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Insomniac's Spider-Man swinging compared to previous games

I'm probably way off base comparing a few minutes of this Insomniac Spider-Man game to previous games but I don't get how Insomniac's Spider-Man swinging is looking worse than Beenox's Amazing Spider-Man (2012) swinging or even Treyarch's Spider-Man 2 (2004) swinging, which also had the cool wind audio.

2004
spiderman_2_swinging_by_digi_matrix-dbcjfjc.gif

2012
amazing_spiderman_game_swinging_by_digi_matrix-dbcjgfo.gif

2017-8
insomniac_spiderman_swinging_by_digi_matrix-dbcjfka.gif


There's no wild momentum, it all seems like one speed, and so makes it feel slow to get going much like Sunset Overdrive I guess. Insomniac could have just hired Jamie Fristrom (the creator of Spiderman 2 swinging) to design the swinging gamefeel.

Maybe the swinging of this new game will look way better when it's not happening as part of a heavily QTE-based chase and instead just swinging for fun so you can see the big arcs and momentum. It's just that this presentation gave me not the best first impression, and first impressions count for a lot. I would have preferred just to see the swinging by itself first and then go into a mission like Beenox did for Amazing Spider-Man at E3 2012.

I'm probably alone in this worry because most people seem very positive on the new game and thought this was one of the best games shown at Sony's E3 2017 conference, so feel free to disagree.
 

Alexious

Member
I do agree that the momentum could be improved, but they still got a year or so before release. It can get better.
 
There doesn't seem to be nearly as much motion blur when swinging which I think makes it feel slightly slower, but I definitely feel like he gained speed between the beginning and end of the clip.
 

Striek

Member
Is this a Rorschach test? Are we seeing what we want to see?

Your .gifs are incongruous with your thread premise.
 

pringles

Member
Because it's scripted and if it's not, the player might swing fast enough to catch up to the helicopter before he's "supposed to", thus breaking the illusion of the player being in control.

It's an absolutely awful way to build gameplay in games that dangle a huge sandbox in front of you, the GTA games do it a lot too.
 
spiderman2 a lot of the time it seemed the webs were hanging off the sky. The physics of this of this one feel much more plausible. And the pendulum motion instead of striaght line motion.
 

Floody

Member
Love how fast 2004 Spider-Man looks. Insomniac's looks way easier to control though, as it should I suppose.
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
TBH, I regard all previous Spiderman games as one kind of compromise or another because Activision treats their licensed games like shit. Some decent developers have taken a crack at Spidey, but always under mother Activision, who never gave their games room to ripen into critically acceptable titles.

I know the swinging of Spiderman 2 was pretty decent. The rest of it was an oddly jank GTA ripoff with "where's my ballooooooon" garbage game quests.

I'm firmly in "wait and see" mode over the swinging mechanics of Insomniac Spidey. At this point I think they have more room than any developer previous, and will deliver a more satisfying implementation of swinging Spiderman, regardless of what we've seen so far.
 
it looks slow. fantastic animations in the new game but even the combat seemed a bit slower than I expected too.

hopefully they ratchet that up (dat unintended pun) a bit and add some more momentum to his swinging.
 

Kuro

Member
Looks fantastic to me. There's a real sense of weight to it and for all we know there's upgrades to the slinging.
 
Because it's scripted and if it's not, the player might swing fast enough to catch up to the helicopter before he's "supposed to", thus breaking the illusion of the player being in control.

That makes sense.

I hope they include how you could hold X (?) at the very end of the swing in Spider-Man 2 so that spidey kicks out his legs for more height. Always loved doing that. And the mid-air acrobatics.
 

J@hranimo

Banned
Honestly the swinging looked pretty good. Can definitely be improved, but still good so far.

As much as we love Spiderman 2 let us not forget the one unlockable that gave you crazy momentum when you pressed a button so I hope no one is getting that feature confused with the actual swinging of that game. That regards the speed of the swinging-not the fluidity and physics of it itself.
 

nOoblet16

Member
Yep I agree, momentum needs to be better and consider the arc as well.

One of the things that Beenox's Spiderman does but others don't is that it actually visualises the fact that Spidey is actually in freefall whenever he isn't holding onto his web.
 

UrbanRats

Member
Cloud swinging is gross, OP.

This one looks great, but it could use more speed.

Spiderman 2’s is still the golden standard.
 

Macrotus

Member
Maybe the camera angle has to do something as well.
Theres a lot of camera swinging which is creating that speedy kind of effect. (2012 version)
Especially when your swinging near the ground. The camera tilts towards the ground.
The new Spider-man game focuses on the chopper and not much swing with the camera angle.
 

ViviOggi

Member
Watching the trailer the one thing I was looking for was the free-roam swinging, and came away underwhelmed as well. Bummer
 
2004 is still the best but I think it looks pretty solid so far in Insomniac. Though it looks like it could use more momentum. I say looks because it could just be the way it's presented, but either way could use improvement somewhere there.
 
SM2's swinging had a "turbo" button to increase speed during the swing, so that might explain some of the difference. Still, there's much we don't know about the new swinging mechanics though so I'll reserve judgment until we get some more information (I really really want SM2's charge jump and long/high toggle though).
 
Could be due to how quickly the game can stream in the cityscape. Although, heavy motion-blur should cover up pop-in during fast swings.
 
Maybe the camera angle has to do something as well.
Theres a lot of camera swinging which is creating that speedy kind of effect. (2012 version)
Especially when your swinging near the ground. The camera tilts towards the ground.
The new Spider-man game focuses on the chopper and not much swing with the camera angle.
There's a definite case to be made with the camera. But you'd think it'd be pretty dynamic with how cinematic Insomniac wants to make this game (hinted by the QTEs), no?
 
SM2's swinging had a "turbo" button to increase speed during the swing, so that might explain some of the difference. Still, there's much we don't know about the new swinging mechanics though so I'll reserve judgment until we get some more information (I really really want SM2's charge jump and long/high toggle though).

Oh yeah wasn't that an upgrade/progression element of some sort? Looks like that's probably what's going on in that SM2 gif. Maybe this game has a similar thing.
 

Sojgat

Member
Said it in the other thread, what it needs is the mid-air swing boost from Spider-Man 2.

It's a big part of what makes the swinging in that game feel so good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcs_ZaDLsVk

Charge your jump off a rooftop, hit terminal velocity, swing, and boost.

Spider-Man had a real sense of speed and momentum.
 

silva1991

Member
It's the animation after the swing that looks off. Like it feels incomplete.

They still got alot of time to improve and thread like this might help them.
 
spiderman2 a lot of the time it seemed the webs were hanging off the sky. The physics of this of this one feel much more plausible. And the pendulum motion instead of striaght line motion.

You've got this completely backwards. There was no sky swinging in SM2, and the physics were a country mile more realistic than what we have here. You had full control over where you attached your webs and exactly how much of the pendulum arc you wanted to go through by releasing the web earlier or later. If you wanted to turn to your right, you'd web a building on your right and let the web pull you around. Meanwhile, look at this:


Attaches web to a building directly in front of him, then starts swinging to his right. That's not swinging, that's flying. Same thing at the start of this gif:

insomniac_spiderman_swinging_by_digi_matrix-dbcjfka.gif


Webs building to his right, goes left. The devs have said this system is physics-based, but there's clearly so much air control that it doesn't really matter where your webs are attached; you can just steer wherever you like in mid-swing.

As for the speed, while it is very slow, there's always the chance you'll be able to upgrade over the course of the game, so I wouldn't judge it too harshly yet. There are the makings of a good swinging system here, and I'll be really interested to get my hands on it for real.
 

Print_Dog

Member
I thought the same thing when first watching it. But going back and seeing the style of the gameplay throughout. I think the swinging matches up with the momentum of Spider-Man himself in gameplay. It's really "Arkham-like." I like it.
 

SomTervo

Member
It looks like a more realistic pace. Which is sort of natural considering the vastly improved graphics.

There's a high chance you'll be able to upgrade that anyway, going by previous games.

Edit: physics do look a bit weird though^

Not that SM2's physics were perfect
 

Chao

Member
I haven't played any of the Spider-Man games and even I noticed how sluggish the swinging looked. I knew there would be threads about it!

I agree, needs more momentum
 

Frostman

Member
The swinging looked fine to me. Considering it's physics based its much more natural, and realistic (if you can use that word when talking about someone web swinging across the sky).
 

BeauRoger

Unconfirmed Member
My biggest worry is that the swinging ends up being too "automatic", taking away the challenge, trivializing it. It seems to me that the web swinging is is one of the key reasons for spiderman's appeal, so in order for it to be as thrilling as it can be, mastering the system shouldnt be a matter of just pointing to the direction you want to go and pressing the swing button.
 

Alienous

Member
It seemed off to me when I first saw the demo but, seeing it a second time, it seems to be like that to have you varying your use of movement mechanics (wall running and web- zipping). A speedy swing can easily negate other ways of traversing.
 
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