Videogame Review: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
This one’s a downgrade and it’s crying shame. 2018’s Spider-Man was really fun. Adding in Miles, Venom, and a bigger map should have been enough on paper to make the sequel a clear improvement. Alas, Insomniac found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by making both the gameplay and story worse. The result is a Spider-Man game that, while still mostly a good time, just doesn’t live up to the promise of its predecessor.
Let’s talk positives first. Spider-Man 2 does add some important new features. Firstly, we get playable Miles. I have never been a huge fan of his, but his unique play style and well-written character arc won me over. Secondly, we get a much bigger map. I loved swinging around Brooklyn and Queens. Unquestionably an absolute improvement. Thirdly, we get the web wings, which help support the second point — the bigger map. Gliding across the east river is fun. While the web wings don’t feel very “Spider-Man” to me (gliding is more a Batman thing), they still add an enjoyable movement option and are in line with the lore.
So with all these enhancements why then am I giving this a lower score compared to the previous title? Two simple reasons: The story is worse, and the gameplay is worse.
Let’s start with the latter point. Spider-Man 2 plays pretty similarly to the 2018 game. Unfortunately a lot of content was simplified, stripped, or downgraded. The suits are worse. The enemy base missions are worse. The collectibles are worse. The combat has become completely braindead too. No longer do you have suit abilities. Instead you have a set of four gadgets and four special attacks. The gadgets aren’t nearly as fun as the previous game (where are my trap, impact, and taser webs!) and the special moves don’t require any real strategy. You can close your eyes and spam dodge and gadgets/specials and win every fight even on the hardest difficulty.
The first game had a great range of fun things to do again and again. You had demon hideouts, prisoner compounds, Fisk bases, Taskmaster combat challenges, and actually fun photo challenges. The content in Spider-Man 2 is all worse, particularly the level design and stealth missions. As of this review the game doesn’t even let you replay missions either. It’s just all around a worse game to play and there is less of it.
The second big problem is the story. I played through it twice and my big takeaway was, “man I really wish you could skip all of the dumb flashbacks and side character missions.” Mary Jane was especially awful. This attempt to shoehorn her in as the third member of the Spider-Man team is just ridiculous. Stealth missions have you use a stun gun with her and clown highly trained assassins and alien monster symbiotes. The same enemies superpowered Spider-Man has to deck 15 times to take out Mary Jane can just zap left and right in one second. Just totally undermines any sense of the villains being a threat. Honestly, who would want to play as Lois Lane in a Superman game?
It’s unfortunate that Insomniac fell prey to the ‘Disney’ school of writing female characters wherein they aren’t allowed to be multidimensional and must always be spiteful toward men. We see it here with Blackcat who’s subplot with Miles is just him being made into a joke and we see it with Yuri, the Japanese female detective from the first game who for some reason now can go toe-to-toe with Spider-Man in a fist fight?? Just silly stuff.
The main plot with Harry and Venom at least is not bad. I think the conflict between Peter, Harry, and Miles is mostly well-written, at least until the third act. I don’t agree with the more political complaints about the story being too “woke.” The game is set in NYC in 2023 among teenagers and 20 somethings. It wouldn’t be true to the setting if there weren’t significant representation of racial and sexual minorities. I don’t think Miles really “showed up” Pete either since the two save each other multiple times and each have their own stories.
Supposedly Miles will be the main Spider-Man in future Insomniac games. That makes me less inclined to buy them since for me Spider-Man will always be Peter Parker. That said, I’m mostly cool with the ending having Pete take a break while Miles watches over things. In this game’s universe Pete has been Spider-Man a long time and suffered greatly as a result. He deserves some downtime with his girlfriend. Two seconds after the ending cut scene I swapped back to Pete anyway. “Okay, break’s over” he says as we got back to finishing up side missions.
All in all it’s a mixed bag of a story. It doesn’t have the emotional weight of Doctor Octopus’ betrayal and Aunt May’s death in the first game. Kraven just doesn’t compare as a villain since there is no personal connection to Pete. Miles’ revenge storyline with Mr. Negative was pretty good, as were a few of the optional missions such as Mysterio’s challenges. They also teased a decent Carnage storyline. It’s still all just a downgrade from what we got five years ago. It all feels half-baked.
A common derisive take about Spider-Man 2 is that it is “just DLC” for the original game and doesn’t add much. Would that this were the case. If they had kept all of the great stuff from the 2018 title and just added in the bigger map, playable Miles, and web wings, this would have been a clear upgrade. At the very least it would have mitigated the problems with the story. Instead they decided to “fix” what wasn’t broken and leave us with a very “meh” sequel. Patches and DLC can do a lot; a year from now you may have something special. Still it fails to recreate the magic of the original and is far from a must-buy. Dang shame.
Grade: B
