Name: Marvel's Spider-Man 2
Item: Marvel's Spider-Man 2
Rating: 9
Author: robiu013

Marvel's Spider-Man is down for a second round... well, actually third round as they also did the Miles Morales spin off. I have to confess I only played the spin off, I was just too busy to catch up on the first game lately, but aside from some characters somehow being presented as perhaps more familiar than them popping up for the first time I had no issue catching up with the game at hand.

Story-wise the games picks up a short while after the spin off with both Spider-Men cooperating on defending New York from crime and injustice, while the player switches between the two to progress the main story mode or finish the individual side missions that differ between the two characters. Peter Parker the original Spider-Man is in a bit of a rut as he has ambitions of contributing to the field of science but struggles to hold down a job due to his secondary profession as the friendly neighbourhood super hero, while Miles is sorta just there picking up the torch. Not to say Miles doesn't get a solid story out of this game, but his overall involvement in it is somewhat secondary to Pete. The story is further complicated by the addition of Kraven the Hunter who comes to New York to hunt down the various super humen, as well as Pete's childhood friend Harry Osborn, who after being struck with a serious disease seems to have miraculously made a recovery and is looking to reconnect with Pete. I won't beat around the bush too much: this game is very remeniscent of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 and I don't think that's a spoiler, as trailers and merch pretty much gave away so much already. You know Pete gets a dark arc, you know big bad Venom is in it, the main difference is Sandman's role is scaled down to an early game boss battle and following side quests to give way to the Kraven the Hunter plot. But not too worry, the story is decently fleshed out and interconnected here and as much as I love the Raimi movies, this one might just have beat Spider-Man 3 atleast in terms of story.

Core gameplay doesn't differ too much from the previous game. You swing across New York as either one of the two Spider-Men, which is an open world area waiting for some exploration, side quests like snatching story-telling pictures and doing scientific research with Pete or looking for Prowler's remaining arsenals with Miles, while also taking on crime, Kraven's hunters and Sandman's sand clones which is open to both heroes.

Combat is very much in line with what was already there with the Miles Morales game, but if I remember correctly they really fleshed out the special skills and diversified the two playable characters. If I remember correctly, Miles only really had the one electricity trick up his sleeve in the previous game, now both characters get 4 - one for each of the symbol buttons. Boss battles and story event battles also feel larger and there is a wider rogue gallery to this game than Miles Morales, which just had Rhino and the Tinkerer mostly. 

The whole open world traversal, which they already nailed in the previous two games is now further improved with gliding, which makes crossing the big water part of the City much less annoying, as you can just about make it in one glide, if you had the altitude for that.

One thing that's a bit of a mixed bag about the game to me is just the attempts at immersifying the player's experience, which while cool, don't always work. For example: there is a whole section where Pete, MJ and Harry go to Coney Island to have some fun with the roller coasters, whack'a'moles, Hau den Lukas and all that stuff and each event attempts to charm you with a mini game. There is also bicycle riding and a graffiti drawing mini game. Perhaps one of the more annoying mini games to me was the DJ-ing mini game you play with Miles. Should have been a slam dunk for me, as a fan of rhythm games like Beat Saber and Guitar Hero, but they messed the control order switching up the position of L2/R2 buttons with the L3/R3-sticks, that are supposed to be closer to the center and made the mini game needlessly confusing as such. I'm just happy the game does not penalize you for completely screwing up at that game.

One point of contention by some players about the game were the Mary Jane sections (yeah, you don't just play as PP & MM in this game, there's at least 3 more characters you get to play, I can think of right now), where the game switches into a stealthing experience and slowly grows into a shooter game. It plays well, in fact I liked it. I'm not sure too many people actually disliked those levels, it's just MJ one hits (almost) all enemies. Tases them into inconsciousness, which I'll admit is a bit silly compared to the Spider-Men who'll probably have to knock down the same enemy to the ground twice with numerous kicks and punches for the same enemy. But in it's defense gameplay is still fun and if those sections, which don't even cover 5% of the game were more realistic or more difficult, I'd probably complain more about the alternative scenario, so to me atleast this is a plus sum game.

Presentation-wise it's a good game. Graphics are good. Not quite the best I've seen on the console and at times the characters have a minimal uncanny energy about them, but nothing too jarring. Some people might not be bothered by it at all. Vocie acting and soundtrack is good. 

Overall a worthy sequel in the series. Solid beat em up game with addicting web-slinging exploration. If you are looking for your super hero movie fill, this might also be the place to go to and I'd probably argue this has a better story than a lot of MCU films in a long while, if the one exception (Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3) didn't ruin this line for me just half a year ago.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2

Marvel's Spider-Man 2

Player Score

robiu013