When Insomniac releases a sequel to this year’s smash hit Spider-Man for PS4, don’t you think Mary Jane should get some journalism gameplay? This week on Kotaku Splitscreen, we discuss.
I’m back from his honeymoon and there’s lots to discuss, starting with our first impressions of the new open-world game Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Then, Kirk and I dive into this week’s news (34:36) on a leaked Harry Potter game, Google’s Project Stream, and much more.
Finally, it’s time for a Spider-Man spoilercast (56:27), getting into the strengths and weaknesses of the story, MJ and Peter’s relationship, and what Kirk and I want to see from Spider-Man 2.
Listen here:
Get the MP3 here, or read an excerpt:
Jason: For the second game, if you can still play as [MJ], they need to think of better gameplay mechanics for her than just sneaking around.
Kirk: That got a little old.
Jason: And so I have an idea. Most of the game you’re playing as Spider-Man … and then you switch to MJ, and she’s in her office at the Daily Bugle. And you have to learn how to write, in reverse pyramid style, a news article, starting with the lede. You have to go in order, go find quotes, go transcribe your interviews, pick the best quotes, figure out how to put them in an article.
Then you have to deliver your article to an editor, and then accept your editor’s edits without getting really mad at them, and then you have to incorporate them, and then you have to file by deadline and then you have to do it all again the next day.
Kirk: I can imagine a review for this: “Liked: Same great web-swinging as ever, really improved combat, surprisingly involved journalism simulation.”
Jason: The tagline would be “From web-slinging to web-writing.”
Kirk: Oh god. I’m sure that would sell millions more copies.
Jason: What if in Spider-Man 2, MJ has to deal with the fact that the Daily Bugle is being overcome by blogs.
Kirk: Pivoting to video!
Jason: She has to start a podcast that competes with J. Jonah Jameson.
Comments
12 responses to “Spider-Man 2 Should Let You Play As A Journalist”
What a way to ensure noone buys part 2!!!
Do not let these crazy people anywhere near the franchise, pls.
Thank god good developers don’t listen to games “journalists”.
Jesus, we get it. You’re woke!
Ironic that one of the many many ads below this article was “Good breasts at 50 start now”?
I thought journalism was just writing a few lines and then posting a whole bunch of embedded Tweets. ^_-
While I hated the “stealth” sections (which were really “Walk through a premapped route and wait for scripted events” sections) I really liked the one where Spidey and MJ were working together to take out bad guys. It was still Spider-Man style gameplay but told from a different perspective.
Agreed. The stealth sections were tedious and bland, especially when Miles stuff was pretty much exactly the same as MJ’s. When Spider-Man had to work with MJ to make things happen, well, it was good. But, I wish that MJ was given more to do in those sequences. Why couldn’t she get some of those annoying science mini-games Peter gets, except journalism focused?
What would those mini-games look like? I guess she get asked to compile a crossword or word search puzzle for the newspaper.
I thought this was a spider-man game. if you want something like that it should be a game entirely devoted to her and her journalism. think LA Noir but, journalism instead of Cops.
Haha! Oh Americans and your self importantly ideas that you promote like Richard Dawkins promotes atheism.
I don’t know why Kotaku Australia posts these they don’t mesh with an Australian audience. Most of us are quite cynical and don’t like being talked at. And these split screen things are like a coversation you’d be a annoyed having to listen to if you were seated near them at a restaurant.
An Australian version of this would totally work for the Aus readership, i think. This we only watch to purposefully annoys ourselves. And most don’t go past the transcript.
I usually don’t click the article at all once I see “splitscreen”, but I saw the headline and I wanted to make an insulting comment about “journalism”, but I couldn’t think of a good one.
I would definitely give a AU version a go though.
I feel that the American stuff brings the value of Kotaku Australia down. We all clearly are attached to the site, which is why we come back, but the US stuff is thick with “I’m liberal because it’s safe and I will broadcast the opinions I’ve adopted!” mentality, which is co-morbid with the American national identity at this time, so I get it but I’m just not buying it.
It’s all notions being conveyed and has little to do with the journalism we all want to see. The sad fact is that a lot of the US content is now more about the author than the topic at hand.
I don’t care for your sequel ideas, dude! That’s like like you telling about the dream you had last night: infinitely fascinating to you, but boring as fuck to me.