Into The Spiderverse

Plus Halo, Whirly Derby, and video game anniversaries

Hello!

Welcome to another week of Pressing Any Button, just to see what happens.

This week I (Alice) went to see Spider-Man, and put a bunch of marbles down a (specific) drain. Meanwhile, Tim played Halo and does a round up of the monthly anniversaries. Enjoy!

The film that’s just 1000 references wearing a trench-coat referenced a game

By Alice

I recently went to see the new Spider-Man: Brand New Day film in cinemas, and it’s a good time. I enjoy Peter Parker, this current cast is excellent, and watching a superhero go through spider-perimenopause was certainly an experience. As always, the film was essentially just a clown car of references to other Marvel properties and an obvious introduction for a new X-Men franchise. That’s standard for a Marvel Cinematic Universe film now, they’re just bloated beyond recognition. What surprised me, though, was how much inspiration it had taken from the PlayStation Spider-Man games.

The Spider-Man games obviously took a lot of inspiration from both the comics and the films. But there was a sequence at the start of Brand New Day that was obviously a nod to the games. In it, Spider-Man is webbing around, defeating bad guys and generally being Spider-Man. How it was filmed, though, took on more of the fluidity of the game, the motion looked the same, the framing was the same, the selection of villains, and even the way some of the scenery had been set up looked just like the video game.

Until this Spider-Man series, it had always been clear that games were below the films and comics in the hirgachy of superhero media. Seeing this obvious nod to this hugely popular video game franchise felt oddly momentous, rather than just yet another way this Marvel film was using references to other media as a shortcut to making viewers spend more money and feel in on the joke because they got the reference from that random Hulu show (though it obviously was also that).

This raises some interesting questions about whether (and how) the upcoming Wolverine game might be folded into the Marvel universe, particularly given the build towards an X-Men film.

In the meantime, though, while Brand New Day didn’t make me want to go back and watch the other Spider-Man films, it did make me want to play through the Spider-Man games again to feel that web slinging freedom, because I’d forgotten just how much I enjoy that series. They need to make a Runaways game next.

What’s on our radar

• Tim: I’ve been playing a bunch of Splatoon Raiders, which would seem ideal for me as someone who loves the aesthetic and gameplay of Splatoon but isn’t super into competitive online. And while I have been having a lot of fun, it’s not quite clicking for me yet. The visuals and soundtrack are a lot more muted, and the progression is very much about numbers going up.

• Alice: This past week I’ve been using Fortnite’s Droid Tycoon mode to review folding phones, and it runs shockingly well. Strong recommend on Android.

Another lap of the ring

By Tim

I have played through Halo: Combat Evolved so many times that I wasn’t sure how I would take to the new Campaign Evolved remake. Especially as I was playing on a PlayStation. Blasphemy! To cut a long story short, I mostly blazed through it like I would the original. My reflexes noticed that the jump and the melee were slightly different, I clocked the modern touches like sprinting, consumable items, and ADS for all weapons, I appreciated the new graphics and I enjoyed the three new levels. But on the whole it’s familiar. So, is that a good or a bad thing?

If I was someone brand new to Halo, and so wasn’t noticing that there are guns in there that weren’t in the original, how would this hold up in 2026? The mid-game twist still rules, many of the areas are gorgeous to look at now, and the gun-grenade-melee loop remains a delight. Halo Studios wasn’t too precious about making some updates, with the Warthog now driving like a car from any other game (you can and should switch back to dual sticks in the settings), and a few sections that tended to be confusing, boring or weird in the original being totally redesigned. But the whole thing still screams 2001.

Despite the new voice lines and glossy cinematics, Chief still has next to no characterisation. And it’s interesting to note one particular element Xbox didn’t dare change; Cortana’s nudity is much weirder at this kind of fidelity and I’d argue a suit would put things closer to the original vibe, but I guess the look is considered core to the character. The dynamic between the two is still strange, with her fondness and his protectiveness just arriving out of nowhere. This would have been a good opportunity for more context. And no, Cortana being a lot chattier in giving you hints on how to play along the way does not count.

As a fan, this is a much nicer way to revisit the game on modern hardware compared to the inferior CE Anniversary, with the exception of multiplayer. There is no competitive option here, and on PS5 the splitscreen co-op requires each player to have both a Sony account and a Microsoft account signed in, which is woeful.

But for non-fans, I’m not sure this moves the needle. Assuming more Halo is on the way, this could eventually serve as a good way to get acquainted, but it doesn’t give you more lore or characterisation than any other Halo game. The core of CE‘s appeal in 2001 was its groundbreaking design and spectacle, which in 2026 the original simply does not have.

Bricks, Boards and Beginnings

by Alice

If you squint, roulette is a board game, and marbles are fun: That seems to be the concept behind Whirly Derby. It’s taking the suspense of roulette and turning it into a luck-based board game for up to six players. It’s a new game from the people behind Exploding Kittens, a company that specialises in games that are stupid and fun in equal measure. We recently played Whirly Derby at a board game day with a mixture of hardcore board gamers, and some who are more casually inclined. Sentiment was mixed to say the least.

The way the game works is each player is given 5 marbles, and across 8 rounds they have to decide how many marbles to race. You put the marbles in a box and then send them spinning around a bowl with a small hole in the middle. The people (or person) who got the top three marbles get cards with victory points, and all the marbles (except the one of the person who came last) get put in the discard pile until each player decides to use one of their two restocks for the game. There’s also a mechanic with a giant marble that blocks the hole.

While there is some strategy involved in selecting the number of marbles, and the winners in choosing their cards, this is just a game of random chance. I personally enjoyed it as an opportunity to tip a bunch of marbles into a bowl and watch them swirl around. However, I’m not sure describing it as a game is actually accurate. It has game-like elements, but there’s no skill, barely any strategy, and there’s no meat to it. It’s perfect for drunk people, small children (my two-year-old is obsessed), and those who are only loosely using a “game” as an excuse to chat. It’s not for people looking to sink their teeth into a game, or use more than a couple of brain cells.

Sure looks pretty, though.

Retro Esoterica

by Tim

Time for the monthly anniversaries!

Now 30: Nights into Dreams Sonic the Hedgehog was huge in the early 90s, with five absolute bangers being released across four consecutive years. Then it was 1995, the Saturn was out, but there was no Sonic. Instead, there was the unfortunate Knuckles’ Chaotix on 32X. But luckily Sonic Team had big plans for 1996! A 3D, um, flight jester thing. With children. And, er, kind of like a psychoanalysis theme. Though it was praised at the time for its cool 3D-ness, I find Nights indecipherable, obtuse and janky. The team clearly thought it could reinvent platforming for 3D as it had revolutionised it for 16-bit systems just five years prior. But in retrospect it went completely in the wrong direction.

Now 35: Duke Nukem I had a few Apogee sidescrollers for my very first DOS PC, including Commander Keen, Secret Agent and Crystal Caves. And I remember seeing Duke Nukem 3D when it was new, but I had no way of knowing at the time that the character had started life as a 2D action hero in that same blocky puzzle platforming style. Until I bought a bootleg floppy marked Duke 1&2 at a local market. The original Duke remains a lot of fun, with heaps of collectibles and destructible targets in each level. The best way to play it today though is on the Evercade cartridge, where it has been adapted to widescreen with much smoother scrolling.

Now 45: Donkey Kong Everyone knows about Donkey Kong. Even the unlikely details of its origins as a Radar Scope replacement, the copyright battle around its name, and the introduction of Mario are totally common knowledge. The game even just got a full Lego set celebrating the original cabinet, which I absolutely can not afford and don’t need. But if you haven’t spent a lot of time actually playing Donkey Kong, you might not know just how smart and intricate the design is. It controls well for such an old game, but every screen has different strategies depending on whether you’re just trying to go for as long as possible on a single coin or if you want to maximise your score. The best official way to play today is with Arcade Archives Donkey Kong on Switch.