
In an age of never-ending live services and padded open world games, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s relatively tight 20-or-so hour story has been criticised by a handful of fans for not offering enough value for money. While the wealth of side content can practically double that playtime, it’s still a release on the shorter side compared to epics like Baldur’s Gate 3.
But director Bryan Intihar, while acknowledging the PS5 exclusive needs to represent value for money, believes quality trumps quantity. “For us, it really comes down to the experience we want to deliver with the quality we want to hit,” he told BBC. “Our job is to make sure that you feel no matter how long it is, it's worth that money, it's worth that investment.”
Despite the price of next-gen games increasing to an MSRP of £69.99/$69.99 this generation, we generally agree that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is worth the price of admission. While it doesn’t necessarily offer hundreds of hours of content like its peers, the consistent level of quality puts it a cut above its open world rivals – and there’s still New Game+ and other content updates to come.
[source bbc.com]
Comments 99
Honestly I'm tired of people acting like every game has to be 100 hours plus to be worth anything. With nearly every big game coming out these days being 40+ hours in length it can get fatiguing I'm cool with some shorter games. Besides this games story length was pretty spot on for me
Hundreds of hours of gameplay is so subjective though. Definitely agree with insomniac on this one. It was the same argument with heavenly sword years ago on the ps3 and I still believe in quality over quantity.
The day Insomniac releases a game that is not worth your money, you can close the entire industry.
While I have no doubt the game is great and better than slogs full of macro transactions and DLCs (not included in the overpriced season pass) like AC Valhalla, what kind of director would say "you know what? My game is not worth the pricetag, you should wait for a discount."
I didn't pay £70 was only £62 on Amazon but it is worth £70 IMO, complete and polished right out of the box!
'Value' is always relative to the individual so I don't necessarily agree with this. If someone feels that the Game is 'too short' or not enough content they 'want' for that price point, that is equally as valid a perspective.
Length itself isn't always a good metric as you can have 100's of hours worth of 'repetitive' game-play/quests etc just to pad out a 'mediocre' Campaign with bland characters and a very predictable and/or generic plot but a much shorter game exceeds expectation and delivers an experience you feel justified its price point.
Some games deliver on both Quality and Quantity too that make '8hr' games feel incredibly short, left with a feeling of 'is that it?' I expected 'more' for the price...', even if its 'Quality' cannot be faulted.
£70 is also going to feel expensive to some, and maybe pocket-money change to another. It really does depend on your Budget, how much free cash you can spend on games. If you have to save weeks to buy a Game at launch, that's going to be a different 'value' proposition to someone who could buy several 'new' games every week....
@Keyblade-Dan
Completely agree. It’s a tedious discussion that crops up with increasingly regularity. When are we going to move on from this? It’s a statement he didn’t even need to make - arguably it’s doing more harm by propagating this petty discourse.
I mean picked this up for £62 and also Mario Wonder £37.50 so not to bad.
So he's probably right, but also, if you're the director for a game and you release it thinking it's not worth the money, that seems like a problem, rather than the norm
The way this year’s release schedule is … I’m crying out for games to be a bit shorter
I had £20 in stars vouchers and picked up discounted PSN cards so I think I ended up getting the Deluxe Version for around £53.
I'm quite happy with that. And I agree, not every games has to be a slog fest with 100 hours plus.
I love BG3 and another of my faves was the Witcher 3. I'll put in over 100 hours with BG3 and I put in around 200 with TW3. Persona 5 as well took me over 100 hours. But likewise I also found I fell out with AC games because they felt like a slog that was too fatiguing to finish. HZD was the same for me in that regard and I don't even know how long that plays 😂
But at the same time I have just as much fun with a shorter game such as this. Rift Apart was also fairly short but I considered it value for money.
It's not about how many hours, it's about the total package for me, first and foremost I want to have fun and if a game has been fun then I will likely consider it worth the money I have paid.
As @BAMozzy says above, this is always going to be subjective and down to the individual.
This is why physical games will always be important to me. If I do feel short changed by a triple-A release, I can just trade it in. Not that my son would let me do that in this case though, we're enjoying Spidey 2 immensely.
The physical version is £62 in Argos, Amazon and Asda, Smyth's toys, Curry's, HMV online etc. Why would anyone want to buy the digital version if it's cheaper for the physical?
I canceled my pre-order. Swinging still is physicsless.
Not worth the full price.
Wake me up when devs remember what phyiscs is again
Is it though? What if you don't like superhero stuff and everything it entails? I like Arkham Asylum and The Dark Knight, but besides that superhero media is lame af imo. Not my thing tonally. Even the later Batman games started getting lamer and lamer.
When did a 20 hour story mode start getting considered short? I've played many games with shorter main stories than that. If every game had 100+ hours main stories we'd never get any finished.
Since when was 20 hours considered too short?
15-20 hours is a perfect length for games like this. If you want a game that will give you 100+ hours of playtime go get an RPG. There's plenty of great games of that genre to choose from.
Not every game needs to be 100s of hours long. Did a $10 price jump really make people say "Well now I need to get 100s of hours of playtime from every game I purchase?" That's honestly an extremely whacky attitude to have about it. If $70 is really too much for a 20 hour high quality game...I don't know why you would even bother being interested in any game that is not an RPG. Weird standards.
@Korgon When $70 can buy you several great 'High Quality' 15-20hr games, then $70 for one, just because its 'new' maybe isn't great value to that person.
You can buy several 'Game of the Year' games in a sale that are arguably better now they have been patched, updated with extra content/features/modes instead for example which maybe even better Value to the Gamer.
Its relative to the individual and what they feel is the better use of the money for them...
Would love to be playing it but bought it physical and my game is stuck at 36% no matter what i do.....very suspicious that this has happened with sonys biggest game for years just when the big two are making a massive digital push.Apparently happened to 000's of people as well
Its mental even questioning this. I've only played for about 3 hours but its worth every penny so far.
I'd take a 20-30 hour game over a hundred hour game any day of the week
Since when is 20-30 hours short? SM2 is big budget very high production blockbuster and its well worth the cost.
Not every game needs to be a big open world filled with so much filler. I'd take a decent length game with great quality over that. Will always come back for another playtrhough but a game like AC Valhalla will never be played again. As much as I loved Skyrim, I couldn't bring myself to go back to that a second time after sinking so many hours in
@BAMozzy
That's not really the argument I'm making. I know that sales are a thing. Obviously you can get games cheaper if you wait for a sale.
But if someone is planning to spend $70 on a new game I find it very strange to say $70 for 20 hours is considered not good value. No one complained about spending $60 for Uncharted back in the day for example and, other than the original, those games are around 10-15 hours long. I just find it strange how a $10 price jump all of a sudden equals games must be 100s of hours long in order to be considered good value.
That just literally makes no sense.
The first game clocked in around 17 hours and I don't recall that being a major problem.
Tbh it could have been longer
Is the 20 hours the main story or doing everything b/c that could be a big difference? I finished Cyberpunk at 30 hours w/ only 50% done but I still had a very long list of side jobs to do that probably would have doubled my play time. Open world games tend to have so much side content, some of the Witcher 3 stuff was better than the main game, that if Spider-Man has a main story that’s about 20 hours long while ignoring all of the side content that’s plenty long enough for me. If it’s a 6 hour main story padded out to 20 hours to 100% the game that would be short.
To be fair, I bought physical so I could sell it once I’m done.. if I can get $1 an hour worth then sell it for $40-$50 it’s 100% worth it.. I preordered on my payday (Wednesday) so the wife couldn’t say anything today when I pick it up 😎.. look forward to it.. I’m putting aside my first/only play through of Cyberpunk + Night City (40hrs in) to jump into a more fun/carefree lighthearted game.. the Chooms can wait for a bit cuz Spidey looks Preem
I agree that a games quality is what makes it.
But I do remember the actor who plays Peter Parker bragging about how massive the game would be, which does kind of make it awkward and an easy target if it isn't 😅
(But I bet the people who are moaning are just being spoiled brats all the same haha)
@Korgon As I tried to point out, its all relative. You may think that paying $70 for 20hrs is great value to you but for another person who spent weeks saving their Pocket Money to buy the game and finish it over a weekend somewhat poor value when they could have bought a game that would last them 'months' so they can save money for their 'next' game.
They may be better off picking up Cyberpunk now in a sale and playing that, wait for Spider-Man 2 to crop up in a sale as that will be 'even' better Value but right now, its not 'worth' $70 because they can get a LOT more games for that money.
If you can only buy a 'new' game a month, buying a game and beating it in a few days may feel like its not great 'value' as they have 'nothing' to play until 'next' month now but could have bought several games or even just 1 game that will see them through to their 'next' game.
Maybe if you look at Sub services too (inc PS+ Extra), they have many 'great' high quality games to play for a much lower monthly cost - and games like God of War, Horizon:ZD, Last of Us, Uncharted, R&C, Returnal, Spider-Man & Miles Morales are of 'equal' Sony Quality so much better 'value' than buying Spider-Man 2 at launch when it will be on PS+ at some point and/or in a sale offering much better 'value' than it does today.
You are still paying more just to play it at launch - and with 'many' games, they update and/or patch the game - add more features, modes, content etc (like NG+, Performance modes etc), fix bugs and/or optimise it better to extract 'more' from the Hardware etc so that when you do buy it in a Sale, its a bigger, better and/or much more playable/fun/balanced experience so 'better' value as it also costs less...
I don't think this is even an issue or valid argument by the director here really when you take into account the open world tropes Insomniac includes in this franchise. The majority of even the games considered long have 20-40 hour main stories padded out to seem bigger with open world bloat via uninspired side content.
Ironically this was the main and really only criticism of Insomniac's firt attempt at this IP. Even more ironic is that despite this being the one widely agreed aspect OF SPIDERBOY that wasn't great ; they doubled down on that that in the sequel to pad out the content length.
Thus, largely doing the same nonsense a Ubisoft game would anyways and really contradicting this high horse notion of quality over quantity they are putting forth here.
Despite the cringe young teen like tone they went with for their spidey games, had they improved on these aspects I may have even picked up this sequel for their undeniable high cinematic/development pedigree alone. Yet they made a game so familiar and formulaic to the original that it's just a non starter for me personally. Not because of length, but instead because I've already played what it is and don't want more of the exact same because it grew repetitive very quickly.
The whole question surrounding the idea if a game is worth the asking price depends on so many factors, and the individual person, that it's almost always difficult answer. Unless the game is absolutely dog water or a broken mess, it's pretty uncommon for for a game to be universally accepted as horrible and not worth it.
@Korgon Oh and whilst I am trying to be 'objective' and say that Value is totally relative to the individual, their preferences, budget etc I can see your point. I don't necessarily believe that a 100hr+ game is better value than a 15-20hr game - as I said, I'd rather play a 15-20hr 'great' game than a 100+ hr Mediocre broken Mess, filled with repetitive Game-play, repeated repetitive Side Quests, bland characters with a predictable and/or generic plot.
Therefore you have to look at each game on a game by game basis. I know that if I had a 'limited' budget and could only buy 'new' games once every month or two, then I'd rather buy a 'great' 100hr+ game that will see me through at least until I can buy something else, than buy something I'll be finished with in a weekend and then have little/nothing to play until I can afford another game, wait for 'short' games to drop in price so I could buy several games to see me through.
Personally, I don't believe ANY game is worth $50+ just to play it in the first few months or so of release. The Stories, Game-play loops etc are NO better - even if they 'look' more realistic. I'd rather play Uncharted 2 than U4 again and much prefer AC2 to AC:Valhalla. And until the price went up, I was buying 'new' games for £40-45 at most and £65-70 for Special Collectors editions with DLC bonuses, Steelbook cases, Artbooks, Soundtracks etc so £65-70 (as they are in the UK) for a 'standard' release is quite a jump up for what? Better Graphics? We had that with the PS4 over PS3 too but didn't have to pay £10 more for the PS4 version because it offered the full 1080p with higher quality visual settings...
That's like charging nVidia RTX series an extra £10 over AMD users because they can play games at higher Graphical settings/performance thanks to its Cores specifically for RT, AI and DLSS.
Some games are too big. 40hrs of content is more than enough for a game like this or it would overstay its welcome.
I’m so fed up with developers having to justify games that aren’t 100+ hours long! Some of us don’t have endless time and it’s nice to know that we might actually finish a game!
The game length argument is as stupid as always and has nothing to do with either value or how long I'll actually play it for. The Resident Evil 2 Remake is a game I can beat in less than a couple of hours, yet I've easily spent over 100 hours playing it. On the other side there is Assassins Creed Valhalla which is stupidly long and I stopped after 30 hours or so as I got bored of it.
Give me a game that I enjoy playing and doesn't outstay it's welcome over filling an open world with "content" for the sake of it any day
Just because some people have an issue with something, doesn't mean we need to address it. No game will ever make everyone happy.
@MrMagic for many reasons, but also, keep in mind that you can buy top up cards online for a discounted price.
E.g. You can pay £87.99 and get a £100 psn top up card.
https://www.cdkeys.com/playstation-network-psn/playstation-network-psn-card-100-gbp
(sorry, not sure if I'm allowed to post links; if not, please delete it)
@naruball Yeah, I totally forgot about cdkeys seeing as I've never used it before. Actually thanks for that I think I'll buy one for extra as I only have about 3 months left on my sub.👍
So far it’s amazing but I’m worried that I’ve only played yesterday and PS5 already says I’m at 50% of the main story, I really hope it’s wrong.
I agree
🕷 spiderman 2 definitely worth the money.word up son
I have thus far put in over 270 hours into BG3, @Dudditz09. I'm only on my first playthrough, and I have loved every moment of it. Already planning future runs. Definitely going to win every single Game of the Year award it is eligible for.
I have bought the Collector's edition of Spiderman 2, and at the moment it is sat unopened because of BG3. I have absolutely no doubt that I will enjoy the game, despite the heavy price tag that I have paid.
Value for money is all relative. For example, each year I buy CoD and only ever play the campaign. I'm content with that. I know what I am buying, and roughly how long I will be spending playing it. I always do two runs, one to get through the game, polish up the trophies, and then a second on the hardest difficulty to get those trophies. I know I will only spend around 20 to 30 hours playing the game, and that it will cost me around £70. In all honesty, if you know what you are getting in advance, then apart from not actually enjoying the game, then you cannot complain about the length. If you are unhappy with 20 hours in Spiderman 2, wait for a sale. Maybe even a deep sale...
@BAMozzy
Sure I get what your saying. I agree it is all relative and if money is tight it would makes sense to go for something like a Cyberpunk or any other RPG if you have to get a lot of time for your money.
I just can't get why anyone would be upset about a Spider-Man game not having 100s of hours of gameplay when that just would not make sense for the type of game it is. If someone needs to make a single game last for a month or more I just don't understand why that someone would be surprised that a game like Spider-Man wouldn't last that long. Like did anyone actually expect Spider-Man 2 to last as long as a Persona game?
That's what's more baffling to me. If you don't feel like a game is worth full price then fair enough, wait for a sale or look at picking up something else. But I'd just say if that person is expecting a non-RPG or a non-GaaS game to last them 100s of hours they are not going to find much if anything that fits that mold.
Removed - inappropriate language
@DarthOreo she doesn't 😬
Quality over quantity ever time. After spending close to $80B over the past few years, Xbox has quantity, but they still lack the quality of PlayStation Studios.
Totally agree, that's something devs & gamers should get into there heads. Quality over quantity, I don't care for some bloated 70+ hour ***** fest. If a game is amazing & it lasts ten hours that's money we'll spent for me.
@MrMagic just fyi others have also used shopto. Not sure which is better. Just letting you know in case you want more options.
@Korgon I suppose if money is that tight people can simply get ps extra and play hundreds of games for very little money. It's all pretty baffling.
The Order: 1886 says hello.
I’m curious to see how much this will sell.
So who made the law; short games = quality and long games ≠ quality. Like @Th3solution says, the Order 1886 says hello. If a game feels too long, it's just natural burnout, happens with anything from food to whatever. AC Mirage is short yet it's not like it's giving Valhalla a run for its money. There are people who don't care if it's padding or filler, they probably enjoy the gameplay so they want it to keep going for hours, something like Monster Hunter. I mean FIFA and CoD are selling every year, there are people enjoying repeatedly playing the same old matches for hundreds of hours, they'd say it's better value than a short game. Same way some enjoy playing hundreds of hours of SP like they would an MP, regardless if it's filler.
Worth the money to me!
Feel this exact thing about Mario Wonder. It's short, relatively speaking, but of such amazing quality. The exact opposite of, say, Starfield or Ubisoft's open worlds, which are all quantity in sacrifice of quality (in my opinion). I prefer quality every time, as long as the game is replayable, which quality usually creates by itself. I never want to play through Starfield again from the beginning, for example, alongside most of the hundred- hour monsters and live services that come out. Even Zelda is too big to replay like that for me. Mario Wonder and others (like the excellent Rift Apart from Insomniac themselves) are the complete opposite philosophy ...A concentrated 10 to 20 hour game you can easily replay again and again, finished and polished on release. I miss that.
It feels weird that the point I’m at says I’m 30% done because it doesn’t feel long at all. But, I can’t argue that the quality is fantastic. Combat has improved, visuals are better, etc. Can’t judge the story yet. Still hate how meh the non important NPC look but that doesn’t matter at all. Having a blast with it though.
In cases like this I always think of the Last of Us. Both of those games suffer with having a longer game but SO much filler. A lot of moments which offer little story and feel like are just there to pad the game out.
I haven’t played Spider-Man 2 yet but assuming it’s not got any padding within its main missions, I’d much rather that.
(Evidently through my Joel appreciation avatar I’m a huge Last of Us fan before the inevitable replies - I do think however they pad those games out excessively)
No game is worth £70, even £50 is pushing it. I've completely stopped buying PS5 games on launch now. I wonder if the price hike was worth it in the end. One benefit of it being so short is that I'll be able to play it for free in a week or so thanks to being able to borrow a physical copy.
I especially like all the people on the media side of the industry larking on about how wonderful digital is and how unbelievable it is that people still buy physical games. Must be nice to get all those free game codes whilst helping to push up the price for the rest of us. Thanks for that xxx
I find lots of games too long these days. It’s not like when I was a kid and I only got 3 games a year, it’s more about quality and originality of experience for me now. It’s why I generally only buy PSVR2 games these days; sure they’re shorter (although in fairness less than half the price), but they are so much more enjoyable than another 50hr plus collectathon
@Korgon All I am saying is that people will have different perspectives on what they consider to be good/bad value. Some will be 'fine' with what they get for their money and others will expect 'more'.
I remember when games would have a 8hr+ Single Player, an extensive Online Multi-player Suite etc for around £40 - now it seems that you'll get an 8hr game for £70 and they'll sell a Multi-player suite separately for example. Instead of making a bigger game, the Games seem to be getting smaller, shorter - albeit 'prettier' yet charging more.
Games aren't 'better' than 10yrs ago either - as RE4, Dead Space and Quake 2 are some of the highest rated 'releases' this year - games that are 'over' 10yrs Old that still stand-up today. The Quality of the writing, the Game-play etc stands up.
Anyway, If you have £70 to spend on gaming, some may choose to buy this at launch - pay a high 'premium' just because its 'new', Pay a Premium to be one of the 'first' to play. This is when Games are at their 'worst' value for a Gamer as the price is at its highest, the game is generally at its worst (for a Consumer as it requires patches/fixes/optimisation to iron out any bugs - even if it releases in a great state) and lowest Content too - with 'promises' of Post release content to come. Therefore, when its half price in a sale, you get a 'better,bigger' game for less - much 'better' value for money.
You may place a 'higher' value on games to be one of the first to experience it, the FOMO effect pushes you to pay that Premium to play the 'best' new Release this week for example, but another may decide to buy it when its in a sale because they can get a LOT more Games, a lot more entertainment etc for a lot less.
Why spend £70 on a single game when you could spend £10 on a Sub Service and play numerous games, buy several superb games in a sale etc and get much better 'value' for your money. It doesn't matter how long/short SM2 is, it will be 'better' value and soon be on PS+ anyway.
Point is that Value is 'relative' to an individual and therefore can't be argued. As I said, I can't argue with you about the Value of SM2 in reality because its personal to you, just as you can't really argue that others may get more 'value' from their £70 to them so think SM2 isn't great value either.
Some games are worth the price tag, this is one of them
Haven't started Spiderman yet, I'm currently playing lies of p and while it's a great game... I gotta say I feel it's a touch too long now that I'm towards the end.
A tight 20 hours or so sounds perfect. In some cases, games are becoming so big and bloated to justify the price tags. Remember uncharted 2? A tight 10 to 12 hours or so? I sort of miss this philosophy.
I paid £70 in 1997 for Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. That’s the equivalent of £157.11 today. For these games to have reached almost photorealistic standards and massive increased in size, and production budget, and still stay (more of less) the same price is astonishing. Well done Insomniac. You made another absolute cracker. 😍👍
Worth every penny so far.
2 tickets to go see Manet/Degas at the MET last weekend was $60 and we did not stay for 20 hrs.
If you want to have tons of fun while also watching amazing Digital Art in motion. This is an easy buy.
News flash! You don't need to spend 300 hours in every video game you buy
Thing is, it's a single player experience. I don't feel that I am missing out not playing it the day it's released. I think I am actually getting more if I wait, as patches generally make the experience better, adding things, fixing things.
Also, as history has shown, the games do not hold value and the price drops fast. So is it worth $70? Quali6wise, probably, but if I hold out a few months, I am sure I won't have to pay the $70 to experience a superior version.
I saw this clown on Reddit trying to convince people he platted the game after 14 hours 🤣 The account was deleted soon after the attempt blew up in his face.
I think people are less likely to believe in ***** these days.
@aj21009
AJ, you most certainly are getting more for less.
However, many games are so good coming out of the gate that they pull buyers to them by the sheer scale of magnetism, so they also, somehow, are able to turn a profit.
Haven't received my copy yet but saw some bugs already, even after the patch? (John from Digital Foundry).
SPOILERS since it is being discussed:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpidermanPS4/comments/17co2b8/spiderman_2_troubleshootingserious_bugs/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpg3iFxz80w (set sound low)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgbbK66kbkc (more rational about it)
I must say I am a bit surprised about this because it is Insomniac Games.
AFCC wrote:
Ever heard of Feral Rights? No? That's because it wasn't worth your money. Destructoid gave it a 5.5 / 10 and yes it was made my Insomniac. (but generally I agree with everything you said 😊)
I remember when I was young and had all the time in the world but little money I wanted games to last forever,. The longer the better, within reason.
Now I am older and have plenty of money but not enough time I prefer games to respect that limited time.
There is room for both views.
But I don't think it good game design when games make us repeat the exact same quest design 10, 20 or even a hundred times to artificially extend their length. I respect what Insomniac have done here and I wish more studios would follow their lead and not over-bloat their games with repetitive busywork.
The game is very polished and if u do all which is very enjoyable, probably a nice 30 hours. Very worth it and i dont want every game to be 100 hours but dull and boring. Starfield was supposed to be endless fun but i put it down within 3 hours and moved on.
@Pusher2021 last video is spot on imho. It's the same platform warriors sharing bug images and videos, that aren't even their own experiences, to try and stir the pot and make issues seem more widespread than they are. It's sad.
The Michael Does Life video is hilarious but that is his shtick, making mountains out of molehills. That first "level" with Sandman, where a lot of assets are replaced for that mission only, seems to have a lot of bugs if you completely ignore the main quest and go out of your way to look for things/systems behaving weirdly in the sandstorm.
So far i've had a couple of minor bugs in about 10 hours. Subtitles getting mixed up and a couple of times objects have been floating in the air. None of it is a big deal imho.
@themightyant I always expect bugs to happen nowadays. The cars' thing was kind of funny, but you know this will get fixed ASAP. I'm interested, though, what causes this to happen (and why people have them and others don't).
Insomniac Spider-man games always had minor bugs, so I'm surprised there are so many to see. I hope the day I install my game, most of them are gone.
Either way, I'm still looking forward to play it, now I finished SMM NewGame+
A director of a game saying don't buy this full price and wait for a discount would be more newsworthy.
Got a buddy who can't even get past the main menu. Graphics just glitch out like crazy. Did a video chat with him and it still happened after he deleted the game and installed it to console storage.
20 hours to beat the story in full is a selling point for me
@Mostik I also got my copy on Amazon but it only cost me £42.99, thanks to a £20 Amazon voucher I had. I ended up upgrading to the Digital Deluxe for an extra £10 though lol.
Still £52.99 for the Digital Deluxe Edition is pretty good. The fact that it's a shorter game means I'm far more likely to replay this in a year or two.
@Pusher2021 things like the cars pathing are systems driven processes. Games like this have many different systems that interact with each other e.g. how do cars respond to other systems like traffic lights, pedestrians, obstructions in the road (like this truck) or the player / spider-man to try and react like a believable human. It’s likely that issue isn’t widespread, or it would have been picked up in testing/QA. But there may be a specific place on the map where all the systems, AI and pathing don’t quite work as expected together - or perhaps only under a very specific set of circumstances (like during the sandman mission).
These sort of bugs can be hard to find even with a robust QA process. Effectively there will ALWAYS be places where there is a bit of unexpected jank in complex systems driven games like this, it’s unavoidable, as it’s impossible to test all variables in all situations.
As for how some people find it. The reality is in the first 24 hours of a major release the game will be played more, by millions of gamers, than during the whole testing period.
And some people go out of their way to find things like this. They don’t play the game as intended, swinging around as Spider-man, enjoying the game. Instead they walk around following the pedestrians or cars looking for things that don’t react realistically like humans.
@TheCollector316 Man… Xbox is literally living rent free in your head. All you ever do is mention when nothing has anything to do with them.
@AverageGamer
Is everything OK at home?
I played the game and managed to clear the story and the predator side content in 11 hours. It's definitely a fair bit shorter than I was expecting. I'm lucky I have the luxury to be able to afford 3-4 £70 games per month but I can imagine someone who can only afford one per month or less could feel a little short changed if they are looking for time value.
@themightyant if you click on the description in the Michael does life video he posted with the cars it says they are playing without the day one patch. They are definitely doing it on purpose to try and find bugs.
Simpleminded gamers that want quantity over quantity are ruining gaming.
I would much rather pay 70$ for a fantastic 12-20 hour experience than pay 40$ for a mediocre 100 hour experience.
@MrMagic 100%. Anyone who's seen a Michael Does Life/Games video before should realise pretty soon that he is a parody gamer outrage account. It's good comedy and going for the meme's. That's not a problem, it's good, fun content imho.
The real problem is the sad people trying to weaponise things like this to push their own bias or fanboy arguments, they don't even see the irony that the account they are quoting is a parody of them.
@Acurisur That is a great deal buddy, I agree, whilst I haven't finished it yet I can already tell it is going to get another play through, loving it so far.
MrMagic said:
@Pusher2021 They're playing without the day one patch on purpose. It even says in the description of the video from one of the links you posted. Mon 23rd 00:21
@MrMagic Those were examples I found after seeing John Linneman tweeting about it. And people who had the physical disc, which wouldn't install their game, even after clearing their cache, seem still a problem though (hanging on 36% during install).
@themightyant The real problem is the sad people trying to weaponise things like this to push their own bias or fanboy arguments, they don't even see the irony that the account they are quoting is a parody of them.
Just to be clear, are you implying something? (since I'm the one quoting)
@Pusher2021 No, not at all, and apologies if that was your take, I can see how you could interpret it that way. But was not intended.
It's just nowadays, especially in 2023, it seems a large part of video game discourse online is bitching and moaning about the most minor things. Gamer outrage making mountains out of molehills. People not even sharing their OWN experiences but being outraged at a clip they saw online. Doesn't matter if the game ran without major glitches for them... if they even played it... "game is BROKEN!" regardless. It's having to navigate a minefield of disingenuous bad faith actors intent on trying to ruin people's fun. Too many fanboys who have set their sights on Spider-man because Starfield was attacked, and vice-versa. It's sad on ALL sides.
@Pusher2021 Yeah, so you went looking for them and found people who are being disingenuous and exaggerating for views. 👍
@themightyant Ah ok, thanks for clarifying. I'm not into plastic boxes and such. I see myself as a gamer, platform doesn't matter. In this case, I was curious since nobody said anything about it. And I don't see a console warrior in John Linneman (Digital Foundry). Some experience bugs or have install problems others don't, or did, but found a solution to the problem etc.
Since I didn't have my copy yet, I wanted to gather as much info about it (reddit isn't always a good place) and on PushSquare nobody seem to have had any problems, as far as I know.
Good thing is, bugs can be patched, but a game not installing (happens on other platform too), I remember Xbox 360 discs scratching due to overheating.
I hope I'm not one of those unlucky ones and if I am, the solutions given, help. Though, Insomnia Games is one of the last devs I would expect to have problems releasing new games.
@themightyant said - The real problem is the sad people trying to weaponize things like this to push their own bias or fanboy arguments, they don't even see the irony that the account they are quoting is a parody of them.
Exactly, and you explained the situation better than I ever could, obviously bugs are still a problem but the game is on the disc which is increasingly rare these days. The patches are quality of life improvements and should be installed if possible but instead they are being ignored on purpose for the reasons you described.
@MrMagic I don't care about fanboys, just honest experiences with said game. It doesn't mean the game is bad all of a sudden. I still like to be informed. You can't paint everyone with the same brush.
@Pusher2021 My honest judgement between both my personal experience and what i've seen and read online?
All in all it seems a pretty polished AAA systems driven game. You are never going to get ALL the bugs before launch. That said it's perhaps not quite as polished Day 1 as some other Sony games, but still more than most AAA systems driven open world games, where there is a LOT that can go wrong. But ymmv
I've personally had a few MINOR bugs and i've heard about a couple of random ones that required a checkpoint restart, and seen a few amusing things too. But nothing at all serious, seems in a fairly good state Day 1 otherwise there would be much worse shared online.
To be clear I am NOT including the 36% disc bug which seems more likely it's a bad batch of discs. Nor the Michael Does Games meme video where he is deliberately playing without the day 1 patch and purposefully looking for problems, that's his schtick.
@Pusher2021 I merely pointed out that some of your sources weren't being entirely honest.
If you like to be informed then I would've thought that bit of information would be helpful to you.
40 HR Spiderman2 Vs 100 hr AC Valhalla.
One feels like a breathing city with meaningful quests, the other feels like someone copy and pasted stuff all over the map 500 times
@MrMagic That is what a community is about. And don't think for others and what info is good enough for them! I hate the fanboy stuff, but these problems don't need defending, they need to be addressed. They certainly are not all disingenuous!
@Pusher2021 So you only like to be informed if the information suits your narrative. Fine! You've shown your true colours as far as I'm concerned so let's just agree to disagree. 👋
@MrMagic That was the whole point. I didn't take one source for granted, so I came to my usual spot.
What narrative? What did you no get? I don't play plastic boxes, I play games. That's what I dislike, the fanboys, in the way @themightyant mentions them but also the gatekeepers. Agree or disagree about the problems that are there? Come on now ...
I like the Forza franchise a lot, but I will not defend it if it has problems. You shouldn't either (whatever the game is). Same for people saying, hey, I have no problems, so it's impossible you have a problem.
You are making too much of this ... You talk like you play on one platform only and everything is bliss. Be a bit more open-minded and recognize not one platform is perfect!
@Pusher2021 @MrMagic Come on guys! No need for all this drama. We're all here to talk about and enjoy games.
@themightyant I couldn't agree more. ...
Fastest selling PS title, let's agree on that!
https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/1716439458419974366/photo/1
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