Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is a Marvelous Experience
But it does have some issues that hold it back.
I am a comic book fan. I enjoy comic book games a lot. I played Gotham Knights last year and loved it. I wrote about how I wish there had been an Arkham Beyond game after Arkham Knight instead of the suicide Squad. I am a fan of comic movies as well, except that I'm not as much of a fan of Marvel properties. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed much of the MCU, but nothing has ever hit as good as The Dark Knight Trilogy or The Batman, besides Spider-Man 1 and 2 in the 2000s but even that wasn't as good as The Dark Knight. DC is my home, both in games and in movies.
But in 2020, during the Pandemic and post break-up, I played Marvel's Spider-Man 1 and adored it. Spider-Man has always been my favorite Marvel property and to have a Spider-Man game that had nothing to do with the movies, and wasn't an annoying Activision game, was an amazing experience. Seeing Pete balanced being Peter Parker and being Spider-Man was an incredibly interesting portrayal and I loved every minute of it. Now that Marvels Spider-Man 2 has come out on PC, I had to play it. I had initially intended on playing it on PS5, but never got around to it. With all that said, playing Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was a fantastic experience despite having frustrating aspects.
The Premise
Two years post Marvels Spider-Man 1 and 10 months after Marvels Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Peter and Miles are dealing with the ramifications of the last 2 years. Miles is applying to college and Pete is getting fired from his jobs. Harry then comes home after being "away" for treatment and invites Pete to work with him at a new Foundation he is setting up called Emily-May Foundation. Kraven is also on his way to the city to find someone to hunt. He begins by taking out other supervillains hoping to find someone worthy of him. Then Miles and Pete have to go on a ride fighting Kraven and figuring out what comes next for both of them.
The Good
Accessibility is something that has gained far more prominence in the games industry in recent years and Spider-Man 2 is no different. The accessibility is one of my favorite parts of the game, particularly getting rid of the QTE's that are everywhere in this game. For instance, when Miles goes to Coney Island he goes into a Mysterio fueled Holo-deck like experience where he is a DJ and you have to do rhythm game shit. I am not good at them. Actually, that's not true, I am horrible at them. Its hard for me to pay attention to so many things on screen and get things in the right rhythm. I had that issue in my Final Fantasy 7 Remake review as well, although there, the rhythm prompts were moving around the screen while here they stay consistent in where they come from and where you the have to line them up. But if you have the QTE autocomplete on, as I did, you don't have to worry about being horrible at them, you can put down the controller even and the game will do it for you. It's an amazing feature and one I think needs to be more prominent in games because I absolutely hate QTE's, they're awful. That said, at the end there are a lot of QTEs in the final phase of the final fight so you will just see them auto-complete. For me that was fine, but there’s your warning. Marvels Spider-Man 2 does what all games should do and makes the game easier if you want it.
The main story is a roller-coaster. It takes you on a ride that you just have to sit back and accept that there are going to be moments of massive action and moments of quiet character development. It's great. I think this is a fantastic dual Spider-Man story and has some wonderful moments that made me surprised and that made me frustrated for what the characters were going through. The best stories make you care for the characters in them. Star Wars wouldn't be as good if you didn't care for Luke or want to see him succeed. Or if you didn't care if Marty McFly was gonna get back to 1985. Stories are built on characters, and this one builds itself on some wonderful characters that make you care. It's wonderful and takes turns that, even though you can predict them because of how the story has gone in the past when it comes to symbiote stuff, are enjoyable to see and experience.
The core gameplay of this game is tuned to a T. It is wonderful. From swinging around the city to fighting sandman duplicates, the gameplay is amazing and makes you feel powerful. The swinging and gliding makes you feel like you're going fast, the combat abilities make you feel like you're an actual superhero. Then, when you introduce Venom powers into the equation, shit gets turned up to 11 and it's wonderful. Gotham Knights kept the Arkham formula going and the gameplay was good, but Spider-Man? It enhances everything that the Arkham games put together for a superhero game. The biggest difference is just that the side stuff in the Arkham games and Gotham Knights felt more interesting as you didn't have to go and collect a ton of shit to progress stuff, but I'll address that below. The gameplay is fantastic and a wonderful enhancement to the first one.
Speaking of gameplay, there's a specific character that I have to talk about. When you control them, it feels so damn good. It's the closest to playing a modern day Prototype I have ever experienced. I think it's important to praise how fucking awesome that characters gameplay is. I'm obviously trying to avoid a spoiler of who you control. It might be obvious. But I like to avoid spoilers for some stuff, at least until the ending. This moment just desperately makes me want to have a new Prototype. Or even a new Infamous. I just wish there were more uber destructive and brutal combat super hero games in the modern landscape.
There are a lot of little touches in the game as well that add to the experience. For instance, there are different menu screens where Pete and Miles are chilling doing different things. Or there are these little moments of quiet that we as players interrupt when we switch between Pete and Miles, Miles is eating a Bagel, Pete is doing a handstand. During combat you can knock an enemy over a car and whichever Spidey you are controlling will slide over the front of the car like they’re in a movie. Or there’s the touch that as Pete keeps the symbiote on for longer, it gets more veiny, more Venomy. Or how Miles and Pete will do little fist bumps during combat after a dual finisher, or will try to do one after the end of combat but be out of sync so they’ll just hug instead. There are just so many of these little touches that just make the experience that much more fluid and fun.
The Bad
I think a big problem with open world games is the massive collect-a-thon stuff you have to do, many requiring things to do in order to collect what you need to collect while others just have you collecting something. Almost every open world game does it. Assassin's Creed got it, Cyberpunk 2077 has it, Zelda has it, Star Wars: Jedi Survivor has it, Dragon Age: Inquisition has it, even one of my favorite games of last year Dragon Age: The Veilguard had collection shit, although, that was mainly armor so less shit. It's exhausting and makes playing open worlds frustrating. The argument for them is that it's supposed to fill up the world and make you feel like there's a bunch to do, but instead it just ends up being annoying filler that is distracting from the generally interesting parts of the game. Unfortunately, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 falls into the pit of collecting shit. I hate it. It's exhausting. What I ended up doing was only doing the collecting when I was already right near it for story stuff instead of going out of my way for it. That made it more tolerable, but only slightly. It's just as exhausting as ever here as it is in Inquisition. I'm tired of games that think filling the game with collecting shit is giving you shit to do. Give me side quests, stories besides the main one, interesting characters and events, not collecting the same thing in 40 different ways or from 40 slightly different puzzles.
Speaking of side content, one of the things I loved about the Arkham games was that there was the main story with the main villains, and side stories with different villains. Gotham Knights did that formula well too. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 does not. There are side villains, but there's nothing to the extent of things like the side stories in the Arkham games or, even more so, not as good as the side stuff in Gotham Knights. For instance, the Mysterio Holo-deck stuff is just, kinda...boring. It's time trials. That's not that interesting and to do it repeatedly just makes it more boring. There are highlights when it comes to the side content, The Flame side quest chain is particularly enjoyable, despite not having a real ending, but that's kinda... it, the other side content isn't that memorable. It more so focuses on the "friendly neighborhood" part of Spider-Man as opposed to the superhero and villain part of Spider-Man, which is a choice that some people will like, and I did to some extent, I just wish it came with more side villains as well. The fact that Gotham Knights did the side content better than this game is kinda sad. Now, I loved Gotham Knights, and this game is great, but the side content is below par. The game shines in the main missions, not in the side content.
I think one of the bigger frustrations I have with this game is that it feels shallow. The main story is deep and interesting, but once you step out of those missions you're walking around in a kiddie pool. I wish the game had turned up the Spidey stuff to 11 instead of just having all the interesting Spidey stuff in the main story. The game is a 200 million dollar blockbuster that doesn't feel like it should have taken that much money. The game is also rather short, which plays into the shallow nature. I think the game is not worth paying 70 bucks, or even 60. It's a great game but compared to the first one, it's just so much shorter and less interesting. I think the first one had the benefits of multiple bad guys, while this one mainly just has Kraven until he's defeated and the build up shifts to the person that beat him. Of course, that character also has build up, arguably far better build up, but that means there's just 2 bad guys then? That's...low. It feels weird. Feels, well, shallow. This isn't a Sam Raimi film, it doesn't have to just have 1 or 2 real bad guys, it could have handled multiple more but instead several were literally gotten rid of by Kraven off screen. Show me that fight. Don't just show me a screen with their image saying "deceased". This isn't The Incredibles where you only have 2 hours, it's a fucking videogame. You have plenty of time to show us the deaths, to have us see the violence of Kraven's hunt, beyond his murder of Scorpion. It's disappointing this is conveyed simply through screens in the environment.
The Ending - Detailed
**Start Spoilers**
Harry uses Venom and the meteorite to take over the entire City with some great visuals. Then, Miles, MJ, and Pete all go up against him in a final mission where you control each of them in their characteristic mission types. MJ steals the meteorite while Pete distracts Venom and Miles fights off enemies to keep MJ from getting overrun. Then we have a very long Venom fight that is absolutely wonderful. Like, fantastic, and hits all the right moments. It goes from Pete and Harry's old school to the Emily-May Foundation, to the sky. It's wonderful.
Then at the end Pete kills Harry, the meteorite is destroyed, and Miles revives Harry so he can lay in a bed in a coma for the rest of his life. Yay. Norman then tells his employees to get the G-Serum ready ASAP so Green Goblin is gonna happen. Then just before the Credits, MJ starts a podcast, Peter retires from Spidey for right now to run the Foundation by himself out of his Garage, and Miles becomes the sole Spider-Man. Credits.
Post Credits/after the first set of credits for the PC port Norman goes to visit prison to see Otto Octavius to ask him to reveal who the Spider-Men are. Which he doesn't. And after Norman asks him what he's writing in his book. Otto says "The Final Chapter". The post-post credits (because this is a Marvel property), Miles has his date with Hailey at his families apartment, weird place for a first date but whatever, where his Mom introduces him to her BF, Albert who has a daughter named Cindy.
The Ending - Reaction
I honestly loved the ending. It hit the highs I wanted and it hit the sadness it needed to. I think my biggest problems revolved around the last couple missions going by really fast, including, basically just being a climbing around and fighting in one or two areas mission, and that I did not like that Harry didn't die. The guy tries to sacrifice himself, it's this big emotional moment where Pete has to kill his best friend, and then the sacrifice gets completely undone a minute later for Harry to be in a coma until the next game. Just kinda sucked the sadness out of the moment.
**End Spoilers**
The Conclusion
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is a wonderful game. It gets held back by its side content however, at least for me. The game has such wonderful gameplay, it's main story is fantastic and makes you wonder what's next constantly, but the side content needed more villains. I get that it was focused on the Friendly Neighborhood part but I don't think that makes it better. The game just needed a little something extra, it needed its own versions of what Gotham Knights did with its side content. It didn't need all the collectable shit. Couple that with a great ending that unfortunately undercuts a core sacrifice and you get a damn good game.
I'd say that it's a great game to play, but don't go in expecting this 20+ hours long Spider-Man flick (unless you plan to do literally everything). Don't go in expecting more than 2 villains, don't go in expecting to not have to collect a ton of shit to be able to upgrade stuff. If you go in with the understanding that it has some significant flaws, I think you will have a fantastic time.
Meow,
Cat
P.S. You should totally take a look at my History of Queerness in Videogames series, if you haven’t already, here’s a link to Part 1 and Part 2. Part 3 comes out Friday the 14th!
