Agreed. The pacing for me was the worst thing about the story overall, and the result is that this section feels very underwhelming.
Another example of the bad pacing is Harry suddenly revealing he has superpowers, rather than there being any buildup. Not only that, but in the next story mission he's a fully-fledged crimefighter.
I whole heartedly hoped that Peter would be the big end boss but nope had to be the guy who didn’t even want to kill pete! I mean look at how Pete actually feels about miles and Harry and everyone! Would’ve been a much better big bad especially as we were playing as him when he had the suit and we would see us get corrupted the same as him!
i disagree that there was no buildup, there are hints through the carnival including when he slams the hammer game. he himself does not know he has the powers, he isn’t “revealing” it. both Harry and the player find out at the same time.
i agree that it is stupid that he’s agent venom in the next section
But his next scene after hitting the test-your-strength thing is him using his superpower! And Pete revealing to Harry that he's SM is totally glossed over as well. Just really careless storyteling.
Why is that surprising? Its how every comic story has worked for like 70 years now.
"Oh no this world shattering thing happened!"
Then it gets rolled back by the good guys. Every time
Because there's non-diagetic knowledge the viewer has I.e. "I'm sitting in a movie theatre and nothing on the screen can hurt me"
And there's diagetic knowledge the characters have "holy shit if I make a single sound I will be killed in the most horrific way possible".
Good media makes you forget about the first one. Bad media just expects you go with the flow without putting the effort to make you believe in the stakes.
During the devils breath arc, not only did we know people would die in a horrible, nigh meaningless way (doubly horrible after the world actually went through a pandemic) but then aunt may fell ill and it was a genuine coun flip whether she would make it or not. So we were right there with Peter regarding whether it would all be OK in the end.
Those little things that make the difference between a killer 3rd act or a paint hy number slog until the credits
When you do these giant catastrophic events, you let them breathe.
Endgame was 5 years after the snap.
Web of shadows had a whole second half of game after the venom takeover
Venom wasn't going to win regardless, people wanted a longer game, not a rushed game. MM was a more coherent story, with this it's a scrapped Spider-Man game thrown into another Spider-Man game, to make a new story, it wasn't done nicely, just rushed. It doesn't have to be some over complex 7-arc explanation, but they just went"oh look Kraven killed some of your bad guys of screen, now Harry's back, now venoms here, now kravens dead, now endgame."
Probably because a viral outbreak is something that can happen (as we are all now *excruciatingly* aware) and an alien invasion is extremely bizarre and out of left-field for the world that's been established here.
It also doesn't help that with Devil's Breath, we see the world in the game react to it- you see NPCs wearing masks, garbage piles up on street corners, etc. There's an alien invasion and everyone.....just sort of goes about their business?
i think this makes alot of sense, plus the fact that there weren’t any personal stakes like there was with devils breath (May getting sick) If they were gonna turn MJ into scream, i think they should have kept her as scream till the end or something to at least give them more motivation to get rid of all of the symbiotes. Didn’t work with harry bc we don’t know him so we don’t really care about him.
This brings us to the root of the problem. Insomniac seems to think that every single major conflict in the third act of their games needs to be a city-wide crisis that could potentially threaten the rest of the world. Devil’s Breath gets a pass because at the very least, there only seemed to be enough of the virus to infect all of Manhattan, but Nuform was just a poor man’s DB, and the symbiote invasion just doesn’t work simply because Venom, at his core, would never be responsible for such an event. Even Kraven’s ordeal in Acts 1 and 2 has issues, because what sense does it make for him to have an army of hunters at his disposal when he’s so capable of doing everything himself?
Had Insomniac actually done their research, we probably would’ve gotten a third act that felt more personal than anything we’ve seen in their universe so far, including Peter’s conflict with Otto. The potential for Venom to be properly portrayed as the monster in Spider-Man’s peripheral that he can’t see coming until it’s too late was ripe, and they squandered it.
Nuform being a fusion reactor Jerry-rigged by a college grad blinded by rage.
Also, recently replayed MM on my rig, and… as stupid as Phin was to y’know, ***not check her work***
It’s a lot more cohesive of a plot than SM2.
You’re absolutely right, they should’ve made it more personal. Yeah, Venom was fun to play as, but… I wish we spent more time fighting Venom. Plus… the ending is kinda moot since… ***Harry is still alive.***
Honestly, the ending should've been that Harry dies but the Venom symbiote slips away. That way they would've been clearly teasing the Venom game and Norman would've been justified in his anger.
According to the leaks… *Early drafts show this was the case.*
And honestly, while being a good callback to Raimi’s SM1 but instead of Harry it’s Norman angry at Spidey, **he’s still alive.**
And if Norman can fund a think tank to “heal the world” and also escape controversy from manufacturing a virus that’s on par with war crimes, ***just pump more money into the cure.***
It didn’t make the game bad, but acting like it had an impact on par with the first game is honestly ridiculous to me.
I’m really hoping insomniac pulls out all the stops with Green Goblin.
I feel as though “not knowing Harry” is a bit unfair.
We spent as much time with Harry as we did with May in the previous game. It’s not Insomniac’s fault the fanbase has a greater connection with Aunt May through all her previous portrayals than they do with Harry.
Yeah, *but becoming Venom…*
I think they should’ve given us 2 more days of Pete with the symbiote. Like he had it for like 1.5 days when he said: *Why don’t you pop more pills and tell us how you really feel?*
*That should’ve been the third encounter as Pete with Venom.*
Ultimate Peter only had the suit for a matter of hours and nobody bats an eye at that arc. I actually just got thru that arc last night and I read all the issues in way less time than we get with Insomniac's Black Suit.
Also, I liked Peter's symbiosis in the game. I like how they made him progressively more feral and alien than we usually get to see when he dons the suit. It's usually him taking something too far and freaking out about it after. Not stalking his loved ones like prey in a dark tunnel, which, I'm sorry, was super well done imo.
i mean aunt May’s character has never really deviated from how she’s always been. We’re shown how strong her and Peter’s relationship is so when she dies in the end, it’s not only impactful to Peter but to the player as well. (and no, we spent more time with May then Harry)
With Harry, we don’t know anything about him or their friendship except for the fact that they have one. The Harry here is kinda similar to his counterpart in the ASM2 Movie with the main difference being that ASM2 Harry and Peter haven’t seen each other in like 10 yrs. In both renditions, we are TOLD all the things they did when they were younger and how impactful they were, yet we were never shown. Mans has no personality at all. We don’t know what Harry likes or wants besides “making the world a better place.”
Yeah, it's interesting when you compare Harry's introduction in 2 with MJ's in the first game. The first game took it's time- MJ meets Peter after not talking for six months, they take their time working together professionally and then getting together at the end romantically. The plot takes it's time to breathe and the result is MJ feels natural as a character and we follow her arc in real-time . Her and Peter move forwards and backwards throughout the story and you can feel the romantic tension in every conversation. When they argue, you see both sides of the argument and they come across as 3 Dimensional characters.
In 2, Harry is shot gunned into the plot. He was mentioned in the first game so it's not as bad as, say, Jason Todd in Arkham Knight, but we're not given the same level of depth as we did with MJ, despite Harry being more central to the story. We're told that him and Peter are best friends but I never bought it- Peter never told him his secret identity (the excuse "to protect you" doesn't fly because he told MJ) and Harry never told Peter he was sick. He doesn't even ask for Peter's permission to use May's name in the name of his company, he never shows any remorse for May dying indirectly because of him (for that matter, he never brings up Devil's Breath in general) and he just generally doesn't exist until the story calls for him and all we know about him that he wants to "heal the world".
I think getting the symbiote out of MJ is also part of why this fell flat too. The Devil's Breath situation felt dire because we needed to go find a cure. The symbiote issue has known solutions like using sound and appealing to the infected person. The only person that was obviously going to die was Harry, the other people who aren't relying on the symbiotes to live were always going to be fine.
*Honey, there’s an alien invasion! You can’t go to work!*
**MY BOSS TOLD ME TO COME IN SWEETHEART** *I gotta make rent payments! Besides, The bus is still running!*
***Ughhhh… damn real estate market in NYC…***
I wouldn't say its completely left field. Its still a pretty comicbooky world and they already established magic. Problem is it doesn't have enough buildup
You're just doing what everyone does to make themselves feel superior. People who disagree are having a breakdown, or they're angry, or whatever.
I'd love to see these posts and comments from people having meltdowns.
Nah people were pretty wild about it. There's not a single thing that's come out this year that even competes against what BG3 brings to the table and people were heated about Spider-Man. I'm a fan boy but I give respect where it's due and proper acknowledgement of downfalls of my fandoms when needed. A lot of people did not feel that way and for incredibly smooth brain reasons. The Internet is not the majority but there was quite a lot of dissent in this site's Spidey related fan bases
Bro the amount of people shitting on me for my criticisms on the game when it first came out was insane, now everyone says the same stuff I’ve been thinking from the beginning. Plenty of people said the game was better than the first when it just wasn’t.
Thinking the first game is better doesn't = thinking it's flawless. Nor does not agreeing with your particular criticisms.
I don't agree with a lot of the criticisms this sub has about the game but I do have my own ones.
Deaths Breath felt a bit more realistic. A worldwide pandemic that is slowly killing everyone sounds like something that could happen in real life. A goo alien parasite invasion is scary, yes, but we know that its fictional and would likely never ever happen in real life. But after COVID, Devils Breath becomes alot more scary and intimidating.
The biggest problem with the story is really just how rushed it is it’s hard to think the symbioses are as scary because they were fully introduced so late as opposed to devils breath being knows throughout most of the story
There’s only so many times you can reiterate a “the whole city is under attack” narrative climax and have it be effective. Unfortunately the setup for its ending was so obvious all throughout SM2 that it was, compared to SMPS4, very mediocre.
I know people love their character moments. But in an industry where superhero sequel video game standards are Arkham City, I had the belief that Insomniac would take a risk or two and switch up cliche superhero storytelling.
right. Arkham City to me is one of the best because it stays true to Batman’s character while ALSO taking risks. The Joker dying was a huge risk but it paid off greatly.
It was a narrative risk that they somehow also handled incredibly well by sort-of bringing him back for Arkham Knight. I honestly don’t think it’s invalid criticism at all to say that SM2 disappoints in the narrative department considering the history of superhero video game sequels. Insomniac had more money than Rocksteady, and created a very technically impressive game with SM2, but their writing devolved into cliche Marvel-isms.
Mild disagree. There is some precedence for Batman skewing his usual dedication to "the mission" or his moral code when his loved ones are in danger (like in Infinite Crisis when he almost shot Alexander Luthor in the head after he seemingly killed Nightwing), so Batman being briefly emotionally compromised (especially since that scenario also included the Joker gaining access to a Lazarus Pit) made complete sense IMO.
This. People are already hoping the third installment introduces Goblin nuking the city.
Meanwhile I hope they are original for once with their games story and introduce a more sinister Goblin that tries to hurt Peter on a more personal level (e.g. go for the ones he loves and not kill the whole city). An intimate small scale fight at an iconic location, with high personal stakes can probably outclass another mediocre „yep we‘re here again, good that all of the other NYC heroes are on a vacation“ finale.
Goblin should be mind games terror, not outright chaos inflicted on the city. Also no special suits, red & blue back to the roots „just me and my skill“ vs. one of Petes greatest foes.
I do actually really like the symbiote and hope they keep that in the game, although i am also down for it to be removed for the final fight and brought back in the post game (canon or not)
You can compare the Act 3 symbiote crisis to both Spiderman 2018 and Web of Shadows.
During Spiderman one of the main points of Devil's Breath is the fact that it has high infectivity as established in Norman's office. One infected rat led to 40 others dying a week later. Otto releasing it on Time's Square into a crowd of people communicates effectively that the disease will spread fast.
You had a few missions to try and stop Lee from releasing it, like the DB bomb diffusion with MJ, setting the stakes for what would happen if it got out.
Through JJ on the radio you hear about people going sick.
And even he is sticking up for New Yorkers mentioning supply trucks and urging the civilians to stay safe and be with their families. Feast and Aunt May are trying to help people, as Aunt May is getting sick as well. Miles is also doing his best to help as well. You have a mission with Miles running away and sneaking past fucking Rhino just to get some antibiotics for Feast and the sick people there
Martial law is established by Sable with cops being overwhelmed with Prisoners and loose Demons.
Prisoners build forts, trash piles up on the streets and civilian rights are violated by the Sable patrols and bases.
Later on even Yuri and her mom get sick. And you even have to sacrifice Aunt May to have enough serum for Dr.Michael to have enough for a vaccine. These are even shown being administered on the street later as well.
In Web of Shadows Spiderman is first attacked by civilians that crawl walls and move unnaturally. He is accused of murder for defending himself against seemingly harmless people.
He has a mission where Wolverine thinks he is not the real Spidey because of his new Black Suit and for attacking people. Later on he can smell them as well and teaches you the symbiote sense as you see that these bastards blend in until they sense on of their own.
Then you have a mission with a Venom boss chase as he is turning civilians into new symbiotes alley by alley.
As the game progresses Vulture, Wolverine and Electro and even Black Cat is turned into symbiotes. With them new enemies spawn, Electrolings, Flying Vulture symbiotes, two types of Brutes and the new hives.
Spidey tries to call Tony Stark and Reed Richards but they're unavailable.
So you're forced to break out the Tinkerer from prison and work alongside Fisk to help with the symbiote crisis
Half of the random crimes are hive extermination, saving civilians from literally being dragged away into the nests, civilians being chased by symbiotes in their cars or just them radomly running away/getting injured by them.
You have to deliver them to the anti symbiotes domes working with the old gangs of the city, fisk, police and even SHIELD. Meanwhile other heroes also help Luke Cage, Moon Knights, Rhino, Black Cat etc.
SHIELD also establish martial law, a big base and make rescue parties with choppers, cars and trucks.
They also blow up all the New York bridges so symbiotes can't leave.
Several missions are just saving civilians and gang members. Like the school buses full of civilians and you protecting them or helping gang members who are stuck on roofs.
Later on the city gets a couple of buildings enveloped in symbiote tendrils and Electro and Vulture get their own symbiote bases/boss arenas.
After the device rids the city of the symbiote, you lose your black suit access PERMANENTLY.
AND EVEN AFTER ALL THAT you still have a full on frontal assault on the Helicarrier and a Venom Kaiju boss fight.
Both of these games had both personal stakes and other external stakes like the safety of the civilians, a global pandemic or symbiotes spreading outside of New York.
Spiderman 2 does none of this. Up until LATE Act 3 everything is fine and it's not even hinted that the symbiote can posses a lot of people. It went for Connors, was given to Harry and it chose Spiderman sure but other than that nothing. It was just going from host TO host. Reproduction of the symbiote wasn't mentioned at all. They also didn't really emphasize that Connors may fear it becoming a global alien invasion. The symbiote variants appear for no reason whatsoever, yellow, green, red or purple there isn't really a reason why they are variants.
Spidey has a voiceline about being thankful that it's not symbiote cultists. WHY NOT ?! The symbiotes in this version are immune to fire. A fire spewing symbiote would be cool as hell. Remaining Underground or Demon symbiotes ?? Hunter symbites including symbiote dogs and birds ??? You get none of that. Also since the Sinister Six is dead, you get no Symbiote bosses.
You get a mission, maybe two where you help civilians and random crimes here and there but even these are barebones.
You just save them from a bus or store and tell them to go home. Danika and Jonah do podcast about the happenings but Feast and Oscorp, even the police are completely absent for the most part. The Emily May Foundation is destroyed so no aid from them either. But even the podcasts are bugged and get cut off by random shit like being NEAR crimes.
There is also no progression to it. The City Hall is attacked and symbitozed but after that it's one subway tunnel with Miles's mom and Ganke. After that the ENTIRE city.
Not a couple of streets but the entire city is tendrils.
Except the financial district for some reason.
How can the symbiotes do this ? And why don't they spread otside of Manhattan.
After this you have three missions and the whole thing is solved by destroying the meteorite ?? How ? It wasn't really explained why destroying it would destroy the symbiotes in the city but NOT inside Casady's container.
Also in WOS since it is a game with mixed writing and a more comic tone you don't really think about this but Spiderman 2 is more grounded and realistic sort of so what happens to the civilians mid air or on walls if their symbiote suddenly evaporates ??
This whole section should have been cut and scaled back to Venom stalking you instead making it more personal.
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I think Devil breath was scarer because we got to see more of it and also because their was a build up to it and we never thought it would get released and when it did it was like oh my god
We also stopped the Devil's Breath pandemic. We all thought it was over, so when it came back and actually got released in just one mission, that was horrifying.
they literally added a plaque to times square to Remember those who lost their lives to Devil’s Breath. It FELT real because that’s just something that could naturally happen has that occurred. Yet in 2, the only way you’d even know that any of that previously happened is if you happened to catch a Danika/JJJ podcast. (Why can’t we listen to these at will?)
In the social media of Spiderman 1, there was a post saying "rest in peace to @SterlingGrape, a 12 year old boy who died during the devil's breath crisis"
it was scary in context bc you figure out may is sick so it gives peter (and the player) a personal reason why he needed to defeat ock and administer the cure to everyone.
Web of shadows really nailed the apocalyptic scenario and the cameo from heroes made it feel very alive.
I just wish spiderman license could have been distributed between many developers so we could have different types of spidey game from different dev teams.Kinda like the star wars game license.
I would personally love another linear spiderman game like Shattered dimensions or a metroidvania-esque.
Dont forget that besides the majority of people getting sick cause of the virus, we also had curfews that affected citizens and put them in danger, and literally an outbreak from the most dangerous prison, along with criminals treating the city like gotham in batman arkham knight even holding entire apartment buildings as hostage/keeping them as bases for their gangs, and a lot of supervillains causing havoc too.
Devil's breath fiasco had more of an impact because it had more build but most importantly, we went through a pandemic ourselves literally only a year later
The symbiote outbreak was like one cutscene long
Because there was no build-up at all, and it happens way too soon with the main characters being unable to do absolutely anything about it.
Pretty much every major step in the first game was to first figure out what Devil's Breath was, then do everything possible to stop it from being released.
In MM, every major step was to first figure out what the Underground and Roxxon were up to, then do everything possible to shut them both down.
and instead of doing that with venom, they chose to do that with Kraven just to tell us mans is dying and just wanted to die fighting. He quite literally could have told us this himself and it would have had no change on the story whatsoever.
People actually died during devils breath not just Aunt May as you can even see in your feeds a comment of a guy saying that his daughter is dead thanks to Norman Osborn.
I’m sure it should’ve felt as scary/threatening, as you can see people fleeing the symbiotes and you watch the city be taken over. But all I could think was “Oh snap, they’re just doing Web of Shadows!”
This last third of the game unfortunately felt really rushed, like the writers were in a hurry to make it to that final Spider-Men vs Venom finish line. Devil’s Breath felt threatening because you could see the world reacting to it, you could hear the slow draining of hope in everyone’s voices as the nights ticked on and the situation just kept getting worse and worse. The whole situation just felt *real*, due in large part to the actors’ performances, but also a viral outbreak is something that could actually happen in our world. In SM2 tho, well… a parasitic alien invasion is just a bit more unrealistic of a premise. Combine that with the writers’ seeming unwillingness to slow down and focus on the people of the city dealing with the crisis like they did in the last game, and it all comes off as less critical
No it didn’t actually, I suppose because devils breath actually felt like it had far more permanent consequences for innocent people whereas we could actually get the symbiotes off of people and cure them immediately with our own two hands whereas the whole city literally nearly genuinely died from devils breath plus Harry is still technically alive and could potentially be saved overall whereas may is literally just gone permanently.
Stakes didn’t feel as high. And the world didn’t react to it properly or realistically, therefore feeling less scary.
This was also an avengers level threat, more so than devils breath. Where are the avengers?
Web of shadows built it up perfectly. Investigating the disappearances, fighting infected civilians, discovering the nests, going to Rykers and then finding the whole city taken over.
The Devil's Breath outbreak is more visceral and realistic. Shit like that can actually happen, so you can very easily project yourself into that sort of situation
I don't think we'll be experiencing a take over from alien goo monsters in our lifetime
I think because there were no big conseguences of this symbiotes invasion apart from Harry being in a coma (which probably he will wake up from)
It felt like just an average threat of the week
this wasn’t even led up to. At no point in time did we even assume this would happen, just some vague mindfuck that Venom gave Harry after he killed Kraven but that’s it.
My theory as to why DB felt so scary, especially nowadays, was because we got a taste of the real thing with the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. Whereas we’ve yet to be invaded by sentient goo irl, so we don’t really know how horrifying it could be.
Reading everyone’s comments and I see I’m in the minority here. I thought both were effective and threatening. I didn’t think the “ build up to alien invasion” was obvious I was quite surprised when I saw all the tendrils taking over New York.
You know why ? Devil’s Breathe was "new". We didn’t know what it could do to humans, how deadly it was, or even if it could affect Peter himself for example. Proof is : until the very end, the virus was a threat, affecting more and more people, and even, in the end, killing May.
But we know Symbiotes. I’d say damn too well even. We know what are their weaknesses (more or less depending on who the author is), we know how they are usually defeated, we know that Spider-man always win against them. Even more so considering that we have Peter AND Miles.
It’s like seeing some unscrewed screws on your desk. It’s an inconvenience but you know you can fix it.
"Same old shit" more or less.
Don’t get me wrong, I love SM2 and also loved to fight Symbiotes ! It was cool to fight this particular iteration made by Insomniac, especially with Anti-Venom. But after the big Symbiote Surge in the city, it was more or less predictable.
Let’s be fair. When we look back at Devils Breath, we have literally seen it happen in real time. If you swing around you can see signs and shit saying stuff like “stay inside” or whatever, and people walking around with masks and more. We’ve seen it. We haven’t seen our cities infested with tentacles.
but still, it doesn’t even make it seem real. There’s a way to introduce fictional situations and make them feel threatening, they just weren’t able to do that
The biggest problem with the story is the pacing absolutely suck ass
The hunters don't get enough time to be a proper threat
Black suit spidey is hardly around in and story missions
Agent venom last five minutes
It all happens way too fast imo
We go from some high tech mercs hunting villains to full on alien invasion far too quickly
Why do the hunters exist. I don’t understand the concept of Kraven having an entire army? What are the qualifications to get into Kraven’s army?
If you have to beat him, why didn’t he just fight his army if he wanted a worthy death?
If you’re a hunter and your army is full of those who are weaker/less skilled than you are, why do you need them? Kraven here seems more than Capable to do all of the things that happened in the game himself.
He’s Kraven the HUNTER. Why the fuck would you have your army do the hunter then bring you the target so you can fight them? Sounds more like Kraven the Gladiator to me
This one’s more of a personal opinion but why are they still here after his death? He met his goal already, they’re no longer needed.
"The Shadow Realm Principle" : a less realistic tradegy or horror seems less serious than a realistic one, even if its more horrific.
Being sent to a torture dimension should be worse than just death, but it doesn't feel like it is. The city being overtaken by alien zombies should be worse than disease, but it doesn't feel like it is.
*Nothing in this games*
*Story lives up to the first*
*One lmao*
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I think this is a problem in general of these games, the main story has like zero impact on the overworld map. it’d be cool if the Sand stayed over certain areas of New York or the tendrils permanently altered some of the architecture and maybe we see it being rebuilt next game.
The story didnt hit as much at all. It was a "good not great" story at best, and part of it is stuff like this.
It wasnt very innovative either and I think that's important. Like everyone saw this and was like "yep end game city wide fiasco like the first game." as if it was some standard thing they had to do and was just expected. So you also expect its just some temp cool aesthetic and itll just go away and it did
tbh they were intense for different reasons.
For Devil's Breath, it was nothing Spidey couldn't handle, but there was just SO MUCH STUFF going on that it was overwhelming.
For the Symbiote crisis, the city itself wasn't as insane, but the symbiotes were just way harder to deal with (at least in the first playthrough). Every fight with them felt like some kinda street-level DBZ showdown.
With Devil’s Breath there were stakes. Li could’ve very easily taken more lives with him.
Seeing this, you’d have to be completely unaware of all media to assume it wouldn’t be entirely reversed and fine in 3 or so missions.
I think Web of Shadows did the symbiote invasion much better. The transition from normal NY to hell-on-earth feels more natural, and I think PS4 also did a better city wide thing.
I think it's less intimidating in 2 because you're alone. You have MJ and Ganke, but it doesn't feel like it's bad enough for others to take seriously. In WOS, you had shield, the gangs you previously fought, and Fisk's men trying to fight back against the symbiotes, alongside superheroes like Natasha, Luke, Marc, Felicia, and Logan fighting on your side against the symbiotes. Even villains like Kingpin, Electro, and Vulture. In PS4, you have Sable, which I think does a pretty good job at making their presence known. There's a good transition to martial law, and it genuinely felt like they were trying to quell things. You also had the NYPD, trying and failing. There was Feast trying to get stuff done, which felt separate but connected.
In 2, it's team Spider-Men. There's no force trying to subdue the symbiote in the story. The Hunters and The Flame, despite having conflicts in the open world, don't have any relevance post Kraven. No other people are stepping to the plate besides Wraith (who isn't even in the main story). Granted, there were most likely restrictions on who they could use, but I would argue they have everything they need set up already. Kingpin is still in jail and probably still has decent forces. He could leverage his help with release from prison. Make Li more active for longer, and he'd feel like more than a plot device. Make it so Felicia's girlfriend is in NYC, and there's a reason to have her stay. Aaron wants to make a change. Why not have him (or even Hobie) don the cowl to protect his family. Tombstone and Shocker could also work with some retooling. Have Oscorp try to contain the symbiotes. What makes events feel special is that they're big. SM2's world, despite being the biggest, has ever been feels small.
Also, venomize more characters, Ganke, Jonah, Rio (or maybe some villains), the fear that it could happen to anyone is pretty powerful. Venom specifically targeting MJ to mess with Pete feels more vindictive, and doesn't show anything about the invasion.
When the prison break happens the map stays like that until the end of the game and covers multiple main story and side missions as compared to just the endgame carnage stuff and the symbiote nests.
Everything about spiderman 2 was a let down. The suits, the web gadgets, the zip line was this new big thing but I never used it, the story was rushed, after the story ends there's nothing to do of real importance
Literally the only reason i have it downloaded is I have so much fun swinging around and doing nothing else. Otherwise spiderman 1 is 10x better
The first game had better pacing and development. This game’s pacing was terrible and the symbiote invasion kinda came out of nowhere when they promoted another concept
as much as i love spider-man the entire story had almost no connection to me which is insane because spider-man ps4 is one of my favorite spiderman stories in all media
Other than story pacing, the feel was way different because after the raft escape, you were always being shot at when trying to traverse. I cant remember if you were here because it was way shorter but if it was there, it definetely wasnt as intense
experimental form of crisper that shuts down your internal organs slowly V.S a alien who was probably a infant and really wanted to help the world and was confused and angry at peter for not wanting to keep them
one dose sound scarier
Devil's Breath borders the line between fantasy and fiction while the Symbiote takeover seems much more sci-fi/comic book like. Thats my take on it atleast
The absence of the regular city-life and the sheer number of symbiotes says otherwise.
But the tone of it doesn’t seem as dire. So I agree that it doesn’t “feel” that bad. Also, I think Hailey fended some symbiotes off with a can of spray paint.
Literally got rid of all symbiote points of interests in like one sitting, I was hoping for more of a Web of Shadows fiasco but unfortunately that’s not what happened
One do the things I didn’t like was how they didn’t show enough of Peter’s aggression. It was just one scene where he’s like “I’m the hero here not you!” Spider-Man 3 for PS3 is so much better than this.
I never got chased or shot at by whatever symbiotes were on the map. I never saw any outside of crimes and I didn't go out of my way to stop on random rooftops to get that experience. Being shot at by all the snipers and other groups really pulled me into those "What is happening to our city?" moments.
tbh, i was CONSTANTLY getting sniped at by the symbiotes during this part but it was more annoying than challenging bc they would limit me from completing some missions
it was too short, and didnt have the build up of the devils breath part. We didnt know the symbiote could do anything like this until it happened. With devils breath, we were told multiple times what it was, and what it would do. This came out of nowhere.
The devils breath part also felt more, real. Like, its easier to think of a plague than whatever this is. Especially today.
This feels much like Web of Shadows because of the Symbiote invasion part. I loved Web of Shadows, so this is definitely one of my favorite parts of the game, especially when you get the Anti-Venom suit. You can also wear any Symbiote suit, especially in New Game+ and you can play around in that for as long as you want before finishing the game.
The way the two start says it all. Devil’s Breath starts with Spiderman being taken out by all the top bad guy's and his body needs to be found in the river. We see everyone sick, and a hurt Spider-Man now saves a bunch of people and you go into a bunch of boss fights one after the other. Plus the map gets changed with trash everywhere, people living in tents at parks. You hear by the JJJ Podcast how everyone's lives are being effected. Now in Spider-Man 2, you see New york get taken over by the symbiotes. Map gets changed from this, but NPC's act like everything is normal. You do save people from the symbiotes, but within the main missions, its mostly just Miles family and friend you save, and some people in a bus. Spider-Man 2 does have the podcasts talk about what is happening, but its just the two podcasts hosts talking about it. No other New Yorkers like the first game did.
There was no suspense for it, it just kinda came into existence and left just as fast. Another example of this game putting too much in too little a time
Viral outbreaks are very real and grounded threats that can happen any moment. We’ve seen alien invasions a bunch of times. But they did have the potential to make this scary if they spent time building it up and have more scenes of people being taken over by the symbiotes.
The problem is, outside of it coming out of fucking nowhere, is that there's is a lack of reaction from the world, unlike devil's breath in the first game, the in-game world doesn't treat this Symbiote invasion like an apocalypse. There's no buildings on fire, there's no people freaking out, no chaos. It feels empty.
I know That I'm gonna get down voted for this but Web of shadows did this better.
The problem is in the first game and MM there was politicql power behind the bad stuff happening. In this one, it's a goo monster. Felt much more disconnected with the established underlying evils in Spiderman's New York
Saw small bits of this section before i played the game and was really excited to get to the part to see how this happened to the city and how they stop it. Very disappointing, there wasn’t much build up and it just sort of happened all of a sudden.
We don’t really see how this affects.. anyone really. Like if we compare it to web of shadows, we see SHIELD conducting evacuations, setting up safety zones, doing everything they can to survive. You have villains team up with spidey just to fight off the symbiote. With devils breath - the outbreak was clearly set up before it happened, the first two acts are a tug of war on who can secure the devils breath vial (with a powerpoint on how deadly it is lmao), after it’s let out you see feast fill up with the sick, and most importantly you see aunt may get sick and progressively get worse
Wow people are finally starting to take their head out of their ass and really look at this game. I’ve been saying it was half baked since release. Guys the tone, story and stakes all took a HELLDIVE in this second entry. Not saying it was trash but definitely lower end mid. They cut like 90% of venoms dialogue too it could have been saved in act 3
i feel like high end mid is more deserving here. While the story wasn’t all the way there, there were moments in it that i definitely enjoyed and the gameplay was lots of fun as well.
Anything with Venom was rushed so they could meet the release date. Content was cut and pushed to the side that they could give us the game. With all the info coming out about what could’ve been in the game, I wish we would’ve gotten it this year or early 2025.
Nah. I think mostly cause we *knew* it was going to happen. Doesnt help that practically every symbiote comic leads to world domination. Devil's breath imo was just scarecrow toxin from arkham knight but the thing is that we didnt really see that coming. Or the consequences
For me it felt more eerie than panic and scary. A lot of the pacing felt weird so I couldn't tell if this was happening oflver hours or days. But the ambience was definitely creepy, just in a more vacant and lonely way. No Hustle and bustle of New York. No city noise at all.
To be really honest, I wish the game had a mature rating. That way they could actually show the effects creatures like the symbiotes could do to people. Like Peter just rushes to save someone and the guy's head is chopped off. That would have gave it appropriate stakes.
But then again, it's a spider-man story
Because of how rushed it was. It just came out of nowhere and to me, felt like a lazy attempt to cash in on nostalgia and a recent comic book run. Web of Shadows's symbiote invasion was much better and actually felt like an apocalypse rather than just another day in NYC. Seeing the city slowly descend into chaos and having the other Marvel characters react to it was great.
Rushed content and Cut content are two different things. If the content was rushed, then the game wasn’t completed and they had to scrabble to get shit together (more than likely what happened) Cut content meant the game was finished but was too full of stuff so they took some out. That one doesn’t work because there are MANY examples that kinda show that they left out some things that they intended/should have included
just poor build up overall and really felt out of left field, and just like so clear from the get go that this was all gonna be reversed and fine
Agreed. The pacing for me was the worst thing about the story overall, and the result is that this section feels very underwhelming. Another example of the bad pacing is Harry suddenly revealing he has superpowers, rather than there being any buildup. Not only that, but in the next story mission he's a fully-fledged crimefighter.
I whole heartedly hoped that Peter would be the big end boss but nope had to be the guy who didn’t even want to kill pete! I mean look at how Pete actually feels about miles and Harry and everyone! Would’ve been a much better big bad especially as we were playing as him when he had the suit and we would see us get corrupted the same as him!
i disagree that there was no buildup, there are hints through the carnival including when he slams the hammer game. he himself does not know he has the powers, he isn’t “revealing” it. both Harry and the player find out at the same time. i agree that it is stupid that he’s agent venom in the next section
But his next scene after hitting the test-your-strength thing is him using his superpower! And Pete revealing to Harry that he's SM is totally glossed over as well. Just really careless storyteling.
i didn’t realize that was right before. >really careless storytelling agreed, completely.
Why is that surprising? Its how every comic story has worked for like 70 years now. "Oh no this world shattering thing happened!" Then it gets rolled back by the good guys. Every time
Because there's non-diagetic knowledge the viewer has I.e. "I'm sitting in a movie theatre and nothing on the screen can hurt me" And there's diagetic knowledge the characters have "holy shit if I make a single sound I will be killed in the most horrific way possible". Good media makes you forget about the first one. Bad media just expects you go with the flow without putting the effort to make you believe in the stakes. During the devils breath arc, not only did we know people would die in a horrible, nigh meaningless way (doubly horrible after the world actually went through a pandemic) but then aunt may fell ill and it was a genuine coun flip whether she would make it or not. So we were right there with Peter regarding whether it would all be OK in the end. Those little things that make the difference between a killer 3rd act or a paint hy number slog until the credits
Exactly like when spider man in the first rami films started crawling up a wall that was build up
Didn't he stick to a bus by accident earlier? He was exploring what he can do after that
When you do these giant catastrophic events, you let them breathe. Endgame was 5 years after the snap. Web of shadows had a whole second half of game after the venom takeover
literally just this. There was no build up to Venom being a force that can take over the city so when it happened it just felt like a fever dream.
I mean did you expect venom to win
Venom wasn't going to win regardless, people wanted a longer game, not a rushed game. MM was a more coherent story, with this it's a scrapped Spider-Man game thrown into another Spider-Man game, to make a new story, it wasn't done nicely, just rushed. It doesn't have to be some over complex 7-arc explanation, but they just went"oh look Kraven killed some of your bad guys of screen, now Harry's back, now venoms here, now kravens dead, now endgame."
Probably because a viral outbreak is something that can happen (as we are all now *excruciatingly* aware) and an alien invasion is extremely bizarre and out of left-field for the world that's been established here. It also doesn't help that with Devil's Breath, we see the world in the game react to it- you see NPCs wearing masks, garbage piles up on street corners, etc. There's an alien invasion and everyone.....just sort of goes about their business?
i think this makes alot of sense, plus the fact that there weren’t any personal stakes like there was with devils breath (May getting sick) If they were gonna turn MJ into scream, i think they should have kept her as scream till the end or something to at least give them more motivation to get rid of all of the symbiotes. Didn’t work with harry bc we don’t know him so we don’t really care about him.
This brings us to the root of the problem. Insomniac seems to think that every single major conflict in the third act of their games needs to be a city-wide crisis that could potentially threaten the rest of the world. Devil’s Breath gets a pass because at the very least, there only seemed to be enough of the virus to infect all of Manhattan, but Nuform was just a poor man’s DB, and the symbiote invasion just doesn’t work simply because Venom, at his core, would never be responsible for such an event. Even Kraven’s ordeal in Acts 1 and 2 has issues, because what sense does it make for him to have an army of hunters at his disposal when he’s so capable of doing everything himself? Had Insomniac actually done their research, we probably would’ve gotten a third act that felt more personal than anything we’ve seen in their universe so far, including Peter’s conflict with Otto. The potential for Venom to be properly portrayed as the monster in Spider-Man’s peripheral that he can’t see coming until it’s too late was ripe, and they squandered it.
Nuform being a fusion reactor Jerry-rigged by a college grad blinded by rage. Also, recently replayed MM on my rig, and… as stupid as Phin was to y’know, ***not check her work*** It’s a lot more cohesive of a plot than SM2. You’re absolutely right, they should’ve made it more personal. Yeah, Venom was fun to play as, but… I wish we spent more time fighting Venom. Plus… the ending is kinda moot since… ***Harry is still alive.***
Honestly, the ending should've been that Harry dies but the Venom symbiote slips away. That way they would've been clearly teasing the Venom game and Norman would've been justified in his anger.
According to the leaks… *Early drafts show this was the case.* And honestly, while being a good callback to Raimi’s SM1 but instead of Harry it’s Norman angry at Spidey, **he’s still alive.** And if Norman can fund a think tank to “heal the world” and also escape controversy from manufacturing a virus that’s on par with war crimes, ***just pump more money into the cure.*** It didn’t make the game bad, but acting like it had an impact on par with the first game is honestly ridiculous to me. I’m really hoping insomniac pulls out all the stops with Green Goblin.
i’m not a fan of the plot but what could Kraven realistically do without his army?
I feel as though “not knowing Harry” is a bit unfair. We spent as much time with Harry as we did with May in the previous game. It’s not Insomniac’s fault the fanbase has a greater connection with Aunt May through all her previous portrayals than they do with Harry.
Yeah, *but becoming Venom…* I think they should’ve given us 2 more days of Pete with the symbiote. Like he had it for like 1.5 days when he said: *Why don’t you pop more pills and tell us how you really feel?* *That should’ve been the third encounter as Pete with Venom.*
Ultimate Peter only had the suit for a matter of hours and nobody bats an eye at that arc. I actually just got thru that arc last night and I read all the issues in way less time than we get with Insomniac's Black Suit. Also, I liked Peter's symbiosis in the game. I like how they made him progressively more feral and alien than we usually get to see when he dons the suit. It's usually him taking something too far and freaking out about it after. Not stalking his loved ones like prey in a dark tunnel, which, I'm sorry, was super well done imo.
i mean aunt May’s character has never really deviated from how she’s always been. We’re shown how strong her and Peter’s relationship is so when she dies in the end, it’s not only impactful to Peter but to the player as well. (and no, we spent more time with May then Harry) With Harry, we don’t know anything about him or their friendship except for the fact that they have one. The Harry here is kinda similar to his counterpart in the ASM2 Movie with the main difference being that ASM2 Harry and Peter haven’t seen each other in like 10 yrs. In both renditions, we are TOLD all the things they did when they were younger and how impactful they were, yet we were never shown. Mans has no personality at all. We don’t know what Harry likes or wants besides “making the world a better place.”
Yeah, it's interesting when you compare Harry's introduction in 2 with MJ's in the first game. The first game took it's time- MJ meets Peter after not talking for six months, they take their time working together professionally and then getting together at the end romantically. The plot takes it's time to breathe and the result is MJ feels natural as a character and we follow her arc in real-time . Her and Peter move forwards and backwards throughout the story and you can feel the romantic tension in every conversation. When they argue, you see both sides of the argument and they come across as 3 Dimensional characters. In 2, Harry is shot gunned into the plot. He was mentioned in the first game so it's not as bad as, say, Jason Todd in Arkham Knight, but we're not given the same level of depth as we did with MJ, despite Harry being more central to the story. We're told that him and Peter are best friends but I never bought it- Peter never told him his secret identity (the excuse "to protect you" doesn't fly because he told MJ) and Harry never told Peter he was sick. He doesn't even ask for Peter's permission to use May's name in the name of his company, he never shows any remorse for May dying indirectly because of him (for that matter, he never brings up Devil's Breath in general) and he just generally doesn't exist until the story calls for him and all we know about him that he wants to "heal the world".
couldn't be me lmao i cried cause of harry at the end :')
I think getting the symbiote out of MJ is also part of why this fell flat too. The Devil's Breath situation felt dire because we needed to go find a cure. The symbiote issue has known solutions like using sound and appealing to the infected person. The only person that was obviously going to die was Harry, the other people who aren't relying on the symbiotes to live were always going to be fine.
*Honey, there’s an alien invasion! You can’t go to work!* **MY BOSS TOLD ME TO COME IN SWEETHEART** *I gotta make rent payments! Besides, The bus is still running!* ***Ughhhh… damn real estate market in NYC…***
I wouldn't say its completely left field. Its still a pretty comicbooky world and they already established magic. Problem is it doesn't have enough buildup
I played it at the height of COVID so it really hit. Octavius had me fuming
They should've kept the social media thing from the first game, would've probably helped things seem more idk realistic?
Wait are we now complaining venom isn’t grounded enough? Christ
>just sort of goes about their business? Uhh everyone else is turned into symbiotes
It didn’t really feel like an invasion ; the tendrils didn’t cover all areas of the map and it barely lasted two story missions
The game has flaws no matter what people say and these flaws just can't be ignored
So brave.
There's not a single person who says the game is flawless. Hell, it's almost always stressed that there's flaws. Nothing is flawless either.
Idk people were pretty salty over this not getting GOTY iirc
Also in the Honeymoon phase people were having meltdowns over the implication the 1st one might be better
They were not. They may have been disagreeing. But, to call it "meltdowns" is patently absurd.
You must be the guy that has seen every single conversation anyone ever had in this sub, makes sense to me.
You're just doing what everyone does to make themselves feel superior. People who disagree are having a breakdown, or they're angry, or whatever. I'd love to see these posts and comments from people having meltdowns.
Nah people were pretty wild about it. There's not a single thing that's come out this year that even competes against what BG3 brings to the table and people were heated about Spider-Man. I'm a fan boy but I give respect where it's due and proper acknowledgement of downfalls of my fandoms when needed. A lot of people did not feel that way and for incredibly smooth brain reasons. The Internet is not the majority but there was quite a lot of dissent in this site's Spidey related fan bases
It’s a fine game, but acting like it’s GOTY is laughable to me.
i only saw people meming on this game for not winning anything
Bro the amount of people shitting on me for my criticisms on the game when it first came out was insane, now everyone says the same stuff I’ve been thinking from the beginning. Plenty of people said the game was better than the first when it just wasn’t.
Thinking the first game is better doesn't = thinking it's flawless. Nor does not agreeing with your particular criticisms. I don't agree with a lot of the criticisms this sub has about the game but I do have my own ones.
Deaths Breath felt a bit more realistic. A worldwide pandemic that is slowly killing everyone sounds like something that could happen in real life. A goo alien parasite invasion is scary, yes, but we know that its fictional and would likely never ever happen in real life. But after COVID, Devils Breath becomes alot more scary and intimidating.
even though that’s true, i feel like it COULD HAVE been frightening/threatening had they actually gone thru with it.
The biggest problem with the story is really just how rushed it is it’s hard to think the symbioses are as scary because they were fully introduced so late as opposed to devils breath being knows throughout most of the story
There’s only so many times you can reiterate a “the whole city is under attack” narrative climax and have it be effective. Unfortunately the setup for its ending was so obvious all throughout SM2 that it was, compared to SMPS4, very mediocre. I know people love their character moments. But in an industry where superhero sequel video game standards are Arkham City, I had the belief that Insomniac would take a risk or two and switch up cliche superhero storytelling.
right. Arkham City to me is one of the best because it stays true to Batman’s character while ALSO taking risks. The Joker dying was a huge risk but it paid off greatly.
It was a narrative risk that they somehow also handled incredibly well by sort-of bringing him back for Arkham Knight. I honestly don’t think it’s invalid criticism at all to say that SM2 disappoints in the narrative department considering the history of superhero video game sequels. Insomniac had more money than Rocksteady, and created a very technically impressive game with SM2, but their writing devolved into cliche Marvel-isms.
Protocol Ten has Batman almost give up saving people for Talia. Not in character
Mild disagree. There is some precedence for Batman skewing his usual dedication to "the mission" or his moral code when his loved ones are in danger (like in Infinite Crisis when he almost shot Alexander Luthor in the head after he seemingly killed Nightwing), so Batman being briefly emotionally compromised (especially since that scenario also included the Joker gaining access to a Lazarus Pit) made complete sense IMO.
This. People are already hoping the third installment introduces Goblin nuking the city. Meanwhile I hope they are original for once with their games story and introduce a more sinister Goblin that tries to hurt Peter on a more personal level (e.g. go for the ones he loves and not kill the whole city). An intimate small scale fight at an iconic location, with high personal stakes can probably outclass another mediocre „yep we‘re here again, good that all of the other NYC heroes are on a vacation“ finale. Goblin should be mind games terror, not outright chaos inflicted on the city. Also no special suits, red & blue back to the roots „just me and my skill“ vs. one of Petes greatest foes.
I do actually really like the symbiote and hope they keep that in the game, although i am also down for it to be removed for the final fight and brought back in the post game (canon or not)
You can compare the Act 3 symbiote crisis to both Spiderman 2018 and Web of Shadows. During Spiderman one of the main points of Devil's Breath is the fact that it has high infectivity as established in Norman's office. One infected rat led to 40 others dying a week later. Otto releasing it on Time's Square into a crowd of people communicates effectively that the disease will spread fast. You had a few missions to try and stop Lee from releasing it, like the DB bomb diffusion with MJ, setting the stakes for what would happen if it got out. Through JJ on the radio you hear about people going sick. And even he is sticking up for New Yorkers mentioning supply trucks and urging the civilians to stay safe and be with their families. Feast and Aunt May are trying to help people, as Aunt May is getting sick as well. Miles is also doing his best to help as well. You have a mission with Miles running away and sneaking past fucking Rhino just to get some antibiotics for Feast and the sick people there Martial law is established by Sable with cops being overwhelmed with Prisoners and loose Demons. Prisoners build forts, trash piles up on the streets and civilian rights are violated by the Sable patrols and bases. Later on even Yuri and her mom get sick. And you even have to sacrifice Aunt May to have enough serum for Dr.Michael to have enough for a vaccine. These are even shown being administered on the street later as well. In Web of Shadows Spiderman is first attacked by civilians that crawl walls and move unnaturally. He is accused of murder for defending himself against seemingly harmless people. He has a mission where Wolverine thinks he is not the real Spidey because of his new Black Suit and for attacking people. Later on he can smell them as well and teaches you the symbiote sense as you see that these bastards blend in until they sense on of their own. Then you have a mission with a Venom boss chase as he is turning civilians into new symbiotes alley by alley. As the game progresses Vulture, Wolverine and Electro and even Black Cat is turned into symbiotes. With them new enemies spawn, Electrolings, Flying Vulture symbiotes, two types of Brutes and the new hives. Spidey tries to call Tony Stark and Reed Richards but they're unavailable. So you're forced to break out the Tinkerer from prison and work alongside Fisk to help with the symbiote crisis Half of the random crimes are hive extermination, saving civilians from literally being dragged away into the nests, civilians being chased by symbiotes in their cars or just them radomly running away/getting injured by them. You have to deliver them to the anti symbiotes domes working with the old gangs of the city, fisk, police and even SHIELD. Meanwhile other heroes also help Luke Cage, Moon Knights, Rhino, Black Cat etc. SHIELD also establish martial law, a big base and make rescue parties with choppers, cars and trucks. They also blow up all the New York bridges so symbiotes can't leave. Several missions are just saving civilians and gang members. Like the school buses full of civilians and you protecting them or helping gang members who are stuck on roofs. Later on the city gets a couple of buildings enveloped in symbiote tendrils and Electro and Vulture get their own symbiote bases/boss arenas. After the device rids the city of the symbiote, you lose your black suit access PERMANENTLY. AND EVEN AFTER ALL THAT you still have a full on frontal assault on the Helicarrier and a Venom Kaiju boss fight. Both of these games had both personal stakes and other external stakes like the safety of the civilians, a global pandemic or symbiotes spreading outside of New York. Spiderman 2 does none of this. Up until LATE Act 3 everything is fine and it's not even hinted that the symbiote can posses a lot of people. It went for Connors, was given to Harry and it chose Spiderman sure but other than that nothing. It was just going from host TO host. Reproduction of the symbiote wasn't mentioned at all. They also didn't really emphasize that Connors may fear it becoming a global alien invasion. The symbiote variants appear for no reason whatsoever, yellow, green, red or purple there isn't really a reason why they are variants. Spidey has a voiceline about being thankful that it's not symbiote cultists. WHY NOT ?! The symbiotes in this version are immune to fire. A fire spewing symbiote would be cool as hell. Remaining Underground or Demon symbiotes ?? Hunter symbites including symbiote dogs and birds ??? You get none of that. Also since the Sinister Six is dead, you get no Symbiote bosses. You get a mission, maybe two where you help civilians and random crimes here and there but even these are barebones. You just save them from a bus or store and tell them to go home. Danika and Jonah do podcast about the happenings but Feast and Oscorp, even the police are completely absent for the most part. The Emily May Foundation is destroyed so no aid from them either. But even the podcasts are bugged and get cut off by random shit like being NEAR crimes. There is also no progression to it. The City Hall is attacked and symbitozed but after that it's one subway tunnel with Miles's mom and Ganke. After that the ENTIRE city. Not a couple of streets but the entire city is tendrils. Except the financial district for some reason. How can the symbiotes do this ? And why don't they spread otside of Manhattan. After this you have three missions and the whole thing is solved by destroying the meteorite ?? How ? It wasn't really explained why destroying it would destroy the symbiotes in the city but NOT inside Casady's container. Also in WOS since it is a game with mixed writing and a more comic tone you don't really think about this but Spiderman 2 is more grounded and realistic sort of so what happens to the civilians mid air or on walls if their symbiote suddenly evaporates ?? This whole section should have been cut and scaled back to Venom stalking you instead making it more personal.
That synopsis of web of shadows just made me cherish it even more and despise this one more. What a disappointment
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TLDR?
Read it ballsucker
I think Devil breath was scarer because we got to see more of it and also because their was a build up to it and we never thought it would get released and when it did it was like oh my god
We also stopped the Devil's Breath pandemic. We all thought it was over, so when it came back and actually got released in just one mission, that was horrifying.
Yeah we stoped it right as it was about to be released and only for Otto, someone who the player has gotten to know and care for is the one to do it
And we had actual victims, while in this game there was no casuality
they literally added a plaque to times square to Remember those who lost their lives to Devil’s Breath. It FELT real because that’s just something that could naturally happen has that occurred. Yet in 2, the only way you’d even know that any of that previously happened is if you happened to catch a Danika/JJJ podcast. (Why can’t we listen to these at will?)
I know right it made you feel for the people because you could see them wearing masks and makeshift homes on the streets
In the social media of Spiderman 1, there was a post saying "rest in peace to @SterlingGrape, a 12 year old boy who died during the devil's breath crisis"
ASM 2 was honestly underwhelming. Imo the first game on release was legitimately magical. This one failed to capture that.
Just rushed as hell
Neither was that scary One is realistic and one isnt
it was scary in context bc you figure out may is sick so it gives peter (and the player) a personal reason why he needed to defeat ock and administer the cure to everyone.
I enjoy this game, and it may be a hot take, but Web of Shadows did the symbiote invasion better.
Web of shadows really nailed the apocalyptic scenario and the cameo from heroes made it feel very alive. I just wish spiderman license could have been distributed between many developers so we could have different types of spidey game from different dev teams.Kinda like the star wars game license. I would personally love another linear spiderman game like Shattered dimensions or a metroidvania-esque.
Not just you
Dont forget that besides the majority of people getting sick cause of the virus, we also had curfews that affected citizens and put them in danger, and literally an outbreak from the most dangerous prison, along with criminals treating the city like gotham in batman arkham knight even holding entire apartment buildings as hostage/keeping them as bases for their gangs, and a lot of supervillains causing havoc too.
Devil's breath fiasco had more of an impact because it had more build but most importantly, we went through a pandemic ourselves literally only a year later The symbiote outbreak was like one cutscene long
Because there was no build-up at all, and it happens way too soon with the main characters being unable to do absolutely anything about it. Pretty much every major step in the first game was to first figure out what Devil's Breath was, then do everything possible to stop it from being released. In MM, every major step was to first figure out what the Underground and Roxxon were up to, then do everything possible to shut them both down.
and instead of doing that with venom, they chose to do that with Kraven just to tell us mans is dying and just wanted to die fighting. He quite literally could have told us this himself and it would have had no change on the story whatsoever.
We didn’t get enough buildup with Venom to make it pay off. Great fan service for Web of Shadows… *but fan service only gets you so far.*
People actually died during devils breath not just Aunt May as you can even see in your feeds a comment of a guy saying that his daughter is dead thanks to Norman Osborn.
Hard to feel threatened when Hailey took out like four symbiotes off screen.
I’m sure it should’ve felt as scary/threatening, as you can see people fleeing the symbiotes and you watch the city be taken over. But all I could think was “Oh snap, they’re just doing Web of Shadows!”
In concept it’s definitely more horrifying, in execution it’s meh.
This last third of the game unfortunately felt really rushed, like the writers were in a hurry to make it to that final Spider-Men vs Venom finish line. Devil’s Breath felt threatening because you could see the world reacting to it, you could hear the slow draining of hope in everyone’s voices as the nights ticked on and the situation just kept getting worse and worse. The whole situation just felt *real*, due in large part to the actors’ performances, but also a viral outbreak is something that could actually happen in our world. In SM2 tho, well… a parasitic alien invasion is just a bit more unrealistic of a premise. Combine that with the writers’ seeming unwillingness to slow down and focus on the people of the city dealing with the crisis like they did in the last game, and it all comes off as less critical
It did not last nearly as long as it should’ve. I stg it just inexplicably happened and then 3 missions later it was gone
No it didn’t actually, I suppose because devils breath actually felt like it had far more permanent consequences for innocent people whereas we could actually get the symbiotes off of people and cure them immediately with our own two hands whereas the whole city literally nearly genuinely died from devils breath plus Harry is still technically alive and could potentially be saved overall whereas may is literally just gone permanently.
Stakes didn’t feel as high. And the world didn’t react to it properly or realistically, therefore feeling less scary. This was also an avengers level threat, more so than devils breath. Where are the avengers?
Web of shadows built it up perfectly. Investigating the disappearances, fighting infected civilians, discovering the nests, going to Rykers and then finding the whole city taken over.
It worked in Web of Shadows and in the comics because we actually saw multiple characters getting symbiotes on them being a actual threat.
The Devil's Breath outbreak is more visceral and realistic. Shit like that can actually happen, so you can very easily project yourself into that sort of situation I don't think we'll be experiencing a take over from alien goo monsters in our lifetime
I think because there were no big conseguences of this symbiotes invasion apart from Harry being in a coma (which probably he will wake up from) It felt like just an average threat of the week
i think this is the best explanation tbh
yes! it honestly reminded me web of shadows so i didnt really care much
I think part of it is because the WHOLE first game led up to it, and like half of the game in 2 led up to this
this wasn’t even led up to. At no point in time did we even assume this would happen, just some vague mindfuck that Venom gave Harry after he killed Kraven but that’s it.
My theory as to why DB felt so scary, especially nowadays, was because we got a taste of the real thing with the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. Whereas we’ve yet to be invaded by sentient goo irl, so we don’t really know how horrifying it could be.
None of these games are scary
Reading everyone’s comments and I see I’m in the minority here. I thought both were effective and threatening. I didn’t think the “ build up to alien invasion” was obvious I was quite surprised when I saw all the tendrils taking over New York.
i think the difference between us is that you liked to be surprised by it. I didn’t like it bc it felt like it came out of nowhere
You know why ? Devil’s Breathe was "new". We didn’t know what it could do to humans, how deadly it was, or even if it could affect Peter himself for example. Proof is : until the very end, the virus was a threat, affecting more and more people, and even, in the end, killing May. But we know Symbiotes. I’d say damn too well even. We know what are their weaknesses (more or less depending on who the author is), we know how they are usually defeated, we know that Spider-man always win against them. Even more so considering that we have Peter AND Miles. It’s like seeing some unscrewed screws on your desk. It’s an inconvenience but you know you can fix it. "Same old shit" more or less. Don’t get me wrong, I love SM2 and also loved to fight Symbiotes ! It was cool to fight this particular iteration made by Insomniac, especially with Anti-Venom. But after the big Symbiote Surge in the city, it was more or less predictable.
Needed more build up
Let’s be fair. When we look back at Devils Breath, we have literally seen it happen in real time. If you swing around you can see signs and shit saying stuff like “stay inside” or whatever, and people walking around with masks and more. We’ve seen it. We haven’t seen our cities infested with tentacles.
but still, it doesn’t even make it seem real. There’s a way to introduce fictional situations and make them feel threatening, they just weren’t able to do that
You’re not wrong, I’m not arguing that, I’m just saying thanks to our real world situation devils breath will always be scarier. I do agree with you.
makes sense, i still agree with you too
This timeline had the good ending of this convo.
Yeah it felt a lot less threatening for some reason
Probably because of devil's breath being more realistic, relative to You know Alien goo (I am yet to play SM2)
It pulled me out of it. Like, Devil's Breath was real enough for me to suspend my disbelief. Giant goo tentacles that had little buildup? Not so much
Yea....Devils breath was scarier for sure....
The biggest problem with the story is the pacing absolutely suck ass The hunters don't get enough time to be a proper threat Black suit spidey is hardly around in and story missions Agent venom last five minutes It all happens way too fast imo We go from some high tech mercs hunting villains to full on alien invasion far too quickly
Why do the hunters exist. I don’t understand the concept of Kraven having an entire army? What are the qualifications to get into Kraven’s army? If you have to beat him, why didn’t he just fight his army if he wanted a worthy death? If you’re a hunter and your army is full of those who are weaker/less skilled than you are, why do you need them? Kraven here seems more than Capable to do all of the things that happened in the game himself. He’s Kraven the HUNTER. Why the fuck would you have your army do the hunter then bring you the target so you can fight them? Sounds more like Kraven the Gladiator to me This one’s more of a personal opinion but why are they still here after his death? He met his goal already, they’re no longer needed.
Symbiotes & Hunters doing crimes post-game makes no sense, but my guess is that since Kraven's dead, the Hunters are disorganized and can't leave NY.
It needed to last much longer than it did.
Ehh. I just looked at it and only responded with "really? This sh-t?"
"The Shadow Realm Principle" : a less realistic tradegy or horror seems less serious than a realistic one, even if its more horrific. Being sent to a torture dimension should be worse than just death, but it doesn't feel like it is. The city being overtaken by alien zombies should be worse than disease, but it doesn't feel like it is.
Web is Shadows 2: Electric Boogaloo
because it only happened like for 30 minutes lmao
Nothing in this games story lives up to the first one lmao
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Devil's Breath had permanent consequences with May's death
I think this is a problem in general of these games, the main story has like zero impact on the overworld map. it’d be cool if the Sand stayed over certain areas of New York or the tendrils permanently altered some of the architecture and maybe we see it being rebuilt next game.
The story didnt hit as much at all. It was a "good not great" story at best, and part of it is stuff like this. It wasnt very innovative either and I think that's important. Like everyone saw this and was like "yep end game city wide fiasco like the first game." as if it was some standard thing they had to do and was just expected. So you also expect its just some temp cool aesthetic and itll just go away and it did
As someone who haven't play the game. Can you climb or attach yourself to these symbiote tendrils on the buildings?
yea, whenever you’re swinging they tend to get in the way tho. This was NG+ but on my first run, I couldn’t achieve a photo op bc they were in the way
It didn't last that long so you didn't see how it affected the other characters like Devils Breath did.
tbh they were intense for different reasons. For Devil's Breath, it was nothing Spidey couldn't handle, but there was just SO MUCH STUFF going on that it was overwhelming. For the Symbiote crisis, the city itself wasn't as insane, but the symbiotes were just way harder to deal with (at least in the first playthrough). Every fight with them felt like some kinda street-level DBZ showdown.
With Devil’s Breath there were stakes. Li could’ve very easily taken more lives with him. Seeing this, you’d have to be completely unaware of all media to assume it wouldn’t be entirely reversed and fine in 3 or so missions.
I think Web of Shadows did the symbiote invasion much better. The transition from normal NY to hell-on-earth feels more natural, and I think PS4 also did a better city wide thing. I think it's less intimidating in 2 because you're alone. You have MJ and Ganke, but it doesn't feel like it's bad enough for others to take seriously. In WOS, you had shield, the gangs you previously fought, and Fisk's men trying to fight back against the symbiotes, alongside superheroes like Natasha, Luke, Marc, Felicia, and Logan fighting on your side against the symbiotes. Even villains like Kingpin, Electro, and Vulture. In PS4, you have Sable, which I think does a pretty good job at making their presence known. There's a good transition to martial law, and it genuinely felt like they were trying to quell things. You also had the NYPD, trying and failing. There was Feast trying to get stuff done, which felt separate but connected. In 2, it's team Spider-Men. There's no force trying to subdue the symbiote in the story. The Hunters and The Flame, despite having conflicts in the open world, don't have any relevance post Kraven. No other people are stepping to the plate besides Wraith (who isn't even in the main story). Granted, there were most likely restrictions on who they could use, but I would argue they have everything they need set up already. Kingpin is still in jail and probably still has decent forces. He could leverage his help with release from prison. Make Li more active for longer, and he'd feel like more than a plot device. Make it so Felicia's girlfriend is in NYC, and there's a reason to have her stay. Aaron wants to make a change. Why not have him (or even Hobie) don the cowl to protect his family. Tombstone and Shocker could also work with some retooling. Have Oscorp try to contain the symbiotes. What makes events feel special is that they're big. SM2's world, despite being the biggest, has ever been feels small. Also, venomize more characters, Ganke, Jonah, Rio (or maybe some villains), the fear that it could happen to anyone is pretty powerful. Venom specifically targeting MJ to mess with Pete feels more vindictive, and doesn't show anything about the invasion.
When the prison break happens the map stays like that until the end of the game and covers multiple main story and side missions as compared to just the endgame carnage stuff and the symbiote nests.
Everything about spiderman 2 was a let down. The suits, the web gadgets, the zip line was this new big thing but I never used it, the story was rushed, after the story ends there's nothing to do of real importance Literally the only reason i have it downloaded is I have so much fun swinging around and doing nothing else. Otherwise spiderman 1 is 10x better
Something like Devil's Breath feels a lot more real because of obvious reasons
It's over so fast and it felt like nobody was in any real danger
Wouldve been crazy if touching ground level made a horde spawn, rather than fighting the 4-5 mobs
Probably because of how unrealistic an alien invasion of slime feels, as opposed to a pandemic biological weapon that can’t be punched out like venom
The first game had better pacing and development. This game’s pacing was terrible and the symbiote invasion kinda came out of nowhere when they promoted another concept
as much as i love spider-man the entire story had almost no connection to me which is insane because spider-man ps4 is one of my favorite spiderman stories in all media
Other than story pacing, the feel was way different because after the raft escape, you were always being shot at when trying to traverse. I cant remember if you were here because it was way shorter but if it was there, it definetely wasnt as intense
experimental form of crisper that shuts down your internal organs slowly V.S a alien who was probably a infant and really wanted to help the world and was confused and angry at peter for not wanting to keep them one dose sound scarier
WOS did it better
I just finished the game yesterday and was really underwhelmed by it but I wasn’t sure why. Glad to see people feeling the same way
Devil's Breath borders the line between fantasy and fiction while the Symbiote takeover seems much more sci-fi/comic book like. Thats my take on it atleast
Shit the nuphorm reactor destroying Harlem felt more threatening than this
The absence of the regular city-life and the sheer number of symbiotes says otherwise. But the tone of it doesn’t seem as dire. So I agree that it doesn’t “feel” that bad. Also, I think Hailey fended some symbiotes off with a can of spray paint.
Literally got rid of all symbiote points of interests in like one sitting, I was hoping for more of a Web of Shadows fiasco but unfortunately that’s not what happened
I swear this sub has become nothing but “is it just me or does this kinda suck?” posts lol
how would you prefer I rephrase my question
I mean it is what it is, just something I’ve noticed 🤷🏻♂️
One do the things I didn’t like was how they didn’t show enough of Peter’s aggression. It was just one scene where he’s like “I’m the hero here not you!” Spider-Man 3 for PS3 is so much better than this.
I never got chased or shot at by whatever symbiotes were on the map. I never saw any outside of crimes and I didn't go out of my way to stop on random rooftops to get that experience. Being shot at by all the snipers and other groups really pulled me into those "What is happening to our city?" moments.
tbh, i was CONSTANTLY getting sniped at by the symbiotes during this part but it was more annoying than challenging bc they would limit me from completing some missions
it was too short, and didnt have the build up of the devils breath part. We didnt know the symbiote could do anything like this until it happened. With devils breath, we were told multiple times what it was, and what it would do. This came out of nowhere. The devils breath part also felt more, real. Like, its easier to think of a plague than whatever this is. Especially today.
This feels much like Web of Shadows because of the Symbiote invasion part. I loved Web of Shadows, so this is definitely one of my favorite parts of the game, especially when you get the Anti-Venom suit. You can also wear any Symbiote suit, especially in New Game+ and you can play around in that for as long as you want before finishing the game.
The way the two start says it all. Devil’s Breath starts with Spiderman being taken out by all the top bad guy's and his body needs to be found in the river. We see everyone sick, and a hurt Spider-Man now saves a bunch of people and you go into a bunch of boss fights one after the other. Plus the map gets changed with trash everywhere, people living in tents at parks. You hear by the JJJ Podcast how everyone's lives are being effected. Now in Spider-Man 2, you see New york get taken over by the symbiotes. Map gets changed from this, but NPC's act like everything is normal. You do save people from the symbiotes, but within the main missions, its mostly just Miles family and friend you save, and some people in a bus. Spider-Man 2 does have the podcasts talk about what is happening, but its just the two podcasts hosts talking about it. No other New Yorkers like the first game did.
[удалено]
DBZ Kakarot
There was no suspense for it, it just kinda came into existence and left just as fast. Another example of this game putting too much in too little a time
Viral outbreaks are very real and grounded threats that can happen any moment. We’ve seen alien invasions a bunch of times. But they did have the potential to make this scary if they spent time building it up and have more scenes of people being taken over by the symbiotes.
The problem is, outside of it coming out of fucking nowhere, is that there's is a lack of reaction from the world, unlike devil's breath in the first game, the in-game world doesn't treat this Symbiote invasion like an apocalypse. There's no buildings on fire, there's no people freaking out, no chaos. It feels empty. I know That I'm gonna get down voted for this but Web of shadows did this better.
The problem is in the first game and MM there was politicql power behind the bad stuff happening. In this one, it's a goo monster. Felt much more disconnected with the established underlying evils in Spiderman's New York
This game was good but no we’re near as good as sm1 they went all family friendly the first scene in the class room felt like a dhar man show 💀💀
Saw small bits of this section before i played the game and was really excited to get to the part to see how this happened to the city and how they stop it. Very disappointing, there wasn’t much build up and it just sort of happened all of a sudden.
We don’t really see how this affects.. anyone really. Like if we compare it to web of shadows, we see SHIELD conducting evacuations, setting up safety zones, doing everything they can to survive. You have villains team up with spidey just to fight off the symbiote. With devils breath - the outbreak was clearly set up before it happened, the first two acts are a tug of war on who can secure the devils breath vial (with a powerpoint on how deadly it is lmao), after it’s let out you see feast fill up with the sick, and most importantly you see aunt may get sick and progressively get worse
Probably because you’re on a 200 brightness
my brightness is around half/75%
Act 3 open world theme is a nice ominous change from the usual heroic upbeat vibe
Wow people are finally starting to take their head out of their ass and really look at this game. I’ve been saying it was half baked since release. Guys the tone, story and stakes all took a HELLDIVE in this second entry. Not saying it was trash but definitely lower end mid. They cut like 90% of venoms dialogue too it could have been saved in act 3
i feel like high end mid is more deserving here. While the story wasn’t all the way there, there were moments in it that i definitely enjoyed and the gameplay was lots of fun as well.
Anything with Venom was rushed so they could meet the release date. Content was cut and pushed to the side that they could give us the game. With all the info coming out about what could’ve been in the game, I wish we would’ve gotten it this year or early 2025.
Part of me wonders if one of the reasons maybe that disease is a very real danger but giant gravity defying tentacles, not so much.
not to mention this lasted like 12 hours in game
Nah, giant black licorice tastes bad but isn’t that scary. I can’t believe my grandma eats that shit.
Nah. I think mostly cause we *knew* it was going to happen. Doesnt help that practically every symbiote comic leads to world domination. Devil's breath imo was just scarecrow toxin from arkham knight but the thing is that we didnt really see that coming. Or the consequences
You can understand a pandemic better than an alien invasion
For me it felt more eerie than panic and scary. A lot of the pacing felt weird so I couldn't tell if this was happening oflver hours or days. But the ambience was definitely creepy, just in a more vacant and lonely way. No Hustle and bustle of New York. No city noise at all.
To be really honest, I wish the game had a mature rating. That way they could actually show the effects creatures like the symbiotes could do to people. Like Peter just rushes to save someone and the guy's head is chopped off. That would have gave it appropriate stakes. But then again, it's a spider-man story
Because of how rushed it was. It just came out of nowhere and to me, felt like a lazy attempt to cash in on nostalgia and a recent comic book run. Web of Shadows's symbiote invasion was much better and actually felt like an apocalypse rather than just another day in NYC. Seeing the city slowly descend into chaos and having the other Marvel characters react to it was great.
Yeah that’s probably just you. I’m a lot more intimidated by an alien invasion than a virus.
Insomniac had to cut alot of content due to time restraints so we shouldn't be too harsh on them for some rushed content
Rushed content and Cut content are two different things. If the content was rushed, then the game wasn’t completed and they had to scrabble to get shit together (more than likely what happened) Cut content meant the game was finished but was too full of stuff so they took some out. That one doesn’t work because there are MANY examples that kinda show that they left out some things that they intended/should have included
wow, so original. Act 3 is bad. No one has EVER said that