We’ve all experienced that sense of reverence for an experience we wish we could repeat for the first time again. Something formative or more recent. A movie or a novel that resonates with such evocative nostalgia, that repeat revisions only diminish the sensation. It’s a pity then that life rarely permits deliberate and discriminating amnesia to arrest these affectionately archived memories. To allow you to replicate the same earnest response that compelled you to fall in love with the product in the first place. A movie like Jaws, a film I’ve often cited as my favourite, is an experience I’d keenly watch with a fresh perspective. One not influenced by its ubiquitous popularity that may have diluted the integrity of my initial reaction. Really the closest one can get to attaining that same semblance of distilled neutrality, is derived from the observations of our children. Their uncontaminated insights and fervour. But gaming possesses a distinct advantage in this area.
There’s something about the carefree frivolity of gaming that makes the experience somewhat disposable. Not that a game doesn’t rouse an intuitive awareness of its inherent quality or possessed no memorable evocation. For my money, gaming is the most cathartic pastime you can experience. But because of the routine, the longevity and often harried desire to pursue new, exciting diversions, even the most diverse open worlds or encouragable narratives are casually forgotten. Sure the likes of Uncharted 2 are still structurally vivid recollections and the broad, overarching story is retained even in my senile mind, but you omit the finer details. Quotable lines of dialogue. Iconic sequences. Even something as significant as how the combat actually responds, not the leading perception that has clouded your opinion. Or in the case of Spider-Man, entire excerpts!
As I swing my way through the insomniac exuberant rendition of Manhattan for the first time since I purchased it on release. The dynamic, natural fluidity that makes traversing the city so compelling, it occurs to me just how much of this I had forgotten. Again, the broad strokes I remember. The size, scale and complexity of the city. The almost rhythmic combat that really conveys a semblance of being Spider-Man. But there are vast narrative threads that have completely escaped my memory. Potent dramatic characterisations that I don’t believe have been explored with this much intensity and depth in any adaptation before. This might well be the definitive Spider-Man adaptation?! It’s Amazing. Spectacular. Ultimate? I don’t know. But what I do know is that this Spider-Man game is a perfect illustration that with enough time elapsed, and a significant catalogue of games preceding it, even a game as exceptional as this, can replicate that feeling of playing it for the first time. Especially when your memory is as culpable as mine!
Game, Complain, Repeat 