[cheebacheeba]

So, I played this a little.

First of all, what a great looking game. Visually quite amazing, long draw distance, everything looks like actual environment...even things like trees react to you swinging into/through them. Nice character models that were very well animated.

The storyline/universe of this one is pretty good, far as I can tell.
I liked having a slightly more grown Peter Parker and a more established Spider-Man...it's a setting I've looked forward to for some time now...the movies could take a page here I think.

Then I come to the parts that sadly left me kind of unimpressed (in my own way), and ultimately made me stop playing.

The swinging looked great, though felt somehow a little stiff to me.

The combat seemed a little ?dull? almost? It seemed like it should be more fluid and easy to jump from enemy to enemy to enemy...and...I don't know if that's an unlockable aspect of combat, but it didn't seem to be happening.
Sure you could web over to one guy after another I guess...just, nothing felt really connected to me.
There are objects you can interact with during combat and swing/throw, but for me having to hold down both shoulder buttons while in a combat scenario does not feel natural or intuitive at all.
The one "boss fight" (Fisk) I had was ok, though I'm sure better examples with more interesting villains would be ahead.

For me? Spider-Man should be fast, fluid, and all of his swings and moves seemlessly connected...could be just me...but it didn't feel that way.

Now this one's probably a bit more "me" specific...
I don't mind that it's open world. I love that I can travel far.
But TOO MUCH STUFF.
Sure, I think it's cool to be able to use different suits.
but the amount of "crafting" for lack of a better term. The upgrades. The gadgets.
The passive skills. Those that you could activate during combat.
Like...it's not Batman, It's Spider-Man...
Having to head back to the lab and do boring pipeline style minigames to get things happening is just annoying for me.
That and looking at the amount of stuff to unlock - I'm not sure if all this is meant to be seen as a value add, but all I was thinking is about how many times I'd have to pause the game mid-fight/flight to just to remind myself what was what...for me? they threw too much "stuff" at you. None of it really felt organic and using it didn't really seem that intuitive. Kind of throws me out of the Spider-Man thing.

The only thing I kept thinking while playing...was damn this looks good...but I'm not really enjoying it.

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, on the other hand, came out in 2010 - for me was immediately enjoyable, the various universes all felt very authentic, the combat and the swinging were great, still a damn good looking game by todays standards for me...and just captured the Spider-Man thing perfectly.
8 years ago now.
You know what it didn't have?
Anything but Spider-Man, well, a few versions of him anyway.
The formula worked. It was a great game through and through - and from the get-go, you jumped in and everything felt "right".

I'm sure Spider-Man is a *good* game, but for all it's depth still feels somehow shallow.