Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Review

Licensed video games have always had a bad reputation, especially in the older days, as they were not always high quality. You still see that today, with the recent titles featuring characters such as Gollum and King Kong. However, there are plenty of licensed releases, frequently starring superheroes, that remain as some of the better examples. We saw this resurgence with the* Batman: Arkham* titles from Rocksteady, as well as the original Marvel’s Spider-Man from Insomniac Games. In fact, the first Spider-Man was such a success, Insomniac made an expansion-type sequel that focused on Miles Morales, which was equally as successful. A few years later, we finally have a full sequel in Spider-Man 2.

Is it a swinging good time, or should the game slink off to the dark web?

If you enjoyed the first game, as well as Spider-Man: Miles Morales, then you are definitely going to have a blast with Spider-Man 2. The combat is just plain fun, as you employ the various acrobatic moves that were key to the other titles. Peter Parker, as well as Miles, both have similar movesets, although they also have different skills, giving you different options in battles. The melee combat still feels as crunchy as it was in the previous games, as you dance around from enemy to enemy. Knocking enemies up into the air and chasing after them is also satisfying and you can keep them stuck in the air for a good while.

In addition to the usual combat options, you also have special moves, assigned to the L1 button, in conjunction with one of the face buttons. These special moves are powerful and are based on a timer, so it’s nice to actually see some flavor mixed into the normal fighting styles. You also have numerous gadgets to tinker with, which can help turn the tide of a battle in your favor. One or two of the gadgets return from previous games, but there are also some new devices that are introduced in this title. For example, one of the first gadgets you can unlock is the Upshot, which allows you to knock enemies into the air. These gadgets can also be upgraded, giving them new properties or just making them more powerful.

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Spider-Man has never looked better!

When you’re not fighting enemies, you will undoubtedly be swinging around the city of New York. This is just as fun as it was in the first game and is something that Insomniac has nailed perfectly. While you can unlock fast travel to each of the districts in the game, you might not even want to use it, since traversing the city is one of the best feelings. You are still able to do simple tricks while swinging around, which will give you a very minimal amount of experience, depending on the tricks. Something that is new to this game are the Web Wings, essentially a wingsuit. This gives your mobility through the open world a big boost, especially since you will unlock what are essentially wind tunnels, allowing you to quickly move through the game’s expansive world.

In Spider-Man 2, you will be playing as both Peter Parker and Miles Morales in this game, with the ability to switch between them in the open world whenever you want, for the most part. You will also have skill trees for each of the characters, usually focused on that character’s special combat abilities. There’s also a shared skill tree that centers around basic combat and traversal techniques. Suit Tech offers another set of upgrades for you to increase, so you will find a lot of different options for both of the Spider-Men. This customization extends further with the ability to unlock and purchase new Suits for your characters to wear. These are purely cosmetic, but there are a lot of suits for each of the characters, plus a good number of them have different styles, so you get even more customization.

To get all of the items needed to purchase your customization options, as well as upgrades, you’re going to need to do some of the open world activities. This is where Spider-Man 2 gets a little knock on it, as there are number of activities that feel overly similar to previous entries. While these mini adventures sometimes feel like filler, there is usually some new feature attached to them. For example, the Photo Ops were literally just a collectible in the first game, but they are attached to a side quest in this one. In fact, all of the collectibles are tied to some kind of side content, which is a nice touch over most other open-world games that don’t always explore these options.

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There are a lot of different suits you can unlock for both Spider-Men.

Where Spider-Man 2 really shines is the side quests that have actual storylines attached to them. As a quick example, you will do a side quest that has a student from a nearby school getting help from you in asking someone out to the school dance. There are a decent number of these in the game and help give that personal touch, even if they don’t go too crazy in developing your own Spider-Men’s character arcs. These short stories show that there’s an actual world the characters are living in, instead of just being a generic map that doesn’t do much to highlight it. Of course, the only real focus on this world comes from these side quests, as there isn’t really much interaction with the normal civilians when swinging across the city.

Speaking of the city, it looks amazing (no pun intended). You won’t really find much in the way of blemishes, as Spider-Man 2 runs incredibly smoothly. There are some options for better fidelity over performance, although the game limits itself to 30 frames when using fidelity mode (it’s 60 frames in performance, at a lesser image quality). You will be seeing a lot of special effects during battles, although the biggest spectacles are definitely during the boss fights. Starting a new game opens up with a spectacular boss fight, so it really throws you right into the game and wants you craving more.

A couple of glitches and bugs were encountered during our playthrough, like being unable to have the use of the X button after completing a side activity. There were one or two instances where one of the Spider-Men got stuck on objects during fights (they eventually got unstuck after a little wiggling), as well as one instance where an enemy got stuck inside the ground. It’s unfortunate, but these instances were minor and not indicative of the product as a whole, so they didn’t really detract from anything. It should be noted that the load times in this game are extremely quick. From starting up the game, you are immediately loaded straight into NYC. As mentioned earlier, you can switch between Peter and Miles in the open world, and upon switching, you are instantly shot over to the other character. That’s an impressive use of the PS5’s SSD hardware and makes the system really shine here.

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The Web Wings may be new, but they make the already great traversal even better.

Of course, no game is complete without a narrative, and Spider-Man 2 fares well in that regard. After the initial opening bit, you will see one of the main villains of the game, Kraven the Hunter. This is your fairly typical superhero plotline, though, and serves as a decent backdrop for the game. However, there are some underlying plots here, with both Peter and Miles experiencing their own personal narratives. Things will get a little more complicated, too, with the appearance of the Symbiote, which will eventually lead to an appearance by a fan favorite character. The only bad thing is that while the story is good, it really doesn’t do anything beyond typical superhero stuff.

If you’ve played Insomniac’s previous Spider-Man games, then you should know what to expect from Spider-Man 2. It’s a true sequel that ups the ante in just about every aspect. It’s an open world game that doesn’t really feel bloated at all, which is a welcome change over a lot of other games of the same genre. You are probably looking at 10-15 hours for the main story, and another 10-15 hours on top of that for all of the side activities. In the end, though, Spider-Man 2 is another superb release from one of the best developers in the business right now.

This review is based on a retail build of the game purchased by the reviewer