After a five year wait, everyone’s favourite web-crawler is back, in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 from the talented folks at Insomniac Games. With the PlayStation 5 to its advantage, the game has released with lots of promise and expectations. Does it meet those lofty expecations? That’s what we’re here to discuss.
The sequel to the 2018 hit begins as Peter Parker starts a brand new job as a physics teacher. In fact, his first assignment is to teach Miles Morales’ class. However, things don’t go as planned, as you’d expect. The proverbial shit hits the fan when Sandman rises to a gargantuan height and starts destroying parts of New York City with thrown objects, his fists and tons of sand that goes everywhere. Both Peter and Miles make a harried exit, in an attempt to stop the supervillain from doing any more damage, leading to an introductory boss fight that is quite large in scale.
Such is the beginning of a brand new campaign, and a continued storyline that has lots up its proverbial sleeve. One that centres upon Peter and Miles, as the two work together as twin Spider-Men.
As you’ve likely already heard, thanks to pre-release trailers and other marketing materials, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 introduces the dangerous symbiote, Venom. However, it takes a while before that actually happens. You’ll enjoy it when it does, though.
Here, we find Peter and Miles trying to split and juggle the responsibilities that come with being New York’s protectors. Following the death of Aunt May, Peter is dealing with a massive mortgage that he’s unsure how he’ll pay, as well as trying to get Mary Jane Watson to move in with him. Meanwhile, Miles is still grappling with the loss of his beloved father, and still has Martin Li/Mister Negative on his mind. All the while, he and his mother are trying to move on, live their lives and make him proud.
Out of the blue, a new combatant comes to New York with his sights set on its heroes and villains. That is, Kraven the Hunter, who is the big bad this time around. Kraven has brought tons upon tons of hunters with him, and he’s tasked them with either kidnapping or killing different some of Spider-Man’s most notorious enemies. It’s all designed to find the greatest prey, who may or may not finally defeat Kravinoff. Needless to say, this has a huge impact on New York.
After dealing with petty criminals, the hunters are a pretty big step forward in what is a notably tougher game than its predecessor. Insomniac has certainly upped the difficulty, resulting in a game that will test you mettle.
While this is happening, Peter’s best friend, Harry, is undergoing a special form of treatment for his rare disease. When he gets out, he surprises Peter with something big. Unsurprisingly, he plays a big role in this game as well.
Like the first game, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 features a very human storyline, which almost feels real at times. The characters are so well fleshed out, and so well written and acted, that you sometimes forget this is a video game. The humanity that is shown between all four main characters, and those they interact with — such as family and friends — is remarkable, and some of what’s presented will be quite relatable for certain folks.
If this were to be made as a movie, I don’t think anyone would complain. The story is very good, and it does an excellent job of making you feel for characters you maybe otherwise wouldn’t have. It blends the lines of morality, deals with second chances, and features characters who are doing their best during a shitty situation.
The game is comprised of thirty-one main story missions, which will take you around the same amount of time to complete as the first one’s did. There’s quite a bit of variety on offer, too, and the Mary Jane stealth missions are both limited and improved upon. Some missions task you with playing as Peter, while others are Miles oriented, meaning you can’t choose who to complete a specific mission with. You can, however, switch between the two at any time while out in the open world. This was a smart decision, because each Spider-Man has his own story interwoven within the bigger narrative involving Kraven and eventually Venom.
Insomniac has done a good job of making both heroes feel different, and allowed them to have their own abilities as a result. While Peter has mechanical spider arms that come out of his back and pummel foes, Miles can use electrical special attacks to add an extra oomph. The two share basic move sets, but it’s their special abilities (handled by holding L1 and pressing a face button) that differ. In the end, though, it’s Peter who has the most varied and best abilities, because he gains more during the campaign. This happens by way of the black suit, but I won’t say more, other than the fact that it’s pretty badass.
The combat is still designed around a system resembling what appeared in Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Trilogy. You use square to attack, R1 to web enemies, and can use aerial attacks as well. All the while, you must be on the lookout for red notifications, which tell you that an enemy is about to attack by way of punching, fire (yes, there’s even a fire cult to deal with), or shooting at one of the Spider-Men. It’s an easy system to get the hang of, and is quite fun in practice. It gets a bit challenging, and hectic, at times though. After all, thanks to the power of the PlayStation 5, most fights are bigger and tougher thanks to the inclusion of more enemies. It’s noticeable early on.
When you’re not partaking in main missions, you have the option of tackling side quests involving things like helping students at Brooklyn Visions Academy, dealing with graffiti, helping the man with the birds, trying to discover more about the fire cult and trying to find the whereabouts of musical instruments that were stolen from a museum. These missions certainly help flesh the game out, and add some nice variety into the mix. They’re all optional, but I definitely recommend taking the time to do them, especially if you care about unlocking all suits. After all, you get bonuses from every piece of side content you do, be it tokens or parts that can help you with upgrading your suit or unlocking gadgets. Plus, there’s that sweet, sweet experience. You’ll want to earn lots of that, because there are three skill trees to deal with: one for Peter, one for Miles and one they share.
More about that later, though.
In addition to these optional missions and arcs, you’ll find lots of activities to complete scattered throughout a map that is noticeably larger than what came before it. First, there are Sandman crystals to collect, and they help you piece together what caused Sandman to go nuclear at the start of the game. You must fight smaller sandmen, who act like basic bad guys, before the crystals are available. Then, there are picture spots, hidden spider-bots bearing the colours of different Spider-Man related things and characters, and caches of technology that were hidden by Miles’ uncle Arron when he was a villain. These are complemented by challenging hunter blinds and bases, symbiote orbs that task you with staying alive and keeping something safe for 2 minutes and 30 seconds, and Mysterium challenges, wherein Peter or Miles enter into a virtual reality arena and must defeat certain baddies or complete certain tasks.
The other side activities of note include some research stations, as well as a drone pursuit minigame that uses one of the new additions to Marvel’s Spider-Man 2: the wingsuit. Yes, both Miles and Peter can soar through the skies and use air drafts to go higher or faster, using wings that come out of their suits. This is something that’s mostly optional, but it complements the web-swinging, which has also received a noticeable boost. In fact, a number of the shared skills you’ll unlock pertain to different abilities while swinging, including being able to quickly go around corners or using a slingshot to shoot the characters into the sky at an alarming speed. Meanwhile, it’s also possible to super jump, which I did a lot.
Needless to say, Insomniac didn’t rest on its laurels here.
Moving on, we should probably talk about the boss battles, which are a bit different this time around. You see, most of them include more than one stage, with one featuring four different ones. Thankfully, the game saves once you get to the end of each one, which really lessens the chance of frustration. That isn’t to say that these bosses aren’t challenging, even on normal, as they pack quite a punch. As I said before, this game is noticeably more difficult than its predecessor.
Thanks to the PlayStation 5, this open world version of New York looks fantastic, and feels a lot more lifelike than what came before it. You’ll see more pedestrians, and will certainly notice a lot more cars on the road. There’s more out during the day than at night, too, which is pretty true to life. The whole city looks excellent, though, and the game absolutely pops. It’s very colourful, has excellent animations, and allows you to turn on bubbles that appear when you defeat enemies. Think of them like the ‘Bap’ and ‘Pow’ bubbles from the old Batman TV show. In addition to this, there’s even at least one Across the Spider-Verse suit, which features the same type of animation as the movie did. It’s really neat and nice to look at, but I had a hard time adjusting to it after getting used to playing with the other suits and using the regular animations, speed, etc. It’s honestly incredible watching this game in action. Just seeing how fast it is.
I did, however, encounter some bugs. There were times where I couldn’t complete a side activity because an enemy spawned inside a building or something to that extent, and there were also some graphical oddities that I noticed from time to time. Nothing major, though, outside of one crash that occurred very randomly. Meanwhile, the frame rate was incredibly smooth, and I used the visual fidelity option that allows for 40 frames-per-second, HDR and ray tracing. That said, there’s also a performance mode that offers 60 frames-per-second.
As far as the sound goes, there’s nothing to complain about. The voice acting is excellent, and the characters’ animations really help sell it. Going further, the sound effects are great, the open world sounds as you’d expect New York to (minus a realistic amount of sirens, I’m guessing) and it all ties together very well. There’s even some good music, and some funny moments, including a couple of memes. One becomes possible when the other Spider-Man joins you in battle, which happens from time to time.
With all that being said, I doubt I need to state that I really liked my time with Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. It’s an excellent sequel to an already great game, and is well worth your time and money. If you enjoyed the first game, there’s no reason to skip this fantastic second (well, third) outing.
This review is based on the PlayStation 5 exclusive, which we were provided.