Analysing Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, part 1
This week on Highbrow-Lowbrow is Spider-Man week. Spider-Man was my all-time favourite character as a kid all the way up to me late teens, right up until the writers messed with the character and backstory beyond all recognition, and around the time the Marvel Studios movies showed me how awesome character like Iron Man and Captain America are. So, why is this Spider-Man week? Just because.
One of my favourite bloggers, Shamus Young, often writes in-depth reviews of videogames, analysing the story and critiquing each aspect of the game, and they are a joy to read.
Inspired, Spider-Man week is going to be celebrated with a week-long ridiculously in-depth review of the 2008 Spider-Man game, Web of Shadows. It wasn't a great game, but I devoted a note inconsiderable chunk of time to the game, and thought I'd share my thoughts on the game, which developed into a 3,000 word thesis on the bloody thing.
My favourite film is The Big Lebowski, by the Coen brothers,
simply because it is one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen. The Coen’s create
comedy in every scene, by juxtaposing bizarre situations and dream-like visuals
with nonchalant but hilarious dialogue, and the whole artifice is held together
by the iconic character of Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski (played to perfection by Jeff
Bridges). It’s an excellent parody of detective mysteries and the early 90’s
culture, with a wonderful design and soundtrack. This is a rare kind of film that
is rewarding on every viewing.
Does this seminal comic/graphic novel require introduction. I don't think it does, it is now so ubiquitous to the general comic-book reading, film-going audience. Even if people don't always like it.
Deadly Creatures is a third party title for the Wii. A lot has ben written
about supporting Third Parties in computer games, as these are the studios that
take more creative risks with gameplay or premises. Rainbow Studios, part of
THQ, took a big creative risk with Deadly Creatures, and it, mostly, paid off.
de Blob is a deceptively simple game. At first glance, it appears to be a game designed for children, with its cartoon graphics and humour and simplistic gameplay based, of all things, matching colours. But beneath that is a deep subtext examining the effects oppression, governmental controls, imperialism and censorship upon a society consisting of Liberal values... not that the games target audience of the "3+" will quite appreciate this.
Serious Sam; the Next Encounter was made available for the ps2 and gamecube.
It was made by Climax studios, not Croteam, who made the original PC version.
The differences are notable. Climax's version seems slightly more cartoony and
the comedy isn't quite as good, although Sam "serious" Stone is still
quiter the quip master. In addition, the reduced memory and output capacity of
the console, means that many of the levels are smaller or more contained. When
the levels do become larger, the game becomes prone to freezing or crashing.
But despite these differences and flaws, it still maintains the Serious Sam
feel.