Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (2023)

Spider-Man has always been my go-to hero ever since I was kid. Despite his super human powers he's always found a way to stay somewhat grounded. Perhaps it's his great powers that come with great responsibility? His genuine relationships and human connections with his friends, family, and partners? Or maybe it's that his flaws are shown just as prominently as his superhuman strength? I think Insomniac have done a decent job in encapsulating all of those things with both games.

This is an undeniable step-up in many regards from the first game. Traversal is even smoother for both Spider-Men, especially with the new addition of the wing suit! The city and side activities are bigger than ever too, even the story takes you on a whistle stop tour, attempting to cram more than enough in given its 20-25 hour run time.

If I'm being honest I wasn't too excited by the idea of Miles featuring heavily in the game, he didn't excite me too much in the spin-off and I really wanted to focus on Pete's story. Having now finished the game I see Miles in a completely different light: a boy forced to become a man after his fathers death, and stepping into the shoes of a hero that the public expect and need so much from. He really carries the spirit throughout the game, stepping up for Pete when he needs it, and often goes unappreciated for most of the story due to Pete's battle with the symbiote suit. I've seen some complaints that it's a cheap move to weaken the main Spider-Man protagonist in order for Miles to step up, but I think it really does work with the story they've created. They've given both characters room to grow and explore sides that we haven't seen before, and ultimately every character comes out more nuanced and developed because of it.

If I had to pick apart and critique the story at all, it would probably be that it didn't make me feel an awful lot aside from Miles and Petes relationship. I'm not sure exactly why I feel this way, it could be because they tried to fit so many story beats and characters into a 20 hour slot, or it could be that it was too fantastical for my tastes when it comes to Spider-Man, with the symbiote taking over parts of the city and deploying symbiote minions etc. It's probably more an issue with my tastes though rather than the actual content of the story.

The combat was probably my least favourite part due to it's reliance on special powers. It wasn't bad by any means, but it definitely felt tedious when you're unable to defeat an enemy because you're waiting for an ability to recharge. The timing of dodges and blocks are also brutal on the hardest difficulty, which further compounded my frustration especially when it comes to boss battles which can have 3+ stages to them. Thankfully there is a generous checkpoint system. Overall a minor complaint in an otherwise exciting adventure.

4.5/5

Did you enjoy the first Marvel's Spider Man game or Miles Morales? If yes, then you'll love this one. If you didn't like those, then stay away from this. It's essentialy more of the same, just with further refinement, new abilities, and a new story. They still shoehorn in some stealth sections with MJ, but thankfully they aren't as painful to get through as in the other game.

Kraven and Venom both share the spotlight as the main villains this time around, and I really enjoyed the stories for both and how they were utilized in the game. There are a few twists through the story, and some pretty dark moments that actually caught me by surprise given this is still a Teen rated Spider Man game.

There are a lot of collectibles and side content once again, and almost all are really enjoyable (sorry Mysterio, found your stuff tedious..). A great story, with some really heartfelt moments and fantastic voice acting, this is a no brainer to play!

Had a lot of fun with this one. It was as groundbreaking as the first one was for me, growing up playing Spiderman games on my GameCube.

Still, couldn't ask for a better villain. Venom was and probably will always be my favourite. Though I'm very curious with the prospect of another badass villain in the next installment of the series!

I've always been a Spider-man fan since the 90s cartoon, and I really enjoyed the first Insomniac Spider-man game, so I was going to get around to the sequel. I remember while the first game got a lot of buzz for being a peak Spider-man game, I didn't hear as much hubbub when this game first released.

The graphics are up to what you'd expect from a AAA game. All the spider suits look great, the symbiote tentacles look weird and undulating, and New York is fun to explore. They've expanded the map from the first game. Along with exploring the island of Manhattan, you also swing around the boroughs of Brooklyn & Queens. It adds some variety of locations, so on top of bustling skyscrapers, you can wander through more residential areas. The game did remove the codex which was a let down, but it makes up for it with a large selection of suits that pull from the movie and comic history of the web heads. Of course, I put on the Tobey Maguire suit as soon as I unlocked it.

The gameplay hasn't changed much from the first game, combat is still a rhythm based affair. They do add a parry action that I don't remember being in the first game There was some times where the combat felt sluggish, especially with the parry option. It felt off with what I'd expect from playing as Spider-man. There's also special power moves that you unlock throughout the game, they become necessary for late game fights. The first game felt like it leaned into stealth more, with encounters being 50/50 split between stealth and combat. Spider-man 2 seems more geared towards combat. I thought they may have gotten rid of the stealth sections because it takes a while before the game puts you in a stealth mission.

The one thing I feel was better in the first game was the web swinging. It was something that as you got more skilled you could make Peter swing faster. This game feels like they took a step back on swinging. Partly because there's a new traversal method, the web wings, which lets Spider-man glide over the city. It was a decent way to get around, but I play a Spider-man game to swing around like Spider-man. If I wanted to glide through a city I'd play Batman. But the game is built expecting you to glide on occasions and in the more residential areas it's hard to find tall buildings to swing off of.

One thing I liked about the first Spider-man game is it kept the game focused on Spider-man with no mentions of the wider Marvel world. Spider-man 2 keeps up that commitment. You can swing by the Baxter Building & Avengers Tower, but that's it. People aren't name dropping the Hulk or Iron Man. The only time this game gets close to acknowledging the Marvel world is a mission where you get something that was stolen from the Sanctum Sanctorum that ends with a magic note from Wong. The game does lean more into the comic science fantasy than the first game. The first was pretty button down, you were working in a dinky lab with Doc Ock and the story was focused on organized crime mostly. Everything felt grounded for a comic book plot. In this game, we are visiting a massive lab doing all sorts of futuristic science and dealing with alien invasions.

The game picks up a few years after the events of Spider-man 1 and the Miles Morals spin-off game. You get to play as both Peter and Miles as they go about being NYC's Spider-men. I do personally find it a little annoying that they are both called Spider-man. It make sense in the comics because they're from alternate universes, but in this game it's like if Robin also called himself Batman. They are trying to get their lives together, with Miles trying to right a college essay, and Peter looking for a job. They are interrupted when Sandman attacks the city. His boss battle is the big set piece that starts the game off. It is revealed later that Kraven is in town hunting super villains. Okay, spoilers from this point on, it's revealed Kraven has already killed Shocker, Vulture, & Scorpion in his pursuit to find the perfect prey.

I do like Kraven as a main villain. He is one of those villains that isn't an A lister, but he's got enough substance that he could serve as a big bad compared to someone like Rhino. I'm also a fan of those big game hunter type of villains. They usually have that fun mix of being both physically imposing and a cunning adversary. It is a little funny that his hunters take over parts of New York, but no one seems that concerned by it. Spider-man has to save several reformed super villains from Kraven, including Tombstone and Black Cat.

One of my complaints of the first game is they back loaded all the villains to the last hour of the game. The sequel does fix that problem, with a good smattering of boss fights sprinkled in throughout the whole story. One of the big fights is when Kraven turns Dr. Conner into the Lizard, and Peter has to stop the new Godzilla like Lizard. There's also side quests like Arkham City, where you fight lesser villains, like my favorite, Mysterio. Insomniac does like putting new spins on old villains, with most of them being more villains out of a necessity versus cackling madmen. Mysterio is trying to make a go at it as a sideshow manager, Tombstone works as a mechanic, Mr. Negative is trying to redeem himself. They also change how they relate to Peter, like Dr. Conner doesn't have a connection to Peter as his professor.

On top of Kraven's hunt, Miles is also processing his hatred for Mr. Negative for killing his father. I know from the start that the story would be a big uneven because we are trying to do character development for two main characters. The games does an alright job, though Miles does fall into the sidekick role for the last few hours of the game. MJ also a small subplot relating to her job at the Bugle, there's a few points you play as MJ in stealth sections and it is nice to see them implementing her into the story as more than just a damsel.

This game also takes us through the black suit story line, because it turns out the final villain is actually Venom. The black suit arc is a classic Spider-man story, which also means it's a story that's not exactly fresh. It goes through the same beats, where Peter gets the suit and it slowly turns him into an angsty teenager until he gets rid of it and it finds a new host. The new additions are that Miles is present and this game doesn't have Eddie Brock, more on that later. I do think Kraven could've supported the whole game as the villain, but I know he's mostly there so we can get through Peter's time with the black suit, and he is the villain for 85% of the game.

Another thing that this game really focuses on is the smaller moments of being a hero in NYC. There's times where Pete goes to help someone find their grandpa, or there was a mission with some pidegons that was a real tearjerker. And there's moments where Miles goes to a school fair and interacts with people. It helps make a more rounded picture of our heroes. I do miss the first games news feed with all the goofy posts and the JJ Jameson podcast returns, but I feel like his character was more annoying than charmingly goofy this time around. The world of NYC feels too nice, the hard edges are a bit too sanded off. It is nice it's not all doom & gloom, but I do find it a little too 'utopian' for New York. There's a few times it feels like the story is fighting with it's tone. Like it's trying to be a light fun superhero tale, but it feels like there's times where it wants to be a bit heavier, but it can't.

So, the biggest change to Venom is instead of Eddie Brock being Venom, it's Harry Osbourne. He has a disease that's slowly killing him and Oscorp has used the symbiote to heal him. It starts out innocently enough, with Harry using the suit to help Peter, whom he learns is Spider-man, but when Peter takes the suit Harry gets sick again, and angry, so when it rebinds with him later, her becomes Venom. Venom himself is still a pretty faithful adaption, thanks to Tony Todd's voice acting, though he isn't quite as jokey as older Venoms. Venom Harry kills Kraven and turns NYC into a symbiote nest. It reminds me a bit of the Neversoft Spider-man PS1 game. I admittedly never cared for symbiote storylines and symbiote enemies are always a pain to fight in any game, and that's no different here. Peter, Miles, & MJ stop Venom and free Harry who falls into a deep coma.

There's another side quest where Peter helps Yuri take down a cult. I remembered her from the first game and was wondering what happened to her. She shows up now as the vigilante Wraith, working outside the law to stop this cult leader. It's a fire obsessed cult led by a man called the Flame, and at the end of the quest Yuri let's drop his name is Cleetus Kassady.

I know Insomniac is currently working on the Wolverine game, but if there is a 3rd Spider-man game, it would be interesting to see where they go with it. They killed off a lot of popular lesser villains like Shocker and Scorpion, and many more that have, for the time being, went on the straight and narrow. I hope they wouldn't make Carnage the main baddie and do another symbiote story, though it could give a chance to bring back Venom in his anti-hero form. There's also a mid-credit scene that sets up Norman Osbourne may become the Green Goblin and work with Doc Ock.

All in all, I enjoyed Spider-man 2. It was another chance to play as the web head and fight against clasisc baddies. I found the story to be more evenly paced than the first game and the combat was still good, but the web swinging does seem like a step down. If you are a Spider fan I can recommend this easily.

I have to disclose up front that I love Spider-Man. Unfortunately, I have never had the chance to follow the comics, but Spider-Man holds a very special place in my heart for two emotional reasons of my own and they are tightly linked to the first two Sam Raimi movies. When the first movie came out, my father took me to the theater to watch it. And as far as I can remember, it was my first childhood experience in a movie theater. I kept watching the movie every time it screened in any TV channel I was watching. Then, the second movie came out, I was eleven years old. My parents got divorced just a year after the second movie came out and I chose to live with my dad. And I kept watching it too.

As I matured, Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 did not become meaningless. Instead, I kept seeing more and more meaning in those movies. When I was 21, two weeks before my birthday, my dad had a stroke. He was hospitalized and his health declined until he passed away a few months later. And then, I remember watching Spider-Man 2 and watching the subway scene, when this man says "He's just a kid". And then, it hit me: I was just a kid too and I had to bear the responsibility of caring for a bipolar, depressive father during my teenage years and early adulthood. So I took on such a burden of responsibility that I should have not had to bear. And yet, I did.

So I get emotional with most of the things that have to do with Spider-Man because I see myself in the character, or at least in most versions of the character. I cried when finished the first game, I cried when I finished Spider-Man: Miles Morales and I sobbed when I finished Spider-Man 2. I remembered that my dad took me to see the movie, which was something I hadn't remembered in a while. I'm 32 now. I got to see not only Peter having what he always deserved — the opportunity to live his life beyond the responsibilities he took on — but Miles assuming his share of those responsibilities, with the awareness that he is not alone and can count on others, which is something most of us normal people could have a little bit more in our lives.

The game was improved in a lot of ways in comparison with the predecessors. Some of the button smashing was removed, some animations which didn't make a lot of sense (I'm looking at you, spinning and throwing car trunk doors to free hostages) were thrown out and many other aspects were streamlined. Traversal is absolutely fun and makes up for lots of ways to be creative. Although there are many side activities, they're mostly original and do not get overbearing. I think the reward ratio per activity is a bit off, though, at least for NG+. Gameplay is well balanced and welcomes anyone who played the earlier games.

The plot, well, my title is there for a reason. I believe Spider-Man has one of the best structures to narrate a hero's journey and this game took all the advantages of that structure. The opening with Sandman got me baffled when I played the trial period in PS Plus. It was amazing. The overlapping between Kraven's and Venom's stories was a huge point of sucess in how this story was told. You feel how conflicted characters get as you follow their stories, Peter's downfall while being the host of the Symbiote and ultimately his confrontation with Miles, all of this is absolute cinema to me.

Games are fun, but they can be very meaningful too. They can mean something for each of us, personally, as Peter's story does for me, but they can convey many important lessons for our collective lives, as Miles' story has shown me. I love those guys and I can't wait to help them overcome their next challenges in a new adventure, which can't come soon enough.

The amount of hype Marvel's Spider-Man 2 generated last year got me really curious, and i was glad to finally get opportunity to try it out myself. And as it usually happens, all that hype turned out to be blown out of proportion. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty fun and good looking superhero game with Arkham style combat, that had a lot of potential to be great, all Marvel fans and starving PS5 owners seem to be really happy with it. But sadly it got really messed up with politics, which affected it in negative way both story and gameplay wise.

Insomniac was well aware about fans feedback, that they didn't enjoy all the MJ sequences and prefered to play actual heroes with superpowers, but still decided to ignore that and doubled down on MJ being mary sue and added even more missions with playable MJ instead. Because OF COURSE We need to have a strong and independent woman to do some badass stuff despite not having any superpowers or even basic combat experience. From what i've heard in interview with Spider-Man 2 director, reasoning for this was "you don't need to have powers to be a hero"). But why not let us play Black Cat or Wraith instead? I don't know, just shut up and buy our game.

Other than that i should mention that i've never seen more insecure, pathetic and apologetic Peter Parker in any media he was present in, but at least his friend Miles got his back and was there to cheer him up and show him the right way. I guess that white straight males aren't allowed to be actual heroes in this day and age. Miles Morales, side characters and villains were great though, really nothing to complain about.

And of course, how couldn't i mention how much worse they made Mary Jane look in this sequel compared to previous game. It came out less than two years later, and they really thought we wouldn't notice? What makes it even more absurd is the fact that new MJ resembles one of the Insomniacs writers more than actual actress that was supposed to play her. That is absurd, and deserves more backlash when it got, if you ask me.

Except for this and some other minor complaints like hilarious glitches (could be a PS thing, because i've never seen anything like this in any PC game that isn't made by Bethesda) or characters having WAY too much dialogue during fights, which are hard to follow, other than that its a solid and entertaining videogame that majority of Marvel fans will enjoy, but definitely not worth buying a 500+ $ console.

I swung. I went twhip twhip through NYC and destroyed some black ooze.

The writing and plot were a little lackluster for me, at times it was moving and at other times it felt a little corny, but nowhere near enough to turn me away. The music was stellar and captivated the child in me who was obsessed with Spider-Man. The combat was fun and challenging and NYC looked gorgeous. The web wings were a great addition.

I am glad I took the time to play this. It was a great palette cleanser from the heavier RPG stories I usually like to play. A bonus is my first-ever Platinum trophy!

Imsoniac did again with Spider-Man 2! Now we have a new great super hero game and a solid sequel!

Starting with the visuals, they got that perfectly right once again! Everything in this game looks stunning. The city, cutscenes, the many beautiful suits you can unlock and the enemy design. While both Spider-Men look amazing in every single one of their costumes, the villains take the cake! They look menacing, sound convincing and they're tough to bring down. It's hard to notice, but this is actually a step up from how the Miles Morales game looks.

And while I don't think the story hit me as strong as the first one did, it sure managed to pack quite a punch. Especially since character motivation and evolution is such a potent point of the whole plot. Even more than the first one, it seems. We're out of the "introduction zone" by now. I also loved the team-ups we got. I'm not going to spoil how things go, but trust me, there are some great surprises in this sequel. There were moments I thought "they're not gonna go there", and they totally did.

One thing I loved were the setpieces. That's what makes me gush about this game. It's way more action-packed than the first one, and this just leaks during main missions. Even during sidequests. Not all of them were great, but you get cool moments like The Flame and Mysterio missions.

But if you're here for the story and visuals, I know that what'll definitely make you stay will be the gameplay. Not much has changed since the 1st one, but quality of life improvements made it so much fun to just battle around the city. Peter and Miles' combat and stealth mechanics were tweaked to near perfection. It made boss fights highlights for me. Some of them were actually kinda tough to beat. And, hey, Even MJ missions are better!

Not to mention traversal. This is the name of the game. Fast travel in this game is probably the best one in the industry right now, but I probably only used it twice due to how COOL it feels to roam around with the spiders.

I think that what holds this game back is pretty obvious, though. Playing in the same environment as previous both games does bring the surprise factor down, even if webbing through the city is a blast. Puzzles are still just as annoying and out of place as they were, soundtrack is pretty generic, not all sidequests were fun, QTEs should be gone by now and enemy variety is still quite shallow. Even collectibles were just 'ok'. Some of them were very rewarding, like the Prowler stashes and the unidentified targets, but others were hit or miss.

One last thing I want to talk about is the ending. The story is good and does go into some dark and emotional places sometimes, but the ending was kind of a letdown. On one side, we have Peter's ending, which was a real bummer. On the other, we have Miles' ending, which was fine, and an actual development, but rather predictable as well.

Spider Man 2 is a great game. Not only for fans of super heroes, but for action game fans, in general. It's a fun sequel that doesn't manage to exceed its predecessor, but really does a solid job of gripping you, while evolving its own thing to a new direction.

Generally this game is fantastic, but the mid-game back-to-back boss fights are completely annoying. I realize that as an open world game that I do have some choice in this, but the story heavily encourages you to pursue it. The hunters kidnap Miles and that means you have no access to one of the Spider-men during that time. Even worse is that you are locked into a sequence of a couple of them with no ability to come back later as you would normally expect in an open world game. Thus if you play it through to its mid-game conclusion you are getting 3 back to back Boss fights with multiple health bar bosses. The main problem is that the game has not adequately prepared you for these fights because the bosses have multiple interrupts and successive attacks that do heavy damage. It takes away from some great story moments.

Ultimately I got through them all, but it made me think. Are there any “good” boss battles? I find that the vast majority of games the boss battles are just annoying and not rewarding. The only exception I ran into was games like Elden Ring, where the punishing boss battles are one of the main attractions of the game and you gain a huge sense of accomplishment when you get past them.

3/5

Solid story - nothing mind boggling, but entertaining throughout and I wanted to see it to the end. The villains were pretty good, Venom moreso than the others. The black suit arc was the most engaging part of the story easily. Gameplay is pretty repetitive and samey especially now that it's across three games. Didn't stick around to do any of the side content as a result, just mainlined the story.

Been having a blast with the game. The new combat mechanics, the traversal, the story. Got about 40 hours of play time. My kids started asking to play a lot so I finally encouraged them to start their own game. Love the fact it has a Friendly Neighborhood setting with no deaths and relaxed fighting. It is quite a challenge to manage all the gadgets and powers but my 8 year old was getting it.

At some point the game crashed and she restarted it and ended up in the save selection menu wherein she accidentally deleted my save. She was just buttoning thru too fast to get back to the game and wasn’t paying attention. ☹️ Unfortunately cloud saves had already synced.

I was in the third act of the game and I was fairly excited to see how it ends, but now I am not sure I can bring myself to start it up again just yet. Ugh. Very disappointed.

I had this game super high up on my possible 2023 GOTY Candidates and if it wasn't for Alan Wake 2 being an absolute masterpiece then this game would probably be number 1!

This sequel is bigger and ambitious in every way imaginable, and really pushes the PS5 to its limits with its vast open world and bigger than life sequences that it delivers on.

9.5/10

I said in my review that I doubt I’d rush into a sequel at launch, unless Miles was the lead.

I guess I’m probably playing the third game at launch:

Insomniac Games Confirms Who Its Main Spider-Man Is

Now I can hope that they really push the community based FNSM quests as a bigger focus in the third game. I know it will have the big AAA set pieces but I hope we get a lot more low key moments.

I'm in one of the hunter bases and enemies have stopped responding to my distractions. I've even pulled down whole structures near them and they don't bat an eye. Makes stealth somewhat of a pain if I can't get enemies to reposition themselves. I also foolishly rebooted the game during the level, only to lose all my progress in the mission. Ironically I made a manual save, and that begs the question, what is the point of a manual save if your progress is completely reset to the beginning of the mission?

Dare I say, this is the first time I've played an Insomniac game that doesn't feel 100% polished?

Incredible, amazing, immaculate. Though gameplay wise there aren't a TON of changes, how much can they truly alter Spider-Man? The addition of the Spider arms, symbiote attacks and web wings spiced things up just enough for me.

Story wise I absolutely adored it, it does go a touch too off the rails for me in the 3rd act, but the only reason I feel that way is because I know a 3rd game is in the pipeline and I'm left wondering "how the hell are they going to top this?".

I loved every second of this. Took me about 15-16 hours for the main story, now working my way to 100%. I know this is one I'll be revisiting time and time again. Also could've used a bit more Miles!