.
Spider-Man.
Spider-Man and the Speeders of Justice.
Does he do whatever a speeder can?
Yes.
Next week, we are playing...
Yes.
That Half-Life, Half-Life.
Half-Life.
Yes.
Half-Life.
Half-Life is a very, very, very old game.
Never played it.
(51:08):
Some things that, yeah, I've never played it either, actually.
I played Half-Life 2, but I think I only played the mods of it.
So we're going to jump into Half-Life and tell you what we think about that game.
Oh.
Yes.
See you next week, guys.
Bye.
Bye.
Love you.
No.
Bye.
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