Happy about: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

A few years ago Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered had a surprise PC release so I had a chance to finally experience the new superhero open world title – something that I don’t find enjoyable as often as I’d like. But the game, despite having several notable flaws, was really fun and in many ways felt like a new benchmark on how to make an open world title with fun traversal around said world, and how to build the main and side story content in a way that feels well paced and rewarding, while also fitting with the main character so well. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales followed soon after, and while it was still good, it also felt a bit “too much of the same”, without fully fixing the issues of the original. So where does this leave Marvel’s Spider-Man 2? Well, in some ways it is the best game in the series so far. But in some – it loses a bit of the personality that the first two games had.

In case you have missed the previous games – go check them out, they’re worth it. But to quickly recap, these are action adventure titles in an open world with fun traversal around the world (you are a Spider-Man after all), beat ’em up combat (heavily inspired by the now classic Batman: Arkham games) and occasional stealth segments (also inspired by Batman: Arkham). Improving upon the foundations of the previous games, the traversal around the New York City is even better than it used to be, and it was already extremely good, as you can now do more moves and even glide and once you unlock the fast travel between districts (of which there are more available as well) you transition between the map and gameplay completely seamlessly too. Moving around the city is still the highlight and I’m happy to say that it’s even more enjoyable than it used to be.

The combat has seen some improvements too. It’s still mostly “fine”, as the basic mechanics of it (just like with Batman: Arkham) have certain built-in limitations, but the encounters themselves and enemies have been mostly made better. The special moves and gadgets are also significantly improved, so the combat flows quite a lot better, hitting the right balance between being somewhat challenging and overwhelming and giving you the sense of power. Even the boss fights, that I absolutely hated in the first games, are now tolerable and at times even decent, no longer feeling like a pure QTE, and more like a normal combat with an interesting flow. Just too long for their own good.

Even the stealth segments feel better. A few new moves and abilities were added, moves feel more responsive and less prone to initiating when it’s safe, but then still triggering an alert. Some changes to the upgrades systems are neat, some weird. Suits no longer give you abilities, for example, which incentivizes experimenting with them less. But maybe some people prefer this approach. Oh and even the major side-activities in the early sections of the game are really cool and more varied than they used to be, with fun additional storylines running in parallel with the main story.

Speaking of the story – it is as well told as before and most characters are really nice, but… It’s not even the fault of the game, but rather of the idea of this being a second sequel, so – they couldn’t just do the first game again. Even though that particular structure was genuinely perfect for the character, they could not repeat it, because audience would complain. Yet, the further you go with Spider-Man from being the person who’s just helping the neighbourhood and more into fighting supervillains and world ending threats, the less interesting it becomes. It’s not helping that the first major villain of the game is a void of personality or anything interesting about them. Just an entirely unlikable, uncharismatic asshole who decided to kill people. Granted, that is a good description of a russian man, but this is not what you want in a superhero story – you want a memorable villain, who you want to hate or whom you want to save and reform. And that Kraven guy isn’t it.

Apart from a less balanced and well flowing story, there are other faults as well. As mentioned, boss fights still last for far too long. Some optional challenges, that Insomniac attempted in previous games and it never worked, still don’t work and they should stop trying. New occasional mini-games are really bad. Nothing deal-breaking, really, but just incredibly frustrating when it happens in the otherwise enjoyable game.

The PC port this time around is also quite problematic. I didn’t have any major performance or stability issues, but the game still can render things weirdly depending on your hardware and settings and the fact that Insomniac were really pushing the boundaries of both lighting and loading speed of things clearly made porting far more complicated, as PC hardware can be so varied and it’s hard to make things work on everything. So be prepared for more noticeable hitches or second-long loading hitches during moments where the game does some crazy transition between vastly different locations or parts of the city.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 could’ve been the best game in the series, if this was the first game in the series. But a lot of its issues really stem from the fact that it needs to be a sequel that cannot repeat the previous games to avoid being criticized for it. Even if the predecessors already nailed it. So it has faults, it has issues, but it is still extremely enjoyable and one of the best open world games I’ve ever played. Given how it improves gameplay-wise on the first two games, I could almost recommend it over those. But given how incredibly well structured the original is… There’s no clear winner. I’d recommend you play all of them.