0:11

Sure. Well, Hey, welcome everyone to another

0:14

episode of One Upsmanship. I am your

0:16

host, Adam Cancer, I'm your

0:18

other coffee drinking host, Michael Slam,

0:20

and I'm the third amigo. Srebooi

0:24

with a tall glass of water. That's this official

0:27

title. Now, Amigo, we have an amigo

0:29

here. Okay, little racist,

0:31

but all right, I'm the third

0:33

amigo. The other two are missing. No one knows quite

0:35

where they are, but I am the third amigo because

0:38

Adam and I are not a me. We've

0:40

not been amies. Oh,

0:44

it's gonna be great. It's

0:46

going really good. I'm really

0:48

excited about this. So I'm

0:51

just fascinated, and I guess I don't want to ask this quick.

0:53

No, I'll wait, but tell me a little bit

0:55

about this game that we're going to recover today.

0:57

Yeah, this is a game called Spider Man. It's

1:01

the Spider Man, and it's

1:05

the Spider Man. We

1:07

tried to make plans to see a movie

1:09

recently, and that difficult.

1:13

Yeah. So I can't imagine did

1:15

you complete Spider Man? Okay,

1:17

like story mode of Spider Man. Um,

1:20

I can't imagine how hard it is for you to play

1:23

a video game right now? Ya,

1:25

how do you do that? Why this one? Well,

1:27

so let me give you some background. My

1:30

I got a p S four from my wife for

1:32

Christmas and I that

1:35

well she didn't know, I mean, the poor soul

1:37

doesn't understand

1:38

how she

1:44

got Red Dead with it. And I played

1:46

that for a very long time and basically shut

1:49

out things out of my life during that time. Like I

1:51

have, I would wait until my child went to

1:53

bed and then I would play this, and

1:57

so she couldn't watch TV or anything.

1:59

And that what I would ordinarily do is at

2:01

night, that's when like I would go work out, because I

2:03

don't have any other time to do that. So I just stopped working

2:05

out and started playing Red Dead. He's

2:08

a three pound version right now, but you

2:10

can't see him. But Red Dead hasn't built

2:13

in your body changes the more so,

2:15

Well you were working out, your avatar was

2:17

getting buffer and buy so

2:19

worth it. And yeah he was very

2:21

live. He

2:24

lived off pure cans of salmon

2:26

like that was. It was your facial hair situation,

2:29

Well, I do a mustache the whole time mustache,

2:31

and if everything else started growing in, I get real upset

2:33

and go shave it off, go back to camp,

2:35

just for that real upset

2:39

horse ride just

2:42

to get back to camp shave that shut

2:44

off. So I

2:48

played Red Dead for a very long time

2:50

and then after that it ended and I

2:52

was, you know, dealt with the loss. I don't

2:54

want to work out of you and so

2:57

you're not an online guy, no, And so

2:59

I had Spider in Uh sitting

3:01

there as well because it came with the PS four, and

3:04

so I started playing that as well, and

3:06

that Marketers it works

3:09

quite well. I know she's great.

3:11

I think she's she's

3:14

a good planner. She when she gets a gift, she doesn't work

3:16

around, very impressive and

3:18

uh. And so I started playing Spider Man and

3:22

then it got so overwhelming

3:24

for me, and I was getting so frustrated playing it that I

3:26

thought, I don't need this in my life. You know what it is. It's like the

3:28

last month of fantasy football.

3:31

For me. It was like, why am I doing

3:33

this to myself? I don't feel good.

3:36

Somebody gets injured and you're like Alvin Camara didn't

3:38

get a touchdown this week, and you

3:40

hate everybody. The

3:42

week is conspiring against you. I felt

3:44

like this game was conspiring against me where I

3:46

would start playing and then I started and I started realizing

3:49

how stressed I was because everything is a fight

3:51

scene, with the exception of I

3:53

have to go like change,

3:55

fuck you, it's Spider Man. Where

4:02

where all the epic of

4:04

the legendary animals I'm supposed to? Oh

4:08

my god, Reddad would be such an amazing first

4:11

game to play, you would never

4:13

recover from it. I thought, that's how just

4:15

what games were. And that's

4:18

interesting because if because it will

4:20

get even better, because graphics just get

4:22

better. And I don't mean to take it for granted,

4:24

but it's true. So if you haven't if

4:27

you're like adult thing and you haven't played a game,

4:29

then you check in, you're like, oh, so we're at

4:31

this level now, and you happen to play.

4:33

No, that's the best looking game there is, like

4:35

by a long shot, the best, just like fundamentally,

4:38

like the things that you can do in the game, the freedom you

4:40

have Spider Man. So I'll tell you, just

4:43

like a brief rundown, we Spiderman is Spider Man. We

4:49

definitely want, but first we have to pass

4:51

a checkpoint, which I believe

4:53

in this game the metaphor would be

4:56

swipping. We're twipping.

5:00

It usually be like you'd stop on some rooftop

5:03

research lab. Right, this is what this

5:06

is what was shortsighted about this gimmick where

5:08

we separate our segments by

5:10

checkpoint every game.

5:13

Cute as we go from every

5:15

game though, is just becoming well, it saves

5:18

like every three minutes in the background, randomly

5:20

we've lost the like we're like,

5:22

you go by the balloon and you hit it sonic

5:25

style. I just thought that you were going to settle and bling

5:27

bling forever, like bling

5:29

bling checkpoint number one, which

5:31

takes us to the speed run.

5:33

We usually ask our guests to

5:35

explain the game as

5:37

quickly as possible, whatever

5:40

that means to them, both explain the game

5:42

and as quickly as possible. I needed to

5:44

say this is an act of judgment the

5:47

clock. Spiderman is

5:49

a game which you fight every single villain it's ever

5:51

been in the Spider Man universe. It's very tense. You have

5:53

to learn a lot of different moves to do it, and in the meantime,

5:55

you fucking just make processors data

5:57

processors. The whole game

6:01

stops. That was an excellent run. Was

6:04

an excellent run. I like that.

6:06

It's like a lot of time version of this run.

6:08

Yeah, like it. We didn't sound of the

6:10

kind of game. Well, that's the

6:12

thing is, so people you can tackle

6:15

it from plot. What is the game about?

6:17

Gameplay? What is the game about? Do you think

6:19

there's anything urgent that we need to say to someone who

6:21

hasn't played this game. If you haven't played this game and

6:23

you are a mildly familiar gamer,

6:26

it's it's the Spider Man version of the Batman

6:28

games games.

6:30

It's a third person action playing

6:32

for me kind of game, you know, with a lot of a

6:34

lot of button mashing, punching stuff. And

6:37

it's open world ish, you know, Otherwise

6:39

it's the same. Yes, I was very stressed

6:42

out by the open world though, yes,

6:44

in a way that I didn't get from world

6:47

I know, but it was so it was it was very tangible

6:49

and easy for me to understand. As soon as there were bad guys

6:51

that were in a crowd, like mugging somebody, I

6:53

could not find them, like I'm just

6:55

like And that's the worst part

6:58

is that I'm walking around the city as byder

7:00

Man. I'm not swinging around, I'm walking

7:02

around looking for these bad guys and I can't find him.

7:04

And everyone's going, oh, ship spider Man Spiderman. I'm

7:06

like, I

7:09

already stopped talking so I can find this gun needs

7:11

you to mock me right now. I just need you to let me do

7:13

this, Okay. So there was no

7:15

point. It wasn't like I was just accepted in

7:17

this world. I stand out. I'm

7:20

like a beacon in this world. And so if I'm walking

7:22

around New York City, it's a problem

7:24

and I'm getting very frustrated that I can't

7:26

find who's who's being mugged or who's

7:28

being killed in the background. J Jonah Jamison

7:31

is right, you're disrupt You're disruptive, Spider

7:33

Man. I was very disruptive.

7:35

Yeah, we'll get I'm loving this. I

7:38

think we should just officially call this his rant, right

7:40

he went right into it. Um, yeah,

7:42

for the sake of who has stop

7:45

point the checkpoint we're going to fail to prevent a mugging.

7:47

Watch a woman get gunned down in the street. Fade

7:49

to black and reload an ado save, which

7:52

is a checkpoint of sorts,

7:55

and enter the rants portion. You're can experience

7:57

all those feelings real quick. And um, I'm

8:00

gonna throw it to I'm gonna make storm player one.

8:02

But if that can be your rant if

8:04

you want to

8:07

do it. But also they

8:10

teach you everything on the fly, which

8:12

is fine if they if there's

8:14

some repetition along the way, yeah,

8:18

if there as long as there's a repetition where they're like, hey,

8:20

if you do this triangle in the square at the exact

8:23

same time when your focused bar is full, you'll do

8:25

some sick moves and now you

8:27

keep doing that over and over again for a while. But

8:29

they don't do that. It's like, you get to do that once and

8:31

they're like, all right, moving on, here's twenty more

8:33

moves you can do. And I was like, wait, wait, wait,

8:36

And so what I end up doing is I just pick like three,

8:38

and I'm like, well, this is how I'm getting through the game. I'm

8:40

gonna slide through people's legs and kick them in the back,

8:43

and that's gonna be my mimo.

8:48

Be biased by the fact that I

8:50

do a lot of therapy, but I'm like,

8:53

isn't that life man? In your

8:55

childhood. You're like, I'm sure

8:57

there's twelve other healthier ways I could cope

9:00

and navigate, but these are the three that I

9:02

figured out. I'm just gonna do that.

9:04

That's really really

9:07

Yeah, that's I like that a lot. It's

9:10

that's exactly the way I played this game was I was

9:12

I was trying. I tried the path that, like the

9:14

game wanted me to take, and I was like, it's teaching me all these

9:16

great things I did him once, I'm

9:18

not going to remember on the fly. I barely remember

9:20

where the square button is. Like, right,

9:23

you barely even use the controller and

9:26

a big change if you've Yeah, that's

9:28

the thing. Is the last game that I played before any of these was

9:30

the first Halo was

9:35

the Jump Easy Halo.

9:38

But this is also how far back I go

9:40

is like, I'm I use an inverted controller.

9:43

Uh, like I'm steering at jet

9:45

Like if I'm gonna pull back, that means I'm looking and

9:48

I'm I'm pushing forward. I'm looking down and

9:51

you're like, all right, Spider Man, let's yoke down

9:54

on this smugger. So

9:56

I knew, I mean, I knew I had to change the controller about

9:58

the bat, but still like that, That's how where I'm coming

10:00

from. It's like the Bond days.

10:03

Yeah, ways back, and isn't

10:05

it, Adam, have you played

10:07

one of those? Like I just did the rare replay and

10:09

played Perfect Dark and as a throwback

10:11

to being a really you know, authentic,

10:14

you did it with the weird controls. No, it starts with the weird

10:16

controls. And I really was

10:18

like, we did this? How

10:20

did I ever do this? This is insane.

10:22

Now, about a year and a half ago, I got on a tour

10:24

rock Dinosaur Hunter kick so I

10:27

tried to get this this podcast to cover

10:29

it, and that doesn't have Perfect Dark is

10:31

the same where they separate the controller. It's like

10:34

one thing is to strafe your body around

10:36

to look it's perfect Dark. Yeah,

10:39

how good it was the it was the Bond sequel

10:41

and everyone kind of it

10:44

was a collective may um. Yeah, So

10:47

I I don't know the

10:49

controllers that well, and like, and you're really

10:51

on the flight. I mean you're the first thing you're fighting is Wilson

10:53

Fisk in the game, and there's

10:55

people with rocket launchers. There's a lot

10:58

going on and it's

11:00

very intense. So I was grinding my teeth

11:02

and like eating the insides of my cheek and I was like, this

11:04

isn't healthy. So that sorens rant.

11:07

He's very confused and the controls

11:09

are hard to use. This

11:12

isn't healthy. Isn't the long line of that's

11:15

uh, player to plugging in?

11:17

You might have all right, win

11:20

the level, Luigi, I don't give a ship, Yeah

11:23

exactly. Well,

11:26

as someone who did

11:29

this game and all the d l c s, I

11:31

just like to say, I don't have children,

11:35

and I wish I did, and

11:37

I pined for them every day,

11:39

but instead I got really good at Spider

11:41

Man. There's

11:44

been a twelve minute edit trying

11:46

before he continue. Um,

11:50

but I just think my main impression of the

11:52

game that I when like we have

11:54

to talk about this game because X the

11:57

only thing it brings to the the table that's unique, which is not

11:59

to say everything has to be unique, because I think it replicates

12:01

a bunch of the Arkham Asylum ship. Well,

12:04

but the reason

12:07

I'm like this has legs is big

12:09

eight legs, because um,

12:13

I love Spider Man has always been

12:15

my favorite. Uh. Dan

12:17

O'Brien and I literally had to like have a serious

12:19

conversation about whose persona on

12:21

Cracked was allowed to like Spider Man because it would be

12:24

redundant, but we both genuinely

12:26

feel that way about Spider Man. That's

12:29

like almost mythological. Uh.

12:33

The every Spider Man game

12:37

my favorite of which was the Sega City one where

12:39

you go around the whole city fighting Wilson Fisk

12:42

tries to replicate web slinging, and

12:45

you're like, cool, fine, whatever gets me

12:47

through the level. This was the first game

12:49

where I'm like, we finally have the

12:51

technology to replicate what it would feel

12:54

like to be Spider Man. I just

12:56

wanted to go around and around and around the world

12:58

forever. It felt amazing and

13:01

meant a lot to me. Because I don't have children, I

13:03

shouldn't. This is my child

13:06

there. I really did like the

13:08

webs web slinging, but I felt like

13:10

I wasn't living up to what Spider Man should be.

13:13

I was like running into buildings

13:15

and then running up them, then just standing on top. Quick

13:19

look around. Did you get a hang of the bouncy

13:22

like when you laying on a point and bounce off.

13:25

That's key to keeping it fluid and making

13:28

you seem cool. Both the Batman

13:30

and the Spider Man games assume that

13:33

you're willing to like engage in

13:35

this rhythmic thing to keep it going. I

13:37

know you're a Parkor fan and you want

13:39

to look cool. That's what I was

13:42

depressing for me, is that when it

13:44

was going right. It was looking very great.

13:46

But I was doing that by accident. I

13:48

knew I had like the web sitting down. I knew I could

13:51

like hold it out on that our button and then I

13:53

mean hold down on that trigger and then uh and then hit.

13:55

Actually, I could get up in the air a little bit more. I could

13:57

do like my poles. Yeah, I

13:59

could do the poles good. But then I

14:01

mean without fail, I'm running smack

14:03

dab into a building at some point and just running

14:05

up it and then stopping at the top of it and then

14:07

just like kind of walking across the roof.

14:10

Oh, pigeons, I'll walk around those, no problems,

14:13

and then jumping off the other side. Also,

14:15

when you get to Central Park, you're just kind of bummed out because

14:17

you can't really swinging. Its

14:20

rough And it reminded me that scene

14:22

from Homecoming where you're like, I

14:24

get it, but I don't want to live it.

14:27

Um player three plugging INDs. So

14:29

I don't care about superhero

14:32

stuff, you know, Like I'm not a fan. Um.

14:35

I was faking at it cracked the entire time. I think

14:38

I watched one superhero movie the time I was I hate

14:42

I watched at least the first Avengers

14:44

because we all went to it didn't That

14:46

might have been the only one I watched. So here's

14:49

what I'll say about this game. It made me

14:51

like the Spider Man story, which I had never read

14:53

before. It tells it tells

14:55

a lot of the Spider Man story. Yeah, and

14:57

not the origin story part, which I think, sure

14:59

you I've seen that movie, but like the who

15:02

is the character and what matters to impart. There's

15:04

a lot of cut scenes in this game, a ton

15:07

of cut scenes. You probably watch a good

15:09

three movies where it like content

15:11

and it's like pretty good. The doc

15:13

Ox story is really good. It's one of

15:16

the and this is saying a lot because it's been

15:18

good ones, but it's one of the best. J Jonah

15:20

Jamison's ever. Yeah. I like the way

15:22

they adapted him for this story. I just

15:24

think that he's like Alex Jones in this Yes,

15:27

and that's perfect. This is a good

15:30

This is a good outing for telling

15:32

the comic book story, which is not what

15:34

I expect out of a video game.

15:37

Like I played the Batman games and mostly

15:39

they're like they're fun, but like and then

15:41

poison nives in it there and

15:45

and they're they're trying to live in the Chris Nolan Batman

15:48

yes and kind of yeah, and this

15:50

game was like, no, We're going to actually do a

15:52

full story of Spider Man, as

15:54

though you don't know these characters, as

15:56

though you don't care about them

15:59

enough that you already see it all coming. Yeah, And

16:02

it worked for me because I'm not that big of a fan of

16:04

Spider Man, and because of it, it's my favorite

16:07

superhero game I've ever played. This is

16:09

definitely my favorite superhero game I've ever played. Um,

16:12

and I'll get into all the reasons why. I also

16:14

completed it, which I didn't even want to do.

16:16

But when I do that, we were gonna talk

16:19

about it. I was like, sure, I'll give it a shot, and then I

16:21

it was like, in two weeks finished

16:23

it. It It was amazing. I love this game. We

16:27

passed another checkpoint and get into the body

16:29

of our episode game on.

16:33

This is where we argue about any

16:35

points that we want to or engage another collaboratively

16:38

deep dive and share topics of the game.

16:40

So the first thing that came to mind from me, well,

16:44

I guess because I'm first and last out kind of guy.

16:46

But uh,

16:49

I because we did a Telltale episode

16:51

and I think I mentioned

16:54

this, but to me, the one of the most exciting

16:56

things about Spider Man was how the d lcs

16:58

were unveiled. And I don't know if they're

17:00

going to keep doing this, but it mimicked comic

17:02

books to the point where they're like, next

17:05

time Spider Man fights so and

17:08

so, and you pay eight bucks and you

17:10

get the DLC and it adds like a four hour story

17:12

to the game, which is great. I think that's such a

17:14

good distribution modeling. It's so okay.

17:16

So I want to I want to at least make

17:19

this like talk about the like what

17:21

it's like to play this as a game for a little

17:23

bit sure, before we get too into

17:26

like the storytelling of it, because I think that is

17:28

where it's and the reason why because I can't

17:31

get enough of what it's like to learn how to play

17:33

video games on this game. I will never get

17:35

enough of that. Well, then tell me more about

17:37

it. Because my girlfriend,

17:39

Jennifer, I try to get into video games and she

17:42

likes them and likes watching me play

17:44

them. It's just a

17:46

very real thing that I think we take for granted,

17:48

which is that she didn't play them

17:51

growing up. And there's so there's

17:53

even like symbols that are in every

17:55

game and she goes like, oh, what

17:57

is that? Do I have to jump? And I'm like, that means it's otto

17:59

save in your game, Like the idea

18:02

of not I took for

18:04

granted how much I'm keeping

18:06

a breast of how video games work. And if

18:08

I stopped for ten years, I would be confused.

18:11

This game is. It assumes the

18:13

most that you have played every

18:15

other version of this game before it, and all

18:17

the Batman. But I didn't train you. So

18:19

did Red Dead. Though Red Dead has crazy

18:22

demanding controls, but

18:26

in Red Dead it always tells you, like

18:29

for the very first part of the game, it's no matter

18:31

what you're about to do, it's like you're gonna

18:33

want to patch triangle right now to get on your horse.

18:35

You want to lead your horse. That's

18:37

easy to square buddy, Like, hey,

18:40

you're the amigo mamig. Every

18:45

single turn the game is telling you exactly

18:47

what to push. Spider Man does it a little bit. When you're trying

18:49

to do you climb through vents, It's like you want to pop through events

18:51

triangles the way to do it, but you want to murder

18:54

that man take a mosey on over to oh

18:56

my friend. That was like

18:58

samuelisons Therey

19:01

switch. The fighting. They tell you

19:03

like right up front, they're like, here's this, here's this, here's

19:05

this, is this? No go, and like, oh you would

19:07

lunch the new move cool? You want luck? Six new moves

19:09

great? And you're like, no, no, no, I don't.

19:11

I can't do all these things. Then

19:16

I'm not taking advantage of all these cool things.

19:19

And I know that they're there, and that's a

19:22

sense of shame. I'm not a Spider Man enough.

19:24

You have to live up to this game. I don't deserve to

19:26

be Spider Man. Did you end up? Was

19:28

there a supermove you ended up settling on? Because

19:31

in my mind, there's a very clear one supermove

19:33

that is the most effective thing,

19:35

hands fund nothing else. So I would

19:38

what I would do a lot of times is punch somebody up

19:40

in the air and then drag them down with my webs,

19:43

slammed them into the ground. Would you ever

19:45

do the jump up and swing and leg kick them

19:47

out of the air? And I didn't even know rooftops

19:50

that that's how you live up there. Towards endgame,

19:52

when you get like teams of swat armored guys

19:54

on rooftops. You just like, boop,

19:57

you're off the edge, boop, you're

20:00

up. For the most part, all I

20:02

do is if an enemy was really far away, I'm

20:04

I'm gonna hit triangle so I can like zoom

20:06

over to him and slap him in the face. But a lot

20:08

of times when I do that, I hang on triangle for too long,

20:10

and all I do is this week little like kind of poll on

20:13

the guy. Yeah,

20:15

and that was it. And I was like, oh damn, the

20:18

way is I can all get it right? So just you

20:21

stop? And

20:24

that was true of And I think it's very fascinating

20:26

because the creator of the Arkham Games and

20:29

I anyone who's like analyzes

20:31

gameplay, I think is realized the Arkham Games

20:34

were so impactful because they legitimately

20:36

introduced a new element of gaming

20:39

that has since been copying in many games, which is

20:41

rhythm based fighting instead of

20:44

you don't X is not a sword swipe.

20:47

X is if you press it at the right time, batman,

20:49

we'll do cool ship. If you miss it, he'll fumble,

20:52

But there's pre choreographed, awesome

20:54

looking ship that he'll just unspool

20:56

if you keep on the right rhythm, and

20:59

uh, it's funny

21:01

because like, originally a Batman game was

21:04

being designed to compete with Dance Dance Revolution

21:07

and was going to be an arcade game where you like just

21:09

did rhythmic ship and Batman fought people.

21:12

And I think it's so cool what it became.

21:16

But I've never played types of games

21:18

where there's more pressure on. It's

21:20

like embarrassing. If you suck it up. It's

21:22

like you're in a play and you dropped

21:24

a line. You're like, oh,

21:27

sorry, Spider Man, I'm not being really Spider

21:29

Man. You know, I

21:31

didn't feel any pressure to be Spider Man at

21:34

the level you guys, very

21:37

comfortable for me that I was not being Spiderman the best.

21:39

Did your wife? Did your wife watch you and didn't

21:42

matter? No, she didn't. There

21:44

were times this is not about Red Day,

21:46

but there were times playing Red Day where be like coming Rome in

21:48

the North Grizzly, I mean the West Grizzlies. You got to see

21:50

this field, It's just a meadal of flowers and I'm watching the

21:52

sunset like

21:57

that is very pretty. Lighting engine

21:59

is stope. But no,

22:02

she never watched any Spider Man, if

22:04

anything, she would come downstairs to ask me to turn it down

22:07

because it is just explosions

22:09

and ship the whole time, ripping car

22:11

doors off and slamming. The pace

22:14

of it is really fast, yeah,

22:16

yeah, and quick, like like it happens

22:18

immediately. Right You're in the middle of the

22:21

third act of a different movie when you start this game,

22:24

right like that, Wilson Fiskling happens. That's

22:26

the first Yeah, I mean the other

22:28

big Arkham Asylum rip off game Middle

22:31

Earth is also like that. It's

22:34

like boom, you're in more door kill an infinite

22:36

number of orcs immediately. Batman

22:39

eases into it more because Batman had

22:41

something this doesn't, which I also want to get

22:43

to, is I really

22:46

like this game and think it's promising direction

22:48

for Spider Man to go in. But you

22:51

can tell it's the first entry and a franchise

22:54

one way being that it's

22:57

very like Yes, this was very

22:59

common only four or five years ago, but

23:01

now most open

23:04

world games have way

23:06

tricks and algorithms to make the

23:08

like landscape that's just retiling itself

23:11

still be like fool you be

23:13

like, yeah, but there's a peasant on that

23:16

rock, not over on that rock. Spider

23:18

Man is funny because they clearly

23:21

just wanted the first entry out and

23:24

it's like, uh, where the fund

23:26

is everyone? Because you run,

23:28

you'll run up a building

23:30

of thousands and thousands of rooms and

23:32

every room is identical, meaning the same

23:35

denim jacket has thrown over the chair and

23:37

no one's in any of them, like

23:39

where. But

23:43

I just mean in general, I did think the world

23:45

was less immersive than it should be, and

23:48

I think it will easily get better as

23:50

they just are like multiply the assets

23:52

they have for the because Spider Man is always

23:54

going to stay in New York. So like the

23:57

Arkham Games, the environment will just get

23:59

better and better because they'll build more assets.

24:01

Forgive me if these are sacrilegious questions, why

24:04

can't Spider Man travel to

24:07

a different city? And it does in the most recent movie, But

24:09

he's in Europe because you're

24:12

he's so beholden to those city walls,

24:14

Like yeah, you need he's he's

24:17

you're taking away his best ability

24:20

because of the if you put him in a forest

24:23

or something like that. That's true. Well,

24:26

I think I don't think the web scring is a

24:28

thing you could do on trees, big giant

24:31

solid blocks I love the idea that

24:33

we're going to parse up. You

24:36

just say, they want to see like a Curasau

24:39

inspired like Samurai

24:41

structured film where Peter

24:43

Parker is like in the woods

24:46

and somehow asked to fight people. And it's

24:48

all like right, like you said, like

24:50

the web is not going to give you a long swing.

24:53

It's just gonna like quickly pull you five feet

24:55

over to that tree. And he's like zipping

24:57

between the trees and taking out ninjas or

25:00

mean again, there are other big

25:02

cities besides New York. Hong Kong

25:04

is a place. Yeah, you know, he could swing over

25:06

that bag and Parker and

25:12

I just I was bringing up because like but like the

25:14

funny things, I bring it up, and like I knew you were going

25:16

to say this, and I knew the look of despondency

25:18

would settle on our faces. But you can't leave

25:21

New York. A

25:23

lot of superheroes though, just because you're

25:25

not you're not immersed in the world. But

25:27

like Batman is Gotham's

25:30

right, he belongs there. That's the one that I understand.

25:32

There are a few, I mean even

25:35

like subsets of New York Daredevil

25:38

strictly, and

25:41

that's interesting yeah,

25:44

and then they live that that's just the

25:47

Bronx. I can't remember um where

25:51

they're a superhero And and Suwerman Like when

25:53

I started, they thought, like, that's what we do is he lives

25:55

in Metropolis. But then they were like I

25:59

recently learned Opolis is based on Toronto,

26:01

which is a weird place to think of Superman. Maybe

26:03

he's like, I will guard the entire earth,

26:06

naturally, I will be based in Toronto,

26:13

repeating heart of the

26:15

Toronto Sun. It's some of the best journalism

26:18

in all of the Northern Hemisphere. Like,

26:21

I understand why Batman

26:23

is beholden to the New York equivalent,

26:26

right, I get that. I don't even think is

26:28

New York. But that's a theory. OK, fair enough.

26:30

But and I can understand why the Punisher can't

26:32

work in the suburbs of Orange County. I understand,

26:35

right, Oh no,

26:38

Like but like taken the Punisher to

26:40

the docks where the

26:43

world is the middle of the woods in Oregon. The

26:45

Punisher we're

26:47

in the world is a plucky teenager who springs

26:50

from wall to wall. Not welcome And why

26:52

are we so not willing to

26:54

entertain that idea? Because that's a way

26:56

to make this game franchise more interesting

26:59

as a game franchise. You treat

27:01

like Assassin's Creed, you treated like grand I'd

27:03

love to see him in India. All

27:06

right there, I

27:09

just said, I just I just think it would be a great

27:12

like terrain for Spider Man to being

27:14

specifically well and like we're introducing

27:16

the idea of another Spider Man in this one,

27:18

right is introduced?

27:20

Yeah, um, so you

27:23

know. I also That's what I like about video

27:25

games are able to go crazier,

27:28

which usually means staying truer to the comics,

27:31

because movies will always go

27:33

like, accept

27:36

a lot, let's not include

27:38

five wacky as ship

27:41

villains. Let's just try and get the talking

27:43

raccoon across. Next movie will add one

27:45

more. Um, but I love

27:47

how in video games they're as crazy as the

27:49

comics. Like you'll play

27:51

a Spider Bay game would be like,

27:54

who the fuck is this goofy motherfucker?

27:56

I'm fighting? I never heard it? And unless

27:58

you're deep into the comics, you know, why

28:01

is he just the negative image of a normal

28:03

person? He has powers of

28:05

time to that character? Why does he have so

28:08

much of the story? I don't know,

28:11

it's more than a lion's share and he's

28:13

the main villain. I would say, I agree. What's

28:15

his name? Mr? Negative Doctor?

28:20

That's actually the way you described at Michael is

28:22

a really good and an apt description of why

28:24

I had such a hard time with this game is that in

28:27

most like the Marvel movies, they

28:30

do really take you through there, like listen, this is

28:32

Iron Man, this is what he's about, this is what

28:35

this is what everybody's about, this is what they can

28:37

do. And in Spiderman,

28:40

uh, the game, they're just like it's like jumping

28:42

into the Avengers. First you're like, I

28:44

don't, I don't. Okay, there's okay, there's a lot going

28:47

on here. There's a there's a green woman and she has

28:49

a sister who's a robot maybe and well

28:51

and also yeah, they want you to be excited

28:54

about something you may not even know, Like

28:56

like in a comic book based thing, someone

28:58

will come in and they'll be like, Hi,

29:01

I'm Moira and mctagger and it'll zoom in it'll

29:03

be like, ah, Moira mc tagger, are

29:06

you excited? And you'd be like, I don't know who

29:08

that is or what's going to happen. That's true.

29:10

They didn't at least two

29:12

or three of the markers that a casual fan would

29:14

know. They didn't bring a green gob until towards

29:17

the end you figured out how that's going to play out.

29:19

They didn't give you Venom.

29:22

He's not in this game, or Sandman, which I

29:24

remember from Spiderman three, although

29:26

they are fucking obsessed as

29:28

a franchise, like cross

29:30

Media if you've seen into

29:32

the Spider Verse. Great film, by the way, But it's

29:35

funny to me that Spider

29:38

Man is the most guilty of Like we know he

29:40

got bit by a radio actors Spider

29:43

Like, I don't care about that part. Jesus

29:46

christ Um. Now they're doing

29:48

it with Doc coc introduced

29:50

as good in Acts one, and you're like, we

29:52

know he's good at an evil. It's

29:57

they it. I just think Spider Man

30:00

is one of the most repetitive. They

30:02

seem to have a great lack of confidence in

30:04

having Spider Man do things other

30:06

than start right. Well in

30:09

this movie, this game pretended like

30:11

it was gonna be the answer to that problem.

30:13

Right, he's twenty five now, he's been doing this a

30:15

while. He used to be a photographer,

30:18

you know what I mean. Like, and yet we go back to

30:21

the tropes, right, like the safe stories. It's

30:23

true, Spider Man has so many acts that

30:25

we could watch. What did you think

30:28

of what they did with with Mary Jane

30:31

in this game? Well? How I didn't.

30:33

It's okay, you can spoil it. I don't know actually what happens.

30:35

Okay, did you ever get to any of her missions?

30:37

Because I was wondering because her missions are stripped down

30:39

controls, and I was wondering if they felt easier.

30:42

Okay, yeah, you play as her power,

30:45

like her basically intruding

30:47

into various situations as a journalist

30:51

a little bit. That sounds great. Yeah,

30:54

I think you're like, how did you feel about it? Because

30:56

you because you care about the sanctity of the

30:59

comics, I assume how did it feel

31:01

as an adaptation of her character? Comics

31:03

are not sanctified though, you know what I mean?

31:05

Like they themselves reboot it and do it

31:07

and they're like Mary James is on the she's

31:10

a Western cowboy. Um.

31:13

I thought they were doing everything

31:15

very traditionalist, uh

31:18

and following the comics very closely, which

31:20

I'm like her being with a protagonist

31:23

on the like on the level

31:25

of like actually being involved in the capers

31:28

and stuff. I see Adam's pissed that they

31:30

elevated

31:30

all and thank

31:33

you for giving me the player should

31:35

be at home cooking. No, but isn't that different Spider

31:38

That's not what she did in the comics, is it that

31:42

stuff was relegated more to Gwen Stacy, who

31:44

turned out to be Spider Girl. It was like, it

31:47

was really like Archie and Betty

31:49

and Veronica. Spider Man had one girlfriend

31:51

who he protected and one girlfriend who's kind

31:53

of more

31:55

like, yeah, going to protect herself,

31:58

and it was like, who's he in? Then

32:00

Gwen Stacy, I believe it, gets her neck broke by

32:02

Green Goblin, so he ends up with Mary Jane happy

32:05

and some decision. One

32:12

of the quintessential Marvel moments

32:14

that's like, you know, the final Fantasy seven moment

32:16

where Eric gets stabbed. I'm aware of it

32:19

and Mars. That's

32:21

one of those is Green Goblin. There's

32:24

an amazing Alex Ross painting from

32:26

Marvels of Green Goblin flying

32:28

above with it's Spider Man. I love

32:30

this because it's almost a cracked article. But

32:33

then they abandoned it immediately. It's the

32:35

one time they obeyed the laws of physics

32:37

as far as falling and spiderwebbing is

32:39

concerned. He accidentally

32:41

attaches the web near her neck while she's

32:43

like plummeting off a bridge and then attaches

32:45

it to Green Goblin's like thing,

32:48

thinking it'll stop her fall, and it

32:50

does, but it breaks her neck. And like, that's

32:53

the one and only time we even nodded

32:55

to graty issues.

32:59

And I just watched Tim Burton's Batman one

33:01

for the first time any

33:04

continuously just

33:06

grapples a thousand feet up grab

33:08

someone and they dead stop in the middle of the

33:11

air, and I'm like, your arms rip

33:13

out of your sockets. Blood

33:16

just shot you. I just watched

33:18

Hobbs and Shaw and it had one of my single

33:20

favorite defying force things

33:22

ever where men jumped out of a window

33:25

and other men with a rifle shot grappling

33:27

hooks into their backs to stop

33:29

them from falling to the to the pavement in

33:32

the first act. Enjoy

33:34

this movie. And I'm glad we're talking

33:36

about that because I do think Spider

33:39

Man should be introduced into that universe.

33:43

This could be a whole other podcast. Okay, I did this with

33:45

Dave. I I totally agree that there's a bigger

33:48

universe, and oh I heard that episode. You guys

33:50

didn't alight on Spider Man specifically, And now

33:52

that we're talking about it, I realized, like, Spider

33:55

Man, Hobbs and Shot would be a good

33:57

trio. Just take

33:59

Hong Kong. Yeah no, Yeah, they're wandering

34:01

around at Bamboo Forest doing

34:05

they jump a car, he whips onto the

34:07

car and you don't care about anything.

34:11

It's true. Okay. So

34:14

to just to return to the Mary Jane point briefly, because

34:16

I have two things that I observed about that. It

34:18

seemed like they're trying to solve the problem that a

34:20

lot of big game franchisees are trying to solve right

34:22

now, which is like, well, the game started out

34:25

with damsel in distress, right, or

34:27

like the property we're adapting started

34:29

out with characters who are damsels in distress, right.

34:31

Super Mariodyssey had this problem, Zelda

34:34

has this problem, and now Spider

34:36

Man has this problem. And so they give you these missions

34:38

where you play as Mary Jane, who is

34:41

basically invested investment. Yes,

34:45

And but the question is that I have is not

34:47

should they have done that because it's great? The

34:50

question is it really doing what

34:52

they wanted to do if the if

34:54

the experience of playing as that character

34:56

is so much more limited compared

34:59

to Spider Man. Do you see what

35:01

I'm saying, Like, when you play Spider Man, you feel powerful.

35:03

You play Mary Jane, she has two buttons

35:06

and she mostly hides you're

35:08

doing here it's an escort mission just for yourself

35:11

trying. Yeah, does

35:13

that make it feel like less regressive

35:15

to you? It depends how much you norm

35:18

It's hard to tell how much people internalize,

35:21

Like does that subtle implication that the female

35:24

character is less capable than the male character

35:26

instill anything and a child? Um?

35:31

But I would say that in the context

35:33

of the story, why would Mary

35:35

Jane be able to web

35:37

sling around? Like? It would be weird

35:39

if she was as capable of Spider Man. The

35:42

whole point is this is a story about

35:44

the one and only special guy,

35:47

Spider Man. Everyone can't be him

35:49

or he's not Special Spider Man anymore. But

35:51

there's a lot of people that get superpowers

35:53

in this game. Yeah, it wouldn't

35:55

be that crazy that they that she well,

35:58

and I'm certainly not trying to be like things

36:00

have to stay the way they are, Guys, Little

36:03

Mermaid can be whatever the funk it is.

36:06

But I guess I would argue that I

36:09

would argue that in the case of stories

36:11

about meta humans, there

36:14

of course has to be like a bell curve, like

36:17

Harry Potter has to be the only Harry Potter.

36:20

Otherwise everyone's Harry Potter. And yeah,

36:22

exactly, and it's not a story. I agree

36:25

with that, And I'm not saying that the three approaching

36:28

middle aged white men there

36:31

were, but I did want to bring it up because

36:33

it was like, because it made me think as

36:35

I was playing it, it it was like, they're trying to solve this problem,

36:38

and this is how they chose to do it, and

36:40

like, is it working? You

36:43

know? For me, it

36:45

worked because my brain is fully

36:47

matured and despite

36:49

always trying to improve and investigate prejudices

36:53

that I have internalized without you

36:55

know, um that aside,

36:58

I am not overtly misogynist then,

37:00

like, and I'm no longer trying

37:02

to build my view of the world through media

37:04

like per se as much so

37:07

for me for a responsible

37:10

adult imbibing it, I feel like I'm

37:12

perfectly able to go. Of

37:14

course, she's not as powerful, She's a normal human. This

37:16

is just the way to get refreshed by having

37:18

a different kind of gameplay in the mix. But

37:21

I do think it's an interesting and vital

37:24

topic that I don't know enough about to speak

37:26

kind of like, but would a would

37:28

an eight year old get the vague

37:30

impression that dudes are superheroes

37:33

and ladies are not? You know what I mean?

37:35

I don't know, well, I don't know how the

37:38

intricacies of normalization work, or

37:40

I guess maybe I'll put it a different way. And this is

37:42

just a playing experience version of this question,

37:44

right, So, Like the thing I noticed

37:46

as I was playing it is that I was like, I don't

37:48

want to play another Mary Jane level, like just give.

37:53

I was bored because I like, because

37:55

you know, I wanted to be ten all the time, right, and

37:58

it's worse. And then I'm like, oh, but I shouldn't

38:00

feel this way because what they're

38:02

trying to do. So there's a weird cognitive

38:04

dissonance, right, and I'm like, how

38:07

do you welcome that? I'll say this. They had

38:09

forty like not that many, but like twenty

38:11

five special suits you could get unless

38:14

I'm mistaken, none worse Spider Gwen.

38:17

They were all four Spider Man. I don't know why you couldn't have

38:20

thrown that in because you're like, here's cartoons

38:22

Spider Man, here's Spider

38:25

Ham from the here's the Pig Spider.

38:27

There's him with a bag over it. There could have been a female

38:29

Spider Man's skin. I don't know why they didn't do

38:31

that anyway, just so I think

38:34

that they It's

38:36

it's hard because they did. The

38:38

gender exists, like, the gender difference

38:40

exists, and that's just an unfortunate circumstance

38:43

that that's who they chose to be the character

38:45

who's like, well, I have to hide from everybody.

38:47

That's the only way to get through this world and

38:49

still keep the story intact, so to speak.

38:52

And they're still writing her in the more modern

38:54

sense where they go out of their way

38:56

almost to be like, listen,

38:58

she's really cool, Like she's

39:01

very capable, protagonists, well rounded

39:03

in her own right. And you're like, yeah,

39:05

Adams, not wrong though that. You're like, yeah, but

39:07

you didn't change the underlying formula of this story.

39:10

He's the prince and she's the damsel in distress.

39:12

They did as much as they could. They took away almost

39:14

all agency in their relationship from him

39:17

and gave it to her, Like when you watch the

39:19

cut scenes, she's the only one. That's

39:21

Also one of the interesting luxuries of being a white

39:23

male American culture is that it

39:26

doesn't mean as much to me because I'm so spoiled

39:28

with representation. Like if

39:30

they made the whole Spider Man game Spider

39:33

Man is a woman named,

39:35

you know, Patricia Parker, I

39:38

wouldn't actually care. I would have played

39:40

it the same way. And then like, this is fine. And

39:43

yet if you're not at the top

39:45

of the pyramids Sota speak, it might have meant

39:47

a lot, you know, in the reverse. Yeah,

39:50

you're just in listening to your

39:52

point, Adam. I feel like I'm realizing

39:55

that Spiderman, the whole storyline of Spider

39:57

Man has a lot of conservative values to it

40:00

that I didn't anticipate and I didn't think about

40:02

before, and especially around just the idea

40:04

of that how like the Christian science

40:06

ideal that science is bad, man, like

40:09

it goes wrong. That's what every

40:11

single turn goes bad in

40:13

the Spider Man universe. Um,

40:15

it's anybody who it's everybody's

40:17

overreaching, Like anybody who wants to improve

40:19

the world in anyway, Yeah, is overreaching

40:22

and they get punished for it. They turned into a lizard

40:24

or like theyre or we went

40:26

to space and we actually brought that the symbio.

40:28

And it's usually because they're trying to cure cancer like

40:30

something hugely noble. Yeah,

40:32

yeah, we mentioned that in the Spiderman After Hours.

40:35

I think is that it's like, it's not just curing

40:37

One of the hidden theces of Spider Man is

40:40

like Batman fights our

40:42

idea of the quintessential

40:44

mugger, like a dirty like

40:46

mugger. Spider Man fights

40:49

super science. Yes, yeah, that's

40:51

his enemy. I mean, but again, it's never

40:53

just I just want to cure cancer. Like, no,

40:55

it's not that it's I want to cure cancer

40:58

maniac in I'm way and I'm dying

41:01

of cancer.

41:01

I'm yeah,

41:04

I'm dying in cancer. And also I'm

41:06

also power hungry. It's all three things. It's

41:08

never just look, I need to cure cancer

41:10

because I have it. Can't you understand that? Of course?

41:12

Well? I think doc Cox he was trying to create

41:15

like a free energy

41:17

source for the world, and then just

41:19

the arms he built we're

41:21

entirely incidental. He's like, and these are some

41:23

cool arms I built to move the radioactive

41:25

isotopes around and now they fused to my back,

41:28

so this is my thing now. But well it was

41:30

also but it was fixing a muscular

41:32

dystrocty thing that he had in the game. But

41:36

yeah, but it's true that there, well

41:38

that's how they foreshadowed that they're going to be evil. It's

41:40

like, yeah, they're doing something good, but secretly it's self

41:42

survey. By the way, those

41:44

are some fucking demon arms that he's putting on his

41:46

back. Dot cock is I

41:49

think DOTC and the Joker are the best superhero

41:52

It was very compelling in this game, even though I already

41:55

knew the story. I was like, this is good. I find

41:57

that it's like weirdly easy to make dot

41:59

dot compelling. There's been a bunch of different versions

42:01

and I like them all. I really like Dog Yeah,

42:04

yeah, he was great. Yeah he

42:06

was great, and like and

42:11

Octavia was great and Spider Verse. Yeah,

42:14

so there's something primal about that that we all resonate

42:17

with. Anyway, I'm not trying to belabor the thing. I just

42:19

I it's I'm interested in

42:21

watching games trying to solve the problem of representation

42:24

and gender splits and yet

42:27

and not know exactly how they can do it

42:29

in a way that doesn't make me ask more

42:31

questions. I do, but I mean, we're at the it's

42:34

sad that we're in the nation stages of that and

42:36

like people trying to do that in media, but we are. And

42:38

it's there's something almost kind of charming about how clumsy

42:41

we are at right sure that when they try

42:43

and do it and they're like, oh, I mean, like you were trying,

42:45

but you just it's just like fumbling with

42:47

its me like button mashing. It's

42:49

just me on the controller, very like I

42:51

don't know, I'm trying to make a woman here. You

42:55

would have really enjoyed the way they

42:57

did it in the Super Mario game that came out last

42:59

year, so like you've played Mario

43:01

enough to a lot easier to do when you're at the level

43:03

of children's fiction. Now you know they butchered

43:06

it. Marichered so

43:08

oh yeah, So Bowser kidnaps

43:10

the princess. She's helpless the whole time, right,

43:12

and then Mario goes through planets and

43:15

like lands to save her, shows

43:17

up, like you know, they have a fight,

43:19

her and Bowser of a fight, and then like and

43:21

then it settles into the scene where both Bowser

43:23

and Mario are both like,

43:25

but I want it, but I want it, Like they're like one upping

43:28

each other for it, and she's like,

43:30

I've had it, that's enough with both of you, and

43:32

then just goes off and does a travel She just

43:34

travels around the world, like gets in

43:36

touch with herself. The next year, it's

43:38

really she goes abroad

43:41

and like Mario and Bowser both act as though

43:43

she's never told them that she wasn't interested

43:45

in them before, So like there's

43:47

a moment where they console each other. This

43:49

really happens. It's

43:52

just like whoa the exact same story

43:54

as every Mario game. If after the

43:56

end you said, oh and ps, Princess

43:59

was like a bad hat ass with it chick

44:01

exactly. She wasn't disrespected

44:03

and ship. Okay, that's the story,

44:05

right, And it was very like it

44:09

was the game version of a Grimace. They didn't

44:11

do that, right, No, it was real bad

44:14

Bowser crying to himself himself

44:17

never having realized that she wasn't into

44:19

it. Was a real low month moment

44:21

in video games. Crocodile tears all

44:23

right back to sorry but we

44:26

get a crock. What

44:28

do you think of it as far as longevity.

44:30

Like Storr and I would love you to speak more to

44:33

you said, it's all fight

44:35

scenes. Did you not like that?

44:37

Well, I should also say that that it's

44:40

not just fight scenes. There's also a lot of like the

44:43

puzzle stuff in the game. I also didn't find very

44:45

compelling or I didn't really like I was.

44:49

I was sort of bored by it, especially the

44:51

early stuff where you're doing the you're building

44:53

the arms and like you're getting those two work again.

44:55

It was just very tedious games really

44:57

trying to sneak that one in on it. There's a wide variety of

45:00

asks, and they're not all the

45:02

best thing you've ever done, but there is

45:04

a lot of it. There are a lot of hometown

45:06

buffet, you know, like there's a lot of

45:08

it. I enjoyed how various the tasks

45:11

were. Yeah, sure, but

45:13

that's good to know. I didn't. I don't think I got far enough to

45:15

know that. There were like a bunch of other types,

45:17

but they're all kind of like they're all

45:20

a version of flying through the air in a race

45:22

of some kind against time, or

45:26

there's the BioShock make the current go

45:28

all the way over, Which is it

45:30

doesn't feel like it fits right, It just doesn't

45:32

feel like it fits. Um. Yeah. Then

45:34

and then the fighting, I'll

45:36

say, like, the fighting was fun,

45:39

and I feel like if I was better at it and I understood

45:41

the controls, I mean, I understood like

45:44

what I need to do it and in the given

45:46

moment, when I see that my spider sense he's

45:48

going off, I'm near a wall. My

45:51

first thought is, oh, I can do this really cool move.

45:53

I plant myself on the wall first, then

45:55

I do this other move. Then I could grab him

45:57

around the with with better ways around his neck

46:00

and then flip him around like that

46:02

feels like the best version this game. It's me watching

46:05

somebody else play it, who's good at it. Yeah,

46:09

when it's me doing it, it's like I am it

46:12

just feels so wasted and I and

46:14

I do definitely get that sense of shame from it.

46:17

You're not willing to put in the twenty hours it takes

46:19

to be the one. Yeah, that's the trick.

46:21

But that is what's I think that's

46:23

very true and what's cool about these games. There

46:26

aren't a lot of other games right care that much about

46:28

finesse, and in

46:30

this game, when I think back on and I'm

46:32

like, I guess a lot of it is saying

46:35

why did I like it and not get bored? Well,

46:38

because I really could do

46:40

that an infinite number of times, Like take a

46:42

crack at getting a perfect run where

46:45

Spider Man is fluid the whole time

46:47

and I just tear it up. It's

46:49

always satisfying. The game captures

46:52

what makes Spider Man a great thing.

46:54

Yeah, like which most

46:57

video games movie adaptations don't.

46:59

They're stupid it most of the time, right, Like,

47:01

honestly they are. Whereas this game is like

47:04

you feel shame because you love Spider Man so much,

47:06

that's because the game brought you Spider Man. Yeah,

47:09

this is the feeling. This is the feeling of what it's like soaring

47:12

through the error. Great cast.

47:16

Yeah, the acting was great. It was convincing. Right,

47:19

do you think we'll get bored of it as it continues?

47:21

Like? Are you into it as a franchise? Why

47:24

would I be? Um? At

47:26

this point, I've played three Arkham

47:28

games, and I when I was playing more,

47:31

really I was not. Yeah,

47:34

I love them the third way like them.

47:36

The third one introduced the thing where you look away

47:38

and look back and the Joker's faces right in your

47:40

face, like the narrative ideas.

47:43

But then it introduced the Batmobile and it was terrible.

47:46

The Batmobile tank ship was like

47:49

the philary ist filler to ever fill

47:51

fill. And the other problem is that

47:53

again, if you make a game, it has to it has

47:55

to have like at least six interesting villains

47:58

or you're going to spend a whole lot of time with Mr Negative.

48:01

Right, And like you know Spider Man three,

48:03

the game, Spider Man three game, who's

48:06

in that game? Like

48:09

we haven't had Mysterio yet, we have,

48:12

there's still you there's a finite number of villains.

48:14

But and you're really and they bust,

48:16

they're nut on this first one because

48:19

because there's not going to be a second Spider Man game

48:21

if it's not good. They didn't they didn't give us Green

48:23

Goblin. They didn't give us Venom. So like

48:26

there's two big ones, right, so you can see

48:28

one more game? Yeah,

48:31

sure, red Venom.

48:33

Now we're getting into I don't know about that.

48:36

I don't know Shocker wasn't

48:38

it right? Yeah, there's

48:41

hydro Man. We didn't see him. Who

48:43

cares, it's just a guy we

48:46

saw right now. Oh,

48:48

we saw Vulture. We didn't see chameleon, scorpion

48:52

scorpio was did we see Craven the Hunter

48:54

in the game Tombstone?

48:57

You know what, you might end up doing his fighting guys who are

48:59

just kind of quasi bad guys, Like what's that vampire's

49:02

name, Alice there sucks people. Yeah,

49:04

he sucks people's blood through his hands. He's

49:07

kind of a bad guy, but not really, he's like a catwomanish

49:10

type of person promoted. Yeah, just

49:12

straight up villainy black ran.

49:14

I mean, but again, like

49:17

we already have a spider man, is

49:19

what? There's kinds of spiders, right, I guess you

49:22

know dog? I mean

49:24

you listening all the names sin eater

49:27

but right, But but like for a casual

49:29

fan, right, because it still has to feel I

49:32

feel like I feel like you've got green goblin, hob

49:35

goblin, venom and then it's

49:37

mysterial like Dr Doom

49:39

Spider's side. Some of these are so fucking

49:42

stupid, Batman Arkham games basically

49:44

survived on. Like the villain

49:46

of the first one was the Joker, right, The villain

49:49

of the second one was the penguin, is

49:51

there right? Yeah? It was it was

49:53

penguins talking about movies based No, no, no, the

49:56

game's Darkham Games. Yeah, oh

49:58

I don't remember. I always thought it. My

50:01

understanding of the Arkham games is the pattern is

50:03

the story. He always starts as a fake out, and

50:05

then the act to break is always it's Joker.

50:07

It's always

50:11

you think it's poison Ivy and then Joker's

50:13

blackmailing her. It's really the joke, and Spider

50:15

Man has never been content to be like,

50:17

look it's dock like you know what I mean, Like,

50:20

like, you're gonna go with our best one. I've embarrassed

50:22

how long it took me to realize he's his arch nemesis

50:24

because they both have eight legs. Spiders

50:27

an octopus didn't even have to did

50:29

you? Did you just get that? Like?

50:32

That's that's that's because they don't fight

50:34

each other in nature enough. You

50:36

don't see enough water spider octopus

50:39

fights. I'm going on YouTube,

50:45

spiders fight octopus.

50:50

It's all clips. How did you feel about how

50:52

Cow New York was rendered? That

50:54

was my main complaint is that I feel like

50:57

it's a sandbox game where the sandbox was

50:59

Rush, where they're like there's a little band you designed

51:02

one room, copy and pasted

51:04

five times, and that's the Chrysler building

51:07

and I'm like, that's not really up to standards.

51:09

Well, what's interesting to me about this question for you is that

51:11

you just played the best looking video game

51:14

of all time, and then you play the Spider Man, which is

51:17

so like the stuff that I loved about Red

51:20

Dead. They do try to do a little bit of here,

51:22

which is you gotta go find your backpacks,

51:24

and you gotta go fix all these towers everywhere,

51:27

and you gotta go find them. And it

51:30

was really very same you after a while, and you're

51:32

not as you're doing it. You're not running into other people

51:34

who are except people who are being mugged, and

51:37

then like you don't you get nothing out of that interaction. You

51:39

save them, and then that's that, not even a feeling

51:41

of joy. But they're not they're they're not like giving

51:43

you a wedding ring and show like that.

51:47

Sometimes they people

51:50

to me, they give

51:52

me nothing. I just don't want to make a superhero.

51:54

I wanted one hidden apartment in the entire

51:57

game where there's a fat naked

51:59

guy just looking out a window.

52:01

Yeah, you could have just put it there. And there

52:03

was so much color in Red Dead where it was like stuff

52:05

that probably didn't matter to the rest of the game, but it

52:07

was there, and like you just encounter it along

52:09

the way. You'd find somebody dead with a map of

52:11

like this panoramic map of every

52:14

city and you're like, well, this is a weird thing

52:16

to find up in the middle of the Alaskan

52:19

tundra. And that's true. And Red Dead is

52:21

very much like they want you to have a

52:23

good experience from every angle, right,

52:26

not from the one angle that you know you're gonna write,

52:28

well, rock Star is if

52:30

I'm misremembering, and they didn't invent it.

52:32

There at least one of the grand daddies

52:35

of sandbox games, so I feel

52:37

like they've had more time to figure out

52:40

sandbox games are this okay, but

52:42

that can get tedious, and we want to make sandbox

52:44

games and make billions of dollars forever, how

52:47

do we diversify this? And they're ahead

52:49

of the curve on that. They also have way

52:51

more money and they abuse their employees, but

52:55

sleeping in cots there and eating tea leaves.

52:57

But all the sandbox games in existence,

52:59

the variety of things you do in Red Dead feel

53:01

the least read Dead too, specifically, feel

53:04

the least like filler. You're like, this is a legitimate,

53:07

separate enterprise that feels like its

53:09

own game, and there's like twelve of them. Well,

53:11

again, they make this game every ten years,

53:14

So like, you know, if you had that amount

53:16

of time to make a Spielberg film, let's say,

53:18

or an Avengers, can you imagine how good it would be?

53:21

You know, war Horse the

53:23

nine. That's my opinion

53:26

on Spider Man should be negated

53:30

because I'm coming from the

53:32

best game to this. I think

53:34

that's why it matters. I think that actually

53:37

helps this opinion because you have, first

53:39

year a new gamer, and then second you have like two

53:41

really important things to compare and

53:44

like what happens, Like, you know, does New York

53:46

look like Ship to you? Does it look great? No? I

53:48

saw New York didn't look like Ship. It was it

53:50

felt very full in the amount of time

53:52

that I played it, because I also didn't have time to see

53:55

Overlap yet. But like when I was down

53:57

on the ground level, the problem was I didn't have time

53:59

to sit there and enjoy it because I was Spider

54:01

Man and because that was a real problem

54:03

if I was on street level. That's true, that's

54:05

the thing that that's how they sneak these shittier

54:07

graphics by you, right, is that you gotta zip by everything

54:09

so fast like you got ship to do. You're

54:12

not going that fast ever, And again I

54:14

think it's a verticality problem because Spider

54:16

Man goes so so in

54:19

Gotham in the Arkham Games,

54:22

no building other than a building that's

54:24

actually a full level that you're eventually going to infiltrate

54:27

and traverse the insides of is

54:29

taller than five six stories

54:32

got towers, sure, sure, sure, but

54:34

it's way easier when you think about it

54:37

than Spider Man needs his

54:39

environment to be vertically

54:41

like eighties stories most places,

54:44

and that introduces the problem of making

54:47

it a build. The face of a building

54:50

that's just a monotonous like series

54:52

of cubes going up forever. Feel

54:55

like the graphics are real and it's fun to

54:57

look at and there's variety, and I just think

54:59

it'll come a while to figure that out. And

55:02

so like I'm not knocking. There

55:04

was a way better attention put to Like when I was

55:06

on the street, I was like, there's enough

55:08

people, this all feels real. It was

55:10

when I would run up a building forever that

55:13

you've noticed how fixed and it would feel like a

55:15

Scooby Doo cartoon where the backgrounds repeating,

55:17

where I'm like, same lamp, same lamp, same

55:20

lamp, Like every chair is

55:22

at the same angle in every room in this entire

55:24

eighties story building. It's bizarres. Maybe

55:26

it's just to disincentivize you from doing it

55:28

the shitty way where you just like Spider

55:31

Man round, Bro, you set this up for you.

55:34

You know you don't run up that stupid I'm waiting

55:36

for game companies to literally be like, oh,

55:38

I'm sorry, the graphics aren't there. Good? Did you want

55:40

us to abuse our employees? And you have to

55:42

be like, all right, okay, I'm sorry, dude, I'm sorry.

55:45

Jack final tolerate the check.

55:48

But it's like, by the way, I

55:50

do want the redemption

55:53

to results, right,

55:55

I wanted to be perfectly made

55:57

without it hurting anyone, and

56:00

for the present cost less money,

56:03

you know, I'm fine with it like

56:06

that if it's if it's as cool as Red Dead, like

56:08

I would have paid anything for that. I would have paid a hundred bucks.

56:10

Second, Red Dead too is

56:12

worth a hundred bucks. That's for the time you

56:15

get out of it, same as one. Like

56:17

I think it's okay to begin contemplating

56:20

raising that price for those games. I think it will

56:22

be a transition process, just because gaming is

56:25

also jointed to like, well,

56:27

it's for teens and tweens, and they don't always

56:29

have a hundred bucks, but ass

56:31

are like, no, no, no, I'm

56:34

thirty eight and I want to play your video games,

56:36

and I have hundred dollar bills if

56:38

I need to, like if i's grounged around, you

56:41

know, well, it's like owning a car. It's like you're

56:43

when you're that age, you're not buying a brand new car.

56:45

You get to have someone that's the three other people owned

56:47

before you. And that's fine, and you don't get

56:49

it right on the You get it right when

56:51

when you you're getting your car that has like roll up

56:54

windows. The technology

56:56

of that is way beyond that. But at that point when

56:58

you're actually getting that car, and that's what you should have for those

57:00

kids, Like they don't get to play Red Dead right away,

57:03

they get it once everybody else is done with it.

57:07

I think un till your twenty one

57:10

you should have to play the most

57:12

recent generation of systems. You don't

57:14

get the current generation of systems comes

57:17

back Xbox three sixty games right now. Yeah,

57:20

if you get Dead one. If you're good, you're playing Xbox

57:22

three six, PlayStation three. Right. If you

57:24

get as, you get bioshocked the original game.

57:27

All right, Bradley, go to your room.

57:32

There's gonna be one shitty parent that gives him an Xbox

57:35

eight or whatever, you know, and then that that kid ends

57:37

up being the cool kid. And because life's not fair,

57:41

like it's cool, he's the one that everyone's like, oh funk,

57:43

he's played it. That's oh man, he's telling us

57:45

all about it. He grew up to be Ninja, and

57:47

we're all like, fuck, we should have done that.

57:51

I went to school and ship all

57:53

right, which takes us to our final checkpoint,

57:56

Spider Man watching his beloved Gwen

57:59

Stacy's next snap in the air.

58:01

Never again will I be the same? For this

58:03

Spider Man. We just edited another twelve

58:06

minutes of my crying blame and

58:08

I'm mad. Um.

58:11

This is called keeper delete, where

58:13

we basically are like, it's

58:16

vague because theoretically, if

58:18

you're had a generous spirit, you could keep

58:20

everything, because there's no limit to the number

58:22

of things we're keeping. Look, we're asking for people

58:25

to be responsible, uh responsible

58:28

gate keepers, right, don't send

58:30

a game into space for the Aliens if you don't

58:32

think it's going to stand up in the test of time, or if you don't

58:34

think it's that good. If you think it's a great

58:36

game that's like one of the greats of the genre, send

58:38

it out there. And it depends what you value, if you care about originality

58:41

or just pure experience or story or gameplay

58:43

more. Would you put this game

58:46

on like a ledger of No, this

58:48

is one of the games in the history video gaming. You

58:50

definitely got to check out or

58:53

let it go. And why, oh

58:55

man, I am the wrong person to

58:57

answer that question because it's comparative, because

59:00

I'm only gonna put two games

59:01

out there.

59:05

I'm putting Prince of Persia to Thrones.

59:09

Wait, is that was that? When it was still side

59:11

scrolling puzzle solving? No? Remember

59:16

hard? Honestly, that was very hard. That

59:18

Prince of Persia was too hard, And it's just the atmosphere.

59:21

Even as a kid, I never got more than

59:23

like eight minutes into it, but I was enchanted

59:25

with the idea of it. I beat one

59:27

of them because they've been a bunch of yeah, and you had to

59:29

fight Jaffar at the end. Yeah, it's

59:32

it's crazy. That's the first one.

59:35

Um that I Prince

59:38

of Persia, I guess is another game that I know. I guess

59:40

I played that before I played Halo even but like

59:42

Persia was another game that actually feels

59:45

like a predecessor to this game where you

59:47

you look much cooler than you are. Um,

59:50

Like, you're just pushing buttons and you're doing

59:52

some really badasship and as long as you know the right

59:54

combos like you look and

59:56

you just get like, all this is just hordes of enemies

59:58

coming at you, and you're like, all right now, I gotta fun these guys up

1:00:01

for a while. Um but I don't. I don't

1:00:03

know why this one struck me, as it just

1:00:05

felt the entire thing felt like a speed run. Like

1:00:07

I'm so stressed out the whole time,

1:00:09

the anxiety of it, Yeah, solving all these

1:00:11

crimes. So would you keep it? What do you think?

1:00:14

Yeah? Keep it? Man, there's

1:00:17

only four games, you may

1:00:19

I'm keeping all of them. You know about.

1:00:23

Um, I will delete it out of optimism

1:00:26

because I think, first

1:00:29

of all, if I was going to keep it just for the

1:00:31

sake of what it is, we already

1:00:33

have that it's Arkham. Do you think Arkham

1:00:35

is better than this? Um? Overall, I think

1:00:38

Arkham shows a lot more confidence

1:00:40

in cohesion, which one from the developers

1:00:43

as a full for any one of them,

1:00:46

shows more cohesion and attention to detail,

1:00:48

especially my main thing

1:00:51

in the environment itself. In the way Gotham

1:00:53

is rendered New York. New York still

1:00:55

feels a little sterile, a little like it's just

1:00:57

a quickly rendered series of boxes.

1:01:00

I expect that to change, and

1:01:02

if they don't keep making this game, I'll regret

1:01:05

this decision forever, because I

1:01:07

do think the feeling of getting to

1:01:09

actually Spider Man through

1:01:11

the air is pretty special. Um.

1:01:15

Do you think that this game is a descendant

1:01:17

of like the Double Dragons, like

1:01:19

those the final fights of the World, you

1:01:22

know, those brawlers from those days. I

1:01:24

kind of do think it is Double Dragon. Yeah,

1:01:28

yeah, it's I feel like this is our

1:01:30

version of that now right where it's like

1:01:33

it's basically execute the simple action, but then

1:01:35

there's kind of other I feel like Devil May Cries

1:01:37

even closer. Yeah, that's true,

1:01:40

because I'm thinking to myself, like if I kept Double Dragon,

1:01:42

could I also keep this game? I don't know. Um,

1:01:45

I would not keep this game. I'm not sure I

1:01:47

would keep any of that genre. I don't

1:01:49

think any of us. Do you care about Spider Man. No,

1:01:52

but this was the best argument for

1:01:54

him mattering as a

1:01:57

as a cosmic Property's interesting that this

1:01:59

is the game that you got into Spider Man on, because

1:02:01

this is the game where I realized I'm not Peter Parker,

1:02:03

where like the first movie came

1:02:05

out, the very first Spider Man movie came out, and I walked

1:02:08

out of that jealous of like that

1:02:10

that world exists and being like I

1:02:12

want to live in that world, like I want to be I

1:02:14

want to be that so bad. And it was.

1:02:16

And that's where you know that you're when

1:02:18

you're a seminal agent. You discover Spider

1:02:20

Man and like why he does the things that he does, and he's

1:02:23

he's not like other superheroes, and that he's doing it because

1:02:25

of guilt as opposed to like revenge or anything

1:02:27

else, and like, you feel a lot of guilt when

1:02:29

you're a teenager. His stories

1:02:31

about teen angsts, so it's

1:02:33

like, I don't know why every

1:02:36

teen that he is not their favorite because he's

1:02:38

the only teen superhero. He's going

1:02:40

through analog for you and

1:02:43

uh, and so like you really get attached

1:02:45

to him. And in this one, I was playing it and I was

1:02:47

like, I just don't like I don't feel

1:02:49

that attached to Spider Man. There's

1:02:52

problems due to diffuse. Do you feel attached

1:02:54

to any superheroes now that you're an adult?

1:02:56

Oh? I don't. I can't, man,

1:02:58

I have to think about it even.

1:03:01

I mean, I used to really like that. Batman was more intriguing

1:03:03

to me because I like the fantasy more

1:03:05

than the relating to the character part of it.

1:03:08

And Batman's is cracked

1:03:10

ruined. Batman for me, I can't like it. You can't

1:03:13

unthink about his wealth and his you

1:03:15

know what I mean, his impact on the environment

1:03:17

and stuff, and also how it

1:03:20

is. Yeah, just like why a bat

1:03:22

why do this? I you know, where's Peter

1:03:24

Parker? It does make sense for a teenager with

1:03:28

weird, like weird powers

1:03:30

that have to be used, And it was

1:03:32

more conservative than Batman's. It's less

1:03:34

so yeah, and it's it's it's not as

1:03:36

about me, like look at me as much. I

1:03:38

think Spider Man is the only one I still care about. But

1:03:40

I still care about Spider Man. Yeah, interesting

1:03:43

yeah, but I wouldn't keep it because I don't still want to see Homecoming

1:03:45

with you. Yeah, we'll watch them

1:03:47

all right, good good, good, good story, and I'm gonna

1:03:50

go home. You're gonna come Yeah, alright. I

1:03:52

have not seen him. I'm sorry, far from Home the

1:03:54

new one. I haven't want to know what you meant.

1:03:58

Okay, And for my money,

1:04:00

best j Jonah Jamison. I really like this J

1:04:02

Jonah. I like him as a as a pundit,

1:04:05

as a as a conservative radio pundit. But I did

1:04:07

turn him off after about an hour. Okay.

1:04:10

I was like, Okay, then you didn't hear some of

1:04:12

the endgame stuff is funny where he asked us where

1:04:14

he's like trying to justify,

1:04:17

Like alright, so he saved

1:04:19

eight people from getting that blown

1:04:21

up, and that's funny, but it's bad because

1:04:25

it's funny. But like I believe it or not, I just

1:04:27

have a visceral reaction to that now, Like

1:04:29

I'm just so tired of it, and like real people

1:04:31

are that illogical and it bothers you and it's

1:04:34

just every fucking where some

1:04:36

asshole who is wrong,

1:04:39

like has has a podcast, says

1:04:41

the guy in the podcast. So

1:04:45

long from three assholes who

1:04:47

are wrong. Thanks for joining us,

1:04:49

Sorry and plug. Yeah,

1:04:53

I've got a podcast called uh

1:04:55

Quick Question with Soren and Dan. That's

1:04:58

with Dan O'Brien and also Michael Store who

1:05:00

he used to work with the

1:05:02

podcast. Yeah hell leases in the background kind

1:05:04

of chuckles a little occasionally, I

1:05:09

need to listen. If we need we needed like a tiebreaker

1:05:11

on something, then well that's

1:05:13

a great role for him, Sis Boomba. And

1:05:16

that's pretty much all I got going on. Sure

1:05:19

your episodes out, Yeah, my

1:05:22

first episode, American Dad came out on July twenty

1:05:24

nine. You can probably contributed to but that you

1:05:26

were lead, right, I was the like

1:05:29

my episode. I'll whatever that means,

1:05:31

did it because um

1:05:33

no, I mean this episode doesn't even because

1:05:35

it was my first episode. And also it

1:05:39

takes a well for like people to trust you at a

1:05:41

job like that with good reason. I shouldn't have

1:05:43

been trusted and they and so most

1:05:46

of it's not even mine. I mean, there's so much, so

1:05:48

much rewriting that goes on. When it comes out. You're

1:05:50

just like, that's another episode of the show. Great, I contribute

1:05:53

something to that. But her name is on I heard you.

1:05:55

You're reversibly killed off Roger and said

1:05:57

it will never never, I said Rogers not.

1:05:59

I said he's a bland character, and I killed him.

1:06:01

You want more room for the fish,

1:06:08

Adam, Oh no, I'm gonna pleasure. Thank

1:06:10

you. I enjoyed it. Also, no plugs

1:06:12

for Let's off the whip away,