Home Gaming Marvel’s Spider-Man isn’t even out yet, and people are upset about in-game puddles

Marvel’s Spider-Man isn’t even out yet, and people are upset about in-game puddles

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14

Spider-Man

There a lot of metrics used to gauge the quality of a game, but nothing gets a community wound up tighter than Batman’s reaction to a Martha Stewart special than the mere mention of the word downgrade. It’s an idea which was popularised in the wake of Watch_Dog’s initial launch several years ago, with fans up in arms that the game apparently looked nothing like the product that was shown at an earlier E3 event.

That idea is still alive and kicking, having reached a new level of outrage over something that clearly signals the alleged shoddy work that Insomniac Games has put into their attempt to make Spider-Man amazing again (Suck it Trump, I’m copyrighting that). I mean, look at this puddle we saw in an earlier build for Marvel’s Spider-Man at E3 2017, and then compare it to the second screenshots clear lack of puddles:

That is a clear downgrade right there. I mean, you call that a shallow body of water? I’ve seen deeper pools of hazardous liquid in my bathroom after a shower. SCANDALOUS. While you could chalk PuddleGate up to just a few agitators crying foul and absolutely refusing to listen to Insomniac Games attempts to explain that a smaller puddle is in no way indicative of the overall quality of the game, a subreddit paints a different story with over 15 000 upvotes on the subject.

Coincidentally, 15 000 people on Reddit probably also believe in the Flat Earth theory, vaccines causing autism and Scientology being a harmless practice instead of a life-crushing cult of Tom Cruise-worshipping scam artists, but there’s probably zero links between the two groups. Back on Twitter, Insomniac Games have been trying to ease any fears of a graphical downgrade.

“I am telling you, I talked to the technical and engineering and art staff, and looked at the live code of this from the final build. There was NO DOWNGRADE,” Community director James Stevenson said, to no avail when confronted by the harsh reality of armchair experts claiming to know how video game graphics work because they’d spent a few minutes reading up on the subject over on Wikipedia.

Look, there’s more to a game than just graphics, and projects do change over the course of development. What might work for a trailer might not be best for a game, but tell that to someone who gets dangerously close to having an aneurysm just because there’s a stray hair out of alignment on a 4K character model.

I’ve been playing Spider-Man since last week, and while I can’t talk about it just yet because of the review embargo (look for that review early next week true believers!), I can say that the PuddleGate outrage is massively misplaced.

Last Updated: August 31, 2018

14 Comments

  1. There is major differences in the graphics between what was shown at E3 and what is currently out in the wild…

    Reply

    • Geoffrey Tim

      August 31, 2018 at 10:54

      It’s a scene change. That’s it. Can confidently say this, on account of..y’know, having and playing the game.

      Reply

  2. Pariah

    August 31, 2018 at 10:54

    What I don’t understand is how in 2018 people can’t understand that during the course of development things change. And optimisation is usually rather late in the process. Taking screenshots from a year before release vs ones from nearer release and crying about how it looks different is narrow minded.

    Reply

  3. Mark Treloar

    August 31, 2018 at 11:02

    The E3 demo was probably on a PC with a 1080Ti

    Reply

  4. Kromas

    August 31, 2018 at 11:12

    Console gamers …. my god they are retarded.

    If you are offended by this then buy a PC and be a real gamer.

    #MasterRace. 😛

    Reply

    • Allykhat

      August 31, 2018 at 11:28

      I love being called retarded. Thanks @Kromaswow:disqus.

      Reply

      • Kromas

        August 31, 2018 at 12:43

        Then my job is done. In 5 years time I will work for Disney and get fired for this.

        Reply

    • Gr8_Balls_o_Fire

      August 31, 2018 at 12:26

      PC’s are too much of a headache to keep upgrading and maintain.

      Reply

  5. Admiral Chief

    August 31, 2018 at 12:11

    PuddleGate, hehe

    Reply

  6. Caveshen Rajman

    August 31, 2018 at 14:16

    Meh I think the question was fair, it’s not just the puddles that look different in the two images from that tweet. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

    It’s this going from [innocuous query] to [MASSIVE OUTRAGE] mental jump that people make that honestly causes way more drama than gaming needs, tbh.

    Reply

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