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 NO SPOILERS ALLOWED WHATSOEVER  Spider-Man, also known as Marvel's Spider-Man, was released exclusively for the PlayStation 4 in September 2018 to rave reviews. This latest installment in a long line of Spider-Man video games of varying quality was developed by Insomniac Games, and could basically be described as the wall-crawler's Arkham moment as it's finally a genuinely excellent Spider-Man game that nails the style and tone of the character while also being an absolute blast to play. Insomniac's take on Spider-Man doesn't follow any existing continuity, so the writers (including comic writers Christos Gage and Dan Slott, who were brought in as a co-writer and a creative consultant respectively) were free to take the story into whatever direction they wanted without being shackled to existing stories. They also didn't want to create yet another origin story with Uncle Ben dying and great power/great responsibility and all that stuff because we've already seen that a million times, so in the game Peter Parker (voiced by Yuri Lowenthal) has been Spider-Man for eight years and fought plenty of supervillains along the way. At its core, Spider-Man is an open world beat 'em up action game. While the design takes many cues from Batman's Arkham outings, this is very much its own beast and if you try to approach combat like Batman, you'll get clobbered before you can say "radioactive blood". Instead, making full use of Spidey's movement and various gadgets such as his web shooters is the key to success, and as a result the fights in this game can be equally spectacular to watch as they are fun to play. There are also stealth sections that resemble Batman's predator segments, although stealth usually isn't as vital as it is for Bats because Spider-Man's spider-sense allows him to dodge anything (of course, the player still has to get those dodges right, which is often easier said than done because the enemies here don't politely wait for their turn to attack). Obviously, this being an open world game, there's plenty of collectibles for you to discover and random crimes to stop around Manhattan, and we will be doing all of that stuff. And webswinging, of course. Plenty of webswinging. The webs attach to buildings again, and while the swinging doesn't quite have the realistic physics of Treyarch's Spider-Man 2 it's still a ton of fun, and you can perform some cool tricks if you master the movement system. This LP is a 100% playthrough of the game and the three episodes of the City That Never Sleeps DLC on normal difficulty, with solo commentary and no talking over cutscenes or important dialogue. The "Untold Tales" episodes following the conclusion of the main story are the sidequest videos that would've normally slotted between episodes 27 and 28/28 and 29 but were pushed back for pacing reasons. The side content in this game sadly isn't particularly exciting in general, so I chose to move on with the plot at that point instead of posting eight sidequest videos in a row.  This game normally has QTEs but there is an option to auto-complete them, which I've enabled so you don't need to look at ugly button prompts during cutscenes (and also so I don't have to press those buttons during cutscenes). I'm also rendering the episodes at 1440p (and 4K in some cases) despite originally recording them at 1080p, in order to to avoid the effects of YouTube's shoddy compression algorithm. You can definitely see the difference to the 1080p playback there because the bitrate is so dramatically higher, so I highly recommend watching the videos at 1440p or 4K regardless of your screen's actual resolution! I am playing this on a PS4 Pro which supports 4K output upscaled from a native dynamic resolution maxing out at 1900p, but sadly my recording equipment can only handle 1080p. One thing that slightly annoys me about the presentation here is the fact the PAL release only supports UK English text even if your system language is set to US English. This is fine for dialogue subtitles, but looks a bit silly on all the in-universe elements such as various computer interfaces and Spider-Man's social media feed.  But that's enough yammering from me, let's get this show on the road! Click here for YouTube playlist (warning: YT's related videos sidebar is likely to have endgame spoilers, so if you're worried about that I recommend watching the episodes using the Polsy links below) Main Game -- 100% COMPLETE Episode 01: King(pin)slayer Episode 02: Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Cop Episode 03: W. Fisk's Totally Legitimate Construction Episode 04: F.E.A.S.T. Episode 05: Spider-Cop Is Back, Just Accept It Episode 06: Am I Demon Episode 07: Shock Treatment Episode 08: Financial Shock (alternate title: Schultz Shocks Again) Episode 09: Demons on the Prey Episode 10: Home Sweet Home? Episode 11: The Network Is Down Episode 12: Free Fallin' Episode 13: Hell Is Empty Episode 14: Crossfire Episode 15: Hidden Agenda Episode 16: Change the World Episode 17: Down the Shaft Episode 18: Castle Crashers Episode 19: Spider-Men Episode 20: I Remember Halloween Episode 21: Uninvited Episode 22: Connections Episode 23: Trucking Hell Episode 24: Off the Rails Episode 25: Cat's Cradle Episode 26: Taken to Task Episode 27: Just A Day Episode 28: Tombstone Piledriver Episode 29: Jailbreak Episode 30: State of Emergency Episode 30 BONUS: Two Missed Calls (I accidentally cut out a couple of fairly important phone calls from the episode proper, so they're here instead) Episode 31: Light Up The Sky Episode 32: Running Through My Veins Episode 33: A Friendlier Neighborhood Episode 34: The Rhino and the Scorpion Episode 35: Answers Episode 36: Vanquish the Demon Episode 37 (STORY FINALE): The Hardest Decisions Episode 37 BONUS: Postgame Odds & Ends Episode 38: Untold Tales, Part One Episode 39: Untold Tales, Part Two Episode 40: Untold Tales, Part Three Episode 41: Untold Tales, Final Part The City That Never Sleeps DLC -- 100% COMPLETE Episode 42: The Heist, Part One Episode 43: The Heist, Part Two Episode 44: The Heist, Part Three Episode 45: The Heist, Part Four Episode 46: Turf Wars, Part One Episode 47: Turf Wars, Part Two Episode 48: Turf Wars, Part Three Episode 49: Turf Wars, Part Four Episode 50: Turf Wars, Part Five Episode 51: Silver Lining, Part One Episode 52: Silver Lining, Part Two Episode 53: Silver Lining, Part Three Episode 54: Silver Lining, Part Four Episode 55 (FINAL): Silver Lining, Part Five BONUS JUNK: Quips Suit Power Compilation (not every quip by any means, just the ones I managed to trigger) Doc M Talks About Spider-Man Comics Part 1: Sensational Spider-Man by Dan Jurgens Part 2: The Amazing Spider-Man #400 
DMorbid fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Nov 14, 2019 |
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Sep 22, 2018 21:33
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reserved
DMorbid fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Jul 30, 2019 |
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Sep 22, 2018 21:34
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 Episode 01: King(pin)slayer Good old Wilson Fisk is finally about to head to prison, and your friendly neighborhood wallcrawler is going to make sure that the crime lord doesn't escape this time. On a technical note, there should be a 1440p quality option for this video but it seems YouTube is taking its sweet time with the rendering. The actual footage was recorded at 1080p, but I rendered the episode at 1440p in order to prevent YouTube's compression from screwing up the bitrate. EDIT: The 1440p option should be there now, and I recommend using it because YT's heavily compressed 1080p simply doesn't do this gorgeous-looking game any justice. I also switched to a Polsy link because some morons are spoiling the ending in the related videos. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Jul 30, 2019 |
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Sep 22, 2018 21:37
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Spider-man! Spider-man! Does whatever a spider can! I will be watching and enjoying this LP! Hope it goes well.
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Sep 22, 2018 21:45
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Not a big fan of the boss battles but I adore the rest of the game
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Sep 23, 2018 00:31
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I don't have anything to say yet but I'm just dropping in to give you some props for that thread title.
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Sep 23, 2018 01:40
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Sep 23, 2018 01:44
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So is Peter's boss's identity being hidden to make it a shocking twist reveal for the audience? Because the lack of any identification really stuck out to me.
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Sep 23, 2018 07:50
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I don't follow comics a lot, and it stuck out to me that Peter's 'been waiting 8 years for this' and is 23. Did he start professionally webslinging at 15?
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Sep 23, 2018 10:03
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Fedule posted:I don't have anything to say yet but I'm just dropping in to give you some props for that thread title. The Lone Badger posted:I don't follow comics a lot, and it stuck out to me that Peter's 'been waiting 8 years for this' and is 23. Did he start professionally webslinging at 15? DMorbid fucked around with this message at 10:32 on Sep 23, 2018 |
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Sep 23, 2018 10:05
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Glad to see an LP of this, as a Spider-Fan who doesn't own a PS4. That was a pretty great first episode. Now, I'm going to pontificate on The Spidered Man for a bit. 1) I'm fairly certain that the (presumably) QTE with the rubble is a homage to ASM #33, AKA 'that one story where Spidey lifts a bunch of heavy stuff' that has been widely homaged both in later comics and other adaptions (such as in Spider-Man Homecoming). 2) Fisk doesn't really pose much of a threat to Spider-Man on a physical level, which makes him pretty much an ideal tutorial boss. While in most adaptions he definitely kicks Spidey's rear end the first time around, since Spidey underestimates him, in later fights Spidey pretty much the upper hand. If anything, Spidey's usually held back by pulling his punches to not kill him - I think there's been one time where he didn't (in the Back In Black arc where Spider-Man goes around in the black costume 3) I believe Dan Slott and Christos Gage are two of the writers on this - Slott is basically tied with Brian Micheal Bendis for most issues of Spider-Man written (although Slott was writing the 'main' Spider-Man book, while Bendis was writing the Ultimate imprint to reinvent the character), and Gage was a frequent collaborator on Slott's work. Slott came onto Amazing Spider-Man at the onset of the 'Brand New Day' period, which basically followed on from the aforementioned Back In Black arc and the extremely controversial One More Day, where Spider-Man sold his marriage to the devil (long story, don't ask). Slott was part of a 'brains trust' of rotating writers, and the period was based on getting Spider-Man back to his street-level roots, after he'd spent some time living in Avengers Tower and revealed his identity during the Civil War arc of the comics. Part of that saw the introduction of new characters and villains, including Yuri. I have a feeling that, with her appearance and Fisk getting locked away at the opening of the game, plus Slott and Gage being writers, that we might be seeing more of elements form that era in this game. Which I'd be OK with - while I have a complicated relationship with that era, there's definitely some great stuff to work with. Just as long as Freak or Dexter Bennett aren't in this game.
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Sep 23, 2018 21:21
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 Episode 02: Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Cop After the big setpiece mission at the beginning of the game, things slow down a little. We perform some tech support for Yuri, stop some random crimes around town. and help out at work by completing rather tedious minigames. Oh, and we find out who Peter's boss is. If you thought the game was intentionally trying to avoid revealing his identity before you actually meet him, you'd be absolutely correct. I also meant to explain in the video why I had five extra skill points, but I guess that part was left on the cutting room floor. That's just one of the pre-order bonuses, and while it gives you an early advantage it doesn't really break progression or anything. You just get a few more tools to play with. This time I decided to wait until YouTube finishes processing the 1440p version, so it's available as of this post. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Jul 30, 2019 |
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Sep 24, 2018 22:14
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I was wondering when someone would LP this. Also, is it just me or is Kingpin throwing Spidey through the air followed by him crashing through a wall or two kind of weird? I know, comics, but still!
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Sep 24, 2018 23:03
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Well, Otto's appearance is an interesting spin on the mythos - Doctor Octopus is usually in the myriad adaptions one of the first villains Spidey fights, whereas here he's apparently been Peter's friend and mentor for most of his career thus far. That role that Otto seems to be filling in this game is one that's usually occupied in most adaptions by Dr. Curt Connors, AKA The Lizard, who tends to be Spidey's go-to science guy in situations where he needs help (and the good doctor is not a The Lizard at the time). Peter claiming to be Spidey's tech guy is another Slott invention, I believe - it came up in the Big Time arc. The fact Otto's in this game isn't a super big surprise - he is one of the big three iconic Spider-Man villains (the others being Green Goblin and Venom), and of those the one who's had the most consistent presence of 50+ years of publication, not to mention Slott's favourite - but it's interesting to see him as a supporting character for a change. Kind of takes me back to Spider-Man 2, actually. As to the webbing question: while Spidey's typical day-to-day webbing has the 1-hour limit you describe, he's been known to make different versions of varying duration for different situations. I can see him using a longer-term one for supply stashes. Not a super fan of the new suit - but the fact it's not actually Peter's design kind of makes me more open to it.
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Sep 24, 2018 23:30
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Yvonmukluk posted:As to the webbing question: while Spidey's typical day-to-day webbing has the 1-hour limit you describe, he's been known to make different versions of varying duration for different situations. I can see him using a longer-term one for supply stashes. quote:Not a super fan of the new suit - but the fact it's not actually Peter's design kind of makes me more open to it.
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Sep 24, 2018 23:43
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Spider-Cop is my favorite dumb joke in this game. 
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Sep 24, 2018 23:46
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:I was wondering when someone would LP this. They were special trick walls Fisk installed so he'd be able to look impressive in front of his henchmen.
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Sep 24, 2018 23:51
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I was fake-yelling at the screen the whole time you were talking about Otto's lab being considered annoying by anyone. That section is perfectly paced imo, and frankly if/when I get my hands on this game (if the game is as great as it's looking so far, they better loving port this to PC and the rest of the consoles after a while) I'm probably going to spend an hour gawking at all the little touches.
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Sep 25, 2018 00:06
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I'll never understand the people who continue to claim that this game's combat is "like Arkham" in any respect other than minor conceptual resemblances (eg; it has generics, crowbar guys, gun guys, big guys, shield guys, and a meter that fills when you combo that you can spend on takedowns). Arkham combat is like 400% a matter of flow and is basically a rhythm game; over the course of any given fight, the threat to you is more or less consistent and as long as you keep up that perfect rhythm everything will work itself out. Spidey combat is a matter of zipping around really quite satisfyingly large arenas, dodging in and out of harm, shutting down threats before they attack and countering opportunistically. The big complaint everyone rightly comes away from Spider-Man with is that the enemy animations don't match up with the actual mechanical timings involved (eg, when the hit happens, when the dodge window is). This alone should disqualify any Arkham comparison. Arkham has such total confidence in the airtight bonding of its mechanics and animation that its New Game Plus mode disables the flashing counter icons and asks you to read everything off of the enemy models, and it is not only feasible, but feels amazing. Spidey combat excels in other ways, but not in this way. Being not as conceptually compact as Arkham, there's no single signifier of perfect Spidey combat, not even a continuous perfect combo, but a pretty close analogue for me is how long you can spend on not-the-ground. The standard moveset includes a fairly generous air combo that's basically one guy's worth of damage, and you get your air-zip and dodge in mid-air too. When this gets a little ridiculous is when you add in the air-to-ground suite, after which you can just casually yank enemies up to you and continue your air combo indefinitely, or swing straight into an attack (basically a one hit kill on a rooftop). Where this game is like Arkham is that it does not require a ranking system to guide player performance; you know when you're playing correctly, because it feels awesome.
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Sep 25, 2018 02:18
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Well, Arkham Origins had a ranking system, but Origins was kind of dumb in a number of ways. Like the Dark Knight system. 
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Sep 25, 2018 02:38
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:Well, Arkham Origins had a ranking system, but Origins was kind of dumb in a number of ways. Like the Dark Knight system. Don't remind me, please....ugh, the flashbacks....
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Sep 25, 2018 17:06
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"Spider-Man doesn't kill anyone in this game, we assure you." - Insomniac "Press Triangle to pick up a manhole cover and smack a thug in the head with it." - Insomniac
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Sep 25, 2018 20:36
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:"Spider-Man doesn't kill anyone in this game, we assure you." - Insomniac After spider-man comes through a cleanup team gathers all the sleeping criminals and takes them to a nice prison upstate.
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Sep 25, 2018 20:50
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Doc M posted:the game normally has QTEs but there is an option to auto-complete them. I haven't even had chance to watch your videos yet, but that single sentence makes me want to marry the developers and have their babies. Single best piece of videogame design in history.
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Sep 25, 2018 22:14
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I wonder if it was a little easter egg to use the designation X23 for one of the unknown materials. But I wouldn't really know what Hydrogel IPN has to do with Laura.
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Sep 26, 2018 09:38
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Yvonmukluk posted:
Yeah, something most non comic readers are missing is just how loving strong spiderman is. Like, regular rear end no mcguffin peter parker spidey can lift 25 tonnes, if he didn't pull his punches most of his enemies would be a red smear on the nearest wall. Nalesh fucked around with this message at 11:38 on Sep 26, 2018 |
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Sep 26, 2018 11:27
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Isn't there a Superior Spider-Man comic where Doc Ock accidentally punched off Scorpion's jaw because he had no idea Spider-Man had to massively hold back against his enemies?
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Sep 26, 2018 18:12
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:Isn't there a Superior Spider-Man comic where Doc Ock accidentally punched off Scorpion's jaw because he had no idea Spider-Man had to massively hold back against his enemies? 
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Sep 26, 2018 20:10
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:Isn't there a Superior Spider-Man comic where Doc Ock accidentally punched off Scorpion's jaw because he had no idea Spider-Man had to massively hold back against his enemies? Are you telling me that Peter's friendly boss somehow switches bodies with him? Seriously though, of the millions of people who bought this game, is there a single person who doesn't expect that Dr. Octavius might turn bad?
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Sep 26, 2018 20:25
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cant cook creole bream posted:Are you telling me that Peter's friendly boss somehow switches bodies with him? It's Doc Ock, so I would expect that the main question was whether he'd be bad in this one or setup for the sequel*. The surprise is more that they had him at all and managed to keep it a surprise. *And I haven't played it so I donno which one it is.
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Sep 26, 2018 20:47
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I hope they don’t have Ock & Spidey switch bodies in the game. I hated that storyline. The only worse things would be to play out One More a Day or have Spidey cloned.
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Sep 27, 2018 00:46
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Helping Doc Ock with his research is a side mission right? Maybe if you complete all of it he gets transformed and you fight him.
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Sep 27, 2018 01:08
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White Coke posted:Helping Doc Ock with his research is a side mission right? Maybe if you complete all of it he gets transformed and you fight him. I'm imagining it like the Father Servo stuff in Nier Automata. Fix all his stuff then you fight him, then do some more sidequesting for him as Peter, fight a bigger and badder Doc Ock as Spiderman, more sidequests for Peter...
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Sep 27, 2018 10:30
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How about turning things around with Octavius slowly turning into some kind of freak Octopus-Man hybrid, while eventually you run into some crazy doctor using a lizard-shaped power suit.
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Sep 27, 2018 10:59
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I just watched the first episode, and while the game looks good I'm a little confused by Fisk. Doesn't he normally wear white? And strange seeing him fight Spider-Man, I'm only familiar with Fisk from Daredevil stuff.
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Sep 29, 2018 02:39
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Cythereal posted:I just watched the first episode, and while the game looks good I'm a little confused by Fisk. Doesn't he normally wear white? And strange seeing him fight Spider-Man, I'm only familiar with Fisk from Daredevil stuff. He also goes up against Spidey a lot. Originally Spider-Man, then Daredevil and Punisher for his main opponents.  I love his face in that last panel. He clearly paid good money for windows that would do exactly that.
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Sep 29, 2018 02:47
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Cythereal posted:I just watched the first episode, and while the game looks good I'm a little confused by Fisk. Doesn't he normally wear white? And strange seeing him fight Spider-Man, I'm only familiar with Fisk from Daredevil stuff. fake edit: welp, beaten like the Kingpin in the first mission, but whatever. For those of you who demand
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Sep 29, 2018 02:53
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Cythereal posted:And strange seeing him fight Spider-Man, I'm only familiar with Fisk from Daredevil stuff. Bodying Spider-Man through walls feels a bit Rhino, but he's not a stranger to fighting Spidey.
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Sep 29, 2018 02:58
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Yes, we demand pictures of Spider-Man! And poems about Spider-Man! And all rumors and other juicy tidbits you can get for our ongoing story about what a menace Spider-Man is! Sorry Parker, that ain't good enough. You're fired!
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Sep 29, 2018 03:03
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Bruceski posted:He clearly paid good money for windows that would do exactly that. Isn't Kingpin basically Spider-Man's real arch-nemesis in Ultimate? 
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Sep 29, 2018 03:14
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