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

After 87 years, the long anticipated sequel to the original PS4 Spider-Man is finally here It feels like just yesterday I was watching the teaser trailer with Peter and Miles kicking ass and then Venom showing up in the alleyway. We’ve truly come a long way since then But now that the game is finally here, the question is, was it worth the wait??! Yes, I think that it was This game essentially just expands on everything from the first game to the millionth degree. The only thing that I can think of as a step back is that you lose all of Peter’s web gadgets from the first game, which is kind of lame, but that’s pretty much it The combat in this game is extremely fun, satisfying, and flashy, and it just feels really good to mow through 8 million enemies using all of your different web shooters, symbiote abilities, those spider-arms that Peter has. There are just so many things in here that make the combat flow like the fucking Amazon River Also speaking of things that are satisfying. The movement in this game feels like absolute butter. Insomniac, through science, has been able to fine-tune the web swinging to make it as fast, smooth, and satisfying as possible. It has never been more fun to just move around in a game, than in Spider-Man 2 I recently played the original Spider-Man for PS1, and the movement in that game feels like dragging my balls in molasses compared to the movement in this game It is just so impressive how they managed to get the movement down to a science and make it as fun as possible. The web wings are a very welcome addition and are extremely fun to use. You can upgrade your traversal and unlock abilities to make the movement and swinging even better, and on top of that Peter can do air tricks now. Also there’s a lot of unique and flashy animations that both Peter and Miles can perform in the air, which just makes the swinging and movement even better in my opinion Speaking of Peter and Miles for a second though. I fucking love how you can run into either Spider-Man while you’re stopping a crime in the city, and the other Spider-Man will help you deal with the criminals. And then after the fact you can go up to whichever Spider-Man and press triangle and they do a cute little animation. Which is either just them pointing at each other or doing an awkward hug. And I don’t know why but I just really love this about the game. I also love how they talk to each other while they’re fighting the criminals too. It just it feel very naturalistic and I like it a lot I also really like a lot of the side missions in this game. A decent amount of them feel really personal in this game and do a good job of distracting from the main story and making you just feel like a “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” which always seems to be missed whenever Spider-Man is written now I especially love the Howard and Grandpa Earl side missions, because the writing is really fucking good. Especially the Grandpa Earl one. I fucking love how Spider-Man just sits on a bench and listens to him. Which is clearly all that Grandpa Earl wanted was just someone to listen to him. It’s fucking beautiful and extremely well written I also absolutely love the grand scale side missions like the Mysterio and Flame ones too. They honestly feel like they could be main story, they’re that fucking good. I mean the Mysterio one has a whole ass boss fight that’s awesome and players could totally just gloss over it, which is kind of stupid. And the ending to the Flame side mission is also really good. I’m not going to spoil it, but if you know, you know Now I’m gonna get into my gripes with the game though, because it isn’t perfect, hence why I’m not giving it a perfect score And really my only flaws with the game come from the story and writing. Because it’s kind of messy. And I will be getting into some spoilers for this part, but honestly if you haven’t played this game yet then what the fuck are you doing So I really do feel like the end of this game is extremely rushed for some reason. Harry just starts hating Peter so abruptly and then before you know it he becomes Venom and the climax of the game starts Which all the Venom stuff is amazing don’t get me wrong, but I found it just so goofy when you.re playing as Miles for the last part of the final boss against Venom, and Miles is trying to talk to Harry like they’ve known each other the whole game, which they haven’t. Like I genuinely don’t even think they had a full conversation together up until that point Which is dumb. They clearly needed to take time to flesh out more of these relationships and build them more so they don’t fall flat Another example is during the fight against Scream, Peter is apologizing to MJ for like neglecting her and doing all these things to disappoint her. Which doesn’t really make sense because we don’t get anything really in the story to show him doing this except for when he has the symbiote, but that’s because he’s supposed to be a dick when he has the symbiote But honestly, Peter’s personality changing because of the symbiote doesn’t really make that much of a difference. Because the chemistry between all the characters in this game is just kind of weak. Nobody really feels like friends, just acquaintances. Like everybody is so boring and disinterested in what’s going on with each other For example one of the worst missions in the game is when you go to Coney Island with Harry and MJ. And it’s just so fucking boring. The 3 barely say any words to each other and just look so fucking zoned out whenever you go on rides. It’s fucking hilarious Another example of shitty writing is the Brooklyn Visions side missions. These side missions are fucking terrible and I hate all of them. In them you have to help out students of a college, but every single student has the worst dialogue known to man and is written to be the corniest thing to ever exist These side missions are all painfully bad and are just so fucking boring. Especially the Vijay mission which is diabolically bad. And if more of these missions are in Spider-Man 3, then I’m throwing my Playstation 5 in front of a train One thing I do really like about the writing though is the symbiote. I love how the symbiote essentially targets all of its hosts insecurities and in turn just brings out the worst version of themselves until eventually the symbiote is just in complete control They do a really good job in this game by making the symbiote fucking terrifying. One of the best moments in this game is when you’re playing as MJ running away from a crazed symbiote Peter And then an even better moment is when you play as Miles and have to fight that same crazed symbiote Peter, which is a moment that I wanted and expected to happen from the beginning, and it definitely lived up to the hype I also love how as Peter gets more insane with the symbiote, you can start to literally hear Venom tell Peter to start fucking killing people and to do more heinous shit. It’s really sinister and it makes it even cooler when Venom finally does show up and starts taking shit into his own hands Speaking of Venom finally showing up, I just want to take a moment to go off for a quick second about it… BECAUSE GETTING TO PLAY AS VENOM AND ABSOLUTELY ANNIHILATE EVERYONE IN MY PATH IS THE COOLEST THING THAT I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE. IT WAS SUCH AS COMPLETE SURPRISE AND WAS THE FUCKING COOLEST AND MOST SATISFYING THING THAT I’VE EVER PLAYED IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. ABSOLUTELY MOWING DOWN EVERY ENEMY THAT STANDS IN YOUR WAY AS VENOM WILL GO DOWN AS ONE OF THE GREATEST VIDEO GAME MOMENTS IN HUMAN HISTORY. TOPPED OFF BY AN INCREDIBLE FIGHT WHERE YOU ANNIHILATE THE OLD, WASHED UP LOSER KNOW AS KRAVEN. I ABSOLUTELY FUCKING LOVED EVERY SINGLE SECOND OF GETTING TO PLAY AS VENOM, AND NOW ALL THAT I WANT IS A VENOM VIDEO GAME, SO IT BETTER FUCKING HAPPEN INSOMNIAC …That felt good to say all of that. But shifting back to the story, I do feel like a should touch on Kraven for a second, because he is the main villain of this game And yeah he was quite cool. I like his whole backstory and wanting to find his final hunt and a “worthy opponent” to take his life. However it’s kinda shitty how he’s barely in the game Like I would expect you to fight him more and for him to be this omnipotent presence throughout the whole game, but he kinda just sends his henchmen to do everything for him and it’s a little bit lame But he is still cool and it makes him even more of a threat how he’s able to kill a bunch of Spider-Man’s opps without really even trying. Like he for real just kills Scorpion in like 2 seconds and then kills some other villains off-screen Also one other thing that I want to touch on before ending this review is the MJ parts. I don’t know why Insomniac is so keen on putting these parts in the game, but in this game they’re really not that bad. I mean don’t get me wrong, I would much rather be doing Spider-Man stuff, but they definitely did improve the MJ parts, simply just by giving her a gun Now I can just shoot people instead of having to knock down random debris, and that alone is one the best improvements that Insomniac has ever done And overall this game is just an improvement over the first game in almost every way. Maybe not at all with the writing, but the combat, movement, and just overall gameplay shit that matters, is all a step-up in my opinion, and in turn the game just feels absolutely amazing to play and was well worth the wait Also you can pet a tiger… So this game is automatically a masterpiece But actually I just remembered the Vijay mission so that's gonna have to bring it back down to a 4.5/5 - Still an amazing game though