Man oh man how I wish someone would breathe some life into the open world game format.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 |OT| Spidey's back I guess
- Thread starter JayEH
- Start date
Man oh man how I wish someone would breathe some life into the open world game format.
Yep. I just tried with everything turned off or in lowest settings possible, running on a freaking titan, and it is still horrible.
I`m going to cap it at 30 to see if it gets better.
Edit: I caped it at 30, but I can't stand playing an action game at 30 frames per second anymore.
Edit 2: I think I'm going to ask for a refund.
The first game had similar problems for me. Also had some sort of memory leak where, after 30 minutes of gameplay, my FPS would consistently be 10 lower.
Sad to see the engine isn't any better. Tempted to trade TF2 items for it on TF2Outpost (game would cost £12) but most of the impressions here don't seem overly positive. Shame as I quite enjoyed the first.
AusRoachman
Member
Anyone know when the digital version might be available in Australia? I didn't see it in the dash.
Probably next week when the retail version is released (May 7th).
AusRoachman
Member
That was the before the delay release date , but since the disc version now says May 21 on ebgames I hope the digital is available earlier
sketchsanchez
Member
Yes it does, been playing since yesterday
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the first ASM game, but this one is clearly unfinished and filled with annoying design decisions.
Windows break with no accompanying effects - the window just swaps to a broken version with no shards or debris.
When Spidey rescues a hostage from a vehicle, sometimes it glitches and Spidey leaves the hostage in the car while still going through the rescue animations.
In the previous game, when placing bugs on radio towers, Spidey would go thorugh a cool acrobatic animation while doing so. In ASM2, he awkwardly gets dragged to the transmitter dishes with no custom animation.
All crimes in the city are now bookended by cinematics, which means no more dive bombing right into combat. After an intro cutscene, you now start every fight on the ground, right next to the thugs. The news clips that follow every single crime are tedious and repetitive - they're mercifully brief, but they add nothing.
The "rescue people from the burning building" side missions are terrible. Zero fun.
The Hero/Menace mechanic is a dreadful nuisance. All crimes are now on a timer, and will flash red when they're about to "expire". Unfortunately, crimes go urgent way too frequently, and expire far too quickly. Perhaps there's no real penalty for becoming a Menace, but the constant alerts are disruptive and annoying. I feel like I can barely get to the main objective marker before another crime goes critical.
I've not made a ton of progress in the main missions yet, but as a fan of the first game I'm definitely disappointed. I just wanted a few reasonable improvements, and for Beenox to not make anything worse - but they made things worse.
Windows break with no accompanying effects - the window just swaps to a broken version with no shards or debris.
When Spidey rescues a hostage from a vehicle, sometimes it glitches and Spidey leaves the hostage in the car while still going through the rescue animations.
In the previous game, when placing bugs on radio towers, Spidey would go thorugh a cool acrobatic animation while doing so. In ASM2, he awkwardly gets dragged to the transmitter dishes with no custom animation.
All crimes in the city are now bookended by cinematics, which means no more dive bombing right into combat. After an intro cutscene, you now start every fight on the ground, right next to the thugs. The news clips that follow every single crime are tedious and repetitive - they're mercifully brief, but they add nothing.
The "rescue people from the burning building" side missions are terrible. Zero fun.
The Hero/Menace mechanic is a dreadful nuisance. All crimes are now on a timer, and will flash red when they're about to "expire". Unfortunately, crimes go urgent way too frequently, and expire far too quickly. Perhaps there's no real penalty for becoming a Menace, but the constant alerts are disruptive and annoying. I feel like I can barely get to the main objective marker before another crime goes critical.
I've not made a ton of progress in the main missions yet, but as a fan of the first game I'm definitely disappointed. I just wanted a few reasonable improvements, and for Beenox to not make anything worse - but they made things worse.
i think there may be some later in the game as you unlock skills. One of the skills that is unlockable is
slingshot
BriareosGAF
Member
Hm, sounds like a synchronization point in the driver stack (the CPU is requesting access to GPU memory that is in flight, so the driver stack stalls out waiting for the GPU to progress to the point where it doesn't need that memory, so things go into a low performance lockstep mode).
As someone who worked on all the old Spidey games it's always interesting to see these come out. Especially having played Infamous Second Son recently, which didn't seem to solve any of the core game design problems we had in the games, and in fact regressed them in certain ways vs what we did in the latter entries (interiors, gross repetition).
To the guys talking about combat similarities with Batman, et al, a lot of the combat design team had been progressing steadily toward the idiom that Rocksteady eventually realized. I know a lot of them were frustrated/relieved to see them execute that so well.
Byron Bluth
Banned
You can slingshot, even better than the SM2 one I feel. Also there is a boost, the timing and rhythm is key between left and right hands, gaining height requires skill and more.
It's the second best webslinging mechanic yet. My list:
1. Spider-Man 2
2. The Amazing Spider-man 2
3. Web of Shadows
4. Spiderman 3
5. The Amazing Spider-Man 1
walk_away21
Banned
Hey don't hate on AOD! *It had some pretty horrendous controls lol. Luckily there is an unofficial patch for it*
Cool. I loved The Movies I can't lie. I had so much fun with that game.
Played for about 4 hours on PC last night. That is after spending an hour trying to get a decent performance out of it.
Specs -
i5 4.3Ghz
2 X overclocked GTX670's 2GB in SLI (no benefit on this game)
16GB Ram
My rig handles almost every new release at max settings in 2080p 60fps. But any time I went into combat in ASM2 it seemed to drop and lock at 30! Ugh.
Anyway seemed to be a performance bug because I found that if I lowered the resolution below 1080p it would stay 45-60 at all times, never locking to 30. Also lowering the AA to low gave me a big boost.
So I set a custom resolution of 1792 x 1008 (a true 16:9 resolution), which is only slightly under 1080p. And I set my AA to low. Everything else is on the highest settings, including draw distance set to Amazing.
Game runs great now, very few dips and there is no noticeable loss in image quality from max AA and 1080p. The free AA from the upscaling takes care of the the low AA and the lower resolution seems to fix the lock to 30fps bug.
Unfortunately it seems clear that like every aspect of this game, it is very poorly optimised.
The swinging is the best in a Beenox game, but everything else seems undercooked, unpolished and full of bugs. The acting and story is horrible and the game feels like it's in early access!
This HAS to be Beenox's last Spider-Man game! It's time to give it up, they have failed to deliver time and time again and now the quality is going down, not up!
None of there games have been brilliant, and the closed world ones were the most polished. As underwhelming as it is, I think Shattered Dimensions is their best Spider-Man game. Which is not saying much. ASM was pretty good though, and seemed like they would follow up with more of the same with some improvements, but this is more of the same but less polished and more buggy!
Next game NEEDS some fresh blood on it. Beenox are obviously burnt out on Spidey and clearly never had the chops to make a game truly worthy of Spider-Man!
Specs -
i5 4.3Ghz
2 X overclocked GTX670's 2GB in SLI (no benefit on this game)
16GB Ram
My rig handles almost every new release at max settings in 2080p 60fps. But any time I went into combat in ASM2 it seemed to drop and lock at 30! Ugh.
Anyway seemed to be a performance bug because I found that if I lowered the resolution below 1080p it would stay 45-60 at all times, never locking to 30. Also lowering the AA to low gave me a big boost.
So I set a custom resolution of 1792 x 1008 (a true 16:9 resolution), which is only slightly under 1080p. And I set my AA to low. Everything else is on the highest settings, including draw distance set to Amazing.
Game runs great now, very few dips and there is no noticeable loss in image quality from max AA and 1080p. The free AA from the upscaling takes care of the the low AA and the lower resolution seems to fix the lock to 30fps bug.
Unfortunately it seems clear that like every aspect of this game, it is very poorly optimised.
The swinging is the best in a Beenox game, but everything else seems undercooked, unpolished and full of bugs. The acting and story is horrible and the game feels like it's in early access!
This HAS to be Beenox's last Spider-Man game! It's time to give it up, they have failed to deliver time and time again and now the quality is going down, not up!
None of there games have been brilliant, and the closed world ones were the most polished. As underwhelming as it is, I think Shattered Dimensions is their best Spider-Man game. Which is not saying much. ASM was pretty good though, and seemed like they would follow up with more of the same with some improvements, but this is more of the same but less polished and more buggy!
Next game NEEDS some fresh blood on it. Beenox are obviously burnt out on Spidey and clearly never had the chops to make a game truly worthy of Spider-Man!
TimFL
Member
That's not the only cutscene and it can't be related to being a TV broadcast. The final cutscene and Electro cutscene have horrible quality too. They probably got tired and took the PS3/360 cutscenes instead of rendering them again for other platforms.
schaft0620
Member
I really hated AS1 on the Wii U when I played it. This is 100 times better. The game still has it's flaws and looks nothing like Second Son but, this is the Arkham game that Spider fans have been waiting for (although I am only 1 boss into the game). It looks better than 98% of the previous gen. I will admit the only reason I bought the game and didn't wait for a price drop is because of the 2 free movie tickets.
EDIT: I am playing on PS4
EDIT: I am playing on PS4
Indeed. The problem, I think, is technology. I don't think we're at a technological level, even on PC, to really push the genre to its next stage. The other real problem is time and money. It takes so much work to create video games as is, that any additional added layers of complexity is going to be very costly.
Rockstar still does living, breathing worlds the best, as RDR and GTAV showcased on older hardware, but those assets still have to be created by somebody.
And then there's delivery of narrative. Sure, you can forsake narrative all together, and just let players go wild in the world, but personally, I like more structure in my open world games. The aforementioned RDR, GTAV, and Fallout: New Vegas are three of my favorites in that regard. It's controlled freedom. Yes, I can play the game how I want, but there is still form and structure to the overall world and flow of gameplay.
I think a lot about alternative delivery methods for narrative, but that's where I get stuck on. All open world games follow the "go to the marker on the map to trigger plot" mechanic. It's convenient at works. You could try to have more imergent narrative, wherw things just happen as you go, but how do you work a real narrative into that?
For me, I think the "go to marker on the map" mechanic is simply an inherent staple of the genre, much like a first person perspective is inherent to the FPS genre.
The areas in which I'd really like to see the open world genre grow are AI, and physics, ideally leading to more interesting interactions with NPCs and the environment. A bit of code that has individual pedestrians responding to player actions in an interesting, believable way would be pretty awesome. You can layer any type of gameplay mechanics over the open world genre, so I'm not too concerned a out innovation in that area.
Xander51
Member
Ah interesting, I didn't know that, thanks! I always enjoyed the TASM1 HUD, I guess I was in the minority.
I put my game in the lowest settings as well. The same thing you described happend. I7 2700k, GTX Titan.
Yeah I'm sure it's a bug at 1080p. My custom 1792 x 1008 resolution seemed to way to permanently fix the issue.
Very odd.
Did you do something else? I tried running it at a custom resolution (2560x1440) and it is the same.
Edit: Running at 1600x900 didn't help either.
Edit 2: 1792 x 1008 either.
War Raichu
Member
my game runs at or around 60 frames except when I webswing, at which point it falls to around 30-45
Yes, and that is when I really wanted to framerate to be steady.
Byron Bluth
Banned
The movement in this game is what will always stress the graphics tech since you are going so very fast from high above the city to street level within seconds.
I agree 100%.
Also, what is with the web swinging in this release? I am constantly hearing Spidey say "I can't find anything to web to" while I'm swinging between tall buildings! Having to hit triangle to wall crawl also feels completely out of place.
This game feels very rushed and incomplete.
Very odd, you should be running it much better than me with your Titan. Did you try dropping the AA? Maybe try having the card over ride the game and force FXAA?
I wouldn't really envy any developer to be put on the strict timetable that Activision seems to be forcing on Beenox the last half decade. Add in the requirement of simultaneous development, testing, certification, disc pressing, etc... for upwards 5+ different SKU's each release window on a pressured and highly publicized release date lockdown(movie!) cuts overall development time down dramatically and leads to situations such as this.
Granted, I am sure some would be up to the task, and many did really enjoy Amazing Spidey 1(I haven't tried it), but had Edge of Time not existed(crazy the turnaround on that game) and full resources and team allocation given to Amazing instead for the two year timetable, brand and developer reputation probably would be in a better spot.
Kind of unfair to really throw the blame entirely at Beenox, but at the end of the day a change does need to happen somewhere in the chain, -if- quality and end-consumer retention is important to Activision. (Replacing Beenox isn't the magical fix you think though)
No your right. Activision is demanding too much of them. I agree.
Maybe they just need two teams if they want to put Spidey games out this often. Clearly this game was undercooked. And there will be another Spidey movie in 2 years so they need to fix the problem now, because that means they only have 2 years to make the next one and if they don't get another team on the one after that pretty soon, the following game will have the same issue again.
It's a travesty that Spidey is being so poorly served in the gaming department. The games have been average at best for a long time. USM was the last really good game. Although I liked Web of Shadows too.
I dropped everything, literally. The things that couldn't be turned off were put on the lowest. The game is broken.
Shattered Dimensions is the closest a modern game has come to emulating the PS1 Spiderman games. Closed-off and mostly linear levels with unique villains and challenges contained within. I found it mostly fantastic and one of the higher quality games in the franchise to play.
Web of Shadows is a really solid open-world Spiderman game that does suffer from many of the same problems typical to the formula. Repetitive quests/objectives, kind of rough visuals, but it has a fun time with the universe bringing in lots of Marvel cameos and providing decent webslinging and combat. This game also focuses heavily on Black Suit "venom" spiderman being able to actively switch it on and off completely altering the abilities and moves and even slightly adjusting the story with binary morality choices. Venom plays a large role overall in the game if you are looking for that.
Lots of people enjoyed Amazing Spiderman 1(2012), though I haven't played it, and it seems it also suffers from many similar problems, but it wasn't at all trainwreck if popular opinion is to be believed. I actually would like to check it out during the next sale opportunity.
edit: Oh I got confused at your wording. Thought you were asking which game to play among the ones you listed.
No probs man,appreciated.I even tried ASM 1 but I didn't quite like it,gonna give this a try on PC.
The game is not as good as ASM1 or Web of Shadows. The swinging is good but everything else is mediocre. Feels unfinished.
If you really love Spider-Man games then I'm sure you will get some fun out of it. But it's about as mediocre as a game can be. Without the Spidey license, this would be hot garbage.
Worst of all the average gameplay is wrapped in truly awful story and acting.
I am an immense Spidey fan, and I could only scrape a 7/10 for this game.
Best I can say is, it's OK.
NoirVisage
Banned
Rent this game, you will be disappointed on all fronts otherwise, I'm so glad I did, the swinging is serviceable but still janky with a bunch of superfluous power ups I ended up never using.
And so far Rescue from fire Bomb disarms
Are two things that I ignore every time, when you do your first fire rescue with multiple victims, you'll know why. The bomb runs..I'd rather be rescuing injured civilians from rubble than racing a clock.
I was hoping there were hidden bosses or cameos but that hope is fading, the boss count is paltry really..I had unrealistic hopes for this game based on the consensus of their previous work. Take my unbiased opinion and rent it if you want to play it, Uncle Ben would never want you to waste 60 large on a bad investment.
And so far Rescue from fire Bomb disarms
Are two things that I ignore every time, when you do your first fire rescue with multiple victims, you'll know why. The bomb runs..I'd rather be rescuing injured civilians from rubble than racing a clock.
I was hoping there were hidden bosses or cameos but that hope is fading, the boss count is paltry really..I had unrealistic hopes for this game based on the consensus of their previous work. Take my unbiased opinion and rent it if you want to play it, Uncle Ben would never want you to waste 60 large on a bad investment.
I'll either wait for a sale or rent it,obviously won't buy full price.
Nico_D
Member
Damn... Reading all these comments makes me kind of sad. I would've really liked me a new Spiderman game while waiting for MK8. Now I have to wait for Spidey to drop (the price) and go on May without swinging.
That is, until I go somewhere and I see the game on shelf. That's where my will is going to be seriously tested.
That is, until I go somewhere and I see the game on shelf. That's where my will is going to be seriously tested.
chickdigger802
Banned
a bit off topic, but is the first asm worth picking up?
think its still like $17 on amazon for pc. Did that one at least run ok? Think my 780 can do 60 for that?
think its still like $17 on amazon for pc. Did that one at least run ok? Think my 780 can do 60 for that?
It runs fine on my 680, so yeah. Hear it has problems on AMD cards though.
Game is pretty decent, certainly better than ASM2, although the swinging is not as good.
Shame about that horrible costume though, although you can unlock the classic Raimi movies costume. But for some reason the eyes are very dark.
Nymphae
Banned
Ok I picked this up for PS4 last night and played maybe an hour.
Impressions & possible spoilers:
Intro:
Same old spidey game production values. It just seems like these games always get the short shrift, to coincide with film releases I guess. The menus, cinematics, everything just has this degree of...blahzay to it that just fails to excite. You really need to be into Spider-man to not let the negatives impact your experience that much with these games, thankfully I am.
So yeah, that intro, just really awkward, not fun, and a horrible setup for the hero (it's basically the same old spidey origin, but told in about 15 seconds.) Very clearly trying to ape the Batman:AA intro walk, and it just does not work at all.
Then the first scene you see of Spidey up on the rooftops is almost barf-inducing in it's ugliness, the buildings looked like PS2 quality textures, and I'm not even joking. This must be what Gerstmann meant by his tweet/post/whatever about the game making a really bad first impression.
Swinging
After that, I did enjoy myself. The swinging is actually dependant on having things to swing off of, contrary to what I heard around the net prior to release. I don't have like any upgrades at all, other than the one that lets you pick up speed I think, by using the opposite swing button while you're swinging.
It still isn't where it needs to be imo. Getting up a building is very disorienting, for some reason the wall run doesn't like to play nice with the camera, and it seems to be a bit of a chore to really nail landings on things. When you get to the top of a building by running, Spidey gets launched WAY too high.
I am not getting the feeling of precision swings that I got from SM2 & WoS. In WoS, I could aim for a building corner off in the distance, and judging my speed and knowing how my jump button/letting go of weblines worked, I was nearly always able to pull of precision landings, hitting the exact corners in the exact spots I wanted. In this game, I seem to be all over the place, very float jumps, very strange physics.
I cannot stand how your momentum is just thrown out the window when you decide to use Web Rush mode or whatever it's called, if you use it while you're falling off a building, and aim at a higher building, often he'll just zip off up into the air without even shooting a web - your momentum is just instantly shifted and it's jarring to see.
Also, that button is super unfun to use. Who the fuck wants to put spidey on auto-pilot? The only times I've used it are when I needed to get to a specific spot/ledge/whatever, and the basic movement options were too frustrating.
I really want to go play WoS again now. All that said, it's a spidey game and I'm having enough fun with it for what it is. But I'm still waiting for that perfect game.
Impressions & possible spoilers:
Intro:
Same old spidey game production values. It just seems like these games always get the short shrift, to coincide with film releases I guess. The menus, cinematics, everything just has this degree of...blahzay to it that just fails to excite. You really need to be into Spider-man to not let the negatives impact your experience that much with these games, thankfully I am.
So yeah, that intro, just really awkward, not fun, and a horrible setup for the hero (it's basically the same old spidey origin, but told in about 15 seconds.) Very clearly trying to ape the Batman:AA intro walk, and it just does not work at all.
Then the first scene you see of Spidey up on the rooftops is almost barf-inducing in it's ugliness, the buildings looked like PS2 quality textures, and I'm not even joking. This must be what Gerstmann meant by his tweet/post/whatever about the game making a really bad first impression.
Swinging
After that, I did enjoy myself. The swinging is actually dependant on having things to swing off of, contrary to what I heard around the net prior to release. I don't have like any upgrades at all, other than the one that lets you pick up speed I think, by using the opposite swing button while you're swinging.
It still isn't where it needs to be imo. Getting up a building is very disorienting, for some reason the wall run doesn't like to play nice with the camera, and it seems to be a bit of a chore to really nail landings on things. When you get to the top of a building by running, Spidey gets launched WAY too high.
I am not getting the feeling of precision swings that I got from SM2 & WoS. In WoS, I could aim for a building corner off in the distance, and judging my speed and knowing how my jump button/letting go of weblines worked, I was nearly always able to pull of precision landings, hitting the exact corners in the exact spots I wanted. In this game, I seem to be all over the place, very float jumps, very strange physics.
I cannot stand how your momentum is just thrown out the window when you decide to use Web Rush mode or whatever it's called, if you use it while you're falling off a building, and aim at a higher building, often he'll just zip off up into the air without even shooting a web - your momentum is just instantly shifted and it's jarring to see.
Also, that button is super unfun to use. Who the fuck wants to put spidey on auto-pilot? The only times I've used it are when I needed to get to a specific spot/ledge/whatever, and the basic movement options were too frustrating.
I really want to go play WoS again now. All that said, it's a spidey game and I'm having enough fun with it for what it is. But I'm still waiting for that perfect game.
Byron Bluth
Banned
Obviously haven't read my comments? Because I am happy with the release, didn't pay full price for my PS4 version ($49.99 with 4 free suits is fine with me).
Here are my posts, impressions and screens:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=109946347&postcount=257
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=110016505&postcount=406
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=109961866&highlight=#post109961866
Byron Bluth
Banned
I found WoS swinging to be great but the camera always tried to re-adjust itself and ruined precision jumping for those spider emblems. Just killed it for me.
Nymphae
Banned
lol funny you should mention that. The first thing I did when I got control of Spidey in TASM2 was move the camera around him slowly to check out the city. I stopped panning the camera and looked at something, and without touching the controller at all, the camera slooooooowly reorients itself to point towards your objective. wtf. I find this behaviour incredibly annoying.
Byron Bluth
Banned
It only happens at pre-determined spots, at least that I've noticed. Like when he perches on a spot after a mission completes.
When actually swinging I haven't encountered it trying to fight against me.
Byron Bluth
Banned
Huh? Do you mean if you release the trigger he lets go?
Nope. I hold it, he reaches the peak of the swing and let's go. If I turn the camera around then he'll hold onto the line.
comedy bomb
Banned
Does it have the same god awful screen tearing like the first one?
flaxknuckles
Member
First off, this game stutters like crazy on my PC (i5-3570k, GTX 770 4gb). The random crimes all have stupid cutscenes in front of them and if you ignore them the police go up your ass. None of them are fun like the ones in Spiderman 2 either.
I can't even enjoy the web swinging since Spidey still swings in the damn air in wide open streets and automatically lets go of his web and shoots another one when you hit the apex of a swing. Web rush works half the time I need it to (just bring back web zip already). I know this is a small thing but there's an annoying beeping sound whenever you try to swing and the game randomly decides not to let you shoot a web to God's ballsack.
The web boost doesn't seem to work how it did in Spiderman 2 where you press it at the end of a swing to go faster, rather you have to hold it down the whole swing like it's nitro and let go of both triggers at the same time. It's not an inherently bad thing, just weird.
The rest of the game just feels like a less polished version of the first one. Meh.
I only spent $24 on this so I don't feel too bad about it. I just really hope Marvel is going to give the comic Spidey license to a worthy developer so we can finally get another good game. I don't find any of Beenox's efforts anything above mediocre. Shattered Dimensions doesn't hold a candle to something like Raven's Wolverine Origins (which is already low on the totem pole as far as character action games go). No amount of budget will make their games better. They need new developers, like a wholesale reconstruction of the dev team.
I can't even enjoy the web swinging since Spidey still swings in the damn air in wide open streets and automatically lets go of his web and shoots another one when you hit the apex of a swing. Web rush works half the time I need it to (just bring back web zip already). I know this is a small thing but there's an annoying beeping sound whenever you try to swing and the game randomly decides not to let you shoot a web to God's ballsack.
The web boost doesn't seem to work how it did in Spiderman 2 where you press it at the end of a swing to go faster, rather you have to hold it down the whole swing like it's nitro and let go of both triggers at the same time. It's not an inherently bad thing, just weird.
The rest of the game just feels like a less polished version of the first one. Meh.
I only spent $24 on this so I don't feel too bad about it. I just really hope Marvel is going to give the comic Spidey license to a worthy developer so we can finally get another good game. I don't find any of Beenox's efforts anything above mediocre. Shattered Dimensions doesn't hold a candle to something like Raven's Wolverine Origins (which is already low on the totem pole as far as character action games go). No amount of budget will make their games better. They need new developers, like a wholesale reconstruction of the dev team.
Yes but if you look at the US as an example, their disc version isn't out until July 1st (according to Amazon), but they still got the digital version on release of all other versions. So I think it's a safe bet that the digital version of ASM2 for X1 will be out next week in Australia in time with all other versions.