Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered Part 2 - DLC & Side Missions - Retrospective Review

[Music] [Music] welcome to part two of my Marvel Spider-Man retrospective series if you haven't seen part one it covers the main story of the game and although I'd highly recommend watching it before this one it's not necessary if you'd like to just jump in here in this video though we'll explore all the extra content outside of the main story such as DLC side missions unlockable suits the open world and plenty plenty more and I'll include relevant behind the scenes details Easter eggs and references along with them I also want to note that this will be a full-on spoiler video for everything Marvel Spider-Man 1 including the prequel novel but not so much for the Miles Morales and Spider-Man 2 games although I will reference them occasionally but anyway we have a lot to talk about and I don't want to waste any more time so let's get started I think the best place to begin is where the story picks back up which is during the city that never sleeps DLC series the first DLC Story pack is called the Heist and it reintroduces us to Black Cat actually on second thought maybe it's better to first take a step back and look at the black cat side mission in the main game while you're swinging around the city you get a voicemail from an unknown number it's the black cat telling Spider-Man to come to an address and see if he can catch her when he arrives he finds another recorded message hello spider been thinking about you a lot lately we were good together weren't we maybe it's time to reite the flame like she alludes to Spider-Man and Black Cat had a relationship a while back in the game's continuity this is similar to the comics where Spider-Man and Black Cat also had a brief relationship things actually got serious in the comics to the point that Peter even revealed his identity to her he also knows her secret identity which is Felicia Hardy the problem was though that Felicia was more in love with Spider-Man than she was with Peter Parker in that same comic issue we even see black cat horrified after Peter Reveals His identity to her telling him to put the mask back on no wonder Peter doesn't ever reveal his identity still they remained together since this was a first for Peter Parker up until now it was his Spider-Man identity that got in the way of his relationships and a secret that he had to keep from potential partners with Felicia it's the opposite since she encourages him to embrace his Spider-Man life which was exciting for him on her end she's excited to finally have a partner who can keep up with her however she doesn't really understand Peter's need for a normal civilian life for her she's pretty much black cat all the time and Felicia Hardy isn't really a thing so she often pushes them to ditch the Peter Park her life and go full-time Spider-Man with her her life of crime is also very lucrative and she enjoys her current lifestyle so she's put off when she sees Peter's normal life for example she's extremely disappointed when she sees Peter's apartment expecting an extraordinary superhero to be living in extravagant lifestyle later in the issue when Peter offers for them to go back to his place she declines and tells them that they'll go to hers instead Peter on the other hand is disappointed in her life of crime and regularly pushes her to go straight and be a hero she actually attempts this but finds that money becomes more of a problem so I'm sure you have a good idea of why their relationship ultimately didn't work out it's a constant push and pull between them wanting the other to change aspects of their lives to suit the others so as you'd expect they eventually broke up in the game Peter and black hat have already dated and broken up and this is her mysterious return up until now Peter thought she had given up her thrill seeking Life Of Crime but it seems she's back at it again leaving little cat dolls of the locations of area she's recently robbed the extent of this side mission is finding each of these locations in hopes of tracking down black cat to discover her plans Peter also calls Yuri to give her a heads up on what's going on she states that they still have all of black cat's equipment and police lock up and that she'll send someone to retrieve the Cat dolls that we find as we continue tracking them down some of the locations include fun comic references as well that's tough Tai Stone's place and it's full of Priceless art you're playing with fire Felicia but I guess that's how you roll Tai Stone short for tiberious stone is a character from the comics he started off as a childhood friend and rival of Tony Stark they competed at everything and Tai was obsessed with beating Tony after Stark inherited his parents' Fortune after their death tyberius even had his own parents murdered to keep up with Tony tiberious stone is also known as a founder of the company Alx along with Liz Allen alchemax is best known as the PowerHouse business of 2099 and is also responsible for giving Miguel O'Hara the spider powers that make him Spider-Man 2099 it's also tyberius his son Tyler Stone who runs alemx in that future during the 2099 Comics Miguel also learns that Tyler stone is his father so tiberious stone is Miguel O'Hara's grandfather another location black hatat steals from is Cornelius van lunt's Place Cornelius van Lunt is of course rich but he's also secretly the villain Taurus as Taurus he's part of the criminal team known as zodiac with each member taking on the moniker of the various zodiac signs at another location Peter recognizes it as the home of Lonesome pinky I think Lonesome pinky lives here stealing from a country singer she's getting creative Lonesome pinky is from the comics and was Peter's neighbor for a while for multiple comic issues we never actually saw him we could only see Peter's reaction to his singing at all hours of the night Peter hated his voice and couldn't get any rest at his apartment due to Pinky's constant singing one day Peter got so frustrated that he punched a hole in their shared wall allowing them to see each other for the first time pinky was actually pretty cool about it and introduces himself as Lonesome Pinkus and aspiring country singer in the game it looks like he's been more successful and thankfully isn't living next to Peter lastly there's another location that Peter claims holds the Jade tiger statue which is worth a million dollars I think this could also be a reference to the Jade tiger statue in the comics and pieces of it are used as Enchanted amulets giving the wearer powerful abilities these amulets are most commonly associated with the hero white tiger and the sons of the tiger from the deadly hands of kung fu series but after finding all the locations the black cat stole from Peter creates an algorithm to help him determine where to find her believing to have the coordinates to her Hideout we head there next Peter was right black cat was indeed using this area as a hideout but she's already gone still we can find some interesting details around the room the first is that she has records of financial data on the majja crime families and Peter speculates that she's planning on blackmailing them we also find a portrait of Vanessa Fisk Wilson fisk's wife and he apparently reported the stolen a few years back so black cat is pretty ballsy when it comes to her targets lastly we find a workbench with a new spider suit on it black cat left a message stating that she wanted to make him something a little more flattering this unlocks the dark suit which we can now use as an alternate outfit this is also a nod to a couple different moments in the comics the first is that this is a legit suit from the comics originating during a Deadpool teamup although it wasn't made by black cat she has however made Peter a black suit before we all know about Peter's time wearing the symbi suit but after he ditched It Black Cat made him a cloth version so he could maintain the look without the risk of an alien bonding to him black cat also said that she thinks the black suit is a lot sexier than his red and blue suit which is the main reason she made it so it's fitting that she would make him another black suit in the game the red and black color scheme could also be a nod to the original concept for the symbiote suit back in 1983 the way The Story Goes Marvel ran a competition back in the day for new ideas the winner was a fan named Randy Schuler who suggested the idea of a black suit and the original concept featured a black suit with a red logo so I think Insomniac are referencing a few different comic moments through this dark suit since they decided against the symbiote suit in the game by the way the reason we don't have the black symbiote suit as an alternate outfit is because Insomniac felt it deserved its time in the spotlight and that it should be built up to instead of just used as a generic alternate costume now we know they were saving it for the sequel but I do think there are a couple additional nods to it in this game as well for example there are Billboards around the city that say get into the black there's also this interaction between Yuri and Spider-Man so why'd you call need a date to the policeman's ball you got a black and white suit uh no ball this year anyway we can also find this Banner about symbiosis during the MJ mission in Grand Central Terminal but after Dawning our new suit from black cat Yuri calls in to tell us that Felicia managed to rob the police station and retrieve all of her gear apparently all the Black Cat dolls we've been collecting in the city were set to deactivate nearby alarms after being placed in the same room together which allowed her to easily sneak in and steal her gear she played Peter really good and it shows just how crafty black cat is she's an expert at manipulation in general but due to their history Spider-Man is an easy target when it comes to her by the way I'm not sure if this is just a reused asset or another joke regarding black cats Thief skills but on her workbench is also a jar with a few cents in it labeled new laptop money this is likely the same one from the beginning of the game in Peter's apartment so I guess black cat even stole that along with these few cents she also left all her stolen loot about $50 million worth so it's clear she has something bigger up her sleeve which brings us to the DLC it begins with a voiceover from MJ describing how fisk's arrest has created a power vacuum in the city that she believes the various Maja crime families will attempt to fill by taking out the others MJ's first tip to Spider-Man is about a stolen painting called the Maria which has ended up in a museum apparently this painting is of importance to one of the families and they're attempting to steal it back tonight when we arrive we see that MJ's Source was correct as maag goons are attempting to break in Peter recognized that these are hammerheads men and we'll see hammerhead himself later on but after taking them all out Spider-Man decides to check inside the building just to make sure there aren't any stragglers instead of Maj goons he finds someone else yeah I am going to have to call you right back why what's going on you look good been working out no I mean you know a little so you swinging solo now or back with your ex that's a lot of questions I'm just curious yeah I hear that's bad for cats how about you tell me why you're really here I was just waiting for the right moment this could also be a slight nod to the Spider-Man 2 movie game where black cat's first appearance was also in an art museum regardless Black Cat uses us to distract the Maia while she attempts to steal the painting when we return back to her she surprisingly destroys it revealing a hidden thumb drive inside black cat then points out that a sculpture is about to fall on some goons forcing Spider-Man to save them and in that time black cat escapes as we swing through the city MJ calls to tell us that it's rumored that Hammerhead now has the drive and that the rest of the Maia Dawn are freaked out about it this means black cat must be working for Hammerhead but the question is why we next catch up to Black Cat as she flees a building for more majio guards she reveals that she's recovered another thumb drive and it seems that she's stealing one from each of the Maia families for Hammerhead still confused about her motivations SP Spider-Man asks her why she stolen the drive to which she responds with this bombshell then why are you stealing it if I don't they'll kill my son wait your son based on Peter and Felicia's prior relationship them having a son together is entirely possible and adds another layer of stress that Peter wasn't ready for to help him EAS his mind he decides to focus on preventing the gang war that hammerhead's about to start so he calls MJ and she gives him a tip on a potential lead she also tells him to be on guard and not let Felicia play him again yeah I'll be on guard she's I don't know she just seems to bring bad luck wherever she goes black cat brings bad luck that's a little on the nose Pete this bad luck conversation is a nod to Black Cat's powers in the comics in her first appearances she was just a normal cat burglar with no powers she was just is incredibly talented at thievery and manipulation that all changed as she started to team up with Spider-Man and struggled to hold her own against these superpowered villains they regularly went up against this made black cat more of a liability in a fight at least in Spider-Man's eyes since he felt that a lot of his Focus went towards keeping her safe sometimes preventing him from stopping the villain when he otherwise could have this created a rift between them and Felicia decided to seek out someone who could give her abilities she actually requested help from The Avengers and the Fantastic 4 first but they wouldn't help her so she settled for a Myster ious benefactor who was successfully able to give her abilities this is where she got her bad luck Powers which essentially work by giving everyone around her bad luck providing her with an upper hand during fights what Felicia didn't initially know was that her powers were funded by the Kingpin who wanted to use her as a trojan horse type of attack against Spider-Man since it's later learned that Felicia's bad luck powers affect people the more she's around them and with her dating Spider-Man it started to affect him significantly for example one time he forgot how to fire his web shooters while wearing the Symbiote costume C causing him to fall and nearly injure himself Spider-Man eventually suspected some kind of hex had been placed on him so he sought out doctor strange strange was able to remove the hex which also inadvertently removed the bad luck powers from black hatat her powers have changed a few times in the comics since then and she's even managed to get her bad luck abilities back but with more control over them for example Felicia sought out doc trauma after losing her powers and Trauma grafted a Quantum probability pulsator onto her allowing her to cause bad luck to those in her area she also bought a suit from the tinkerer which enhanced her physical abilities for example boosting her strength and speed but also giving her sharp claws in the game's bio for black cat it seems she's wearing a similar suit since it mentions her having superhuman agility and that she draws additional strength from the suit it's unclear to me if she's meant to have bad luck powers in the game though the bio was written from Peter's point of view and he mentions again that she brings bad luck wherever she goes in my opinion I've always just taken this as a fun nod to the comics and in reality it's just that she's a thrill seeker who puts herself in dangerous situations so bad things tend to happen around her I think it's left obscure enough that she could have powers but my interpretation is that this is a more grounded black cat but getting back to the story MJ later calls to tell us what she's learned about the majia by the way in case there's any confusion the Maia are a Syndicate of mobsters basically the mafia and the Maia is comprised of five independent crime families apparently to help keep the peace between them all they agreed to use a joint accounting database essentially holding all of their assets in one place each family received their own Drive for it and it takes all five Drives together to access it it seems hammerhead's plan was to use black cat to steal all the drives allowing him to take all the money for himself while bankrupting the other families at this time Felicia only needs one more drive to complete the set which we see she's already obtained when we find her Peter attempts to talk to her but Felicia quickly hits him with an EMP blast which shorts out his web shooters this leads to a fun gameplay section where we have to chase black cat without the aid of web swinging usually I'm not a huge fan of Chase sequences but I thought this was really cool thanks Prim primarily to how strong the parkour animations are from a gameplay standpoint I'm not doing much just holding R2 while pushing the stick forward but I love seeing Spider-Man do flips around all the obstacles in his path this is a pretty short sequence too so I think it lasts for just the right amount of time I think this is also a cool sequence for black cat that further displays her abilities and cunning like her being able to mostly outrun Spider-Man's superhuman speed I also really like the moment we catch up to her where we're given the option to tackle her when Spider-Man goes for it she quickly grabs him and flips him over her shoulder and then follows it up by dropping a smoke grenade on him so overall I'm really enjoying these displays of black cat skills we've only seen her in a few shortcut scene so far but already she's stealing the show from me I love the mystery and Intrigue surrounding her heists and motivations as well as watching her continually get the upper hand on everyone she goes against the playful flirting is pretty funny too so far this is my favorite interpretation of black cat in a game at least as far as the ones we've covered on the channel since I can't really speak to the others but eventually black cat hops aboard a tram as it takes off and L for Spider-Man this is when his web shooters reactivate Shooters finally rebooted it's thiing time it's thiing time is a nice little call back to the part one video on a Post-It note where Peter's work shoping catchphrases in that case it's webon time we'll next follow black cat's train out in the open where she jumps off to continue our Chase part of black cat's gear is a concealed grappling hook which she uses to Traverse the city so even with our web shooters back she's still a challenge to catch up to our best hope is to get close and fire webbing at her to slow her down however ever this also slows us down and provides her an opportunity to launch another stun grenade at us so I like how evenly matched the two of them are during this Chase Spider-Man manages to catch up to her though and even gets a moment to talk to her he tells her that he wants to help her find her son and that if she gives Hammerhead that last drive he likely won't keep her son Alive Black Cat agrees and they decide to work together she tells him that she can stall Hammerhead for a couple of days and that she'll be in touch unfortunately for Peter she also refuses to discuss whether he's the father of her son or not until after they save him we eventually get a call from black cat to check out a bar that she believes is holding something valuable to Hammerhead we'll start clearing out the area solo while black cat investigates Hammerheads files in the building eventually Hammerheads men realize Spider-Man's here so more come out to rush us black cat then swoops in to help leading to a really awesome combat encounter where she fights alongside us she's not exactly fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with us but instead she'll perch up high and watch us fight occasionally dropping a grenade in the area or she'll pounce on suspecting goons to take them out it's nothing too intricate but it's fun having some assistance during the fight and it's cool seeing black cat pop in to help us clear out some enemies after taking out the last of them black cat decides to unwind with some wine which leads to a cut scene that I really enjoy by the way this scene has a good clear example of black cat's audio theme which I also want to highlight because it's one of my favorites in the [Music] game I really like how her theme evokes her sense of mischievousness and pairing that with her Breaking All the wine bottles for no reason you easily get the idea that she's trouble she may be on our side right now but she's pretty chaotic I wanted to highlight this brief section because it's little subtle character moments like this that I really enjoy in games where you're given a small window into somebody's personality through their actions it's also a good example of show don't tell and storytelling which is something I think Insomniac really excelled at in the main game most notably with Octavius and his slow turn to villainy Insomniac also excel at character building and I think they've done so again with black cat and making her a really intriguing anti-hero we know she's bad news but there's also something really captivating about her I think it's how she Embraces the danger of her lifestyle and how much fun she seems to have doing so I also find her and Peter's relationship really fascinating during this scene she mentions that she legitimately tried to go straight for a while abandoning the black cat life and even working a normal job it's tough to know how much of what she says is true at any moment but I could see her trying the normal life for a bit to please Peter since she's tried to ditch her life of crime to please him in the comics as well of course it never sticks I also like how they both seem to try to pull the other to their side in their interactions Peter wants Felicia to change her ways and be good while Felicia wants Peter to embrace his darker side I really like this tug-of war between them and it's helping me further engage in the story but from here black cat leaves and we continue our investigation into possible locations her son could be hidden our next lead brings us to a hammerhead owned Shipyard in Hell's Kitchen Spider-Man suspects that a kid could be held in any one of these storage containers so him and black hatat decide to search the area this begins a unique stealth sequence where we can command black cat to take out enemies when needed I thought this was a cool mechanic and I enjoyed the additional options that provideed to stealth for example it was fun trying to time our takedown so we take out two enemies at once I also liked how it allowed us to cover additional ground where I could have her take out an enemy in one location while I head to another area I mostly like this mechanic as a good foundation to build upon though if I'm being honest as much as I like this mechanic it didn't feel necessary in this Mission you could just take everyone out here yourself if you want and totally ignore black cat although admittedly it is faster to to use her in this section in future games though I'd like to see our allies feel like more of a necessity in missions like this for example maybe there are enemies that you both have to take down together or maybe there are enemies that she specifically has to take out based on a gadget or ability that she has that Spider-Man doesn't in this DLC it's good for what it is since it's more just the novelty of having her help us and I appreciate it on that fundamental level but I hope Insomniac build on this mechanic for future games from here Spider-Man begins checking the shipping containers he doesn't find a child but instead finds a stolen shipment a weapon from Silver Sable's military afterwards he goes into the building to check on black cat inside he finds hammerhead's vault door open containing even more Sable weapons but also a box with a missing thumb drive in it just then the vault door closes and black cat reveals that she's played Peter once again she doesn't actually have a son she only told Peter that so he'd help her when she needed it she also played Hammerhead too though he hired her to track down all the drives but she's been giving him fake drives the entire time keeping the real ones for herself the entire wealth of the Maia in the palm of my hand a nice little nod to the Spider-Man 2 movie there the power of the Sun in the palm of my hand from here black cat leaves Spider-Man in the vault as she flees with the drive hammerhead's men show up and Peter clings to the ceiling to watch them once they realize the drive's been stolen they call Hammerhead to see what he wants to do he tells them that the drive has a Tracker in it which he'll use to find Felicia and killer he also mentions that he's rigged her Penthouse with a bomb which he'll detonate if she shows up with their orders the men leave and Spider-Man decides to call Black Cat to warn her she doesn't seem too bothered by the information and pretty much writes it off as nothing to worry about Spider-Man doesn't agree and rushes to her Penthouse to save her Felicia before we continue there are a couple things I want to discuss about that scene by the looks of it Felicia got caught in the blast and is presumably dead in DLC 3 though we learned that that's not the case so how did she survive well if you slow down the footage you can actually see that before the blast goes off she first pops a smoke grenade to conceal herself we can't see much after that as the explosion then goes off but if I were to guess she probably has some kind of trap door in that welcome mat area or something like that that so it makes a lot more sense why black cat wasn't worried about a bomb going off here in fact she planned ah head for it and embraced it so she'd be presumed dead and off everyone's radar pretty clever and I love how black cat is conning everyone left and right even the players I'm sure many fans weren't sure if she managed to survive that blast or at least at first glance it's hard to see how she would be able to survive that blast then of course there's our first shot of hammerhead the majja Adon who's been orchestrating the beginning of a gang war with black cat seemingly out of the picture will'll follow him through the next two DLC stor stories but before that we get a small post-credit scene of Peter and MJ at a restaurant discussing black Hat's death as well as Peter's relief that he's not a father although neither of them are opposed to the idea in the future I think you're going to be an amazing dad someday at the right time with the right person as we discussed in part one Peter and MJ do have a child in the comics Mayday Parker so that could very likely be in this Peter's future as well and this post credit scene could be a fun one to look back on around the time of like Spider-Man 3 since I could see May introduced around that time if the writers decide to go that route and assuming the series goes for a trilogy but now let's get into DLC 2 it starts in a similar way to the first one with a corkboard filled with information on the majia this time though it's not MJ narrating over it it's Captain Yuri watab after losing black cat in the thumb drives Hammerhead has resorted to taking down the other Maja families through Force arming his men with stolen Sable weapons the gang wars had begun and New York is caught in the crossfire thankfully Yuri's learned that the majja have Hammerhead pinned down in an old Harlem sanitarium which is where the story picks up ready when you are copy that I'll get him looking the wrong way you gentleman ready Spidey check it out nice that's not regulation Lieutenant sorry Captain birthday present from the kid not every day you run offs with the man you know I'll let it slide this time now get back on the ready line yes ma'am let's do this the plan is to have Spider-Man directly Engage The Maia in a fight while Yuri and her men quietly break into the building to apprehend Hammerhead during the fight I also enjoyed this little Captain America reference you know I know a guy with a Way co rer Shield that's not the only reference to Captain America since he and Iron Man are also referenced in Otto octavius's game bio there's also a nod to the wasp and vultures profile so it's cool seeing these little references to the Avengers within the game and it kind of gives us an idea of the team's roster in this universe of course there's also Avengers Tower which we'll look at more in the open world section of this video after the fight and not having heard from Yuri Spider-Man decides to head inside to check things out along the way he finds a board or more like a Hit List regarding the other maons at the top left is Caesar Cicero in the comics he was a member of Silver's majia family and we'll discuss silver man a bit more later at the top right is Don fortunado when Peter sees his photo here he recalls hearing rumors that the dawn's son is trying to get out of the family business this is true in the comics as well the son's name is giakomo fortunado nicknamed Jimmy 6 he didn't agree with the family's methods and attempted to get out Going On The Run Don fortunato's response was to send men after his son and this led to shootouts in the streets Ben Riley Spider-Man saved Jimmy from one of these shootouts and even formed a minor friendship Ben even let Jimmy hide out at his apartment for a Time although he soon regretted it since Jimmy was a very sloppy roommate Jimmy 6 seems to be a good guy overall though looking out for others and teaming up with Vigilantes so it's cool to see him get a nod in the game there's also Don machio although I'm not familiar with him from the comics and couldn't find anything on him in the game Peter just mentions that he gets really creative with his killings lastly is Don Costa Don Costa ordered hits on a lot of innocent families dude should be punished Peter saying he should be punished is a nod to the cost of fames ties to The Punisher since it was the Costas who ordered the hit on Frank Castle's family so I wonder if the castles are one of the families Peter's referring to here man now I want a Punisher game where he hunts them all down in this room you can also find a jukebox it doesn't sound interesting but if you examine it closer in photo mode you can see the band and track names are references to various Spider-Man comics for example six losers is a reference to the Sinister 6 and the track names are all associated with the Sinister 6 in some way like the old Buzzard is a nod to vulture Thrill of the Hunt is for Craven Fishbowl Illusionist is Mysterio and then another example is secret battle in reference to Secret Wars with relevant track lists such as the beyonder and welcome to battle World also there's maximum Rampage instead of Maximum Carnage with track lists Like A Man Named Cassidy as in Cletus Cassidy and escape from Raven Croft which is the institution he was being held in at the beginning of the story story I won't go through each of these since there's a lot of them but it's a really cool Easter egg and a very easy one to miss continuing on WE soon learn Yuri and her men have been captured by Hammerhead and he's given a pretty intense introduction that's the problem with your new cops no respect this is just the beginning as Hammerhead feels the need to monologue quite a bit to Yuri In This Moment it's effective though and just these early scenes show us that Hammerhead is is a ruthless and twisted killer but let's also take a moment to discuss hammerhead's origins in the comics even though he's part of the Italian mob he was actually born Russian his father was a vicious man and would beat him with a hammer this left intense scarring on his head something he was made fun of for in school and also earned him the nickname Hammerhead even though he was Russian he had a fascination with Italian mobsters and would portray himself as Italian later in life he was given a chance to prove himself to the Maia and was sent to kill a young couple the same ones who made fun of him in school to do the job he used a hammer on them he was also present for another hit this one on his father Hammerhead decided to do the job himself using you guessed it a hammer at one point though Hammerhead himself was beaten nearly to death in an Alleyway to the point he lost his memory of his past the last thing he saw before passing out was a poster for a movie about the Al Capone mob shortly after this he was found in the alley by a surgeon named Jonas Harrow Jonas was able to save his life and also replace the shattered bone in his head with steel alloy without any knowledge of his past Hammerhead clung to the last memory he had which was that movie poster so he based his identity around it essentially a 1920s mobster which is why you'll often see him in pinstriped suits and wielding a Tommy Gun as far as the game goes the bio confirms the part about being found in an alley by Jonas Harrow and having the steel plate put in his head returning back to the cut scene Hammerhead continues his torment of the police by turning his attention to Lieutenant Drake the same cop we saw earlier who was wearing a Spider-Man watch Gifted to him by his child we get a great display of Yuri skill here when she notices the guards are too focused on Hammerhead she manages to disarm the one closest to her but Lieutenant Drake is too beat up to match her speed the result is a stand off between Yuri and hammerhead with Drake caught in the middle Yuri really wants to take the shot but knows it's too risky for Drake and probably wouldn't kill Hammerhead due to the plate in his head thankfully Spider-Man swoops in to disarm Hammerhead the lights are shot out leading to a firefight in the dark between Yuri and the henchman as Hammerhead flees after hammerhead's guards are taken out Yuri and Spider-Man check on Lieutenant Drake sadly it seems he was shot in the crossfire and died the camera then slowly Zooms in on the watch now with a thin crack in the glass okay so as sadistic as this Probably sounds I really love this cut scene and really this level as a whole due to how well it builds up multiple characters and sets the tone for the rest of the DLC first it serves as a great introduction to Hammerhead and reminds me a lot of negan's introduction in The Walking Dead series the way he also had a group of hostages that he slowly threatened to stoke fear in the others they feel so similar to me that I wouldn't even be surprised if that scene was used as inspiration for hammerhead here too regardless we get a great sense of how ruthless and cocky Hammerhead is and how important it is that he be stopped as soon as possible we're also made to hate Hammerhead thanks to the tragic character Lieutenant Drake we only get a very small introduction to him at the beginning of the level but his excitement towards working with Spider-Man was refreshing and it's sweet seeing him wear the Spider-Man watch that his kid gave him having him then die on the same Mission feels really tragic and unfair and was effective at making hammerhead's villainy feel more personal the final zoom in shot of the watch drives that home and it felt very sad and thought-provoking for example for me it made me think of Lieutenant Drake's kid to me the crack in the glass over Spider-Man's face felt symbolic of Spider-Man's fractured image from the perspective of Lieutenant Drake's child who idolized Spider-Man Spider-Man wasn't able to save their dad so I'm sure this event will shake their faith in him moving forward the fractured perspective of Spider-Man could also extend to Yuri as we'll see throughout the rest of the DLC story and this moment is especially pivotal for her moving forward even though Lieutenant Drake is our Focus Yuri just lost her whole Squad on this Mission she's also probably mad at herself for not taking that shot against Hammerhead when she had the chance knowing that Drake died anyway this event marks the beginning of a turn in Yuri's character and she has one of my favorite arcs throughout this DLC Series so we'll discuss her more in depth as we continue after this incident Spider-Man tells Yuri that he'll handle things she needs to rest and call the families of her Fallen men so she agrees Spider-Man's first stop is the bar with no name a bar known as a criminal hangout Spider-Man decides to deploy one of his spider bots to infiltrate it to EAS drop on different Maia thugs inside the bar are some fun details as well first the bar is meant to be a neutral zone with rules like no guns no fighting no powers you even have to check in your weapons before you can enter the bar still I like how the bartenders are equipped for anyone potentially breaking these rules since while you're exploring you can find a pistol hidden behind the beer taps I mentioned Negan from The Walking Dead earlier and his trademark weapon is a bat with barbed wire wrapped around it you can find multiple of these hidden behind the bar as well it may or may not be a reference to the show but I still think it's cool to see that despite the rules the bartenders know their cimel and are ready for a fight there are also a couple pinball machines in the bar one for the villain Electro and one for Kingpin what I love most is that they're based on the classic comics and feature their original outfits I thought these were such a cool Easter egg and they look like a lot of fun to play through his ease dropping though Spider-Man learns that all the Maja Dawn are currently hiding out in the hour boach theater and that he needs to reach them before Hammerhead does when he arrives he realizes that he's already too late and that they're now in hammerhead's possession Spider-Man calls Yuri to tell her the bad news and she's pretty pissed he told her he would handle things and he hasn't so she decides she needs to be more Hands-On with the situation we'll next speak to her in person after Hammerhead mounts an attack on the police station he stole all the Sable military equipment he could and killed anyone who got in his way we also learned that he was specifically seeking out Sable equipment marked project Olympus which we'll learn more about later for now Yuri is even more upset and has a personal Vendetta against Hammerhead she decides she needs to bring the fight to him and wants to do things herself Spider-Man tries to cool her off but she's not having it she's flying solo and Spider-Man knows he needs to find Hammerhead before she does or else she'll likely kill him shortly after this conversation Spider-Man learns of a shootout at the bar with no name when he arrives it looks like a scene left behind by The Punisher the place is littered with bullet holes shell casings and there are dead criminals everywhere it's brutal but shows how capable Yuri is even by herself thankfully for Spider-Man one of the criminals left behind their phone which gives him a lead on Hammerhead including that he has something big planned tonight after more ease dropping Spider-Man learns the location of the event which is a construction site when Spider-Man arrives he finds all the maons tied up in a ho while Hammerheads men pour cement into it and all of this is being broadcasted on live TV Spider-Man needs to rescue the maons and this leads to a fun combat sequence where you have to fight off all of hammerhead's men while also preventing them from turning the cement truck back on if you fail the dawns will drown in the cement when you save them police will show up to help free them while Spider-Man turns his attention to Hammerhead we'll swing to the top of the construction site where we find Hammerhead waiting for us but now he's decked out an armor plating which was part of the project Olympus Sable equipment that he stole earlier Hammerhead is still broadcasting live and wants to defeat Spider-Man to show how powerful he is as well as make the Maja feared again like the old days we'll now have to fight Hammerhead while he's powered up by the armored suit and this gives him the ability to fly at us and he even has a laser he can fire it's still Hammerhead though so I like that he often uses his head as a battering ram a common attack of his in the Comics as well this fight wasn't anything too crazy but I thought it was still challenging and hammerhead felt powerful after dealing enough damage to him he'll have to take a knee giving the police enough time to swarm the area Hammerhead takes the opportunity to monologue some more to Spider-Man and I like that Yuri interrupts it with a shot to the back she has no intention of stopping there either stepping forward and launching a device to subdue Spider-Man so he won't get in her way I also love how at this moment hammerhead's facial expression turns to Pure fear as he realizes that she has every intention to kill him on the spot he attempts to get away but she shoots him into a corner she's able to get up close now and I like how she points the gun so it'll fire Up and Under the metal plate in his head as she pulls the trigger Spider-Man breaks free and fires a web in just enough time to pull the gun away preventing a Kill Shot still the shot grazes his head revealing the metal plate under the skin as Hammerhead passes out Spider-Man and the police Stand Together watching Yuri and I like this visual separation of them at this moment Yuri is no longer on the side of the police and now that Spider-Man has interfered he's not a direct Ally to her either the screen then Fades to Black as that concludes DLC 2 well sort of as we get another post credit scene showing Hammerhead being driven away in an ambulance one of the Medics is an undercover henchmen who uses a stun gun to reawaken Hammerhead this takes us to DLC 3 which opens like the other two except we're back to MJ reporting after the events of the last DLC Yuri was placed on administrative leave from the police department as far as Hammerhead the public is aware that he's alive but no one knows where he is his men are still targeting project Olympus equipment which was a project funded by Sable OC Corp to create super soldiers MJ later states that project Olympus was part of Sable's agreement to help Osborne during the devil's breath crisis and her intention was to ship project Olympus back to Saria Saria is currently dealing with a very violent Civil War and Sable needs these weapons to stop it in fact silver Sable even returns during this DLC to end the raids on her equipment and reclaim it for her people she wants information on Hammerhead and threaten Spider-Man for that Intel Spider-Man doesn't like that she's pointing guns at him for info and offers to talk to her if she puts them away to which she declines this leads to a fight between the two which initially felt kind of unnecessary and shoehorned in but I can go with it based on Sable's established personality as we discussed in the part one video Sable being a hard ass is understandable based on her Origins where she was trained by her father to be Mission focused and to not let emotions get in the way getting these weapons for her people is also extremely important to her so it makes sense that she doesn't want to waste any time and wants answers now as far as the fight itself I thought it was fun but still pretty tough this makes sense though due to how skilled Sable is her skills are on great display here too for example the way she shoots your webs out of the air if you fire the matter if you attempt to melee combo over three hits she'll counter you and throw you to the ground so it can be tough to land hits on her and I found her to be pretty difficult to gain momentum on but I like that for her character during the fight the two of them will speak and we learn that Sable blames Spider-Man for allowing her equipment to be stolen he's supposed to be protecting the city and in her eyes he's doing a poor job she intends to find Hammerhead herself and wants Spider-Man to stay out of the way the moment is quickly interrupted when a captured Hammerhead Thug escapes prompting Sable to pursue him in her Jet by the way Sable has a plane like this in the comics too and it's able to cloak itself which we'll see it do in the game later as well Sable will spend a lot of time in her jet during this DLC as we'll see in the next couple sections Spider-Man eventually tracks down another Heist of project Olympus equipment and chases the fleeing vehicle through the city before he gets a chance to stop it Sable flies in and blows up part of its Entourage now Peter has to chase down Sable's jet as it pursues the Hammerhead truck and try to prevent as much additional collateral damage as possible I thought this was a pretty unique Chase sequence and it's cool to see Sable's jet flying down the streets of New York the coolest part though is definitely when you get to perch on One of These Wings and web shoot drones Sable eventually manages to destroy the truck and hops out to interrogate the driver he's not giving her any info which causes her to get more aggressive Spider-Man interrupts her interrogation and again offers to team up and find Hammerhead together this time Sable agrees but uses a handshake to place a tracker on spider man before flying off once again Spider-Man continues his investigation and tracks down a man named Tony who's higher up in Hammerheads organization Tony tells Spider-Man that Hammerhead wants to have a meeting with silver Sable at that moment Sable actually shows up out of nowhere and agrees to the meeting they both know it's a trap but Sable doesn't care as Spider-Man predicted it was most definitely a trap and Sable's jet is locked in place and unable to move we decideed to help her out anyway and Destroy some generators to set her free then we work together to clear the area of hammerhead Goons before we can make our exit Hammerhead shows up in person and we can see that he's used project Olympus to give himself a robot body if he seemed indestructible last time he's looking straight up Invincible now also is this giving anyone else flashbacks to Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 with robot Nick Fury this feels like a similar twist and honestly I have similar opinions about it here but we'll get into that more towards the end of the DLC for now I want to talk about how this relates to the comics because Hammerhead hasn't gone through this drastic of a change before although he has been enhanced for example during the Civil War series Hammerhead was shot in the head with an adamantium bullet the bullet didn't penetrate his skull but he was still close to death he was saved by Mr negative of all people who had dock trauma doe surgery on him and provide him with a metal skeleton for the upper half of his body Mr negative's motivation was to make Hammerhead his new enforcer and it worked and hammerhead was even stronger and more durable than before however he didn't look like a robot person there was another time however that I think more closely resembles the game at one point Hammerhead had an exoskeleton built for him by the tinkerer to increase his strength and durability the Human Torch was easily able to render it useless though after burning through its power source Hammerhead had it repaired and used it again against Ben riy Spider-Man so this at least goes to show that it's not out of character for Hammerhead to seek out artificial enhancements to even the odds against superheroes and although the comics set a precedent for Hammerhead using armor I think Insomniac are taking it a step further by fusing Hammerhead with the comic character silver man silver man was a majja dawn in the comics and the one responsible for the experiments that led to the powers of clo and Dagger and Mr negative clo and Dagger wanted revenge and Dagger cut silver man's life support tubes while he laid in bed despite Spider-Man's attempts to stop them believing him dead they left however he wasn't quite dead yet and one of his men a doctor stole him away and began to attempt to save his life his solution was to give silver man a bionic body as a temporary vessel until they found a way to make him human again Silverman didn't want a human body anymore though since he was exhilarated by this new strength in his robot body as as you can see silver man's body closely resembles Hammerheads in the game so I think Insomniac are blending the two characters in the game Hammerhead is still just as Relentless as before but even more powerful Sable and Spider-Man do their best to fight him off but he's able to easily overwhelm them he even manages to grab them at the same time and readies himself to provide the killing blow via a headbutt before he can black cat shows up and whisks Spider-Man to safety Sable's plane begins to freef fall and both her and hammerhead fall to the ground both of them survive but Hammerhead manages to capture silver SA T and leave with her meanwhile Spider-Man gets a moment to speak with black cat and she provides him with some gamechanging information did you honestly think I was dead H how did you find me same way she did watch out that girl has trust issues how long have you been watching me watching us long enough to know you're making a m mistake hammerhead's gotten too powerful do you really think I have a choice here wait is that everything you need to know about that ugly thing sorry for what I did to you but now we're even one more thing his head not as strong as you think it is it's great to see black cat return and I love how she always seems to have the upper hand even in situations unrelated to her this is the last that we'll see of her in the first game and I hope we see more of her in the sequel using black cat's Intel we learned that Hammerhead has been stashing all his stolen Sable Tech underground which is likely where he's holding silver Sable so we head there next when Peter calls MJ to fill in she has surprising news of her own she says she's been fascinated by the revolution occurring in Saria and feels that too many countries have been ignoring the problem so she's decided to head to Saria and document everything going on in hopes of making it more public and possibly getting Saria additional Aid it's a noble Pursuit and even though Peter doesn't like the idea of her heading into a war zone he trusts her and agrees she should go so I thought this was a good moment that furthers MJ's Arc from the main game in a positive way this is the type of work that she's been dying to do and shows how she's a hero in her own right I also think it shows the growth between Peter and MJ's relationship as Peter now supports her in these decisions instead of fighting her on it continuing on Peter heads into the sewers to find Sable through his search he finds their main base of operations and a bunch of sable equipment we also learned that hammerhead's plan has been to lure silver Sable back to New York so we can get his hands on all her Best Equipment we also soon find Sable as she's being tortured Spider-Man shows up at the right time to free her and she takes revenge on her captor even with what must be a really painful drill injury Sable appreciates spider man's help but still wants to work alone as a last Stitch effort he shows her the drive that black cat gave him enemies of course then arrive to fight them and they decide to team up to take them out up until now she's really just been in her plane the whole time so it's nice having Sable on the ground and fighting alongside us after defeating hammerhead's men sa and Spider-Man use a computer to analyze the information on the drive while scouring it they discover a weakness the plate inside hammerhead's head is susceptible to heat Sable has an idea on how to use that to her advantage and says that she'll call Spider-Man when she's ready it seems that she's at least somewhat willing to give the team up a try and as she walks off she even gives a little smirk showing that she's warming up the Spider-Man shortly after this Sable calls and gives us a location to meet her when we arrive she's waiting in her plane and gives us a ride to a secret base that she has on the water it's been here this whole time but cloaked so well that nobody knew it was there now that she's uncloaked it she expects Hammerhead to show up at any minute Sable's plan is to outfit her jet with a laser that will heat the plate and hammerhead's skull enough to soften it giving her an opportunity to knock him unconscious we'll get the test her Theory out very soon since as predicted Hammerhead has shown up on board and is looking for a fight he'll get it as we fight him on the deck while Sable gets prepared we'll fight Hammerhead like normal dodging his attacks and webbing him up while damaging these cybernetics and his knees enough to ground him for a second while grounded Spider-Man holds his head in position for Sable to shoot her laser superheating the metal plate we're then given a moment to beat up Hammerhead while he's vulnerable we'll follow this pattern a couple more times before moving on to the next phase Hammerhead boosts his durability with an energy field but Sable has has bombs that can deactivate it during the fight she'll drop a wave of bombs down allowing us to throw one directly at Hammerhead to remove the shield then we continue the fight as normal overall I thought this fight was pretty solid for the most part Hammerhead is really strong and fast and I often felt on the ropes against him especially towards the end it's also just always fun having Spider-Man go up against enemies that outclass him in size and power to see how he overcomes it so I thought this was a fitting final battle this was also a pretty cool teamup fight and it's nice having Sable in her plane providing air support so I'm ultimately pretty POS positive on this final battle during one of the team ups though Sable's laser malfunctions forcing her to improvise her solution is to fly the plane into Hammerhead Sable and Spider-Man both Dodge out of the way in time while the plane collides with Hammerhead resulting in a huge explosion out of the Flames walks Hammerhead and it initially seems like he might be just as Invincible as he claims that's until his cybernetics begin to short out and hammerhead collapses it seems he's finally down for the count and no longer a threat with the mission complete Sable tell Spider-Man that she needs to return to Samaria to help her people however she at least seems to finally consider Spider-Man an ally thank you Spider-Man for everything I don't do hugs yeah right of course uh hey can I get a lift back to the city I'd swim but it' take forever to get the river smell out of my suit and that ends the story of DLC 3 we still have one final post credit scene though and that's Peter training miles on how to be Spider-Man this lesson is on swinging through the city and Peter tasks miles with keeping up with him before making the leap miles pauses to take in the view and we get a great shot of him overlooking the city I think it's a great visual that teases his future as Spider-Man although he still needs more training before that and with that our DLC story is complete as far as this DLC series I feel like it was overall a good experience but I do think it struggled to maintain the quality standards of the main game and I think the three individual DLCs varied in quality themselves I enjoyed the black cat DLC the most and I feel like it aligned with the quality of the main game the best dlc2 is pretty solid but didn't hold my attention quite as well as the first one DLC 3 slipped the farthest and although I wouldn't call it a bad experience it felt more middling compared to the rest of them I think there are a few key reasons why these DLCs varied as well to start the main antagonist for the DLC series is Hammerhead but each DLC story is headlined by its own female anti-hero black cat Yuri and silver Sable resp respectively I think the first DLC was so gripping because black cat was such an intriguing character a bunch of mystery surrounded her and everything she did making her a lot of fun to watch you never knew what would happen next when she was around her skills of deception were also excellently displayed and it felt like she was always multiple steps ahead of both Spider-Man and the player I think this DLC also did a great job setting up Hammerhead by having him constantly mentioned and alluded to without actually showing him until the end so all around I felt fully engrossed in the story and characters of DLC 1 DLC 2 felt similar especially at the beginning since those opening cut scenes did such a great job at engaging me in the story Hammerhead felt like a true threat and having him so callously take out Yuri's Men set a great dramatic tone the rest of DLC 2 wasn't quite as engaging in my opinion but Yuri's story arc definitely was we've spent so much time with her during the main game that I felt a bond to her character and her turned into an anti-hero felt earned after witnessing her interactions with Hammerhead so it was really exciting to see her take that initial experience and turn it against him there it is there's the fear and we'll get him I know where you going to teach a lesson in fear then with DLC 3 we have silver Sable and although I've liked her a lot in both the DLC and main story I don't feel as much of a connection to her as I do black cat and Yuri I think it's due to a couple reasons the first is that she has such an isolated and cold personality that it can be difficult to sympathize with her she's very distant and we the player can feel that distance emotionally as well but beyond that I think it's that we don't really know much about her and what drives her character basically she doesn't have much of an arc she shows up as a military leader to help Norman Osborne in the main game and is kind of just doing her job there's not a whole lot of depth there I think the DLC tries to build on things a bit more with her ties to the sarian Civil War giving her more of a personal motivation but still it's tough to get invested in it because we're really just told about it we never see Saria or it's people suffering so we kind of just go with it however we do come across a character named David obademi who was originally a teacher but has joined Sable's military in hopes of helping to secure humanitarian supplies for simaria I like this character a lot and I think he humanized the simaran struggle more but I still wanted more from Sable herself admittedly I think the original plan was for Sable to get a lot more development in the main game in an interview with kind of funny games creative director Brian inar mentioned that originally Sable had a bigger story arc that they had to cut he says it was making things a bit too complicated so they decided to cut it down to make things more digestible I'm sure this was the right call for the quality of the game as a whole but as it stands I do think Sable's character depth is lacking overall Sable isn't the only reason I'm hating on DLC 3 though my other issue is how different it feels in tone compared to the other two the first two DLCs were a lot more grounded with street level threats and Stakes that felt pretty realistic for the most part where I feel like DLC 3 went too far the other way especially with Hammerhead him turning into a full-on robot man was a little too much of a Sci-Fi comic Booky turn even for a com IC book game since the previously established tone was more grounded in going bigger I think I lost my connection to the story and characters to the point things started to feel more generic so it's disappointing that the final DLC couldn't quite stick The Landing but I do think as a whole the DLC was pretty solid and was something that I was happy to have paid extra for with the DLCs completed I think it's best to next transition to the side missions in the game and begin with one of my favorite ones which relates to Yuri Watanabe and what she's been up to since DLC 2 after saving Sable in the sewers Spider-Man returns to the the surface only to find strands of dangling caution tape on a building upon further inspection they lead to a Chalk Outline along with a file and audio recording we'll find multiple of these around the city and the locations all relate to missing persons cases involving the Maj as far as the contents of the tapes the audio recordings are from therapy sessions between a Maia enforcer and his therapist tell me a little bit more about your job describe a typical day typical day guess it starts with waking up checking my phone see what a bus wants me to hit that day then I go grab breakfast I've been trying to do that keto thing you know then I do the hits sometimes it's messy so I got to head home and clean up I try to get to the gym in the afternoon and dinner and I sorry um can you go back for a moment what does do a hit mean exactly it means I kill who my boss tells me to I'm pretty good at it by now the tapes only get crazier from here when the enforcer reveals that his reason for setting up this therapy session was really to threaten the therapist to do a job for them or he'll kill his family the therapist then reveals he assumed as much and requests money for the job the job is for the therapist to record and leak his personal sessions with Captain Yuri watab to the majja what we'll soon find out though is that Yuri actually anticipated this ahead of time and used an undercover officer to pose as her therapist sadly the majio enforcer wasn't so easily deceived and must have been following the therapist and caught him meeting up with Yuri so he shot him in a coffee shop so yeah these tapes are quite a wild ride but after listening to them all Yuri calls Spider-Man and gives him a location to meet when he arrives he finds the majio enforcer dead and tied up surrounded by the case files of all the people that he killed this guy killed all these people but does that mean he deserved to die Yuri I know what you're going to say but just hear me out the system works most of the time but there are times when it doesn't and to me that's unacceptable some people put their trust in fate or Karma or whatever but I can only trust me you can't kill people Yuri apparently I can and you know what it felt good you need to turn yourself in for what I just dispensed Justice True Justice and I restored a little bit of balance to the world you're my friend Yuri I don't want to come after you you do what you have to do and I'll do what I have to do goodbye Spider-Man Yuri what am I going to do like I mentioned earlier I'm a big fan of where Insomniac are taking Yuri so let's talk about how it relates to the comics so in the comics Yuri goes through a similar transition she starts as a police officer and Ali to vigilante superheroes she states that she was a friend of former police officer Gan De Wolf who was murdered by the villain siner however it wasn't the police that caught siner it was Daredevil and Spider-Man and Yuri never forgot that she also states that after certain events like when a mass murder murderer named Massacre terrorized the city she felt someone needed to start putting fear in criminals so she decided to do so as the Vigilante wraith she stole some villain Tech from evidence lockup such as Mr fear's fear gas and some of Mysterio Tech to give her a more spectral look like a ghost however Yuri was still a cop and tried to abide by that other half of her life when she could at one point her Precinct got a new police chief who wanted things done by the book when Yuri tried to do things by the book her Mentor Teddy Wrangle was shot unexpectedly by the villain tomb Stone Tombstone was still apprehended and tried in court but was able to bribe the judge to set him free and Teddy later died from his injuries this developed a harder Edge in Yuri and she started to become more ruthless as wraith leading Spider-Man to question her methods her Tipping Point was after being manipulated by Mr negative she wanted revenge and stopped at nothing to get to him including killing one of his men Yuri was no longer a cop at the precinct and stated that Yuri was no more and that only The Wraith lives so just from that I'm sure you can already see some parallels between her comic origin and her game origin things like losing a close police officer during a raid and watching criminals repeatedly get away with crimes pushing her over the edge also her desire to instill fear in criminals I also like that we get a nod to her comic outfit through the purple ropes and yellow bands of the crime scenes that she sets up rith is a really badass character and I'm very excited to see her return in future games having her and Peter somewhat at odds will make for some great tension and it's an interaction in the sequel that I'm really excited to see next we'll stick with the DLC side missions and discuss another great Mission this time during dlc1 while swinging we'll get a call from a police officer named detective Macky who requests we meet him in person when we meet the detective he asks for our help in solving an unsolved crime from 20 years ago the crime involved the original black cat Walter Hardy Felicia's father Mackey states that Walter died in prison but his stolen artwork is still missing but he thinks he has a lead on it he states that the police department doesn't want to waste the resources on solving it so he's reaching out to Spider-Man instead Mackey's lead is an idea he got from watching a movie where a thief used Radioactive Isotopes to tag his stolen goods so he could find them at a later point after hiding them this theory is proven true and Spider-Man is able to track down the first piece of art hidden in a fake power box we'll then continue to track down all of the missing artwork for the detective and he'll tell us more about Walter Hardy like how he died during an escape attempt from Riker's prison he also tells Spider-Man that he doesn't think the New Black Cat is Felicia Hardy and that he's already looked into it he also asked Spider-Man about what the New Black Cat is like she's manipulative but she's also got a good heart she only robbed folks who can afford it or who she thinks deserve it and she gave you the slip huh more than once I can honestly say I've never met anyone quite like her I know the feeling in another conversation they discuss how the New Black Cat compares to the old one so in your professional opinion is the new cat similar to the old one well she's clearly modeling herself after Hardy her style technique hel grapple looks like an updated version of his old Tech right right you guys had her equipment and lockup for a while so she steals intellectual property too more like improves on it she's elevated Hardy's work to a whole new level almost sounds like you admire her do this long enough you can't help noticing real talent and I just want to play one more conversation between them for when you find the final painting that's the last piece of Hardy's Legacy I really can't thank you enough Spider-Man glad to help detective Macky and hey I think you're right about the new cat look out for her okay it'll mean a lot to me uh that was weird what did he mean by that I wanted to play a few of these clips because they take on a really cool double meaning when you learn the truth behind the side mission shortly after this last conversation Spider-Man will try to call him back and find that the number has been disabled so he heads back to the precinct and asks a cop for detective macki the cop tells him that no one by that name works there and Spider-Man realizes that he's been conned detective Mackey was w Walter Hardy all along and he duped Spider-Man into retrieving all his stolen artwork for him his real story was that he was an accomplished Thief who caught the attention of the majia they wanted to hire him and he refused so they threatened his family Walter turned himself in to buy some time but ultimately faked his own death so theia would stop hunting him but more importantly Felicia would be safe still he thinks it's best that Felicia never know he's alive so he's taking his artwork and leaving town it's a bit of a sad story but it's fun to see how similar Felicia is to her father conning runs in the family and I'll be honest he tried me too I didn't suspect that Mackey was actually Walter Hardy and I thought that was a fun twist it's also interesting because Walter Hardy is legit dead in the comics in those Comics he was locked up in prison and terminally ill Felicia managed to break him out of his prison and bring him home there she reveals to him that she's the New Black Cat and that she knows he's her father Felicia's mother then arrives and Felicia leaves to give her and Walter some time together later we see that Walter died from his illness in the arms of his wife and that's the last we see of him so I thought it was a good trick that he faked his death in the games Universe I also thought it was a lot of fun Rel listening to the conversations Walter has with Spider-Man during this Quest the first time through they legitimately felt like normal conversations between Spider-Man and a detective on second listen you can tell he knows more than he's letting on or that he's prying for details like wanting to know what Felicia is like now or showing admiration and her skills as the New Black Cat it's kind of sweet and you can tell he's a caring father despite being a thief and a con man so I like the side mission a lot and it's a fun one to replay next I want to go back to the main game and discuss some of those side missions we'll first start with Taskmaster his side mission begins when you find a strange box on top of a building Taskmaster leaves you a message telling you that there are bomb set to go off in the city and that you need to rush and go disarm them you'll do as he says and disarm them as quickly as you can he set up multiple of these Recon points around the city though so we'll work to complete each of his challenges afterwards he'll often call in for a minor chat or critique you're pulling your punches I'm fine just stopping criminals I don't need to kill them never hold back I won't this guy's got issues he's right though Spider-Man does pull his punches when uto Octavius took over Peter's body as The Superior Spider-Man he learned this the hard way by punching the Scorpion full force accidentally knocking his jaw clean off at that moment he realized that Peter had been pulling his punches in most fights we should also discuss Taskmaster from the comics a bit too his name is Anthony Masters and at one point was an agent of shield however he eventually took on more lucrative contracts as a mercenary due to his unique superpowers those abili are photographic reflexes which means that whenever he Witnesses someone perform a movement he can instantly replicate it himself this makes him a master martial artist and a formidable foe to go up against a great comic example is a time when Taskmaster fought Captain America one-on-one during the fight Captain America was able to narrate the moves and the associated Fighters Taskmaster was using against him in this case swordsman Iron Fist and even his own moves so in the game it makes sense why Taskmaster has set up these different challenges for us because he wants to watch us in action so he can copy our mov moves one incredible detail that insomnia concluded is having Taskmaster physically in the area during these missions although it can be really hard to spot at times to start he's most visible during the combat challenges during the daytime he'll typically be somewhere up high watching you with binoculars if he's within the mission perimeter you can usually get pretty close to him although if you get too close he'll disappear in a cloud of smoke I even attempted to use gadgets on him from afar but when you aim at him your attack will be disabled however I did manage to get him to react a bit to the concussive blast when aimed off to the side of him he'll Flinch at it a bit but that's about all I believe you can find him in all the other challenges too but he can be really tough to spot for example in the nighttime stealth missions he's really tough to see since he's so far away you can barely see him here with his binoculars this is about as close as you can get to him to since he's placed outside the mission perimeter here's another stealth Mission example and you can just barely see him off in the distance on that rooftop again he's outside of the mission boundaries so this was about as close as I could get to him so the combat missions are definitely your best bet if you want to get close to him since he's placed within the mission and somewhat easily visible regardless it's a lot of fun trying to find him in each Mission and equally as fun trying to get close to him it's so cool that Insomniac chose to hide him in these missions in the first place too it's really in character that he'd be watching you from moment to moment and it's a fun Easter egg that's extremely easy to miss but after we complete a few of his challenges Taskmaster will feel confident that he's learned enough from us and we want to test himself so while we're just swinging through the city he'll subdue us out of nowhere so we can fight on a rooftop the surprise of this fight is really awesome by itself but I also love how he'll legitimately use some of our moves against us for example he'll slide underneath us and then kick us twice in the back this is the same move that will often pull on Shield enemies another example is the spin kick that he'll perform on us I recognize this move from one of our takedowns he may not be able to replicate our webs but he attempts similar moves using his grappling hook which I thought was a fun detail so even if he can't replicate specific Powers he'll try to get as close as he can using his available Tech I I had a lot of fun with this fight and it's really cool spotting the moves he's learned from us as he uses them against us he'll eventually flee from the fight though determining that he still has more to learn from us pushing us to continue his challenges we don't have much of a choice since innocent lives are at risk so we continue forward after completing the rest of his challenges he'll confront you for another duel during this fight he started using my own takedowns against me which I thought was another cool touch because it felt like he was further mastering my abilities I also learned that the fight doesn't have to remain on the rooftop where it began as you can take the fight down to the street and Taskmaster will follow you around this detail enhanced the fight for me since it made it feel more like a legit City brawl and added to the immersion since we weren't running up against invisible walls plus I think this was the only time I was able to fight a boss in the city streets among civilians so it was fun seeing them react and run away but with Taskmaster defeated Spider-Man starts asking what the point of all this was why are you stalking me an organization hired me to see if you're worth recruiting I'd rather be Jonah Jameson's foot Mur than work for anyone who would hire you your loss they pay six figures guess some people just deserve to be poor six figures who hired Taskmaster is still a prevailing mystery within this game what he said was about as much as we know they're rich they've hired Taskmaster and they were debating on recruiting Spider-Man I debated on going deep into speculation on who this organization may be but honestly I don't have a clear answer for it there are a bunch of possibilities like the Thunderbolts or even aim and for all I know insomnia could be going their own original Direction at the time of this recording it hasn't been addressed in Spider-Man 2 but there's still hope for some kind of DLC that could shed some light on Taskmaster employer so I think we'll have to wait things out for now but as it stands I'm very curious to learn more about this dangling plot thread and I think it's really cool that Insomniac are planning ahead like this leaving hints in the first game that will pay off in the future continuing on to another great villain side mission though let's talk about Tombstone we got a glimpse of him during an MJ mission in the main game where she found some of his shipment track trackers and pass them on to Peter Spider-Man's investigation leads him to the alamax chemical facility where he finds tombstone's men attempting to load a chemical called diox 3 just then more of tombstone's men show up and one of them uses an inhaler which turns his skin pale white and gives it a rocky texture the rest of the Gang has access to the substance as well and it significantly boosts their durability allowing them to easily shake off our hits it's only temporary though and soon after they'll return to their normal vulnerable state what they're taking is tombstone's new drug which he calls grav dust it essentially gives the user his abilities temporarily and he soon plans to sell it on the streets before getting too far let's talk about tombstone in the comics in the beginning he wasn't superpowered at all instead he was a normal child named Lonnie Lincoln who was diagnosed with albinism which is why he has pale skin he was made fun of at school for this but eventually started to fight back he even decided to take on a more striking image filing his teeth to a point in the game we can see he maintains this feature as well in the comics though as he Grew Older he became accustomed to intimidating and bullying the other students however fellow classmate Robbie Robertson planned to write an expose on him for the school paper Robbie Robertson as you might recall is the current editor-in chief of The Daily Bugle newspaper and MJ's boss so he's been a journalist since a young age back then Lonnie learned of Robbie's plan and beat him up until he agreed to drop the story which Robbie ultimately did something he still regrets into adulthood eight years later Robbie was working for a newspaper in Philadelphia and received a tip from a caller who claimed he witnessed a murder Robbie knew exposing the killer could be big for his career so he rushed out to meet the tipster in person by the time he arrived Lonnie already got there first and killed the tipster flaunting the body in front of Robbie Robbie fled in Terror and ended up moving to New York to work at the bugle still his pass with Tombstone haunted him and he followed his criminal career Tombstone murdered a lot of people over the years and always got away with it eventually Tombstone made his way to New York as well and Robbie felt a responsibility to finally put an end to it so he met tombstone in the park with the intention of shooting him Tombstone wor a bulletproof vest though and to teach Robbie a lesson he broke his back over time and with some physical therapy Robbie was able to walk again but Tombstone still haunted him they would later meet again at a chemical plant where Tombstone aimed to steal the chemical diox 3 Robbie had him at gunpoint again and when Tombstone charged him Robbie shot him and Tombstone fell into the chemical chamber and was exposed to the gas when the door to the chamber was opened Tombstone was gone later Tombstone reemerged and we learned the chemical made him indestructible and even more formidable than before so that's the origin for Tombstone and I like how closely it ties with Robbie Robertson going back to the game Tombstone is clearly an intimidating foe especially due to his powers so it's clear that his new drug could be a huge problem if it hits the streets thankfully Peter is quickly able to whip together a counter drug to nullify the effects with this new counter drug Spider-Man decides to pay Tombstone a visit at his chop shop by the way on the sign above Tombstone shop in the bottom left corner is written WM 36- SSM 139 these reference two big big comics for Tombstone the first half is an abbreviation for web of Spider-Man issue 36 tombstone's first appearance the second half is tombstone's Big cover issue featuring his origin which is spectacular Spider-Man issue 139 when we enter the shop we find Tombstone drinking the angry drug lord drank alone there's a poem in there somewhere you know better than me never was the literary type that's all the conversating will get as Tombstone gets right to business we immediately begin the fight and tombstone's a really intimidating boss with his size and strength and that Sledgehammer looks like it could hurt a lot we'll spend the early parts of this fight dodging and attacking Tombstone is needed but Spider-Man realizes hitting him isn't doing much good thanks to tombstone's durability he'll need to expose him to the counter drug but first morph tombstone's men show up to lend him a hand we have to clear out all of his men first before we can attempt to gas tombstone after clearing them out we'll get our chance and we'll quickly see the results when a saw blade falls off a shelf and cuts tombstone he knows he's normal again and I love the shift in atmosphere as he realizes this as the shop begins to catch on fire Lonnie may be human again but he's not done yet and grabs a flaming chain from the ground to attack us with this fight gets even more intense and it's almost like fighting Ghost Rider even as a normal guy Tombstone is incredibly strong and still a major threat I also love his fighting Spirit since even when weakened he's still enjoying the thrill of the fight end of the day this is what I love great fight great challenge you and I are very different people after damaging him enough Tombstone collapses to the ground he's not used to being injured so the fight is over despite his wishes still he only sees this as a minor setback and has no future plans of slowing down too much to hope you'll be taking it easier now that you're uh you know mortal not a chance threat of death just UPS the thrill hell of a left hook can't wait for the rematch I can't wait either Tombstone is a badass dude and a really fun fight I kind of hope he gets his powers back too so we can fight him at full strength again but I have to imagine we'll see Tombstone again in the future especially with him already talking about a round two it'd also be interesting to see him interact with Robbie in the future as well given how much history they have in the comics we could even see tombstone's daughter in a later game since she's referenced in a Daily Bugle news paper after this mission in the bottom left it says Janice Lincoln defends father in the comics Janice takes up the mantle of the villain Beetle and follows in her father's criminal footsteps funnily enough Janice also ends up in a serious relationship with Randy Robertson Robbie's son so Robbie can't catch a break in trying to distance himself from Lonnie although tombstone's not too happy about it either continuing on and sticking with these super villain side missions let's talk about the most hated one amongst fans screw ball this Mission begins when we meet a civilian on a roof asking if we'll do the screw ball challenge at this time we have no idea what that is but she tells us doing it will help the needy all we have to do is take a picture of the QR code on the wall and doing so immediately prompts a phone call from the character screw ball who tells us that we're now part of her stream and what we need to do um this is starting to sound timec consuming sorry but people need my help ooh funny you should say that cuz this is to help the needy one in particular the final Matrix barcode will give you the location of a wait for it kidnapping victim what I know talk about raising the stakes so this side mission starts pretty funny and Goofy and honestly I'm game for it in these early moments however I think we'll see that it eventually overstays its welcome but for now we start snapping shots of the QR codes around the city in hopes of freeing the captured citizen eventually we'll snap enough of them to get the location we need and we break in to save the hostage oh my God oh my God Spider-Man I can't thank you enough for the millions of clicks I just got screw ball I know right a you should see the look on your creepy moving eyehole thingies oh look more of my followers I think that cut scene gives you a good sense of screw Ball's personality the whole point is that she's an annoying and cringy streamer and to a degree I think it can be pretty funny at times F forever says love you SC your stream kept me going while I was in jail although at other times I think Insomniac do a little too good at making screw ball annoying she can become sort of grading at times but I think in small doses it's not too bad and in this side mission she's really not a problem in fact this Mission ends pretty quickly with her in handcuffs being taken into custody by the police however she's already making the point that she didn't personally commit any crimes and that all the crimes were committed by her fans so as you'd expect the charges don't stick and she appears in DLC 1 this time she set up a series of challenges around the city for us and we'll get scored based on our performance Spider-Man has no choice but to comply since screw ball has innocent lives at risk to motivate him some people do anything for clicks each of screw Ball's challenges have unique custom mechanics applied to them as well for example a photo bomb moment and when you trigger one time will slow down and you have to time a button press to apply bonus points to your final score I thought these were pretty cool and lead to some cinematic moments during the slow-mo her combat challenges have a photob bomb option too if you can KO and enemy in the spotlight at the right time these were satisfying to pull off and the Zoomin at the end were often pretty funny I also like the gadget challenges where you're restricted to using only two of your gadgets and you have to combo them together I think this was a good tutorial type of challenge to get the player mixing different gadgets together that they may not be otherwise utilizing together so I enjoyed the majority of these challenges for the most part that's not to say it's all great and I think there are some key reasons why fans seem to hate these screw ball missions so much to start the difficulty could be part of it some of the high scores can be tough to obtain even after multiple tries and it's even more annoying due to screw Ball's taunts at the end I'd give that performance a B minus minus so if you're a completionist things can get a bit frustrating not only that but these missions can start to feel repetitive due to their being screw ball missions in all three DLCs not counting her side mission in the first game I think if she was isolated to just one of the DLCs it wouldn't be too bad instead I think she overstays her welcome and her missions and personality begin to wear on you that being said I know Screw is intentionally meant to be annoying and kind of a dig at influencers and probably people like me which honestly it is pretty funny to make fun of influencer culture but like I said I think Insomniac do a little too good at it still I like screw ball as an outlet for them to make these kind of jokes for example I think Insomniac also include a fun meta joke during one of her calls after you successfully three start a challenge awesome when Spidey does well I do well that's called Sim be whatever don't forget to click the like button I think the word she was about to say was symbiosis so the joke is likely insomniac's awareness of that word's association with Venom symbiote and how hungry fans are for that character to the point Insomniac feel like they have to avoid certain keywords that fans might unnecessarily make a big deal out of so like screw ball set symbiosis Venom confirmed those type of headlines so I think that's the tongue-and-cheek joke here or at least that was my interpretation of it we actually did get Venom and Spider-Man 2 so for all I know this could have been a legit tease for him regardless it's satisfying when you finally complete all of her missions and you're ready to take her down for good after completing all of her challenges screw ball will have a rap party on a rooftop in the city Spider-Man knows she's a narcissist who couldn't refuse missing her own party so he banks on the idea that she'll be there somewhere he's right but screw ball actually intended on him showing up and she wants this Chase to be her series finale so we Chase screw ball through the city stopping to disarm her traps and perform photo bombs along the way as well it's actually a pretty tough fast-paced challenge so it works as a fitting finale of her Challenge Series I also like how it mirror is the comics in the comics screw ball isn't superpowered she's just a master at parkour this allows her to swiftly navigate the city and even outrun Spider-Man despite his super agility so that's why she's so fast in the game screw ball is also a live streaming villain in the comics and like in the game she's broadcast it out to Spider-Man before to try to get him on stream after noticing that her views increase 85% whenever he shows up so the game and comic iterations of screw ball are pretty similar for the most part in the game we'll finally catch up to her and tire up for the police her deal C Series ends with her being placed in a police car and it's a relief to know it's finally over but that was the last of the side missions featuring a comic villain if I had one criticism for the side missions in the game it's that I'd like to see more notable villains in the world similar to something like Batman Arkham Knight which featured a scr wheel dedicated to keeping track of all the villains you need to apprehend in the city maybe that game just spoiled me but I'd like to see Insomniac include more villains in a similar fashion however Brian inar stated in an interview with beyond that he recalls at least four villains being cut due to time I think there was about four others that we were talking about that you know just you know you start you know looking at the game you're like we got to get this thing done no and like I don't think they got Beyond maybe concept phase and um it was just it was just too much Brian never goes on to State who these characters were specifically but I think there's enough evidence around now for me to speculate on it two in particular have been found by data miners namely Tiff somniac on YouTube Tiff was able to find an old texture file in the game showing Spider-Man in front of feast across from the villain the hood on the left in the comics Parker Robins is a criminal who comes into possession of a demonic cloak and boots that give him mystical Powers he uses these abilities to create his own criminal Enterprise and is also butt heads against Mr negative through their own turf wars that last bit in particular leads me to believe that the hood could have been a cut character if he was meant to be at odds with both Spider-Man and Martin Lee the hood has also been used in the Spider-Man 2 prequel comic so we know at least he exists in this universe Tiff somniac as well as redditor Cory Reynolds also found game models for comic villains named crime master and big man crime Master actually has a legit character model in the game files however this model is also used for Big Man likely meaning big man didn't get too far into development crime master and big man make sense as cut characters as well if Insomniac were going for a Turf Wars theme in the main game at one point big man led a group called The enforcers Who helped him to attempt to take over the criminal underworld crime Master is kind of similar in the sense that he's a thug with grand Ambitions there have been multiple people to wear the mantle of both crime master and big man so it's tough to pin down where exactly Insomniac might have taken these characters for example crime master and big man teamed up in the comics once later resulting in crime Master shooting big man it was then revealed that these weren't the original crime master and big man but instead crime master's son and big man's daughter who both had the same idea to dress up as their parents criminal identities for Revenge the original big man's son also decided to take up the mantle piloting a giant mechanical Big Man suit that would actually be pretty awesome to see in the game there's also a comic where Mr negative uses one of his inner demons to impersonate the latest crime master and lead the enforcers so crime Master could have been used as a mole in the enforcers group under big man but I'm just Loosely speculating at this point regardless I could see some kind of turf war theme between these cut characters so those could be three of the four cut characters that Brian was referring to if that's the case I hope Insomniac choose to recycle them into the sequel in some way outside of the villains there are still plenty of side missions to complete in the game I won't get into each of them since they're pretty standard side missions but they're unique enough in their own right to be enjoyable for example stopping crimes with the assistance of a bird watcher who actes our Lookout or helping a man named Howard by returning his lost pigeons one in particular that I really liked was following the trail of an impostor Spider-Man it seems Spider-Man has inspired a copycat who's dressing up like him and stopping crimes when you eventually track him down it's just some guy who knows martial arts helping the city the best he can he gets in over his head though when he's faced with enemies wielding guns thankfully we're there just in time to help out and it's pretty fun fighting alongside this guy we also get some fun references during this mission for example while we're fighting he mentions being a martial arts instructor at the chakara dojo the chakara dojo is from the ironfist Netflix show owned by Iron Fist but operated by Colleen Wing so it's nice seeing that show referenced and getting some love since it usually just gets hate this isn't the only Iron Fist or really Defenders reference in the game as we'll see more nods to him and the rest of the team a bit later this Mission also contains a couple Spider-Man villain references for example here's this one still alive so whoever did this isn't lethal protector that's promising this is a reference to the villain Venom who's known as the lethal protector in the comics there's also this mention of chameleon someone's impersonating me could be the chameleon again I've got to pick up his Trail chameleon is a Master of Disguise and the first villain Spider-Man faced in the comics so it's cool to see him mentioned here and confirm that Spider-Man has encountered him previously in the gamees lore as well before this Mission ends we get one other fun Spider-Man comic reference your heart's in the right place but if you keep this up you're going to get killed yeah I see that now don't worry I'm hanging up the suit Spider-Man no more good call Spider-Man no more is a reference to the famous comic where Peter decides to quit being Spider-Man and throw away his suit so a fun little nod there another mission or series of missions I found unique were the ones with ESU student Philip Chang who requests our help in finding missing ESU students from the Halloween party Philip uses his own facial recognition software to give us a last known location and it's up to us to use the picture to try and find it exact location in the city as someone who has never been to New York personally I found these to be fun little missions to help me get accustomed to the different areas instead of just always relying on the spider GPS plus I felt like the game gave me just the right amount of hints to get me in the general area which I appreciated each of these missions will also result in US finding leftover corrupted students from the Halloween party and we have to web them up I like the Halloween Mission a lot so I'm enjoying this extension to it there are some cool comic references in this side mission series too for example one of the people you're meant to find is Brad Davis the quarterback for the ESU college football team Brad Davis is from the comics and is also the school's quarterback in his first comic appearance he was even dating MJ Brad was also used in the Spider-Man far from home movie as the guy who was competing for MJ's attention you'll also rescue Steve Hopkins another character from the comics in the comics he's another ESU student with Peter Philip himself is also from the comics and his story was that he originally lived in Hong Kong and was a troubled youth this meant he had enemies and one day a grenade was thrown into his home Philip was able to evade it but his parents were killed in the blast at that moment he decided to renounce his violent ways and move to America to start a new life there he was also a student at ESU and was touted as one of their greatest Minds in later Comics Peter owns his own company called Parker Industries and hired philli as chief of the Renewable Energy Research Department in the game Philip is very tech-savvy and hopes to land a job through his facial recognition software and Spider-Man even offers to be a reference for him Philip later accomplishes his goal as we see through his social media posts where he gets hired by Rock on we'll talk about roxon a lot more when we get to the Miles Morales spin-off game going back to the social media feed Philip has a pretty fun presence in there as well not only does he post updates regarding his work at roxon but he also creates an AI called chenbot that posts for him every day however it often bugs out and acts in ways he doesn't anticipate for example one of its posts is a factoid that AI will likely become sentient by the year 2073 and enslave Humanity it even adds # can't wait much to the horror of Phillip Brad Davis quarterback we saved earlier also has a consistent social media presence most of the time it's about the success of the ESU football team however he also makes a couple thirst posts for example one is about black cat when he learns that she isn't dead another regards silver Sable and how Brad thinks she's kind of hot his girlfriend actually reacts to this post and breaks up with him in the comments I guess while we're on the subject of the social media feed we might as well discuss some other cool details within it for example it's not just Brad posting thirst tweets another user named West Coast Poe also makes makes one about black cat but his girlfriend finds the post and they argue in the comments another one that I thought was funny was a message chain between some Bros about who can bench as much as Spider-Man the usernames in this chain consist of things like broiden brometheus and Marco brolo Spider-Man Actually responds to them with encouragement and it's cool that Spider-Man posts in here as well you can actually find an exchange between Peter and Aunt May in these social media feed as well after her 5-year anniversary at feast in it Peter tells May that she needs to turn off caps lock for any future post that makes I also thought it was really cool that you can find posts from the user JJ in space this is actually J Jonah Jameson's son John Jameson who's an astronaut Jon is actually the first person saved by Spider-Man in the comics in Amazing Spider-Man number one he saved Jon's flight capsule from Crash Landing of course instead of being grateful of his son's savior Jonah instead began bashing Spider-Man in the papers claiming that Spider-Man sabotaged the ship in the first place funnily enough there's also a really cool what if comic about what would happen if it was John Jameson who became Spider-Man in instead of Peter hypocritically Jonah is actually really supportive of Spider-Man when it's his son Jonah even designs his suit in this comic Jon tries to save a runaway flight capsule like in the original Comics but dies in the process more canonically though John Jameson later becomes the creature man wolf as far as in the game though Jon seems to be in Space the whole time but keeps up the news back home and comments about it on the feed for example expressing happiness when Martin Lee was caught he'll also post about his dad's podcast which he listens to in space Jonah will occasionally comment on these posts as well and his username is JJJ at home a fun pairing with his son's username you can find Mary Jane's username as well and it's another one that I found interesting hers is MJ Watson jackpot this is a reference to a famous line of hers in the comics for some context Aunt May had been trying to set Peter up on a blind date with MJ for a while but he kept brushing it off thinking she would be ugly for example this panel where he says I'm as anxious to meet Mary Jane Watson as I am to meet the Hulk and she'll probably look just like him eventually ant May gets to meet MJ and her first line to him is face it tiger you just hit the jackpot so that's why the word jackpot is part of her username I also find it interesting because MJ has recently become a hero named jackpot in the comics so who knows maybe the game will eventually follow suit I also thought it was cool that you can find posts from Gloria at Feast her username is soy Gloria and she'll post updates about her time there for example she mentions that Aunt May makes Incredible wheat cakes I thought that one in particular was fun because Spider-Man's recommendation of wheat cakes at Feast was what convinced her to go in the first place just in case there's a place called The Feast Center seen it I don't want charity they got the best wheat cakes in the city hands down mom used to make those haven't had any in a long time Insomniac CEO Ted price even makes a post and it's the biggest troll of all it reads hey did you hear that Insomniac Games is announcing a new game next week that post has been there ever since this game released back in 2018 and it looks like something that would be snuck into the game right before a big reveal but it's not it's just a troll that fakes out new players it's not exactly a lie either though since occasionally that post will be correct whenever they randomly reveal new games one of those even a broken clock is right twice a day sort of things going back to the social media feed there's a lot more that you can find Within These social posts but these were the ones that stood out to me most a lot of other characters you interact with in the game can be found making posts and I thought this was a cool inclusion to make the city feel more lively and real besides side missions there are still tons of things to do in the open world random crime alone do a good job of making the city feel Lively and I often found myself detouring from Main objectives to complete them I like that Insomniac aim to provide variety to the different crimes you might encounter and I think of the Spider-Man games I've played for this channel the random crimes are done best here still due to the sheer volume of random crimes across the main game and DLC they do eventually start to feel a bit repetitive I think that's just the nature with random crimes but it's something I'd like to see Insomniac attempt to remedy in future games still I appreciate how much effort went into providing as much variety as possible into them and I think there's a great Foundation to build on here so it's definitely something I'd like to see return another open world feature I'd like to see return are criminal hideouts which were one of my favorite inclusions each of the enemy groups has their own hideouts and bases and you can sneak in to fight waves of them I thought these were a great way to lean into the combat mechanics of the game and let the player really dig in and unleash their skills these became fun areas for me to try out all of my gadgets as well as test out the different suit powers that I unlocked more on those in a bit I think the hideouts were also good Proving Grounds against the different enemy types so I found them to be both fun and beneficial I wasn't quite as into the next side Challenge Series though which are research stations they're scattered around the city and are a passion project of Harry Osborne Harry is picking up where his mother left off since she first began this Environmental Research such as researching a safe way to dissolve Plastics sadly she died before she could fully see it through Harry admires his mother and wants to follow in her footsteps so he commissioned these research stations to continue her work they don't seem to be a priority for Oscorp though as Spider-Man often voices is concerned that these stations will be shut down if they're not shown to be producing results so while Harry's away we do the work for him things like swinging through smoke clouds to analyze the cause of pollutants or fixing the water pressure in the city's pipes or managing data flow by repositioning transmission dishes each one feels unique from the other but in general they felt kind of tedious to me that's not to say they're all bad and I enjoyed some of them but completing these felt the most like a grind compared to the other City activities after completing them though MJ will give you a call to tell you that OC Corp de the stations is providing valuable data so they'll fully fund them so finally a win for Harry even if he doesn't know it yet leaning into Peter's background as a photographer you're also tasked with taking snapshots of landmarks around the city this one is probably somewhat tedious for other players but I kind of enjoyed this one like I mentioned I've never been to New York so I felt like a pseudo tourist getting to check out these landmarks via the game although it's probably no surprise that my favorite part was finding the Marvel locations and hearing Peter comment on some of them for example the wakandan embassy I wonder wonder if King tchala got his powers from being bitten by a radioactive Panther dude's tough but that it still probably hurt as I'm sure you're aware black panther gets his powers from the heart-shaped herb and wakanda not from a radioactive Panther bite there's also the sarian embassy frequented by silver Sable we can also get a shot of the sanctum sanctorum home to Doctor Strange cool window but I always get the feeling something strange is going on in that place this is also where those Defender Easter eggs come into play the first of which is fogwell's gym fogwell's gym is where Matt Murdoch's father used to train as a boxer occasionally Matt will train here as well as you can see on this comic page so all the fap sound effects written on the page are boxing sounds I just want to reinforce that I was actually reading some Daredevil Comics recently and I noticed they've since reversed it to Now read PA every time someone hits a punching bag which I thought was funny there's also Josie's bar a location frequented by Daredevil in the Netflix series but it's also a location from the comics we can also find the Department building containing Alias investigations the private investigation company owned by Jessica Jones unfortunately if you're playing on the remastered Edition there's a bug where instead of Alias investigations it'll say homeless need help which almost seems relevant to Jessica but it's just an incorrect asset and nothing lore related we can also find the Rand Corporation owned by Danny Rand AKA Iron Fist sadly there weren't any Luke Ki Str EGS at least not that I could find another Marvel location we can find is damage control and they're the construction company tasked with repairing damage from Superhero fights lastly and most importantly Avengers Tower when you take a picture of it Peter says this Avengers Tower is so cool but they're never around to use it I think they're probably somewhere on the west coast right now probably surfing or something or at least he should say that even on the remastered Edition there were some rumors it was cut for the remaster but that's not the case it's just difficult to get Peter to say it without first being interrupted by either phone calls or nearby conversations The Avengers being in the west coast is interesting though this sparked a lot of fans to believe it was a nod to the Marvel's Avengers game where the Avengers began on the west coast this has since been proven false at least officially and mostly serves as a reason why the Avengers aren't in the area to deal with the devil's breath outbreak still Insomniac had discussed putting more Easter eggs and Avengers Tower initially but ultimately decided against it as described by Brian inar in this interview with Beyond false expectations about what the game was like so Avengers Tower right you know we de debated like well can people look into it and can or can people like see Tony walking around and I'm like here's what happens we do that people want to Mission with Tony Stark and then they want to see Iron Man and then they want to BBE play as Iron Man and I'm like our job is to make the best Spider-Man game y ever like it's that's our job like we want to give the Ultimate Spider-Man experience anything attracts from that is going to be bad as cool as that would have been he's absolutely right if we saw Tony Stark even for a second it would overshadow everything and we'd be clamoring for an Iron Man game outside of the main landmark Hunt is also a secret photo op thankfully you can buy an upgrade that shows you when you're close to one so this isn't a complete grind a lot of what you'll find in the secret photo ops are creative artworks around the city like a crying Jameson or a pest control building with scorpion on it there are more really artistic examples but I'm mostly going to call out the different Easter eggs first up is this statue of the Marvel Comic character lockjaw this is cool and probably seems random but there's actually a story behind it apparently Insomniac were struggling against legal teams not letting them use the Wall Street bull statue so instead they decided to use a bulldog Marvel loved the idea and used lockjaw in its place lockjaw in the comics is an inhuman with the ability to teleport so I'm not sure that there's a lore reason behind his statue being here yet but it's really awesome nonetheless you can also find the law office of Nelson and Murdoch Matt Murdoch is lawyer by day Daredevil by night and he runs his legal practice alongside his best friend foggy Nelson that red notice on the door is a bit troubling though so maybe business isn't booming another secret photo op that I thought was cool was this one for Norman's campaign office there isn't much else to it but I thought it was kind of fun to walk around and you can see people working inside the building this last one is sort of Bittersweet and that's the grave site of Aunt May and Uncle Ben earlier in the game it's just Ben's grave but after you complete the main game you can revisit it to find that ant May was buried next to him so as sad as it is that they're gone it's sweet that they're buried together if you return back to Feast after beating the game too you can also find a plaque in honor of Aunt May inside there are also some notable landmarks that aren't part of the photo hunt one of which is a fun little Easter egg to the Ghostbusters movie if you find the firehouse that serves as their headquarters in the film there's a ghost painted on one of the walls this last Landmark isn't quite as fun since it's been deemed the saddest Easter egg ever prior to the game's release Spider-Man fan Tyler Schultz tweeted Insomniac for help in proposing to his girlfriend Maddie Insomniac actually agreed and asked if he could wait until September 7th when the game would release Tyler said we've just passed our 5 years in April so I think she'll still be around when the game released insomnia put the words Maddie will you marry me on a theater Marquee in the game City sadly Schultz later updated everyone stating that 3 to 4 weeks before the game released she broke up with him he also mentioned that this wasn't how she wanted to be proposed to anyway he was right since Maddie later gave her own statement on the matter stating that she wasn't into video games and really just sat through them for Schult the proposal has since been patched out of the game but you can still find images of it online and I'll have the polygon article about it in the description below but yeah the story is pretty sad and I feel bad for both Maddie and Ty but it's at least really cool that Insomniac were willing to assist in The Proposal in the first place on a happier note within the open world are also old backpacks that Peter left scattered around the city Peter had pretty much forgotten about these and each one contained some kind of momento from his past as you can imagine I love these because each one adds to the lore of the universe and provides some fun comic references to start if you're wondering why Peter has so many backpacks he mentions winning a lifetime supply of them through the Wilson Fisk science prize one of the backpacks contains a work life balance for idiots book written by Dr lwig Reinhardt the author is the Easter egg and in the comics is a fake identity created by Quinton Beck AKA Mysterio Mysterio used his Tech to make Spider-Man think he was going crazy and then positioned himself as Dr lwig Reinhardt so Spider-Man would seek him out for therapy Mysterio's end goal was to learn Spider-Man's secret identity through one of these sessions I also thought it was fun that we can find a couple of ant May's recipes one for wheat cakes and one for dumplings the wheat cake recipe is actually from the comics which featured a page with the entire recipe on it the dumpling recipe is the one that Peter famously messed up at MJ's apartment by burning it a collectible that's more interesting in light of the sequel is Peter's ESU badge from when he was a teaching assistant he mentions not having time for teaching but that he could see himself doing it again in the future interestingly Peter will be a teacher in the sequel he's been a teacher in the comics before too where he taught science at his old high school speaking of high school there are some fun looks at Peter's early years around the time he got his powers and his early comic issues first are his Mark 1 web shooters there they're very bulky and not nearly as compact as his current ones but they also match his early web shooters from the comics which he also created himself there's also a prototype spider Tracer that he says he was never able to make useful spider tracers are a common Gadget that Peter uses in the comics often attaching them to criminals if they're about to get away or if he wants to follow them without them knowing we get another Gadget reference when we find the spider signal Peter states that he couldn't really get this one to work either but it's something Peter uses in his early comic appearances Spider-Man would wear the signal on his belt and use its light to announce his arrival or as a flashlight in dark places we also get a nod to it in the movies during a post-credit scene after Civil War we can also find Peter's old glasses from before he got his powers these closely resemble his glasses in the comics with the Giant circular lenses after getting his powers he continued to wear his glasses for a while but eventually ditched them after they were broken by bully Flash Thompson another great early comic reference are these underarm web Wings Peter mentions that he made them with the intention of gliding short distances but they never really worked as part of of his design in the early Comics Peter suit also had web Wings on them but they were for fashion not function although in Amazing Spider-Man 11 he at one point webbed himself a more practical set of wings during a battle with the Fantastic 4 by the way if you're curious how this fight ends invisible woman uses his webs to pull him back to the ground at which point she begins flirting with him she's able to stop them all from fighting and before Spidey departs he leaves her a webbed heart which she seems pretty happy about so even though Reed wasn't really contributing to this fight I think he lost going back to the web wings though Peter eventually gained a set for legitimate gliding as part of the iron spider suit it seems that Peter's nailed the design in the sequel though as we see the gliding function will be a prominent feature for traversal there we can also find an old article from high school written by MJ it shows she's had the journalistic bug from an early age but this article also features some Comic character references she first mentions principal Andrew who was also their High School principal in the comics in the article MJ also interviews High School quarterback Flash Thompson we talked about Flash in the first video but just just as a quick summary he was Peter's bully in school later on though flash became more noble and even became the superhero Agent Venom lastly and most interestingly is MJ's mention of student Sally Avil Sally is another student from the comics and desperately wanted to be famous to accomplish that goal she decided she wanted to be a superhero named Bluebird despite not having any powers she also wanted to be Spider-Man's partner and began inserting herself into fights between him and his enemies she was always a liability in these fights since he would have to focus on protecting her the whole time eventually Spider-Man had enough and to prove to her that she needed to stop he decided not to save her from an incoming attack his point was that he couldn't be around to help her all the time and that she's not cut out for being a superhero she said she understood and agreed to retire however she wasn't completely done with the superhero world since her new career choice was to be like Peter Parker and get photographs of superhero battles mid-action when she next learned of a fight between Spider-Man and a villain she talked her friend Jason ananello into being her driver by the way if that name sounds familiar it could be because we've seen Jason in the movies before where he's the co-host of the Midtown news with Betty brand but anyway Sally urged Jason to speed and run lights to get to the fight in time the result was that their car was hit by a bus and Sally was killed in the accident so a pretty sad end for her character but it's cool to see her referenced in the game and who knows we could even see Bluebird make an appearance in future games with hopefully a happier ending moving forward there are also a couple references to the Spider-Man 2 movie game which I have a video on as well if you're feeling some Nostalgia from these Collectibles the first one is a pizza hat where Peter mentions thinking that delivering pizzas while web swinging would be a fast solution but the pizzas often end up smashed you'll recall in the Spider-Man 2 movie Peter also attempted delivering pizzas as Spider-Man the movie's tie-in game had a side mission to match this and if you were too reckless in your swinging during a delivery the pizza would get more and more messed up so I think this collectible is a fun nod to that as kind of a side reference to that if you walk up to a pizza place in the open world you can faintly hear the music that the pizza theme from Spider-Man 2 is based on which is a song called fiki fika [Music] if I flip the pizzas Mr Aziz will flip [Music] out there's also a hospital bill Peter received 3 years into being Spider-Man after being seen for a shoulder injury within this bill are potentially a couple Easter eggs as well for starters his account number and password which are 03101 196 three and orange flame respectively so the account number for sure looks like a reference to a comic to me but I'm having some trouble pinpointing exactly which one since I think a digit is misplaced if I'm correct 0301 1963 is the first issue for Amazing Spider-Man not 0310 I also assume the password orange flame is a reference to the Human Torch who also appeared in this issue when Spider-Man attempts to infiltrate the backer building I also thought the account number could be a reference to issue 3 from July 10th 1963 but that feels like more of a stretch however that issue was the first appearance of Dr Octopus and also featured the Human Torch but I think the Easter egg is for Amazing Spider-Man number one and a digit was just accidentally misplaced on the account number or maybe I'm looking at this all wrong and it's a different reference regardless there's another cool Easter egg on the bill and it's where it lists kurk Connors as the referring doctor in the comics kurk Connor is a doctor who later becomes the lizard we get another nod to the lizard through this vial of blood written on it is also the code TM 069 1963 this is a reference to The Amazing Spider-Man issue 6 from 1963 which is the lizard's first appearance in it Dr Kirk Connors wants to regrow his missing arm and experiments with lizards in hopes of doing so after experimenting on himself he regrows his arm but the change continued further giving him the features of a lizard thankfully Peter was able to create a serum and force lizard to drink it resulting in him returning back to human form this matches Peter's commentary while analyzing this collectible but Peter mentions it was only a temporary solution and as we've seen in trailers lizard will indeed return in the sequel in another backpack we find a prototype web fluid that Peter tried to make at Oscorp but he states that it was a failed attempt and that he seems to have had bad luck with Oscorp he also mentions that Harry was interning at Oscorp at this time on the front of the bottle is a model number tm1 1965-71 this is likely a reference to The Amazing Spider-Man issue 31 which released in 1965 however I'm not quite sure what the relevance is although a couple things stand out firstly this is Peter's first day of college and it's also the issue where Peter learns that Aunt May is ill she's taken to the hospital and it's all Peter can think about secondly this is also the issue where Harry Osborne first comes into contact with Peter and he refers to Peter as a swell head who thinks he's better than everyone else this is because it's common knowledge that Peter got into ESU through a science scholarship and he seems standoffish since he's so deep in thought about ant May's condition during chemistry class Harry decides to play a prank on Peter to take him down a notch so he has Gwen Stacy distract Peter by asking asking for his pen while Harry drops an unknown chemical into whatever Peter's working on this causes Peter's project to explode and he gets into trouble with the professor so what I think the game could be suggesting through this reference is that maybe Peter's web fluid failed at OC Corp because Harry tampered with it as a prank like in the comic I can't say that for certain but it's the thing that seemed most relevant to the referenced issue it's kind of funny if true too speaking of that chemistry professor we get an Easter egg for him as well in one of the backpacks Peter finds his old college thesis that got him the job with auto written on the cover is his grade and the name Professor Warren Professor Warren is the same professor in Peter's chemistry class but he becomes more prominent as the comics go on his full name is Miles Warren and he had a fascination with genetics he also had a creepy fascination with his student Gwen Stacy and secretly fell in love with her after her death by the Green Goblin Warren became obsessed with cloning using some cell samples of his students he managed to successfully clone both Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker Warren was also insane and developed himself into the villainous identity The Jackal so so you can thank the Jacqueline part for the confusing clone saga Series in another backpack you can also find this apartment application in the gamees lore about a year before the events of the game Peter and MJ were planning on moving in together and completed this apartment application together prior to breaking up on the application are some fun Easter eggs the first is the name of the apartment complex which is Bedford Towers after getting married in the comics MJ moved in with Peter at his apartment on Chelsea Street however one night while Peter was out Venom made his first appearance sneaking into their apartment and scaring MJ to tears after that MJ decided they needed to move and she chose Bedford towers as the location it was actually a really fancy place and MJ was able to afford it for them since she made so much as a fashion model looking lower on the application we have Peter's driver's license number which is broken up but can essentially be read as 1963 1998 Peter's first Amazing Spider-Man series ran from 1963 to 1998 we can also see the name of the property manager which is Barney muggins Barney's wife M muggins was Peter's land lady at the Chelsea apartment and was the one always on Peter about the rent in the comics however Barney has shown up in the comics as well in web of Spider-Man 38 MJ decides to throw one final big party at their Chelsea apartment before moving into Bedford Towers m is furious about all the noise but is more concerned about finding her husband Barney as she suspects Barney is at the party hiding from his wife and flirting with all of MJ's supermodel friends so Barney's a creepy old man at one point during the party Peter has a glass of punch but then has to rush off to fight hobgoblin during the fight Peter's movements are sluggish he makes a lot of mistakes and he slurs his words while they banter this brings them both to the quick realization that Spider-Man is drunk during this fight still Peter manages to beat hobgoblin when he returns back to the party he yells at the crowd asking who spiked the punch and of course it was Barney muggins going back to the application we can also see who Peter used for references and they are Norman Osborne Oto Octavius and ant may also I have to mention the good luck card Peter received when leaving The Daily Bugle all the names on the card are Daily Bugle employees in the comics but one stands out that's Eddie Brock who becomes Venom in the comics it's stated that Eddie Brock isn't Venom in The Game sequel but it's still cool to know that he exists in this universe so perhaps we'll see him become venom at some point in the game series there's also a more meta Easter egg when you find a button for the Spidey Squad a fan club for Spider-Man this is insomniac nod to the real life Spidey Squad group founded by YouTuber Evan farara the group was made back in 2016 and is still running today and is welcome to all fans of Spider-Man if you'd like to check it out for yourself I'll leave their website and socials in the description continuing on one of my favorite Collectibles is this business card for Nelson and Murdoch oh yeah that blind guy gave me his card in case Spider-Man ever needs a lawyer wait hold on if he's blind how did he know I was Spider-Man as we discussed earlier Matt Murdoch is the blind lawyer and secret vigilante Daredevil if you're unfamiliar with his powers Daredevil's other senses are heightened which together allow him to essentially see the world in a different way and pick up on details normal people can't so that's how Matt could tell he was speaking with Spider-Man despite being blind Daredevil and Spider-Man team up often in the comics too so it's awesome to get a nod to an interaction between them in the game another interesting find is this fabric where Peter describes wanting to make a stealth suit I was going to talk about it in the suit section of the video but we might as well discuss it here since it's unlockable in the game it's the big time suit and its Associated power obscures you from the vision of non- alerted enemies so they essentially can't see you this is thematic in that in the comics this suit is invisible there's also a reason for the green lights on it Peter First shows the suit to Black on a mission and gives her a pair of green lenses like the ones on his suit anyone wearing the green lenses can see him including himself Peter mentions struggling to keep track of his legs and arms while invisible so he added the green lines on the suit so he could better see them to everyone else though he's invisible the suit also has other color variations as well depending on the mode that it's in such as red which helps baffle loud Sonic frequencies or white which shows when both invisibility and the sonic mode are disabled so it's a bit of a shame we didn't get these other color variations but it's cool to have it in in the game nonetheless lastly we can find a vial of sand that Peter's collected he states that this contains the grain of sand housing the villain Sandman and that if he opens the vial he's scared Sandman will be set free it actually seems kind of cruel though that he's got Sandman just locked away in this vial even more cruel is that he forgot about it all this time and just now found it he could at least take it to the Avengers or Shield or somewhere for safekeeping also I was going through sandman's first comic appearance again and it's pretty funny how Peter beats him he just sucks Sandman up with a vacuum cleaner so s man's getting no respect whether it's the comics or games there are also multiple backpack Collectibles that flesh out Peter's past and give us glimpses at his early fights against some of the villains we've met and even more interestingly villains we haven't met in the game yet for example Mysterio where Peter mentions using glass from his helmet to formulate a more durable ey lens for his costume I really enjoyed examining all these different backpack Collectibles and they were a real highlight for me another series of Collectibles that I really enjoyed are the J Jonah Jameson podcast episodes I really like that Insomniac chose to have Jameson as a a podcaster instead of a newspaper publisher for this game because I think it's a cool modernization for his character he's also done a similar job in the comics before too where he was a talk radio host then of course we've seen this trend continue into the movies where he has his own show as well having him as sort of an Alex Jones type is a fun premise and these podcast Clips were always a highlight of the game within them of course are some fun Easter eggs too for example this one rare was crime sure but nothing they couldn't handle of course we do have things now we didn't have then Maniacs who shoot electricity out of their eyes walking piles of sand Nazis made of bees the first two referenced are of course Electro and Sandman respectively but the Nazi made of bees is a character we haven't seen in the game yet and that's swarm he's pretty much as Jameson described him a Nazi comprised of individual Killer Bees swarm actually made it into the tie-in comic for the game and even had his own modernized design for it in that comic swarm is pretty much just another villain Spider-Man has to defeat kind of like shocker in the game but it's cool to see him nonetheless Jameson will also publish an episode regarding your new outfit if you choose to wear the spider Punk suit people I always thought Spider-Man was a few geese short of a gaggle but this confirms it as if that atrocious white spider wasn't enough I've had repeated sightings of him in a new outfit some sort of punk rock inspired thing that makes sane people want to tear out their eyeballs with a rusty spoon now I was around for the birth of punk rock and I did not care for it then it's a flagrant Declaration of disrespect for authority and if Spider-Man is going down that route oh no I just had a terrifying thought what if this isn't the Spider-Man we know but some sort of metal Mohawk wearing copycat what if there's more than one with the across the spiderverse film that's recently released I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with Hobie Brown AKA spider Punk he's from an alternate universe and I think it's it's fun that Jameson's fear over multiple Spider-Man could be a nod to the spiderverse as a whole where there are endless variations of Spider-Man Insomniac Spider-Man Actually appeared in a spiderverse style comic event called spidergeddon so his fears are very much a reality the spider Punk suit itself is pretty awesome in the game too and I especially love it suit power where you can use your guitar to create a powerful Shockwave AOE attack guys the guards at Rikers miss you so much in another episode Jameson also makes a couple references to his involvement with Scorpion's creation which which is indeed true I want to address the matter of the Scorpion right now yes I paid for the procedure that empowered him we desperately needed someone to bring down Spider-Man it's not my fault the treatments drove him crazy it's that Ivory Tower Elite scientist who was so hungry for my money he didn't take proper precautions No One Believes In personal responsibility more than Jay Jonah Jameson but in this I can c torically say I am blameless if you're unfamiliar with the story scorpion AKA Matt gargan was originally hired by Jameson as a private investigator tasked with following Peter to learn how he managed to always get pictures of Spider-Man Peter's Spider Sense helped him evade Mac and the investigation went nowhere Jameson wasn't bothered though since he had a new idea he learned of a local scientist named Farley Stillwell who could fuse animal abilities together for example getting a fish to breathe air like a rat and a rat to swim like a fish Jameson paid Garg undergo the experiment with the goal of creating a new superpowered being one who could defeat Spider-Man and become an actual hero to the city it was decided that garan's DNA would be fused with the abilities of a scorpion since scorpions are natural predators of spiders the experiment was a success increasing gargan strength and speed and still well also created a cybernetic tale for gargan to use however the experiment had a negative effect on garan's mind driving him insane the result was scorpion going on a rampage across town and even threatening Jameson at times forcing him to rely on Spider-Man to save it him so Jameson essentially created an even worse problem in a different podcast episode Jameson also addresses a concern from listener May from Queens and now for listener emails May from Queens writes you're so full of anger and I wish you'd get help managing it it's terrible for your health ant May's house is in Queen so I think it's a safe bet that ant May was the writer Jameson was addressing it also sounds like a very ant May thing to say since she's often on Peter about his health in the comics also in the comics a May has followed Jameson's reporting of Spider-Man and she even believed Spider-Man to be the Menace Jameson said he was often putting Peter in a weird position I also want to take a moment to compliment the Fantastic performance of Darren dealul who voices Jameson in the game he really Nails the character and a lot of his line readings feel so perfect I also want to credit writer Christo Gage who wrote All the Jameson episodes because he gives Darren a lot of fun content to work with together they're a great pairing and the Jameson podcast was one of my favorite aspects of the game so just to enjoy it a little bit more I'll play a quick highlight reel of some of my favorite moments from the podcast before moving on our next caller reports a problem I saw coming a mile away go ahead ma'am well I was coming out of the bathtub last night when I glanced out my window and and what do I see Spider-Man swinging by like he owns the place I was naked Madam you have my sympathies just imagine what sort of deviant personality would dress up like that in the first place and it's a short step from there to peeping Tom activity folks it doesn't matter if you live on the first floor or the 31st keep your curtains drawn lock your windows a webbed pervert walks Among Us I got an interesting tip today remember that barbaric Beast named the Rhino apparently last night he almost escaped from his cell in the raft how you ask well no one there seems to know but they assure me he's been relocated to a more secure cell now I'm no expert on supermax prisons but isn't the whole point of of them that there isn't anything else more secure I mean he's a 700lb maniac with an indestructible horn if there's a more secure cell why wasn't he in it let's talk about Halloween folks it may be good fun for the kids to dress up as a cowboy or astronaut or ballerina and trick-or treat but this trend of grown adults glorifying the likes of Spider-Man by dressing up as them is especially in the times we live in disturbing what say you Gino from the Bronx yeah well I get your point but my girlfriend got this sexy Spider Girl costume and it really spices things up you know what I'm saying huh I most certainly do not J Jonah Jameson is not one to be judgmental but you sir are an extremely Disturbed man goodbye you night owls may have seen lights flickering out at the raft supermax prison last night sadly it was not because one of their inmates got the the chair guess who's confirmed to be back in town that feline felon the black cat seems she led Spider-Man on a merry Chase before getting away ever notice how that happens a lot with him and her funny how he can hold on to a dinosaur man or a human Rhino with no problem but a mere slip of a girl gives him so much trouble look it's not that long ago when I was a young man myself I get it an I set of Gams a shapely dery a a few batted eyelashes and a hormone adult youth can easily get hornswaggled which is exactly why Spider-Man has no business handling this leave it to the professionals we have lady police officers now maybe this is a chance for them to prove they're as good as men which uh I have no doubt about but there are less Forward Thinking people out there you youngster won't recall but there was an earlier black cat a criminal from the old school and of course like everything else these days they had to reboot it with a woman now no one loves women more than Jay Jonah Jameson uh in a respectful nonh harassing way of course now typically I don't like to Trash Talk other who put this note here what's a content creator that means nothing Jared those are two meaningless words that put together make one meaningless phrase Jared the last series of Collectibles I want to discuss are the various unlockable suits and their suit Powers let's first begin with the comic based suits and their origin we'll begin with the spider Noir suit this one is based on an alternate universe Peter Parker one set in the 1930s and Peter created this suit using Uncle Ben's World War I era airman uniform you'll also see that the game suit has a gun holstered on the hip and that's because this universe is Peter Parker is unafraid to use guns on enemies Spider-Man Noir is actually a really awesome character and I'm sure a lot of fans are familiar with him from the into the spiderverse movie if you'd like to check out more of his world though I'd recommend either checking out his comic series or the game Spider-Man shatter Dimensions where he's one of the four playable characters and a few missions take place in his Universe I also have a video on that game if you'd like to check it out as well the next suit is the Scarlet Spider suit and this is based on the suit worn by Peter Parker clone Ben Riley he actually chose this name naming himself Ben after Uncle Ben and Riley is Aunt May's maiden name in the comics Ben throws his outfit together using an all red bodysuit and a hoodie he saw in a shop window his suit power in the game is pretty cool since it allows you to produce Hollow decoys in the area to trick enemies I thought this was pretty useful keeping some of the pressure off you but I also like it thematically since they're essentially clones like Ben Riley let's next look at the spider armor Mark 1 in the comics Spider-Man created this armor to better prot protect himself against the new enforcers it protected him well but didn't last the whole fight as Spider-Man broke out of it after he was hit with a freeze blast still it's a really cool looking outfit from one of Spider-Man's earlier Comics so I'm glad to see it used in the game next up is spider armor Mark 2 at one point in the comics Peter lost his spider sense so he made this bulletproof suit to keep him safe during battles so it's fitting that the suit power for the suit is that it becomes bulletproof as well there's also the secret War suit based on a comic series called secret War not to be confused with Secret Wars the big featuring a wide swath of Marvel characters and locations secret War singular is a story where Nick Fury creates a small Black Ops Team to secretly infiltrate laparia Spider-Man is part of that team and uses this unique suit for the series well sort of he's primarily using his classic red and blue suit throughout it and the new suit only shows up for a couple panels and can be easy to miss but still the suit was designed for this series the series itself is pretty good though and I recommend checking it out especially for the beautiful artwork by Gabriel delato each panel is a joy to look at and it's a lot of fun to flip through the secret War comic was also Loosely adapted in the game Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 another game I'd recommend checking out if you haven't before next up is the negative suit I think the suit is sort of a hybrid of a couple ideas the first of which is that it's the negative version of the advanced suit however I think it's also based on the negative suit in the comics which isn't related to Martin Lee in the comics Spider-Man has appeared in a similar suit after being sucked through a portal into the Negative Zone however there was also a separate comic where Spider-Man was corrupted by Mr negative which changed the suit in into more of a red and gray the game suit obviously isn't adapting that version but I wanted to show it in case anyone was curious how it looked in relation to Martin Lee as we discussed in the part one video there's also a death state where Spider-Man gets corrupted by Mr negative and gets overwhelmed with negative energy this could have actually been a pretty awesome alternate suit too the negative suit also has a great suit power where you unleash a negative blast of your own against enemies I especially enjoyed using this against the demons giving them a taste of their own medicine we also have the electrically insulated suit in the comics it was created by Peter and Amazing Spider-Man 425 to help him battle Electro I see the suit get a lot of hate online but I think it looks really good both in the games and the comics it also has a great suit power where you can Electrify your gauntlets to deal shock damage with melee attacks this is especially useful during Hideout challenges that require you to Electrify a number of enemies at once next is the fear itself suit from the series of the same name in that series an ancient Asgardian named The Serpent has been released and threatens to destroy Earth to combat this Tony Stark uses an Asgardian en forged to create weapons blessed by Odin Spider-Man gets these bladed gauntlets which transform the look of his suit as well so that's why he has those gauntlets in the game the associated suit power is pretty powerful quadrupling your damage making quick work of enemies knowing that the suit is based on ASG Guardian Weaponry I think the suit ability feels fittingly powerful we talked about spider armor Mark 2 so now let's look at Mark III in the comics Peter used the suit to help him fight against the Sinister 6 when they teamed up again to assist the dying Dr Octopus with his last Stitch plan since it's meant to withstand the the abilities of the Sinister 6 it's a pretty durable armor and even has jet boosters in the feet in the game it feels like a step up from the mark 2 Armor since it suit power allows you to reflect bullets back at enemies which is pretty satisfying the next suit is a popular one and that's the Spider-Man 2099 suit the Spider-Man is Miguel O'Hara from the year 2099 and Miguel worked for the company Alx who were experimenting with Jean splicing in their database they even had superheroes like Spider-Man and they hoped they could add DNA like this into humans however during a human trial attempt in to integrate that DNA into a participant it instead turned them into a monstrous beast and they collapsed and died an employee at Alx saw this as an opportunity and tried to kill Miguel using this device using the Spider-Man genetic structure on him thinking that that one in particular would be too much to survive he was wrong and Miguel was imbued with unique abilities similar to Spider-Man for example sharp talons on his hands and feet which allowed him to scale buildings I like that the game stays True to this as you can see this outfit includes sharp talents on the fingers in the comics Miguel suit allows him to Glide which the game's Associated sup power aims to simulate by temporarily creating low gravity when triggered this felt pretty cool when triggered during traversal and was kind of fun just floating around for a bit by the way if you're a fan of Spider-Man 2099 or curious to learn more about him I'd highly recommend his comic series from the90s I'd also recommend Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions again and it sequel Edge of Time both of which feature him prominently especially Edge of Time I just happen to have videos on both of those games as well if you're interested there's also an alternate version of the 2099 suit you can pick which is this white variation this isn't just a recolor for the game either and is another suit of Miguel's in the comics Peter Parker actually made it for him and it's a highly Advanced version of the original for example it features boot thrusters in the feet to quickly get Miguel into the air allowing him to Glide around easier in the game it suit power is a concussive strike which launches enemies back when you strike them I didn't use this a lot but when I did it was pretty awesome we next have the spider armor markv in the comics Peter at one point had his own company Parker Industries using these resources he created the markv armor which featured a bunch of upgrades in the game it creates an energy Shield which temporarily absorbs all damage which is Handy if you're in a tight spot and need some breathing room this suit is amongst my most used in the game since I think it looks incredible Insomniac did a great job bringing it to life and I think it looks especially great during night time and I use it a lot while night swinging next up is one of the most unique skins in the game and it's the vintage comic book suit it's one of my favorites and looks like it was ripped straight out of a comic book or animated series however one downside is that it can be a bit jarring if you during a cut scene and might take you out of the moment this was actually a concern of Brian in aars and he told kind of funny games that this suit in particular was originally a much earlier unlock but he had the team push it back farther in the unlock list and fear that players would accidentally use it during dramatic story moments and less in the impact I actually made that mistake during the mission where Peter first trains miles how to fight and although this wasn't really an emotional scene its impact was less than a bit due to the stark contrast of how Spider-Man looks compared to everything else that being said it's an incredible outfit and one of my favorites to use when patrolling the city it also has a fun suit power quips it won't exactly Aid you in a fight but if you're wanting to role play as Peter Parker further this gives you the option to quit more than usual join me and together we can bring peace and prosperity to the city no shot originally Insomniac planned on having Peter quip a lot during fights but after some play testing they realized that the quip frequency led to jokes becoming repetitive and that it would require an unrealistic amount of extra vo lines to even things out oh no I'm starting to repat my quips I should hire a joke writer to get a sense of that Brian inar presented an early gameplay clip of their rapidly quipping Spider-Man a sight out of and see take a break come on Big Boy bad guyet butter fingers oh down already who's been putting protein in his oatmeal in the that clip it's also cool that you can see different gameplay animations and features that didn't make it into the main game for example the arrows on the ground showing the direction thrown objects will go also Spider-Man jumping on that brut's back and hitting him looks really cool and I'm curious why that was removed maybe it slowed down the pace of the fights too much I'm not really sure still I think Insomniac were right to make the changes that they did and it's fun seeing glimpses at their early ideas and how much the game has evolved since then for our next unlockable outfit let's look at the last Dan suit this comes from a comic where Craven and his family are hunting down different spider powerered allies of Spider-Man they actually killed two of them and had a few others including Madame Webb held captive Peter was enraged and took the fight to the Cravens and in his rage he was able to fight through the mall for a final showdown with Craven himself Madame Webb warned the others to prevent Peter from killing Craven since she was able to foresee the outcome of Peter breaking his no kill rule here what she saw is that it leads him down a dark path where he becomes more of an anti-hero and we see him in the Last Stand suit at a moment where he kills Dr Octopus by impaling him with a piece of his own tentacle so this suit is associated with a harder Edge Spider-Man which is always fun to see it's also a really good looking suit in the game I like its Associated suit power a lot too mostly because I think it's thematic to this darker Spider-Man it's called unrelenting Fury and when triggered it allows you to break the enemy block and Shields and it prevents them from interrupting your attacks so you can just viciously Pummel anyone as needed this next suit is another unique one and one I imagine a lot of people have questions on and that's Spirit spider so in the comics this is a Peter Parker From Another Universe who goes by the name the amazing spider he's is also a lot more powerful than our Spider-Man and criminals are very scared of him for example Rhino at one point chooses to immediately turn himself into the police instead of fighting him we later find out that the amazing spider is so powerful because he's found a way to transport Spider-Man from other universes into his universe and then he kills them for their power boosting his own power in the process surprisingly the person pushing the amazing spider to do this is actually Uncle Ben in this universe Uncle Ben didn't die but he's also not the positive influence that 616 Uncle Ben was for example example Ben's slogan is with great power comes a great responsibility to stay powerful so it's Ben pushing the amazing spider to drain the other Spider-Man R 616 Spider-Man is close to being their next victim but he's able to get the amazing spider to listen to him he convinces him that what he's doing isn't heroic and that he needs to stop Uncle Ben doesn't agree and makes a last Stitch effort to drain 616 Peter the amazing spider jumps in between them and accidentally gets stuck by Ben's device this kills the amazing spider and we later see that he's been sent to hell if things weren't strange enough for you yet the story also contains an alternate universe sorcerer Supreme who's Bruce Banner instead of Doctor Strange at one point Bruce freeze the amazing spider from hell but also infused him with the spirits and power of the repentant damned with that he received the spirit spider look although in the comic he refers to himself as ghost spider however Gwen Stacy's taken on that name more prominently so I think Spirit spider works better in this case so overall a pretty cool and obscure character and one I'm really glad Insomniac chose to use as an alternate outfit since it's definitely one of the most unique suits in the game it's also a lot of fun swinging around and terrorizing criminals in this suit I also love his suit power where he creates a field of ethereal energy that damages anyone that gets nearby I love the effects of it especially with all the ghostly skulls floating around similar to The Animated suit this one is especially crazy to see in cutcenes too next up though is spider UK this is another alternate universe Spider-Man Billy bradoock who's also a rookie Captain Britain Billy becomes aware of the villain Morin who's seeking out different spider powerered individuals across different universes to kill them Billy brings this to the attention of his people and he's given a Talisman that allows him to travel across the Multiverse to protect and recruit different Spider-Man as part of the spiderverse comic event in the game you can actually see the red spider Talisman on his wrist which I thought was a nice touch we talked about this next one in the part one video and that's the wrestling suit in the comics after receiving his powers Peter decided to earn some money by competing in a wrestling match against Crusher Hogan in the 616 Universe the suit he wore was a more casual outfit with a webbed Mask The Game's design instead follows the Ultimate Universe with a more put together wrestling suit the suit power is very thematic too allowing you to web Rodeo enemies without first webbing them up our next suit is the Scarlet Spider 2 suit this is the suit worn by the first Peter Parker clone known as Kane as the first clone Kane was an imperfect creation he was visually deformed mentally unstable and slowly degenerating he believed that Ben Riley was the real Peter Parker for a time not a clone so he was jealous that Ben was a normal person not going through the same struggles as him so he became an antagonist of Benz for a while eventually during the events of spider Island C was dropped into a tank filled with a cure which stabilized his DNA making him a perfect clone like Ben Kane ended up becoming a hero in his own right heading to Texas and Dawning the Scarlet Spider suit Kane is a pretty interesting character from the comic so it's cool to see his suit utilized in the game next up is the iron spider suit this suit was created by Tony Stark during the Civil War series and it features the host of new upgrades for example functional web Wings we talked earlier about them being mostly for style in the original Comics but Stark made them useful allowing Peter to Glide when needed more famously though the suit also gave Spider-Man his iron spider arms in the game this iron spider suit doesn't include a suit power and instead the iron spider arms belong to the movie version of the suit however there's a really cool detail between the iron spider arms and the game's two iron spider suits like I mentioned the suit power is unlocked through the movie iron spider suit so the design of the arms matches the color scheme of the movie suit if you use the spider arms on all the other suits they maintain this design excluding one if you wear the comic iron spider suit and equip it with the iron arms they're instead all gold to match their look in the comics I thought that was a really incredible detail to include in the game and I really appreciate Insomniac going the extra mile like that for fans of the suit the arms are also just really fun to use in general they can bypass the block and shields of enemies and they give you extra range and they're all around just a joy to use so I'm really glad they made it into the game next are another couple unique suits such as the spider Clan suit this is based on a manga verse Spider-man com comic where Spider-Man is part of a ninja Clan called the spider Clan his Sensei who's essentially this universe's Uncle Ben dies at the hand of Venom and Peter aims to get revenge for his death there's also the Aaron Aman spider suit this is another alternate universe Spider-Man and Aaron Amman is a gifted scientist and focused his research on the medical applications of insect Venoms one day he experimented on himself attempting to resequence his DNA to include spider genes this gave him spider abilities and he created a cybernetic suit to further expand on his powers for example web spinners in his gauntlets and jet propulsion boots this next suit is a pretty obscure one but equally cool that's the cyborg suit from Spider-Man issue 21 in it Spider-Man is beaten by a character named solo but saved by another character named cyborg X Spider-Man then wakes up with different modifications added on to him at first he believed he had been turned into a cyborg he quickly learns that's not the case when he speaks to Dr Oscar McDonald he explains that the robot arm is actually just a cast allowing Spider-Man to maintain full functionality of his arm arm at an accelerated healing rate the new eyland was also added onto the suit to replace Spider-Man's damaged eyepiece so they aren't permanent applications just temporary enhancements in the game I thought Insomniac did a good job Faithfully recreating the suit with all these stitching and bandages to complete the look so it's a really cool inclusion and I like how Insomniac are going to some more obscure comic Tales to bring us some of the more unique Spider-Man suits next up is one that's commonly used as an alternate suit in Spider-Man games the bombastic bagman in the comic shortly after receiving the symbiote suit Spider-Man looks curious about its composition so he takes it to readed Richards of the Fantastic Four to analyze it Spider-Man's shocked and horrified to learn that the suit is actually alive and bonding to Peter Peter wants it off immediately and the Fantastic Four are able to help him remove it however Peter no longer has a suit but needs a way to conceal his identity even from them Johnny Storm has a solution and it's to give Peter an old fantastic forit and a paper bag as a mask on his way home Spider-Man even stopped a crime in the suit unfortunately for him police and reporters were quick to the scene and wanted to interview who they believed to be a new hero or member of the Fantastic 4 to add to his embarrassment he also learns that Johnny attached a kick me sign to his back luckily for the games Peter there's no kick me sign and Insomniac did a really good job on this Fantastic 4 suit it honestly makes me wish we had a modern Fantastic 4 game I think it's about time regardless it's a fun suit to use in the game and I love that Insomniac included it sticking with the Fantastic 4 theme Insomniac also included the future foundation suit after the presumed death of the Human Torch the remaining members and Spider-Man listened to a recorded message Johnny left in case he died as part of his will what Johnny left Spider-Man was his place on the Fantastic 4 team so for a time Spider-Man joined the Fantastic 4 now calling themselves Future Foundation together they wore these all-white suits and I think that's a really cool look for Spider-Man but those are all of the suits inspired by the comics still there are a bunch of other suits that are either original designs or from the movies the movie Suits in particular are some of my most used suits in the game somewhat for Nostalgia but also due to their high level of detail something about these suits just looks so great in gameplay and cut scenes I especially appreciate that Insomniac chose to add in the suits from both the Andrew Garfield Amazing Spider-Man film and the Toby Maguire suit from the Remy films I've always really loved these suits and it really enhances the game getting to use them it almost feels like playing a new movie featuring that version these two suits in particular took a while to make it into the game though Amazing Spider-Man wasn't released until the remastered Edition and the Ry suit took a few months itself even though the process to include it began before the game even released sadly the joy of the Ry suit was somewhat tainted by fans back in the day with many of them harassing Insomniac about not including it then when it finally released those same fans assumed it was in thanks to their bullying of Insomniac it wasn't and the delay was due to licensing approvals testing Etc so I just want to reinforce again that it's not okay to harass developers about a game and you are not entitled to do so stop it get some help that being said both suits were worth the wait and look incredible in the game the Insomniac original suits are really creative and look great too though one of the most unique original suits in the game is the arachnid Rider suit which which has that animated Manga style look to it it was also based on the common rider TV series if you're curious about the design I'll admit I wasn't initially a big fan of the arachnid Rider suit but it's definitely grown on me over time since it is so unique another suit that really grew on me was the armored Advance suit it never really stands out to me much on the suit selection screen but I like it a lot in action easily my favorite of the original designs though is the velocity suit created by comic book artist AI granov I imagine this was a common favorite for a lot of fans since it even received its own comic series taking place after the events of the main game the comic describes Spider-Man's reasons for creating the suit which originally stemmed from a fight against swarm the Nazi B guy that we discussed earlier after getting stung a lot and having pieces of his suit RI he decides he needs to start workshopping an armored suit he also encounters a Speedster in the city and begins adding elements to his new armored suit to help him keep Pace with her this goes along with the suits power in the game which allows for faster sprinting and the ability to knock down enemies while running it's a pretty cool power and makes you feel like the Juggernaut another great original outfit is the resilience suit it has that Sleek armor design and I was even more excited to learn who designed it earlier I recommended these secret War series mainly for the incredible artwork by Gabriel Del AO while he's also the man who designed the resilient suit I should also mention the suit you get when you 100% the game or maybe lack of a suit is more accurate you'll now be able to select Peter and his underwear and mask like we saw at the end of the Scorpion hallucination Mission it's a pretty ridiculous look which makes it really fun to use at times especially during certain cutscenes one of insomniac's designers also had the fun idea to w reference an early line of Peters by incorporating that detail into the suit not good can't have people taking pictures of my three chest hairs as you can see on the suit model Peter legit only has three chest hairs I also like its suit power it's called equalizer and when triggered everyone gets koed after one hit including you this is a very high-risk ability but it's fun to play around with and super satisfying when you use it successfully another detail I like about this suit is how your footsteps sound different compared to other suits as you'll see in this clip Spider-Man steps in the advanced suit sound like normal footsteps with shoes on where Spider-Man's bare footsteps have more of a slapping sound to them you [Music] lost so it's a pretty funny suit overall and I think it's a decently fitting reward for 100% I can't say it's super exciting and motivated me to grind for it but I'm at least happy it's in there what I think would have been an even better 100% suit though is a spider cop suit surprisingly a Spyder cop suit was actually planned but never released as we can see from the YouTube channel Jedi Josh which I'll have Linked In the description so Insomniac did build a spider cop suit and it looks really awesome but I'm not sure why they never released it especially since they continually added new suits to the game after launch up to 2021 for Spider-Man no way home so it's a real shame that they didn't ever include spider cop interestingly enough a glimpse of it was also shown during a panel in the spidergeddon comic series with all these various suits it's fun to show them off in unique ways which brings me to photo mode if I'm being totally honest with you I'm not usually a huge photo mode guy but I was really blown away with all the different features it has in this game and pretty quickly I found out why people get so addicted to photo mode and trying out different variations just to give a sample of the different customizations I'll go through some of them as I try them out one of my favorites right off the bat is how you can quickly swap between your different unlocked suits I had a lot of fun swapping between them all to test which ones I thought looked best for that particular shot and whether it worked well with the lighting speaking of which I was also impressed with how you can control the lighting in the area it was handy brightening up shots that were in the shade and it was cool rotating the world's lighting to fit my needs I was also surprised at how much I enjoyed using the sticker feature where you can pick a sticker to place on the screen there's actually a pretty extensive backlog of ones to choose from and I really enjoyed trying out different ones to add to the scenery I also thought it was pretty funny and clever how you can choose to have Spidey go into a selfie pose this pose looks great and you can still move his head around to get the proper angle that you want so I thought that was a really great inclusion you can also select different frames for your photo these for me were the most fun to cycle through since they are all so creative and you get a lot of fun options to play around with I thought these were really cool and provided some good inspiration to build around but like I said I'm a novice at photo mode so on screen I'll have a slideshow showcasing what more talented photographers have been able to create in the game while I wrap up my thoughts so overall I was really blown away with all the customization features included here it's really fun to play around with them all and it's easy to get lost in the creativity of creating each shot I also just really appreciate the length since omniac went tole it out for fans this feature wasn't initially available at launch and was slightly delayed past launch but I think it was totally worth it you can tell Insomniac put a lot of thought and creativity into this mode and the result is a really fun feature for fans to sink their teeth into so if you haven't really dabbled with photo mode before I'd recommend giving it a shot and see if it's up your alley since I found it to be surprisingly addicting but now that we've gone through all the various Collectibles and different things to do around the city let's next talk about some of the more core gameplay mechanics namely combat and traversal looking back on how fun the combat of Marvel Spider-Man is you might be surprised to learn that it was an area that Insomniac were pretty nervous about developing since they didn't have much experience with melee based combat from their prior games still they knew they wanted to make it feel like an insomniac Style game which is where the gadgets come in in insomniac's other games for example Ratchet and Clank gadgets play a big role in the combat so it's not too surprising to see gadgets used in a similar degree in Marvel Spider-Man I think they did a good job on the gadgets in the game too each one feels unique from the other and they shine in different scenarios for example those troublesome minig Gunners in the DLC whose Gatling gun you can't Dodge can be remedied using your electric webs which stun them momentarily it's also a lot of fun to mix and match different combinations of gadgets to come up with effective ways to dispatch enemies for example one of my favorites was using a Web Blast on a group and then using the concussive blast to stick them to buildings and objects I also enjoyed using this suspension Matrix Gadget after first hitting enemies with a web blast this provided a lot of breathing room and made it so I could yank them down to the ground for an instant KO so I think the gadgets are a lot of fun to mix and match and add a lot to the combat of the game however I would like to see Insomniac lean into the melee side of combat more in the future as well as add more layers to it when you're using melee it can start to feel a bit button mashy since you're pretty much just spamming Square to complete your combo I often found myself using the uppercut ability in fights not because I felt I needed to launch an enemy but more just to change things up and feel like I had more control over my combos I should mention that although I haven't really Revisited the Miles Morales game ahead of this one I do believe it improves on the melee combat but we'll dive deeper into that in another video I do however really like the theme of combat Insomniac chose for Spider-Man as they internally referred to him as an acrobatic improviser I think that's a great way to describe his combat style and feels very on theme in comics and films we often see him dodging and flipping around during fights reacting to the chaos as best he can thanks to his Spider Sense Insomniac nailed that feeling in the game since the combat felt very reactionary in a good way where I felt like I was frequently dodging incoming attacks and then quickly following things up with my own attacks it's a great back and forth between you and the enemies and the unpredictable nature of it made the fights really exciting I think the animation team did a great job of really selling that feeling to with all the incredible acrobatic animations that goes double for the takedown animations which I thought were really satisfying to pull off even if I had seen the same ones often throughout the course of the game so even though I criticize the melee attacks in particular the overall feeling of the combat as a whole was done very well not only due to the thematic and fast-paced nature of the fights but also thanks to things like gadgets and soup powers that provided a lot of variety to each battle as the player I felt like I had a lot of agency and control over how I wanted to approach each fight moment to moment and I enjoyed puzzling out how I wanted to attack each enemy or what combination of abilities I wanted to use against certain enemy types I also appreciate that despite insomniac's concerns approaching melee combat they still did their best to create a style that feels unique to them I think it could have been very easy to lean into other games as a safety net for example the Arkham combat system from those games the Arkham Series in general is often compared to the Spider-Man games so I'm glad that Insomniac managed to differentiate the themselves from it for example having Spider-Man's combat include more aerial based abilities pushing the player to get Spider-Man up in the air and control the battlefield from up high Batman is a very grounded character so they feel very different in that regard Insomniac also better utilizes the environment in their combat I think I've mentioned this before but I always appreciate when games incorporate the environment into gameplay because it makes the world feel more lively and immersive Insomniac did an excellent job at that because I felt like I always had something to throw at enemies whether that be an enemy's car door a motorcycle or a sewer drain cover all of which I'm going to pretend wouldn't kill them on impact the environment feels highly interactable and I think that's a real boom to the combat the open world makes the combat a lot of fun too since there are plenty of fights that take place on rooftops this usually had me rethink my Gadget selection since there may not be walls to attach my enemies to what I typically opted for was my concussive blast again to send enemies flying off the roof Insomniac anticipated this and decided they wanted to stay true to Spider-Man's no kill rule so instead of letting the enemy plummet into the pavement Insomniac added a Fe feature where a falling enemy has a web line attached to them pulling them to the closest wall interestingly this wasn't the first method Insomniac landed on originally one of their ideas was to use web parachutes to bring enemies safely down to the ground this is actually thematic to the comics where Spider-Man has made web parachutes for himself if he wasn't able to hook a web line to a nearby building I think I like the web line over the web parachute for the game as well but regardless I really like the lengths Insomniac are going to to make the world in combat feel true to Spider-Man the same goes for the traversal which I believe is insomnia I's crowning achievement Insomniac were known for having good traversal in their other games but I imagine a Spider-Man game would still be pretty daunting since the web swinging has such a high bar for fans prior to Marvel Spider-Man Spider-Man 2 was known for having the best web swinging since it was the first to allow Spider-Man to attach his webs to buildings this was also a more challenging web swinging system to master since the player needed to plan ahead with their swing or likely collide with the wall for a lot of fans that challenge still makes it the definitive web swinging system but Insomniac took a different approach they didn't want the player pancak taking onto walls and really wanted to maintain the momentum you'd expect from an experienced Spider-Man so the web swinging in the game is admittedly very simple but incredibly cinematic so what it may lack and challenge it more than makes up for visually and thematically from an outsider's perspective it probably looks very challenging I played this in front of my parents once and they seemed impressed by all the Maneuvers I was pulling off in the game when they asked how I was doing it I told them I was just holding down the right trigger and pressing forward I'm oversimplifying to a degree but not by a lot and I don't mean it as a criticism I'm actually impressed at how much dep there is to the traversal of the city with controls that are still very approachable to beginners I also think it looks so complex at times due to all the different contextual animations for what you're interacting with in the city Insomniac went to Great Lengths to create animations for different objects you might encounter while traversing to hinder as much momentum breaking collisions as possible a great example are the fire escapes Brian inar stated that he forced the team to keep fire escapes on buildings which also meant that animations needed to be created just for those so if you decide to vertically Ascend a building along a fire escape there's a unique animation where Spider-Man will leap up it if you're swinging across the side of a building and would collide with a fire escape Spider-Man will leap through it through all my hours of web swinging in this game it was pretty rare for me to encounter something that would slow Spider-Man's momentum in the city and for the most part I was really impressed at how natural and free flowing the traversal is it's also incredibly relaxing there are plenty of times where I just get lost in thought while swinging through the city and I have trouble ending my play sessions when I'm just cruising around I'm pretty amazed at how great The Swinging feels overall so I really applaud what ins IC were able to accomplish with it given their reputation prior to this game I was pretty confident that traversa would be good but I didn't think it would be this good in my opinion they really set a new bar for web swinging expectations in Spider-Man games I also just want to take a moment to compliment how seamless the camera is in this game the camera is typically a feature that if done well you never notice it but if done poorly you're constantly noticing it insomniax is of course the former which is really impressive considering everything you're doing in the game during a GDC presentation by Doug Shen he described some of their initial hurdles with the camera and traversal when performing a variety of moves and even shows an early example uh in this video uh from an early vertical slice you'll see um some of the issues with the everything as a special Snowflake and how that kind of breaks down uh you'll see that going from move to move would cause a change in Framing and field of view that could kind of muddle the perception of speed and Rapid sequencing of moves would create a very noisy relationship between the world the character and The View that looked pretty jarring and makes me appreciate the final version a lot more the camera now follows the player in a very smooth and consistent way and hardly ever breaks the flow or immersion of traversal Doug even mentions the camera being used strategically to give the player a better sense of speed at moments for example when you're launching off a point the camera Trails behind momentarily to give the player the feeling that they're blasting away from the camera before it can catch up during that same GDC presentation Doug also showed an example of how the field of view and camera adjust to give players that sense of speed so here you'll be able to see all of that coming together to show the sense of speed there's a little bit of debuger on the side to give you a better idea of how the field of view and follow distance are changing as it goes through the action I think this is also a good example of how many small details went into making the traversal feel so quick and smooth it's so seamless that you really don't notice it but there are a lot of little things happening moment to moment to accomplish that immersion so again I'm really impressed with Insomniac skill and attention to detail here and as a whole I think the gaml in general is top-notch in Marvel Spider-Man I think Insomniac created a really good foundation for both the combat and reversal so I'm excited to see what they do in the sequel but now let's turn our attention to the audio in the game starting with the voice cast there are a bunch of notable voice actors in the game all of which are extremely talented but I've gone ahead and picked out a few in particular to discuss mostly to show you other roles you might know them from we'll begin with the voice of Peter Parker Yuri lenthal Brian inar was initially reluctant to cast Yuri in the role because Yuri had been the male lead in their prior game Sunset Overdrive Brian didn't want it to feel like they were just reusing the same actors for new projects but through the casting process it was clear that Yuri matched what they were looking for with there Peter Parker interestingly this wasn't Yuri's first time playing the role of Spider-Man in a game his first time was in 2008 for a zen pinball game he's since gone on to reprise the role in other games such as Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 and more recently Marvel's midnight Suns however there are some other roles you might recognize him from too for example his first big role was as The Prince and the Prince of Persia sands of time he's also voiced Ben in the Ben 10 series for all my horror people out there I was also surprised to see that he voiced Joseph of Oda in the first Evil Within game and if you're looking for where you can find him next outside of Spider-Man 2 he's also voicing the character smoke in Mortal Kombat 1 continuing on let's talk about another Yuri the voice actor portraying Captain Yuri Watanabe terara plat Believe It or Not Yuri lenthal and Tera plat are actually married in real life which I think makes the casting even more fun also I can only imagine how confusing things were for a while with the two Yuri names and knowing who's being referred to at a given time terara does a great job as Captain Yuri watab though and I thought she excellently brought brought that character to life to the point I'm really excited to see her return as Wraith in the sequel outside of Spider-Man terara has also voiced tamari from the Naruto TV series and you may also recognize her as Tron bond from Marvel vs Capcom 3 next I want to look at William soler's the voice of Dr Octopus we talked about it at length in the part one video and I felt William delivered a very strong performance as Auto and I was impressed at how he played both sides of him so well the gentle scientist and father figure for Peter and the vengeful Maniac hellbent on Revenge outside of this game I was surprised surprised to see that William had also voiced the character rig from the popular animated series Regular Show since Spider-Man PS4 William has reprised his role as Dr Octopus in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 and more recently he's voiced Bruce Banner in Marvel's midnight Suns next up is an actress that I'm sure you've heard of and that's Laura Bailey voicing Mary Jane Watson MJ gets a lot of criticism in this game but Laura's performance isn't one of them as always Laura does an incredible job in the role and she's an actress that you've likely seen elsewhere in a variety of other games just to name a few she's voiced Abby in The Last of Us two black widow in Marvel's Avengers nen Ross in Uncharted the Lost Legacy and magic in Marvel's midnight Suns that's really just scratching the surface and I'm sure if you looked at her resume you'd find plenty of other roles that you recognize her from also fun fact she's married to voice actor Travis Willingham who voices Wilson Fisk in this game Let's also take a look at Mark ralson who plays Norman Osborne a lot of his background is in live action roles but he's been taking on more voice acting roles recently and you'll likely recognize him from the Batman Arkham Series where he voice Deathstroke in both Batman Arkham Knight and Batman Arkham Origins next up is Naji Jeter who plays Miles Morales Naji is newer to the acting scene but he's had a notable gaming role in the past prior to playing miles Naji played Sam in the first Last of Us game he's since gone on to reprise the role of Miles Morales and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 as well as his spin-off game Marvel's Miles Morales which I'm planning to cover in the future as well I also want to bring up Electro's voice actor Josh Keaton if you're unfamiliar with that name Josh has voiced Spider-Man in the past on a couple different occasions for example in the short-lived Spectacular Spider-Man animated series he then went on to voice Spider-Man in the Shattered Dimensions game and it's sequel Edge of Time both of which I'd highly recommend checking out if you haven't before more recently Josh has also been voicing Tony Stark in games for example Iron Man VR a game I would absolutely recommend playing if you have a meta Quest 2 headset he also plays Tony in Marvel midnight Suns and it was one of my favorite performances in that game so he's another talented actor that I hope to see more of lastly I also want to call out Erica lindb back the voice of Black Cat black cat ended up being one of these standout characters for me in this game and I think Erica did a good job of bringing her to life Erica doesn't seem to be a stranger to Marvel properties either and has actually played Captain Marvel on a couple occasions for example in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 and in Marvel's midnight Suns I was actually surprised at how much I liked Captain Marvel and midnight Suns so I think Erica has a knack for elevating characters Beyond expectation since she's done it to me twice now with both Black Cat and Captain Marvel so she's another actress that I'm very interested in seeing more from but now let's turn our attention to the score of the game composed by John Pisano what initially caught my attention was that Jon has composed the score of other Marvel properties the Netflix Defenders and Daredevil TV series which if you've seen Daredevil in particular you'll likely recall that tremendous opening theme [Music] music I really like the Defender theme as well but I think Daredevil is the most memorable of the two during an interview with playstationlifestyle.net John was asked how he approached composing Spider-Man and and Daredevil and this was his response for me it's always important with these superhero properties especially with Daredevil and the Defenders and even with some of the Spider-Man stuff I'm always trying to ground the character a little bit because it's almost like Spider-Man for instance you know he's got a suit he's swinging around the city there's very obvious superhero traits to them so when you just throw a bunch of big superhero music on top of him sometimes it's hard to kind of connect them to the real world I always try to balance out some of the things a little bit I always use the word ground to try to ground the character a little bit it was the same thing with Daredevil you know we really kind of scored it like a drama versus a giant superhero and then of course at a certain point you have to kind of submit a little bit and go into that Superhero world but it's always just trying to find that balance between large superhero music but then also trying to connect into the world that we all live in I like that he took this more grounded approach and I think this benefits the game the score felt like it matched the world and didn't ever feel too grandiose I also think this more grounded approach helped punctuate when the score did go big and I was always excited when it would Elevate and take the spotlight for a moment [Music] [Music] JN also stated that he wanted to make the theme more personal to Peter and I thought this quote was interesting where he talks about scoring an older Peter he has grown up a little bit he's not by any means old or anything but at the same time too you change a lot from when you're 16 to when you're in your early 20s we kind of wanted to make that reflective not only did Brian in the story but I wanted to do it too with the music and the feel and how he views the world so in the music I tried to keep some of the old classic elements of that Marvel Universe but at the same time too I took the approach where I scored more Peter Parker than I scored Spider-Man there's also a great video on PlayStation's YouTube channel where John describes creating the Peter Parker theme and then using it to create the Spider-Man theme my name is John Pisano I'm the composer for Marvel Spider-Man in our game Spider-Man's aged up a little bit he's not in high school anymore he's he's an older more mature Peter Parker we wanted to make the Peter Parker theme more emotional and introspective it's time to get up and it was a great theme but it didn't have that prop of energy that you might need when he got to be Spider-Man and then through orchestration and instrumentation and arrangement we took that Peter Parker theme and we we turned it into a Spider-Man theme it was kind of like putting on a superhero suit on the [Music] theme I also thought it was cool how the game score adjust based on what you're doing in the city whether that's swinging around the city or jumping into a fight the score will adjust depending on what you're doing from moment to moment the trick always in these games and we we thought about this from the very beginning how do we make the gameplay music as effective as a cinematic music in movies you have one piece of music it's linear it's static it always plays the same way you can play Spider-Man a bunch of different ways and the music's always going to be changing and conforming depending on the player and what they're doing so in a weird way the player is controlling the way that score is operating Insomniac did a good job with this because I never really noticed the Transitions and the momentto moment music always felt like it naturally followed my gameplay without noticeable changes so I think that's really cool they actually did a similar thing with Yuri lowenthal's voice performance in the city he had to record two variations of voice over from the open world to match whether the player was swinging or walking so he had one version where it sounds like he's exerting himself and another version where he speaks more naturally here's an example of the two different versions hey MJ you're up late just catching up on the news looks like you had quite an adventure with shocker tonight yeah he was unusually combative anyway thanks again for dinner what do I owe you how about a favor you still have that map from the gallery yeah I'm actually on my way to the feast center now to ask Martin Lee about it Martin Lee why he has a degree in art history if anyone knows about the origins of that mask he will just keep me in the loop like I said I think there's a bigger story here and I plan to be the one to break it uh sure so I can call you like whenever yeah when ever whatever hey MJ you're up late just catching up on the news looks like you had quite an adventure with shocker tonight yeah he was unusually combative anyway thanks again for dinner what do I owe you how about a favor you still have that mask from the gallery yeah I'm actually on my way to the feast center now to ask Martin Lee about it Martin Lee why he has a degree in art history if anyone knows about the origins of that mask he will just keep me in the loop like I said I think there's a big bigger story here and I plan to be the one to break it uh sure so I can call you like whenever yeah whenever whatever so the overall audio design between the score and the voice cast is really impressive it's incredible that so much can naturally transition depending on what you're doing in the city but just in general I thought the score and voice acting were topnotch I never had any complaints with either and never had a situation where a performance or score took me out of the moment so I think everyone involved with the game's audio design did a tremendous job [Music] to wrap up my thoughts Marvel Spider-Man is truly an impressive feat I think everyone involved with the game deserves a ton of respect and not only because it's such a good game but because of how much hard work teamwork and skill went into making it that way throughout these last two videos I tried to highlight moments where Insomniac Sony and Marvel cooperated to enhance the game where needed even if it meant more work more time Andor more money we've discussed plenty of games on this channel and I'm sure we'll disc discuss plenty more where the games were rushed to meet a deadline and weren't granted extra time or funding to make changes and flush out the game the result is that the game suffers the workers are stressed and the players are disappointed so I'm happy to see that Insomniac Marvel and Sony all had a collaborative and healthy working relationship and the quality speaks for itself so I think it's so deserving that this is Sony's fastest selling PlayStation game and continues to be one of their best performing titles Sony actually ended up buying Insomniac after this game released which I think is pretty cool as well regardless I see this game as highly inovative especially with its approach to the traversal which in my opinion is it standout feature but it also features incredible combat mechanics and a highquality story with many in-depth character arcs it's really so impressive what they were able to do here especially given the stress they must have been under initially Spider-Man is a big name and with it comes a lot of pressure to do it justice not only that but this was Brian nar's first time as creative director this was also a new beginning for Marvel games referring to it as their Iron Man the same way the first Iron Man film kicked off the MCU in a major way so I think this was a very ambitious game from the beginning and I think it's so cool that everyone not only achieved their goals but far in away exceeded them I think this is Marvel Gaming's equivalent to Iron Man and I'm really excited to see where Insomniac take things moving forward not only just the Miles Morales game and Spider-Man 2 but also the Wolverine game that they're working on so I think there's a lot to look forward to in the Insomniac Marvel world and after seeing their quality approach in this first game I can't wait to see more but I think that wraps up my thoughts on Marvel Spider-Man 1 from here we'll continue forward with more Spider-Man this year but not immediately with Miles Morales honestly having done the Batman Arkham series and now Spider-Man PS4 with Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy still on the way I'm pretty winded so I think we'll go back further in time to some older less involved games so next up I want to switch gears a bit and discuss a canceled game Daredevil for PS2 since a playable prototype recently became available I've been dying to play a daredevil game for years so I was anxious to give this prototype of spin so we'll take a look at it together coming up after that we'll continue our symbiote game series with the much requested Spider-Man 3 movie game so that's what I'll be working on next in the meantime if you're still in a Spider-Man mood I have a bunch of other Spider-Man retrospective videos to check out and I think the Spider-Man PS1 video is especially fun in relation to Spider-Man PS4 since it shows a fun evolution of where things started and where they are now the Spider-Man 2 movie game is a lot of fun to look at as well especially due to its innovative web swinging but I think that's all for this video so thank you again for watching and I'll see you in the next one [Music] [Music] a

Channel: Always Nerdy

Views: 116,817

Keywords: marvel's spider-man retrospective, marvel's spider-man 1, spider-man ps4, spider-man remastered, insomniac spider-man, spiderman ps4, always nerdy, black cat, hammerhead, silver sable, wraith, city that never sleeps dlc, taskmaster, marvels spider-man side missions, marvels spiderman dlc, marvel's spider-man collectibles, marvels spiderman easter eggs, marvels spiderman behind the scenes, spiderman 2018

Id: b6aFN1vNedE

Length: 165min 41sec (9941 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 16 2023