In the middle of web-swinging between buildings, it hit me with a realization—one I’ve come to before—that a lot of these big-budget games are far too overdeveloped. I dropped Spider-Man down to a checkpoint I was following, and it smoothly transitioned into a cutscene where a bunch of bad guys were shooting at the police that had just shown up.
I’m Spider-Man. So I’m here to save the day.
After the cutscene, the camera slowly pans behind Spidey, giving me the cue that it’s now time to take control of the hero again. My thumbs are ready. I land a couple of punches, and then everything goes into hyper slow motion.
Oh… there’s a message in the middle of my screen telling me a button combo to press. But right now, I don’t want to perform the button combo. Isn’t the best part of gaming being able to discover new combos and features for yourself?
Well, it is for me at least.
Whatever. I press the combo and keep going. Again, the action slows down and I get another prompt—this time telling me to dodge incoming bullets. But I already knew that because a little icon had already popped up with a clear, visible line showing that someone was about to shoot at me.
Why do I need a message notification for a design cue that’s already built into the game?
After pressing the circle button to dodge, I get a chance to stop the bad guys. Once I do, the game immediately cuts to another cutscene. After that, I know I need to web-sling to another location that’s pinpointed on the map. While I’m swinging at a good 120 MPH or so, I’m taking phone calls from Aunt May or talking to Yuri about strategies. It’s annoying after a while—noise, constant symbols to follow, and so on.
I finish the mission, beat old Willy Fisk, and find myself in cutscene number ten or so by now. Then come the puzzles—three in a row. After finishing them, it cuts to another cutscene, and I find myself absolutely bored with the game. I turn it off.
Video games—especially the big-budget PlayStation titles—are far too overdeveloped. The fun has been completely stripped out of these games, and it’s obvious I’m not the target demographic for this kind of experience.
These games feel like a blend of some gameplay and some cutscenes trying to be a hybrid movie-going experience. But all I really want to do is play the game.
I’m reminded of older titles, or even games that throw you into a world and let the story develop through gameplay. Half-Life and Portal were really good at this. Almost every Souls game is well known for it.
These massive single-player games have gotten to a point where they sell you on flashy visuals and a movie-like experience, but the gameplay is lacking—or at best, mediocre. Sure, swinging from building to building in Spider-Man is an absolute blast. But the combat and overall gameplay don’t hold a candle to the traversal. It’s trying to be the Arkham series in fun, fluid combat, but it comes up short in my opinion.
Maybe it’s just that in my older years as a gamer, I enjoy more of what I was raised on. I remember when Metal Gear Solid originally released and how impactful its storytelling was. But to me, the story was always a complement to the immersive gameplay MGS gave us. Fast forward thirty years, and the gameplay feels secondary to the story. Traversing in Spider-Man feels like a separate game from the combat, which feels like a separate game from the annoying puzzles. Resident Evil always blended gameplay and puzzles together so well—it all felt cohesive, like a total package. Even the cutscenes, which were few and far between, felt like a nice break from the horror you’d been facing, only to introduce another new enemy or more horror ahead.
Cutscenes used to serve the gameplay.
That’s why I find myself—more and more—looking for older game experiences or new games that don’t cut away from the gameplay to tell the story. Some of the greatest games of all time were there to serve the gameplay first.
_brandon