Spider-Man 2 for PS5 Does Not Disappoint (except for a little bit)
Adding yet another amazing game to the huge stack 2023 has delivered us, Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 released a week ago. I already beat the main story and it turns out, I have a lot of thoughts on the game.
Marvel’s Spider-Man for the PlayStation 4 was an extremely cool game. When it released in 2018, I was in college, and my roommate got the game and very kindly let me play it (I didn’t own a PS4 back then). I didn’t know much about it beforehand—just that it looked cool. But when I started playing, I was hooked. Visually, the game was stunning. The story was compelling; it had a great grasp on the characters and knew how to make you care about them. Most importantly, playing as Spider-Man was a blast, both when web-swinging around New York City and in combat.
The game had weak points, of course. There were some stealth missions where you don’t play as Spider-Man which were kind of annoying. Puzzles also interrupted the story’s pacing. Side activities got quite boring if you were trying to complete the game fully. And personally, while the Spider-Man stealth gameplay was somewhat fun, I found the enemies’ intelligence quite lacking—they were not as responsive to your actions as I remember goons in the Batman Arkham games being, which made the experience sometimes feel repetitive and dull. None of these negatives canceled out the stuff I really loved about the game, though.
If you played Spider-Man 2018, you knew that obviously they were gonna make a sequel or two. In 2020, we got Spider Man: Miles Morales, a shorter game. This one, I did not play at launch, because I wanted to play it on the new PS5 for the best experience (although in retrospect I think I would’ve enjoyed the PS4 version just as much). This game told a new story with a new Spider-Man without making any massive changes to the gameplay or underlying technology. It was another good story, and most of the stuff that annoyed me from the first one wasn’t present. Couldn’t get too excited about it, though, since it was a shorter, less expensive game. The full-sized sequel was yet to come.
But now it’s here. So let’s talk about it. Without spoilers.
Let me start by complaining. My biggest disappointment with the game is that they didn’t really evolve the Spider-Man stealth except for giving you the ability to create web lines (like a tight rope) you can walk across, which means greater flexibility. This is fun. But I still think stealth would be more fun if enemies were more aware. As of now, they lack the ability to, you know, look up—which if they did look up, they might notice five of their buddies tied up in Spider-Man’s web. Heck, they really only seem to notice their buddies’ absence if you leave them unconscious on the ground. So, yeah, maybe next game?
With that out of the way. Man, this game is great. It’s the kind of game I just want to play all day.
Sure, there is a sense of sameness to it as you get started. I had expectations that a full-blown sequel might be more different, but the game has the familiar structure where it’ll show you your main objective while side activities are scattered throughout the city. With all these years since Breath of the Wild, I’d kinda hoped they might shake up the open world format more in some way, but alas.
However, any sense of disappointment I may have felt from the game’s familiarity was soon drowned out as I became engrossed in the extremely-well-paced main story. Mandatory puzzles? There are very few, and they’re quick. MJ stealth missions? Well, they’re back, but she has an overpowered stun gun now, so you can play aggressively and it’s actually fun. I never really wanted to put the controller down, because the story has the perfect ebb and flow of crazy action and slower parts where you can catch your breath. The first game wasn’t paced badly, but this game’s pacing is close to perfection.
Now, you may have noticed from the marketing that the symbiote is involved in this game’s story. Out-of-context, when we saw a scene from the game where Peter is under the symbiote’s influence, it seemed kinda corny. But actually playing through the game, I found this element really effective. It’s a gradual shift in Peter’s personality that works really well. As the player, you’ll enjoy the powerful abilities the symbiote offers in combat, but at the same time you’ll know that thing can’t stay on forever.
The Peter Parker side of the story is certainly gripping, but how does Miles Morales play into it? He’s involved closely with the Peter drama, of course, but he has his own stuff going on, too. I was a bit disappointed, though, that his story definitely feels like the “B Story” here. It’s not bad at all, but it feels less important.
As a video game, I think this story works super well, but do I actually like the writing itself better than the first game’s? In some ways, not really. Peter and MJ were more fun to watch when they were still broken up, for some reason. And the choice Peter has to make at the end of the first game? Oooh, that’s some good Spider-Man stuff. I don’t know if anything in this game is as compelling as that. Still, obviously give the writing in Spider-Man 2 a ton of credit for keeping me engaged the whole time.
Combat in Spider-Man 2 has the same foundation as the previous games—you’ll feel right at home if you played those—but there are a couple of significant changes. In the previous games, you had a large collection of gadgets, which you would select from a radial menu during combat and use with the L1 button. Here, though, there are fewer gadgets. You always have access to your web, but other gadgets are used via the four face buttons in combination with R1. I see this as a positive change because I found the radial selection kind of clunky, but I do miss some of the gadgets. In addition to those, you also get abilities—hold L1 instead of R1 when pressing the face buttons for those. Miles has his Venom powers, and Peter has some kinda robo-arms… and eventually, the symbiote powers. Again, I think these are well-designed.
I also think there were too many equippable things in Spider-Man and trimming them just makes sense (it’s not an RPG)! I can’t see many people complaining about the absence of Suit Mods. You still get skill trees and gadget upgrades.
Anyway, there is another significant change to combat: parrying. Some attacks cannot be dodged and must be parried (or you can jump instead). Additionally, some attacks cannot be parried. Because I’m too stupid to learn to react to different attacks in the correct way, this made the game a lot more challenging than the previous ones for me. But it’s an interesting element to the combat and at this point I think I’ve finally gotten the hang of it.
You really can get overwhelmed quickly in this game, and while Spider-Man had skills you could activate by clicking both control sticks—one of which generated Focus you could use to heal, which was a good way to survive if you got hit a lot—that’s another element that’s gone. But replacing it is an ability that charges up over time and unleashes some insane power when ready. Miles can zap everybody, and Peter with the symbiote can just, you know, go crazy. It’s pretty fun.
One of the most impressive aspects of Spider-Man 2 is its bosses. There are a lot of them, and they are epic, challenging battles. They tie perfectly into the story’s emotional beats; each one feels important. I found them all to be novel without feeling gimmicky, and overall, they’re simply thrilling.
Let’s talk about the open world and traversal. Like I said before, the structure of the game has not changed. What has changed is, the side activities are actually a lot more rewarding than before. I was really surprised at some of the stuff that happened as a result of pursuing something that seemed unimportant. They’ve put story into everything.
Of course, the world you can explore is bigger than in the previous two games, as you can cross the river and see Brooklyn and Queens. I guess I should have expected, though, that these places are just… you know, more city. But hey, they look quite lovely. Now if this were Yakuza/Like a Dragon, there would be mini games or at least some restaurants you could visit over there, but that’s not how Spider-Man works (Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth will be 2024 GOTY).
Web-swinging through the world is as fun as ever, and there’s one big addition to it that makes it even better: web wings. That’s right, you can glide through the sky now. I was honestly worried this would sort of replace web-swinging, but it isn’t that powerful! Without a wind tunnel, you won’t be able to maintain altitude, and you’ll need to use your trusty web. But man, when you do find wind, you’ll find yourself jetting across the world—in fact, you can glide right across the river, and it’s an absolute joy. You can also use webs to slingshot yourself. It’s just so much fun to fly fast in this game.
The reason going so fast is possible, of course, is technology. PS4 was limited by its hard disk drive, but PS5’s solid state drive lets the game load the world much, much more quickly. Not only is this demonstrated through these speedy flights, but the game’s fast travel feature is near instantaneous. It’s seriously incredible, though I will note that fast travel is actually locked until you explore each area for a bit, which might annoy some people.
Making good use of fast loading isn’t the only impressive technological achievement this game has—it’s also incredibly gorgeous. The game makes heavy use of ray-tracing, so beautifully reflective surfaces are everywhere. Puddles, windows, even cars. The lighting and shadows are also beautiful. Whenever I go swinging through the game’s blue sky, I just want to stop and take pictures. And there are so many indoor levels that look incredibly smooth. On both an art direction and technical level, these graphics are seriously impressive and will finally make you remember why you bought a PS5. (Though early on I thought the realistic faces sometimes looked weirder than I expected).
One last thing: this game’s music delivers. One thing I particularly noticed was how in between missions, the music would perfectly complement the mood as I swung through the city. Like if things were getting pretty serious in the part I just played? Yeah, the music reflects that. I had a complaint about the first game where after I beat the story, the music just got so annoyingly repetitive, but I haven’t noticed that so far in this one, now that I’m working on getting the Platinum.
Oh, I guess I should also note that this game does have some bugs. Not bad ones, but certainly more than I saw in the previous ones. One of the side missions, I found it a little janky. Not a big deal, but hopefully they iron it all out soon.
I think Spider-Man 2 is, overall, a great step up from its predecessors. It doesn’t shake things up too much, but it improves on areas the previous games were weak in, and the result is an excellent experience. I loved the story, and it was a game where I just felt super satisfied upon seeing the credits. It’s not the best game I’ve played this year, but it is a real good one.