Game Theory: Why Spider-Man is gaming’s greatest superhero
With Marvel's Spider-Man 2 out today, we look at what makes Peter Parker and Miles Morales swing so much higher than the competition
Games Features Spider-Man
Every Friday, A.V. Club staffers kick off the weekend by taking a look at the world of gaming, diving in to the ideas that underpin the hobby we love with a bit of Game Theory. We’ll sound off in the space above, and invite you to respond down in the comments, telling us what you’re playing this weekend, and what theories it’s got you kicking around.
Before we get into the ludology today, a quick programming note: As you may have noticed, we’ve changed up the title of this weekly column (but not its intent); the goal is to keep talking—and inviting you to talk in the comments—about what you, and we, have been playing of late, and why… but without having to jam a six-word headline into every piece. Hence, Game Theory!
Anyway: With its release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 today (read our review here), Insomniac Games has codified something that’s been true since at least their original 2018 game, and probably for quite a lot longer: Spider-Man—whether Peter Parker or Miles Morales—is gaming’s best superhero.
To be fair, it’s not an especially crowded pack. The only real competition is Batman, over at the Distinguished Competition—and even then, we’re only really talking about Rocksteady’s Arkham games, the only titles to have ever successfully merged the character’s “Hit mentally ill people until they stop trying to blow up the city” aspects with his more cerebral elements. Superman, meanwhile, has fared infamously poorly in gaming; most of the X-Men’s efforts have been a mess (give or take the X-Men Legends action-RPGs that begat the more wide-ranging Marvel’s Ultimate Alliance series); and while the Incredible Hulk has one genuinely good game to his name, his pals in the Avengers strongly whiffed on their one big attempt at gaming supremacy. Spidey simply stands/swings above.
In looking at Spider-Man 2, it’s easy to tease out why Pete and Miles are so, well, amazing at being translated into video games: Their strengths, as heroes, dovetail almost perfectly with those things that gaming does best. Above all else, that means a shared interest in the joy of movement. No other hero (even, ironically, the Flash) more perfectly captures how good it can feel to move across a big, complicated cityscape; half the pleasure of Sony’s fantastic Spider-Verse movies is in seeing neophyte spider Miles acclimate to his ability to gracefully navigate space. And ever since gaming tech got good enough—with 2004 Sam Raimi movie tie-in Spider-Man 2, of all things—to put actual web-swinging in players’ hands, the character has soared above the competition. (In the new Spider-Man 2, that even includes ripping off Batman a bit, incorporating Arkham City’s gliding mechanics into Pete and Miles’ bag of aerial tricks.) “Navigating space” is one of those sensations gaming does better than any other artistic medium, and so our most agile superhero has thrived in the form.
But Spider-Man’s weaknesses are just as vital to his gaming success. Part of the appeal of the character has always been that, underneath the mask and the quips, he’s just a kid from Queens and/or Harlem: When Spidey gets hit, he gets hit hard. The character can scale up to cosmic combat or kaiju battles when Marvel needs him to, but part of the reason he’s always endured, from a writing point of view, is that it’s easy to come up with daunting problems for him without completely breaking the universe in half. One of the great things about Insomniac’s Spider-Man games, meanwhile, is that they grasp that a single goon with a gun getting the drop on him can still be a lethal threat to a guy who’s tough, but not bulletproof: a little fragility can go a long way in making a gaming protagonist work.
It’s those two sides of Spider-Man that make him gaming’s ultimate superhero. On the one hand, is the sheer pleasure of being him, swinging above city streets, webbing up the baddies, thinking through problems with a joke flying every few seconds. And on the other, are the overwhelming odds he’s almost always facing, hordes of criminals and larger-than-life villains. (It’s not for nothing that gaming protagonists have always tended to be the little guy dodging hits from bigger, slower opponents, dating back to Mario and Bowser and beyond; far more satisfying to be the nimble David than the lumbering Goliath.) Other heroes might have flashier moves, darker stories, more gadgets in their bags of tricks. But no other hero feels so amazingly good to play.
21 Comments
Spider-Man really is a character with such broad appeal that his existence in just about any genre seems like it fits. I guess the simplicity of the average Spider-Man story is the key. Once the sandbox city format was invented, it was pretty simple to slot Spider-Man in and give you a fun time because the things you think of with Spider-Man are all simple video game style activities.Its funny that they never felt they could do that with Batman. All of his games (the good ones anyways) were much more focused storylines with a lot less freedom to just kind of “exist” as Batman. Even Arkham Knight, which gave us a real city map, came up with a story where Batman wouldn’t be doing actual Batman things of just stopping crimes and helping people, it was a big epic story with an invading terrorist group that Batman had to go all “one man army” on. So many other superheroes should make good games, but the people holding the rights tend to not be interested in that. Avengers actually work super well, they just got crammed in to a live-service game instead of a proper multi-player game. The combat was solid, the characters were interesting, even the maps weren’t bad….they were just split in to a dozen tiny maps to feed in to that mission based live-service model.X-Men is the one that’s weirdest to me doesn’t click, because its filled with great characters who have limited and often very focused powers. They work well in dungeon crawlers (XM Legends, Ultimate Alliance) but for some reason nowhere else. I feel like someone needs to throw JRPG mechanics and story at an X-Men game, maybe something like Persona where you have to balance school life and X-Men shit.
Best Spider-man game ever will always be Maxium Carnage. Down to the red cartridge!Spidey has had some great games (even arcade games) I passed the 4 plays Spider-man game in the arcade that ends with Doom and Venom. But for those of us 80’s kids they also had shit games like the Spiderman Intellivision game! Man that sucked.
Hi 5 fellow red cart owner! Only video game that includes a Mighty Mighty Bosstones song as far as I know!
I remember when I “passed” the game and the credits are rolling I told my brother who was watching “this can’t be the end, the comic doesn’t end here” and waiting and waiting till BANG Carnage comes back.
It’s been what, 27+ years and I still remember that moment so well.
Oh man yeah that’s right!
That’s the impression that I get as well.
I remember when I “passed” the game and the credits are rolling I told my brother who was watching “this can’t be the end, the comic doesn’t end here” and waiting and waiting till BANG Carnage comes back.
It’s been what, 27+ years and I still remember that moment so well.
I loved Neversoft’s Spider-Man on the PS1. Great cutscenes, Stan Lee narration, and remember being incredibly impressed to see an Andre the Giant OBEY poster on the wall.
A highlight of my childhood was getting a copy of Maximum Carnage for $5 from a video store clearance rack (they were making shelf space for Dreamcast games, iirc). Pretty sure I came back the following week and got X-Men Mutant Apocalypse from the same rack. After owning those games for years I got at least 2/3 of the way through both of them. They were both better than the SNES Spider-Man game that tied into the 90s animated series. It had very a different graphics/gameplay style than Maximum Carnage, in the sense that it looked worse and wasn’t fun.
I was sadly a red cart renter, since I never owned a game system growing up, so I had to wait to go to my cousin’s house to play this game. Holy hell was it amazing.
Fixed that for ya…
“Game Theory: Why I Think Spider-Man is gaming’s greatest superhero”
Fixed that for ya…I feel that I fixed that for ya… “Game Theory: Why I Think Spider-Man is gaming’s greatest superhero”
No, I fixed it. I feel you fuck’d it.
I haven’t been able to play a Spiderman game well since Atari 2600.
I can’t speak for the recent Spider-Man games because I don’t own a PlayStation, but Peter and Miles are definitely two of the most enjoyable characters to play in ‘Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3′. Part of that is the freedom of movement discussed here – they can zip around the screen like nobody’s business – but they’re also great at crowd control, webbing up and/or shocking bunches of thugs at a time. My favourite character is Thor, but Peter’s pretty close behind.
Is Ultimate Alliance 3 a good game? I loved the first one (but it’s no longer available unless I connect my old Xbox 360), but I didn’t really get into the second one. And they all felt like a step down from X-Men Legends 2, despite Spider-Man.
It depends what you’re looking for. I wouldn’t say it’s a game with a lot of depth, but it’s fun and it has a hefty roster of superheroes to play with.
Anyway I will say I’m not a huge fan of the parry mechanic. Spider-Man should be able to dodge everything, except yellow streaks attackers apparently
As long as the chase as an icon on the map style is dominant, Spider-Man will have an advantage on other games for successfully making “commuting” as fun as possible.
Oh man yeah that’s right!Fun Games
game ini adalah game terbaik sepanjang masa
karena orang dewasa dan anak-anak sangat menyukainya sampai saat ini
untuk informasi lebih lanjut, Anda dapat mengunjungi https://jurriaanpersyn.com/