Spider-Man 2 – Insomniac Hits Another Peak
It’s very rare for a sequel to outshine its predecessor in a drastic way, but not in the gaming industry. You see, the first game is always the hardest to create, coming up with new ideas or taking inspiration, but once you have a solid foundation, it’s much easier to build on that.
This is what Spider-Man 2 has done, it’s a game that not only expands upon the original two games (Spider-Man 2018 and Miles Morales) but brings innovation the likes of which we’ve never seen in gaming.
Complete New York – Concrete Jungle For Spider-Monkey!
In the first game, we were only allowed to prance around in Manhattan. However, the PS5 has brought a level of power that let Insomniac get creative with their map design. They not only brought in Manhattan back, but also Brooklyn and Queens, making this the biggest map we’ve ever had in a Spider-Man game to date.
This made the dynamic activities more tailored too, you’d be encountering more of Sandman’s goons towards the lower side of the map, meanwhile scattered around are the Hunter Blinds, and there are also side quests mixed in with Brooklyn Visions (Miles’ High School), Mysterio’s Mysteriums, and Peter’s new science projects. There’s a lot of things to do here, and the size of the map definitely plays into it all.
This time around, the traversal has been upgraded to make things faster, more interactive, to put it simply; better in every way. The biggest upgrade here are the web wings, which became a staple of my play time with this game.
We finally got a taste of that feeling of gliding through the city, Spidey-style. They let you fully use the web wings to the highest capabilities too, with wind tunnels everywhere around the map. They threw in some wicked new moves like 90-degree turns that let you pivot off of a building. Loop de loops that let you alley oop yourself into the air, and even sling launchers on certain roof tops that will throw you across the map like a missile.
Fight Night – Spectacularly Challenging!
We already know that both Miles Morales and Peter Parker are available to play from the very first minute of the game, which is a huge deal, because this brings levels of variety that was never there in Spider-Man games before, at least not to this extent.
There are three skill trees in the game, and each one lets you unlock abilities either for Peter, Miles or shared abilities that both Spider-Men get. You can boost up Miles’ venom or lightning powers, meanwhile you can level up Peter’s new technology and symbiote powers. It’s all up to you!
The combat is superbly improved, although I don’t like the way they’ve done the new gadget system, it’s much faster and can be used in real time gameplay much more fluidly. The only issue with it is that there isn’t a lot of variety like there was before, and I think it would’ve been better to let us pick and choose which gadgets to use rather than shoehorn four gadgets on us.
Thankfully, what the game lacks in gadgets, it makes up for with abilities, because now you have four ability slots where you have lots of variety to pick from, and without spoiling, I’ll just say that Spider-Man has never been this powerful in a game before, especially Peter Parker.
The parry mechanic is a great addition, depending on the timing of your block, you can make enemies vulnerable to some heavy damage, and stop any damage from being incurred on you.
This parry mechanic came super handy when I was battling the game’s many boss fights, which I have some hefty criticism about, but we’ll get to that later.
The combat is made more fun with the addition of the parries because now you have more variety other than just pressing circle to dodge all hits, which means enemies now have unblockable attacks that you must dodge, and attacks you can’t dodge which must be parried or jumped away from, it all comes together quite nicely.
The air combos are so much fun to pull off, you can keep enemies in the air for the longest duration now. Of course, it depends on your damage, if you upgrade your damage to maximum, you’re probably going to knock enemies out before you can even keep a steady combo going.
There’s also lots of flashiness to the combat, stealing guns away and throwing them back at enemies, push enemies into a corner to unleash a flurry of kicks, and using epic finishers to knock enemies down to the ground.
It’s such a joy to play as either of the Spider-Men, both have a unique fighting style that keeps things interesting.
Speaking of keeping things interesting, Mary Jane Watson is back, but this time she’s learned a bunch of new skills from her time in Symkaria. She’s got a taser gun, which gets a couple of new upgrades later on in the game to make her a certified badass.
Oh, and the mandatory MJ stealth sections are still there, yes, but they’re so fun it’s never a chore to play them like in the first game. The boss fights, however, are a separate story.
You see, the boss fights in the first game were supremely easy, but they had so much of that cinematic flair that the sequel simply does not.
This time around, they’ve focused on making them more of a challenge, with moves to understand and learn before you can truly beat the bosses. I played on the Spectacular difficulty, but the game was never ‘difficult’, yet it was challenging.
The bosses were essentially always three to four phases of the same battle, with minor changes either in the arena or the addition of a few new moves. The only variety that was to be found in this method was in the last few bosses in the game.
They were fun, just not as cinematic. Hopefully, in the third one, Insomniac finds a nice balance of the two methods that they used in Spider-Man 2018 and Spider-Man 2.
Larger-Than-Life – A Great Spider-Man Story
It’s not often that we get to see our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man getting into situations, where if he doesn’t prevail, the world would simply end. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is one of those stories, if Spider-Man does not win, it would be the end of the world.
It starts out as a simple Spider-Man story, where Peter’s trying to keep New York safe while fighting to pay bills and keep his job and his house.
Meanwhile, Miles is having trouble finding the balance in his life to create a future for himself while doing the Spider-Man stuff. Kraven pops in to hunt down everything in New York, Harry pops out of the tank, and all hell is set loose on New York, in a way that we’ve never seen before in a Spider-Man game.
I do find some elements to be a bit annoying, such as Peter needing to be rescued every 3 minutes in the latter half of the game, meanwhile Miles is simply indestructible and basically fight anything and everything.
I will say it right away, the game is dark. This is a dark story and it will be hard to watch some of the events unfold, which is not a new concept for the usual Spider-Man story. He’s a character that is often beaten down, but there’s a lot of things here that were untouched before.
This game’s story takes a lot of inspiration from Kraven’s last hunt, which is one of the best Spider-Man stories to date. It also takes a ton of inspiration from the Spectacular Spider-Man series, and Spider-Man 3 directed by Sam Raimi, so you can guess how absolutely gut-wrenching things are going to get.
Spider-Man 2 might be the best story we’ve had in a Spider-Man game. The first one was just a set up to things going absolutely nuclear in this one, and I have no idea how they can even begin to top what they’ve done here.
At this time, it sounds completely impossible. Insomniac have a challenge in front of them, that much is factual.
Upgrading, Customizing – Build Your Own Spidey!
If you’re someone who likes to grind, well, you’re going to have a good time here because there is so much to unlock, so much to do and so much to see.
The side quests in the game are simply overwhelming in capacity, from the random side quests where you just do the samey activities such as beat up bad guys, clear hideouts or collect stuff – to the more story oriented quests such as The Flame side quests, or the ones in the Brooklyn Vision quest lines for Miles.
These will give you different resources, such as Tech Parts, Rare Tech Parts, Hero Tokens and City Tokens. These can be used to increase your damage, health, focus and traversal skills. Meanwhile, there’s also gadgets to upgrade with these resources and suits to unlock. There’s like 80 suits in the game from the get-go, so you’ll be grinding a lot.
Not to mention, the more you level up, the more Skill Points you acquire, and you use those to unlock new moves and abilities. If you do enough side quests, you can probably max out almost everything in terms of skills by the time you are at level 60.
Peter’s skill tree should remain a focus though, trust me, it’ll help out way more than you’d think near the endgame. Meanwhile, Miles is simply too cool with his Venom and Lightning powers, it’s a perfect blend of this and that.
The Definitive Spider-Man Game
In trying to innovate on their 2018 masterpiece, Insomniac has made the definitive Spider-Man game. It has the heart, the complexity and the mechanics of a Spider-Man game, it tests your intelligence, and it test your reflexes, and it tests how brutal of a beating your heart can take with its exhilarating, chest pounding story.
It does not stick around for too long, but the time you have with it, you will remember it for years to come. Spider-Man 2 is a phenomenal sophmore effort in this franchise, and we can’t wait to see where Insomniac takes us in the DLC, and the third installation in this series of Spider-Man’s life!
