When I finished Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and wanted to relax with an older, more simple favorite, I decided to replay Spider-Man: Remastered. Since I bought a PS5 just a couple months ago and opted not to transfer my save files, I wanted to make sure I had a finished file on my console before the sequel comes out (well, besides Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which I bought and am excited to play once I’m finished with SM:R). I figured this would be a great opportunity for it, since I also wanted to catch up on my podcasts a bit and the storytelling of the game isn’t strong enough that I feel terribly compelled to follow it on a replay. Plus, I love Spider-Man. I’m a big fan and I’ve always enjoyed swinging around New York in every Spider-Man game I’ve ever played. For the most part, I’m having a great time. I’m much better at fighting enemies than I was the first time I played it (so much so that I can’t even comprehend why I used to struggle in battles since now I can handle everything with ease unless I’m going for style points and focus too much on gimmicks rather than effective combat strategy), so the main source of mild frustration I used to feel is now entirely gone. However, I have a new one and it’s odd because I think it is pointing to a change in my gaming preferences rather than a change in games as a whole.

Pursuing the various collectibles in Spider-Man: Remastered has been a boring and sometimes frustrating experience. Sure, some of them are easy to get now that I’m not struggling with combat anymore, but some of them require a level of precision that I can’t seem to get out of the game. Most of these have to do with the Taskmaster Challenges, since those ones are the only ones that assign points, but I’ve run into some issues with the regular old Crime Token collectibles. And, sure, it’s not difficult to do any of the one-off things like catch pigeons, do little “science” based side quests, or find the little cat statues that marked where the Black Cat had stolen stuff, but they’re kind of boring to do. Also, the pigeon one is annoying because a certain amount of time has to pass before you can actually catch the pigeons, which is frustrating because of how many times I’ve been within catching distance right up until the moment they’re actually catchable and then been unable to catch up to them again before they escape. It’s the moment I have to switch from traversal maneuvers to the combat maneuver that was adapted to catching pigeons that always throws me off, since I hold the controller differently for each style of play. That shift, the tiny loss of moment and speed, is enough to completely throw me off to the point where my attempts to recover my momentum and speed typically just make things worse. It’s annoying.

It’s not like the game changed, though, between this version and the one I played on the PS4. There aren’t more collectibles. There aren’t additional missions. The only difference is the upper limits of the graphics and the shape of the controller (which might have something to do with why combat is suddenly easier and changing between combat and traversal is such a struggle). There’s nothing in the game to explain why I am struggling to enjoy slowly fine-tuning the traversal challenges or why I find it so odious to deal with the petty crimes that I have to resolve in order to get more tokens to spend on suit and gear upgrades. The only thing that could have changed is me. Maybe it’s because I’ve played games that are so much better, that dole out their collectibles in a smooth and enjoyable manner (Chained Echoes) or that deal with the integration of side quests, collectibles, and main quests in a narratively interesting manner (God of War: Ragnarok). Maybe it’s because The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom burned me out on endless, repetitive collectible quests since there’s just so much going on in a game I feel like I should have absolutely loved. Or maybe the stress and frustrations of late 2022 into mid 2023 have just left me with little patience for something as pointlessly time-consuming as vanity collectibles. Or, as I always say, it’s probably a little bit of everything.

I don’t particularly enjoy feeling irritated by things, but I feel like that’s been my predominant emotional experience lately. I don’t know if it’s the problems I’ve had with long-standing relationships this year, the loss of so many people I used to feel I could depend on, the worsening economic conditions of my country, the rise of facism across the world, my own struggles with how to live my identity in a way that feels authentic and not performative, the ways I’m still hiding my identity in certain parts of my life, or any other number of stressors that aren’t going away any time soon. It’s not like I’m enjoying any of this and there really isn’t much I can do about any of it at this point beyond letting time pass, trying to heal, or whatever I’m already doing. I mean, I’m working up to fifty hours a week now and, sure, I could get a second job to help stabalize the economic side of things, but it would make literally every other part of my life worse at this point. I’m still struggling to keep my head up as I work on recovering from the most stressful and draining eight months of my life, so I’m not sure I can ask anything more of myself at this point without sending myself on a downward spiral.

I used to find these kind of games, where I can just turn my mind off and grind away at a challenge, enjoyable. I used to appreciate being able to lose myself in something. I used to enjoy being able to distract myself without complication. Now, I find myself bored and frustrated. Maybe this is a reflection of a greater need for distraction on my part, or maybe this is a reflection of the loss of the friend I used to always discuss video games with. Maybe this frustration is just an echo of how lonely I feel when I think about the games I play and how I’ve got no longer got anyone to discuss them with. That was a part of what I enjoyed about streaming, back when I was active. I had the opportunity to share games with people who I could talk to about my experiences, who I could chat with as I played. I miss having someone around on a nearby chair or the other side of the couch, to talk to about the game we’re playing or that we have already played. Maybe this frustration is just a displaced feeling of loneliness at the loss of the final vestiges of the community I’d built in college. There’s so much going on still that I’m not sure what it is and I’m hesistant to rule out anything as a contributing factor.

Most of the time, though, I still enjoy Spider-Man: Remastered and listening to Friends at the Table can usually distract me given enough time. I was able to shake off these feelings of disinterest and frustration last night so I could get back into all th web-swinging fun. That said, I’m still ocasionally struggling to accept the weird “science” the game tosses at you (which is saying something because I’ve already accepted the basic premise of superpowers and science-destroying abilities of people ike Electro and Spider-Man himself) and the absolutely bonkers situations I’m supposed to accept. I mean, there’s no way that every single issue being studied by the Science Stations in the game is actually about to turn into full-blown, wide-scale issues. That’s just not how stuff works. And almost none of those things is something that can go from being almost a crisis to being totally fine in about five to ten meat-world minutes. That’s just not how algae or bird-flu works! It is how comics work, though, so maybe I just need to lighten up a bit. I mean, I definitely need to lighten up a lot, but maybe also about this specifically. I could try treating it as practice. If I can lighten up about the weird situations of this Spider-Man game, maybe I can lighten up about not having talked to one of my best friends in a few months or not having anyone I can talk to about the weird situations in this Spider-Man game.