4.5/5 ★ – SlashStriker's review of Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

Every time I wrap an Insomniac Spider-Man game I immediately want to pick up a Spider-Man comic book. That isn’t saying too much, as comics are my other ‘great love’ next to games, but the perfect mixing of the two mediums, a la Batman Arkham, is always a huge treat. The incredible job Insomniac does at channeling the fun of Spider-Man mythos into an open world brawler is just one part of the reason why Insomniac is my favorite AAA developer. In Spider-Man 2 we are thrown back into the web swinging antics of Peter Parker and Miles Morales as they continue to protect their city and their loved ones from inevitable nonsense from their rogues gallery. In this title their attention is focused on two Spidey-baddie heavyweights, Kraven and Venom. Over the course of the title you will experience action-packed thrills, painful character moments and pure, grinning fun, all at a quick, respectful pace. This is a big action game, and clocks in at over 20 hours, but trust me, the time flies like you are watching a new season of your favorite show. Character focus definitely leans towards Peter’s Spider-Man for this title, especially if you do not take the time to engage with optional side-adventures. This probably could have been advertised better, though personally it was expected considering the source material for the two antagonists was from the 80s, far before Miles was on the scene. Miles and the extended cast are given plenty of opportunity to stand out in this title, with a notable caveat. I want to note early in this review that my most stinging issue with this title is how many characters have scene stealing moments that make you desperate to spend more time with them, then disappear, ready for the next sequel/DLC. Having great characters does not detract from a game in any way, but damn am I desperate to follow some threads that just don’t exist to follow yet! Gameplay in Spider-Man 2 expands very naturally on the previous two titles in the series, with new movement and combat abilities for both Spider-Men, new ‘mini-game’ style intractable elements in the open world, and a notably bigger map. Movement is still the highlight here, with the added web-wings making traversal somehow even more fun than it was in the last couple games. I have to imagine that never has fast-travel gone less used than in this title! Combat shines the most when you have a full suite of gadgets and abilities at your disposal, which thankfully doesn’t take too long into the start of the title. Once you are comfortable with your ability load-out and experienced with your gadgets you will quickly find ‘combos’ that trivialize most enemy encounters. This is of course before a new enemy class is introduced, ready to knock you right back into your place. The enemy variety and difficulty absolutely shines in this title, and I enjoyed fighting new enemy classes near constantly throughout its runtime. I also want to note that the stealth sections from Spider-Man 1, both the ones as Peter and those as MJ, have been greatly improved in this title. The gameplay aspect that stops this game from being worth rating 5 stars for me is simply that not enough was done to evolve the core gameplay. I am hopeful that Spider-Man 3 will do more to differentiate its gameplay ‘feel’ from the previous titles. I get that ‘if something isn’t broke, don’t fix it’, but seeing games evolve over time is one of the best parts of gaming for me. To swing back into the positive, the Platinum trophy is once again great here and simply asks you to 100% the optional content, which I was more than happy to do! This game was developed to be a visual showstopper on PS5. Just like the last two titles I spent way too much time in Photo mode gawking at the lighting, effects and the hyper-detailed materials on each and every suit. I often clicked into photo mode during combat with no intention to take an screenshot, just wanting to pan around the scenario and take in all the action! The city looks great, with much more ground-level detail than Spider-Man 1. Coney Island in particular really stood out to me during its time in focus during the story. In my experience I did not experience a notable frame rate dip during my time with the game, and did not experience any bugs/crashing as well. Sound design in the title is stellar and I’m happy to report that the podcasts featured in previous games are back and once again sharing timely updates on in-game events during your open world expiration. This is an awesome feature I wish more large scale titles would implement to provide additional context or ‘lore’ in ways that don’t come across as a text dump. I am personally thankful that all three Insomniac Spidey games are now available on PS5 as I believe this series is really special. I think it fills a really critical role in the AAA space as a single-player accessible action game that can be enjoyed by an incredibly wide variety of gamers. I also just love when folks get indirectly introduced to the comic medium through fantastic games! This review was mostly me just gushing about my time with the title, but I hope you give it a shot and enjoy it as much as I have! I played this game on PS5 and purchased the game at full retail price on the PS Store.