Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro (2001)

The 2nd Spider-Man entry to the PlayStation 1 platform is an action-adventure game that acts as a direct sequel to the first title. It continues the lighthearted, comic-book style storytelling introduced in the first game. This time around Spider-Man as he attempts to stop Electro, who plans to use a powerful device called the Bio-Nexus to transform himself into a being of pure energy and gain immense power. The game takes you across a variety of levels set in and around New York City, including rooftops, laboratories, construction sites, and even the Statue of Liberty during the final confrontation.

Along the way, you face a number of classic villains from the comics such as Shocker, Sandman, and Hammerhead. These encounters usually culminate in boss fights that require you to learn enemy attack patterns and use the environment to their advantage, giving the game some variety beyond simple combat. Similar to the first title, these bossfights are a highlight, with unique creative mechanics, memorable scenes and sequences, like the train chase, but not particularly challenging.

As for the gameplay, it closely follows the formula of its predecessor, combining platforming, exploration, and combat. You swing between buildings using web abilities, crawl on walls and ceilings, and fight enemies with punches, kicks, and web attacks. While the controls are generally responsive and the action moves at a fast pace, the camera can occasionally be awkward, which was a common issue for many early 3D PlayStation games. And this is especially bad because, for some reason, the developers choose to introduce a lot of confined levels on this game, when compared to the more opened and bigger ones from its predecessor.

As for its visuals, the game improves slightly on the original with more detailed environments and brighter comic-inspired colors. The character models remain fairly simple by modern standards, but they capture the look of the comic characters well. One standout are the animations, especially because it has a good amount of enemy variety due to the theming, such as the drones and the bosses. The voice acting and humorous dialogue help reinforce the playful tone, with the MC constantly making jokes during missions and boss fights. And while this is a charming trait, it can be annoying due to the amount of times this happens, which sometimes is a lot.

Overall, this sequel is remembered as a fun but fairly modest sequel, it doesn’t drastically change the gameplay of the first game, but it expands on it with new levels, enemies, and story moments. For me it is an inferior game when compared to the first entry, simply because of the level design, which doesn't really fit on a Spider-Man game, since you want to enjoy the freedom of moving around on big environments. Despite its limitations, it remains a nostalgic title for many fans and an early example of superhero games experimenting with 3D environments and cinematic storytelling.

I did write a review on this game like 2 years ago or maybe more, but wanted to revisit it, since I enjoy revisiting old games in a cloudy winter-ish week. anyways, this is not a game to to 100%.

Lets start with a stupid thing I realized while playing this: there are many related levels, and rewards are tied to framerate. not a big deal if the game had a steady framerate, but this one does not. so the Lizard fight has a secret way to beat it using only the serum.

This fight alone had so many bugs and glitches than what I could ever count! for starters: there is a rubber banding for the lizard so if you decided to escape him far enough, he should jump back the entire room to catch up with you. pretty good on paper. but if the frame rate is over 20, it literally breaks! the lizard jumps through the walls of the level to catch up to you.

Another one is: if the framerate, after you do the puzzle, was over 25, guess what, you will have to restart the level, because the serum were glitched and the game is not spawning them.

Another one, shall we; there is a secret way to beat up the lizard without fighting. all you need to do is to shoot up the serum 15 times, then wait for about 1 minute for the lizard to drop dead. it doesn't always work because you can guess... the framerate. which many times spike up to 30 during this fight as not much is happening on screen, but this fight is designed with a 20 fps lock in mind.

Okay, let me talk about another level. well, the bomb on the street. in this level, you have one tiny bug, but will make you redo the entire damn level. you see, if the framerate is above 24 while in the cutscene, it will not spawn every card holder of the bomb around the level. you will get all the 4 gangs, but if you're unlucky enough the one soldier, or what you want to call it, that holds the card is respawn on a different height of the same floor level. which means, they respawn underneath the floor. so your essentially stuck on this level. lets try again, and pray it will not happen again.

There are much much more of these stories happening, but we would be here all day discussing them. This is peak PlayStation 1 type game, where you hope the game functions as intended.

Comparing this game to the first one makes it seem like a "Flat" sequel. however, this isn't a bad game by any means. Yes! it's a rushed game and took a short time development, but there are some quality and enjoyment here.

The Levels for the most part have some creativity in their design, despite the lack of somewhat decent narrative. The boss fights are extremely fun and unique from one to another and have some gimmicky elements to help out.

I enjoyed replaying the game while messing with the "Create-a-Spider" feature which adds to the game's replayability, and loved the additions of more Costumes to play with.

though it's somewhat decent, some Levels are made with the "drag-on" idea in mind to make them a bit long on the player. The controls here are for some reason worse than the first game, too many frame-drops acquiring during gameplay, annoying soundtrack, and the un-original gameplay makes it hard to play or even recommend.

It's not a bad game, It's just pointless game released in a bad time and with bad image for it to be famously known as the "9/11 modded spider-man game".

I can't recommend it, but if you decided to play then there is some enjoyment to be had.

In the early 2000s, Neversoft's Spider-Man was one of my very favorite Dreamcast games. While its flaws have become more pronounced over the years (worst camera ever?), I still pop it in every once in a while, and I can still see why it was so special to me back then.

Playing and enjoying Insomniac's Spider-Man game made me a little nostalgic, but I'd already played the first game so many times. My only memory of its sequel was a rental that ended with frustration at the very first boss, but I picked up a copy to see if it was really as bad as I remembered.

And I promptly died again from that very same boss. 😅

That isn't to say the game's all bad. Like its predecessor, it's full of ideas that would show up again and again in the best Spidey games that followed (even a couple of science-themed puzzles make an appearance). It's still neat to see so much of the Marvel universe referenced. And those Stan Lee voiceovers are amazing.

But overall it's just worse than the first game. The difficulty curve is wildly uneven. There are more challenges with endlessly spawning enemies (and they're drones, which are way less interesting than the first game's symbiotes), and crazy-difficult timed challenges. You never see Peter Parker (unless you count the first game's recap) or really any other supporting characters. And perhaps most egregiously for a Spider-Man game, the rogue's gallery on display here is decidedly B-list. You fight Sandman twice. The Lizard is a boss, even though he was in the first game. Hammerhead's fight is like a lame version of Rhino's. Two different bosses shock you with electricity.

If you like the first game a lot, put in some cheat codes and enjoy the sequel for what it is. Otherwise, it's probably not worth your time.