I realise this was a couple of pages ago but I feel the need to weigh in on the "it's a comic book game, not a political game" view that's been expressed in here. Now, firstly, my apologies if this comes off as a bit of a long winded ramble because New York, comic books, propaganda and influence are all subjects I'm extremely interested in academically and they all have this weird intersection here so I've just spent 45 minutes feverishly checking sources and rephrasing paragraphs left, right and centre as new thoughts arrive in my ADHD riddled brain.
Comic books, particularly Marvel comic books, are inherently political. They always have been, right from the word go. The cover of the first issue of Captain America - Timely's first-ever superhero comic - involved said Captain punching out a real-life figure in world politics - a call to arms against fascism at a time when the United States pursued isolationism. Many of Marvel's superheroes originate in deeply political ways - Iron Man and Vietnam(there's a big conversation about the intense racism in Iron Man for another day), The Hulk and Soviet sabotage(and Black Widow) being two examples off the top of my head.
Zeroing in on Spider-Man himself, the character was the focal point for anti-Vietnam stories in the late 1960s questioning government logic and exploring the human cost of a futile war. He crushed the comics code with stories highlighting waves of drug abuse on the streets of New York in the 1970s. He's met Barack Obama and worked at Ground Zero. He is supposed to be the epitome of the New York everyman, and the teller of New York's stories. That's literally the point of Spider-Man's being as I see it. I don't think it's unfair, or outlandish, to ask that this legacy continues into other media, be that videogames or films. On that note, Miles Morales has been a fantastic extension of Spider-Man's ethos into modern, 21st century New York, something Sara Pichelli, Brian Michael Bendis, and Axel Alonso should be really proud of.
The NYPD has been a focal point of intense criticism over the past few months and years, and I think it's right that media portraying the institution in a positive light should be questioned - everything is propaganda, and we need to question the accuracy of the media we consume. I actually agree with Jawa in that I do not believe the vast majority of rank-and-file officers in the NYPD are corrupt, nor do I think African-American officers have betrayed their race by serving. With that said I also agree with Tomous, that the NYPD is demonstrably corrupt at management level and requires a bottom-up overhaul. In a sense, my view is probably that we should be past the idea of "police = good" in storytelling because there are too many instances where this hasn't been the case in real life for us to make that assumption. But perhaps that's an argument for a different day.
I also don't think we should be ignoring lived experience - if you're going to depict New York and strive for realism in design(as the developers have done exceptionally well!), then it's important to strive to create a realistic New York, if you gather my drift. Even Law & Order, which is about as pro-NYPD as you can get, doesn't portray the cops in a wholly positive light. They do bad things, things which compromise investigations and sometimes cause more problems than they resolve. Spider-Man (PS4) has never quite managed to put any nuance in its portrayal of the police, and that is a real shame.
Obviously it would be incredibly difficult to show all of this in a videogame. I think it was Jawa who mentioned this, and I agree it's difficult to find a narrative excuse within the established universe to show something like racist police brutality. But difficult doesn't mean wrong, and it certainly doesn't mean impossible. And there's comic book precedent for Spidey dealing with corrupt cops - all the Sin-Eater stuff from the 1980s could be updated to fit in with modern standards!
Zilnad wrote:I'm 100% with Denster on this and will be avoiding the thread from here on in. Spider-Man, as a game, is colourful, fun and feel-good. I'm not playing it for social commentary, I'm playing it to forget about real life and to enjoy a rollercoaster of a super hero fantasy. I'm not averse to politics in games but this is ridiculous. It's Spider-Man.
Unfortunately, you are getting social commentary whether you want it or not. The very character of Miles Morales is a political being, created to highlight under-representation of African-American and Latino minorities in superhero media and represent a more life-like version of New York's cultural make-up to the world. With what I've said about New York and Spider-Man in mind, I don't think it's asking *too* much for a game to reflect some of the difficulties that this character faced(and the lived experience of those he's based on) both in his conception and his reception.
Finally, on the subject of Spider-Man PS4 and New York policing, I think it's probably worth mentioning that this is a criticism which was levelled at the original as well:
https://www.theringer.com/2018/9/12/17848460/spider-man-ps4-policeI don't doubt that Miles Morales was already well into production by the time these articles were making their way to the internet, but it would have been nice from my perspective to see some acknowledgement in the character interactions, if possible, and I personally hope there is an acknowledgement of that in the inevitable sequel.
Let me be clear - I am not criticising the views or opinions of anyone in this thread. These are my thoughts as a lifelong fan of both Spider-Man and videogames(I'm drinking coffee from a hollowed out Spidey-head as I type!). You are perfectly entitled to want escapism in your games. But this series offers a real opportunity to transcend the medium and become perhaps the first videogame to offer a genuine piece of social commentary in the way that the best movies or literature can, and validate the medium in so many ways. From the sound of it, that opportunity has been sadly missed.
Tl;dr: Great game from great series misses opportunity to use its setting and source material to transcend into something amazing.