Overview

So here we are Insomniac's big sequel, the follow up the critically acclaimed Spider-Man 2018 and the launch PS5 title Miles Morales. Spider-Man 2 is here and the big question now is how does it live up to the high expectations set by its predecessors and more importantly how much does the sequel build on and evolve the Spider-Man formula?

Well, I feel the most easiest way to put this is that Spider-Man brings more high-octane action, web-slinging, and compelling tales of not one but two of our favorite Spider-men this time around. There are many new features that enhance the experience, and many that'll feel familiar, but Insomniac has managed to nail all the areas that count provide a strong and worthy successor to the Spider-Man sequel and a story that hooked me all the way through to the end.

Story

Overview

A quick non-spoiler review for the story for Spider-Man 2 is a direct continuation from the events of Spider-Man 2018 and Spider-Man Miles Morales. It tells an intersection point of the lives of Peter and Miles and their super hero counterparts. Spider-Man 2 puts the villain Kraven at the forefront and his infamous hunt which I believe pulls influences from the comics that focus on similar material. Insomniac much like with the previous entries don't fail to pull influences from the many different forms of media that tell a Spider-Man story and meld that into what they're doing with this one. Simply put one of the strongest aspects of the Spider-Man 2 experience is absolutely its story, and from here on out, I'll be diving into some light to mild spoilers so I'll put a timestamp here now if you're still yet to play the game, but now let's get into it.

Balance

In my video for Spider-Man 2018 I talked about how Insomniac placed heavy focus on the merging worlds of Peter Parker and Spider-Man, well Spider-Man 2 doubles down on this with the amount of missions that are focused around both Peter and Miles. Where I would say that the central theme of Spider-Man 2018 is focused around the strength of relationships, the power to move forward, and ultimately sacrifice and loss. Spider-Man 2's focus is around balance

You may have noticed that Spider-Man 2 delves deeper into the idea of the lives of Peter Parker and Miles Morales, and their Spider-Man counterparts. It tells this story of the Spider-Man journey through two different perspectives and cleverly melds these hardships along with internal struggles of the respective Spider-Man's personal lives. But it also is coupled with the themes of forgiveness, and letting go of negative emotions, the hurt, and accumulated grief that the Spider-Men and supporting cast have had to carry through this series.

For Peter it is the emotional grief of losing his Aunt May, never being able to process this loss, the loss and betrayal of his mentor and fellow Scientist Otto, and the current predicament he finds himself in where is his unable to find work, pay his bills and uphold his life as Peter Parker, little lone the ever present call to protect people as Spider-Man. Things become more complicated when Peter and MJ are reunited with their childhood friend Harry who had recently come back onto the scene after fighting a life threating illness, which caused the death of Harry's mother.

To understand Peter's position and decent into the eventual Symbiote Spider-Man it is important to understand the major imbalance in Peter's life where he feels like as Peter he is useless, unable to help people and only as a new and improved Spider-Man can he prevent the grief, loss, and imbalance that let's in suffering. Peter Parker's journey as Spider-Man is one of a fatigued and bruised hero, who has undergone loss and ultimately needed to re-find the balance and Peter within.

Now we talk about Miles Morales, the new Spider-Man on the scene and the one who is still in the early stages of their development as a superhero. Miles is an interesting case, as he has much like Peter experienced the grief and loss of losing someone that he loves, that being his father in the first game. Miles also knows the person responsible for this loss, and throughout the experience similar to Peter holds resentment and animosity for that loss. More on the surface, Miles is trying to be a supportive son, pursue his romantic interests, and structure his future as Miles.

Where Miles journey in the beginning may feel like Miles the Robin to Peter's Batman. But as this story unfolds it tells the more traditional story but through the lens of Miles journey tackling themes of responsibility and forgiveness, but more importantly the lessons learned through Miles journey, and growth are ultimately what guide Miles to save and ground Peter. The tag-line for Spider-Man 2 was Be Greater, Together and it isn't until you see this story through to completion that it begins to make sense. The theme relationships and not going it alone, evolves here and is told through the themes of balance and ultimately through Peter and Miles both realizing together that neither of them solely can be Spider-Man. I feel that Spider-Man 2, ties a neat bow on the origin story for Miles and when Spider-Man 3 eventually does roll around it will be interesting to see both our Spider-Men now in full force.

Gameplay

Combat

The combat for Spider-Man 2 feels fairly familiar to the previous games, where the core basic abilities are one for one the same so punching, pulling and throwing stuff like that, so you'll be right at home if you've played the previous games. Where Insomniac have changed things up and I'm a little torn on this is with the rework to gadgets and the inclusions of abilities. So here in Spider-Man 2 there are 4 gadgets that are shared between both Peter and Miles, and then 4 abilities which are unique to the skillsets that are unlocked throughout game, and through the skill trees.

There are about eight to twelve abilities for Peter and Miles each roughly and they all feel really cool to use and do form some interesting combos that can work together well, and can be paired well with gadgets, especially as you level up both your gadgets and the skill tree. However, I do feel there was a particular charm to many of the gadgets in the first Spider-Man game, and I do wish that there were a few more to pick from here in Spider-Man 2, as they make combat feel a little more tactical, whereas the abilities feel more like mini ultimate abilities that you will use when they come off cooldown straight away, due to how powerful these abilities are.

Spider-Man 2's combat comes with some new mechanics to change up the combat from it's predecessors introducing new timed windows for dodging and parrying different enemy attacks. This is one element that I welcome and do feel spices up the combat. It's something that plays well with both Peter and Miles kit of abilities. I also feel like there is a good variety of enemies in this game too, I think there are some that I found more fun to fight than others, particularly some of the enemies towards the later half, but I felt that overall the variety of enemies was great, and that leads me to many of the boss encounters here. I enjoyed most of the boss encounters in Spider-Man 2, they felt like they were much more challenging than the first game, and did make use of many of these newly introduced mechanics.

An obvious example of this is through the stealth sequences. It feels like in Spider-Man 2018, you could use many of these different gadgets to takedown enemies in a more clever way, and it made the situations feel more adaptable. There is a new tool called the web line for these stealth sequences which allows you to more cleverly position yourself for takedowns. But with no tools or gadgets that you can flexibly use here, it feels like a lot of the creative takedowns and ways to clear a room, are watered down here. But this brings me to the unlocks and customization.

I overall still enjoyed Spider-Man 2's combat and do think that the game offers a satisfying sense of combat that I enjoyed through out my 20+ hours with the game, and whilst Peter and Miles do offer two different sets of abilities I do feel the striped back nature of combat being that there are less gadgets and no suit abilities works against the game and is something that I wish Insomniac expanded upon, as the boundaries of combat here in Spider-Man 2 do start to feel like they have reached their limits much quicker here than in their predecessors.

Exploration

Activities

Spider-Man 2 introduces many new activities that are different but also familiar if you have played Spider-Man 2018. One thing that I really do like about Spider-Man 2 is that many of the different collectable activites do carry with them minor stories that unfold the more you collect, similar to Task Master Challenges in the first game. This isn't something completely new to these games, but it is something that it feels like they've doubled down on this approach and have provided the threads of some loose narrative beats to follow which I've been enjoying.

The best form of new content takes place in the side stories for both Peter and Miles which can be found in the Friendly Neighborhood app. These particular missions do leave some interesting implications for future DLC or even the 3rd entry that this game hints at many times. But overall I do feel that the comments and criticisms that Spider-Man 2's activities are on the safe side retreading old ground is fair, and it does feel like Spider-Man 2 does feel like a mixture of additions from Miles and the Spider-Man 2018, with very little changes here. Personally, I don't think that is a bad thing, but at the same time does feel like it loses its wow factor in terms of majority of the side content feeling like things we've done before.

Unlockables

Another aspect of Spider-Man 2 which I'm still a little fixed about is the removal of Suit power abilities that come with each of the unlockable suits. So here in Spider-Man 2, the suits are purely cosmetic and in this regard Spider-Man 2 does something awesome making there be four different versions and color variants of the same suit, but the trade-off of losing the suit abilities does feel like it does hurt the amount of customization that is available here in Spider-Man 2, that was available in the previous two games.

There are four gadgets here in Spider-Man 2 which are the same across both Peter and Miles where their layouts differ are in their broad suit abilities. So this will be Miles venom lightening or Peter's mechanical Iron Spider abilities. These abilities are tied to a skill tree on that is unique to each Spider-Man and one that is shared. You can mix and max some different abilities here, but I don't feel like it drastically alter the flow of combat. However, over the course of the campaign you will unlock two different stems of abilities which I do feel provide some changes to combat offering a different moveset. Swapping between these two different modes of suit abilities can prove effective against different enemy types, but I feel that this isn't properly utilized until much later in the game.

The unlockable content ties into the side activities in the game as well as it has done in previous games, and that's a good thing, I do feel like Spider-Man 2 in terms of how it's open world activities are structured doesn't stray too much away from the previous games and for some that may come as a disappointment, for me though it was a definitely an enjoyable time, but a very familiar one, and the changes to the abilities and gadgets made Spider-Man 2's progression and combat feel like it plays all of its cards early and doesn't really evolve after the midway point in the game.

Web-Swinging and Web Gliding

The web swinging in Spider-Man 2 is a tight and tense as it's prior games with some new features that make the web swinging less assistive for players that weren't fond of 2018's web swinging. Personally I found the web swinging to be fluid and as interactive as the first game. The city of Manhattan feels like a dense and much larger playground to explore this time around, and I found it a ton of fun to navigate. There is a new feature that has been added into Spider-Man 2's open world traversal and that is the inclusion of the wing suit. The wing suit provides a level of mobility that wouldn't have been possible with previous Spider-Man games and allows the Spider-Men to glide across Manhattan and gain a drastic boost in speed when flying through wind tunnels which have signified circles that will boost the player. It's a nice addition that can change up the flow of traversal. I personally enjoyed my time with the wing suit, but made sure to keep web-swinging as my main mode of getting around, because whilst the wing suit provides unrivaled speed and mobility, nothing can top the style and feeling of swinging building to building.

Visuals Presentation and Performance

Spider-Man 2 is a visual spectacle for the PlayStation 5 showcasing what the true potential of what the next generation of the platform can look like with its seamless load times and ability to render some of the most high octane action straight out the gate. The visuals for Spider-Man 2 is phenomenal providing a much more denser, and active New York that feels lively and brimming with life. It's insane to me like sometimes I'd just perch on a pole and people watch, and having played this game back to back with Spider-Man 2018, it's absolutely crazy to see how the open world has evolved here both on the visual front with it's graphical finesse and broader density creating a sense of realism.

Conclusion

To bring this video together, I feel like Spider-Man 2 was overall a really solid sequel, it really is a hard task to top Spider-Man 2018 and whilst you can argue that the game doesn't drastically alter the formula, and whilst innovation is always something that is welcomed, I don't think it is a dealbreaker or something that dampened my experience with the game. I think overall Spider-Man 2 tells a compelling story of one finding balance in a life full of chaos, a intersection of the heroes journey so well. I think that if you're someone who loves Spider-Man and loved Insomniac's take with Spidey than this game will no doubt be an enjoyable experience for you. It may not be as groundbreaking as it's predecessor but man if it isn't one hell of a good time and if Spider-Man 2 is showcase of what's to come from Playstation and Insomniac for the remainder of this generation, then consider me sold.