10 Video Game Abilities Developers Always Get Wrong
1. Spider-Man's Wall-Crawling
Compared to most other comic book characters, Spider-Man has by far the most successful track record when it comes to video games. He had those delightful titles on the Playstation 1, some great movie tie-ins on the next console generation and a great comic book video game based on the Ultimate Spider-Man series, courtesy of Treyarch. Now he's rocking it on the Playstation 4 with Insomniac Games, and in truth, the wall-crawler has never looked better.
All that said, there's a trap all Spider-Man developers tend to fall into, and that's making the web-slinger's ability to scale walls somehow not the most frustrating thing to do in a video game ever.
Mounting walls, windows and ceilings in these games is like trying to get gum out of hair. But, try as they might, all devs seem to be able to do is dollop more peanut butter and mayonnaise in it, with no permanent solution seemingly forthcoming.
Seriously, scaling the walls in these games is never enjoyable. The camera gets all weird, Spidey handles like a F-grade Bamzooki, and targeting enemies quickly becomes a nightmare.
Granted it's not the most important part of nailing the experience of being your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, but it'd be a nice wee bonus if the next game could make it work.