Standard Issue Computing

Category: PlayStation 4

  • Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered (PS5 / Insomniac Games / 2020)

    When Spider-Man was revealed for the PS4, I was somewhat confused. A first-party developed licensed superhero game? We hadn’t really seen that since the Sega Genesis days! It sorta made sense considering Sony had the Spider-Man film rights, but superheroes are so ubiquitous, with Spider-Man arguably being the most popular of them all, that it seemed baffling to limit the game to a single console. And then the developer. I love Insomniac, but Sucker Punch, the first party developer who had spent the last decade making open world superhero games, was right there!

    And yet, despite all of the conventional wisdom being defied, Spider-Man was released and it reviewed and sold extremely well, creating a new key Sony first-party franchise.

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  • Discovering, Revisiting, and Ranking Sony’s First-Party Games

    Some PlayStation games that may or may not make the list.

    These days Sony is best known for their sprawling, single-player cinematic adventures. I love many of those games, but there’s soooo much more to PlayStation’s 30+ years of history in regards to first-party releases. A week or so ago I started work on a top 100 list, similar to what I did for Nintendo and Sega. I quickly realized that I was woefully unprepared.

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  • Kingdom Hearts, Once Again

    There are plenty of reasons to write off the Kingdom Hearts series. From an unnecessarily complex and confusing story to a prolonged wait between mainline entries, it’s an easy series to walk away from, regardless of your affinity for it in your younger years. I started with the first game on PS2 back in 2002 and have sworn off the series at least three times. I’ve heard every dunk on the games and used a few myself. It also doesn’t help that the franchise’s two parent companies, Disney and Square Enix, keep doing shitty things. And with all this in mind, I regret to inform you that I am playing Kingdom Hearts once again.

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