It is like the first time I saw Die Hard and sat there thinking, 'Well fuck, this is it. I won't like anything more than this movie. Ever.' And I haven't! Or the first time I ate beef and sat there thinking, 'Well fuck, my journey is at an end. I need not search for any other food. This is all I need.' Or, the first time I met that little person at the end of the dark alley and oh, I forgot...I am not supposed to talk about that.
Forever and ever and ever.
What I am trying to say is that the '6 or 7 outta 10s' that I used to accept (and truly enjoy) in the super hero genre just don't do anything for me anymore. In fact, I go into bizarre frothing, thrashing seizures at certain aspects of them...or is that a separate problem?
Anyways, I could sit here and babble mercilessly about the dozens and dozens of crap to acceptable super hero games we used to play the shit out of, but we know all about those. So, instead, I will be simply comparing the work put into Arkham Asylum/City to that which was put into a single, newer game: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows.
*Please note* I am about three fourths of the way through the game so my assessment of it as a whole is not currently complete. Also, I will do my best to avoid spoilers, but I there might be a few here and there, so read at your own risk.
I. Go Atmospheric or Go the Fuck Home
This started from square fucking one in Batman: Arkham Asylum. You got to walk the halls of the scariest insane asylum in comics. You saw a couple inmates, heard some doctors talking, and got to take in the general decay of the place. Immediately.
Only ten minutes in
While Arkham City is toned down, the immediacy is still here. You are Bruce Wayne, not Batman, which means you might as well be naked. You are being forced into a place you, again, know is not a good fucking place to be a billionaire playboy. People are already trying to punch you in the face and you get to break the arm of the motherfucking Penguin (and if you so choose, kick him in the head as he cowers in a corner after the cinematic). This is all in the first...oh five minutes of the game?
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows kind of tries to do this but manages to tip the scales too hard and not do enough at the same time. The plot of the story is thus: Peter is duking it out with Anti-Venom next to some odd portal thing, Spider-Butt 2099 is talking in your head for some reason, Anti-Venom drains your radiation powers because that makes sense, and then kills the fuck out of Spider-Man.
Woah! That is some heavy shit, right? I guess so...but not really. First of all, where am I? Its just some gray platform with a bunch of darkness around me and a portal behind me. Guess what? I don't give a pile of ant shit about where I am, I don't recognize it and I am not into it. Who is this big scary villain I am fighting? Fucking Anti-Venom. A version of Eddie Brock's symbiote suit that has only been around since 2008. Guess what again? I don't give a single fuck about Anti-Venom. His story "New Ways to Die" kind of sucked and he looks like a melted Hershey's Cookies and Cream bar. It would be heavy if Spidey was finally overcome by Venom, that would jar me. But getting killed by this fucknut? No way.
It gets a bit better when the game shifts to the second playable character, Miguel O'hara a.k.a. Spider-Man 2099. First of all, why the fuck is Spider-Man 2099 here? He first appeared in '92 and appeared in a complete clusterfuck of 'Marvel is being a dick and firing its good writers' with his run lasting on and off again until 1998, so you wouldn't think he would be that big of a deal let alone making his second appearance as a main playable character in a Spidey game (the first being Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions).
Anyways, you start off sneaking into Alchemax (the genetics, evil stuff lab where O'Hara works) because he thinks that Walker Sloan, a scientist dude, is up to evil scientist shit. You slowly crawl through the vents of Alchemax and get to see a few things like a robot development lab and a genetics lab. This would have been a cool set up for future areas explored much like Arkham Asylum, and I thought it was. Until you play through a bit of the game and realize due to the time travel fuckery the game shits out, you will never play through any of these areas. So no, Edge of Time, you did not properly set the atmosphere with the intro scenes.
II. Story Is Rather Important, Right?
Obviously story is important to any media, be it a thirty second commercial for ass cream or a blockbuster movie. You need something to bait your audience, hook them, and then keep them entertained for the entire duration of your chosen media outlet. Video games are the same and a super hero video game is even more crucial. You can't just crap out some characters and give them a reason to punch each other. You are carrying the weight of characters with decades of history on your back and need to treat that with respect and dignity.
Arkham Asylum was straight to the point, rather simplistic...and worked beautifully. The Joker purposefully got caught so he could take over the island while he uses a new version of the Venom super steroid to make an unbeatable army of super soldiers. Batman has to stop him while dealing with various other super inmates and the various goons transferred over from Blackgate prison. Toss in a few of the emotional problems that comes with being the Batman (generally present in the beautifully terrifying Scarecrow scenes) and the weighty atmosphere to thicken the plot without the developers needing to toss in crap filler (the fetch quests and riddles are entirely optional) or needless gimmicks.
Arkham City followed suit, the plot being rather point A to point B on paper while feeling much thicker with the proper pacing, atmosphere, and emotional hooks.
Then we look at Edge of Time and holy cow fuck, Batman! This shit is confusing. I seriously just played through three fourths of it yesterday and I have had to look at the Wikipedia article to even try and summarize the plot. Spider-man is killed by Anti-Venom when the founder of Alchemax goes back in time to create the company before it is supposed to. He does, thus changing everything: a lot of the villains are eye-rollingly put into 'surprising' polar opposite roles (learned through unlockable newspaper clippings), J. Jonah Jameson is a ranting late-night talk show host (learned through an unlockable newspaper clipping) , 2099 is a Blade Runner looking dystopian nightmare (learned from a single cinematic) , and Peter works for Alchemax (learned from a single cinematic). (As you can see from the parenthesis above, hardly any of this fucking matters)
Jesus. This is the first half hour of the game. The first fucking half hour of game play should not be ridiculously difficult to explain! And it just gets even more fucking confusing as you go on! I honestly have very little idea as to what is going on.
Oh, and you know how I said that Batman had very little gimmicky crap nor padded out game play? Well fuck that, says the developers of Spider-Man. There are sequences where you have a certain amount of time to accomplish something in the past (usually fetch-questy or otherwise on the tediousness scale) to change something in the future, tons of back tracking, and a whole lot of pointless platforming forced down your gullet.
III. Let's Talk About Punching Dudes In the Face
Holy shit is the combat awesome in the two most recent Batman games. Again, simplistic on paper but surprisingly deep with patience and practice. You are encouraged to time your attacks to develop a real rhythm, rather than mashing the attack button as quickly as you can (in fact, you a lot of times can get absolutely punished for this). Toss in just a few special enemies to push your reflexes and keep things fresh, a shit load of gadgets you can freely mix into your combos, and some neat combat upgrades and shit can get really crazy (in a good, 'I am in control of this' kind of crazy). With practice, you can clear entire waves of bad dudes in one flawless fifty something hit combo.
The developers of Spider-Man take the idea of a super hero fighting dudes and then shoves it up their ass. It falls back on the age old, 'Mash buttons as fast as you can to succeed' concept. And that isn't what is bad, I can dig an old school style beat-'em up. What is absolute shit, is how needlessly difficult it is.
Apparently, part of the time changing story is that the Spider-Men now have wet noodles for arms and bags of baked beans for fists. These guys are so hilariously under powered that it feels like a little kid in his Spider-Man pajamas is actually trying to fight robots and security guards. I have seriously racked up sixty plus hit combos just flooring five basic enemies. The last time I had a sixty something combo in either of the Arkham games, I had erased the basic education of twenty shit heads with my fists and boots.
Also, the fights get fucking crazy (in a bad, 'Jesus! Fuck! Everyone just calm down and let me figure out what the fuck is going on here' way). Guys are punching you, robots are shooting lasers and machine guns, a giant brute of a robot is erasing a fourth of your health per second, something is exploding, and I think Spidey has pooped himself.
I felt like this, a lot.
But there has to be a way to get stronger right? Well yeah, by collecting orbs from your fallen foes. Oh wait, nope, those can only upgrade your basic combo strength (this makes a mouse fart of a difference, by the way) and your special attacks. Well, how the fuck do I upgrade my health and shit? By finding secret, hidden golden spiders. What the fuck on fire in Midtown? I have to fucking track down the fucking hidden fucking items just so I don't fucking get the fuck killed out of me every fucking five minutes? Fuck! To make it worse, your health isn't increased every time you find one. No, you have cash in five or more of the fuckers for a health boost.
However, I found a way around this. Simply run. Run like the wind. Run like the devil is behind you. I discovered in many, many situations you aren't actually required to kill all the enemies. Just as long as you kill the one guy with the key/press the button/destroy the thing, the game lets you continue. This is doubly hilarious when you remember Peter lecturing O'hara on never running away from danger at the beginning of the game.
IV. Conclusion
Now here is why I am mad at the two Batman games; if this was made prior to August 25, 2009...it wouldn't be that bad! Super hero video games (if you didn't know) used to always be awful and occasionally, mediocre. This would have been a neat-ish Spidey story (if a bit confusing and including an odd character choice), with difficult but forgivable combat (hey guys, at least it works!), and a kind of cool place to explore.
Now though, all I see is a pointlessly drawn out and confusing story, hilariously weak combat on top of needless padding, and a boring ass 'oh look, another abandoned lab' for a setting.
Arkham Asylum/City, congratulations are in order. Congratulations for giving a pedestal to stand on and look down at every other super hero game. You have ruined everything.
I like to imagine the dude is Spider-Man: Edge of Time and Batman is doing his able best to rip his balls off.
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