Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is an open world superhero action game/”demonic alien possession” simulator developed by Insomniac Games, known for previous hits like Ratchet & Clank, the underrated Resistance franchise and Spyro the Dragon. I don’t really have much in the way of history here other than the mention of them not using the Symbiote black suit for the last game due to the story connotations, and a tie-in comic that introduces a villain named The Hood into the universe (link below). However, I can mention how I was watching the stream where they introduced footage of Spider-Man 2 AND Insomniac’s next title: Marvel’s Wolverine. Over the past year or so I’ve looked into footage and kept up to date bit by bit while also playing through my current backlog, before pre-ordering the game because no matter what I’m a weird Playstation exclusive historian even though one should never pre-order any game unless you get something cool physically.

When I played the game for the first time, what I can tell you is this: I felt a combination of “oh Jesus it’s been a while since I played Miles Morales, what the hell am I doing again?” and “this shit’s pretty damn fun!”. Now for me, I’ll be straight up these past couple of months I haven’t been doing great, but what I can say is that this game and my journey to get the platinum trophy for me has been very good at relieving my anxiety, or at least provided a great distraction while I try to navigate the perils of finding my own apartment and not trying to go bankrupt. Fun shit. Regardless, we all know the answer of the ultimate question: Is the game good? No shit, and I’m going to spend the next however many paragraphs I please telling you my thoughts on it, so SPOILERS AHEAD.

The game begins with Miles Morales in school, waiting on a substitute teacher to come in and teach the class. This substitute teacher is Peter Parker, his mentor in being a Spider-Man, and they pretend like they don’t know the other person at all. However, shit gets upended and Sandman goes ballistic (somehow breaking the lore with the vial from the first game, which the developers forgot about admittedly but said screw it) and the two make various excuses to get dressed and take down Sandman. This culminates in being thrown through multiple buildings in a half and hour or so prologue that involves taking him down, and settling through the aftermath with rescuing civilians from the disaster with the help of Ganke and the Spider-Man app from Miles Morales (including JJ Jameson first out of two on screen appearances in game). However, when each of them get back from their expedition, Peter is fired due to “abandoning the students”, and unable to explain what his side gig is, he walks off sad. Meanwhile, a cutscene shows a hunt commencing, and a man thinking that he’s about to get the jump on his target. However, he gets his booty hole curb stomped by a big russian man in cheetah print, the man being Kraven the Hunter. One of his men tells him about a bunch of super powered individuals living in New York City and wanting to experience something far greater, Kraven prepares to depart.

Regardless, he goes back home to his old Aunt May’s house in Queens and meets with Mary Jane. There’s a whole romantic tension thing with her potentially moving in with him, the bills not being paid due to Spider-Man antics and the like that will be built upon much later in the game but for now, you get treated to a surprise of Harry Osborn. Yes he’s back from his hidden wall treatment, and Harry convinces Peter to help him in his old antics of breaking into their old high school like they did years ago. After reliving old memories (involving a Rick Astley rendition and Norman arriving in millionaire style to break the news of his mother’s death) and gaining new ones, Harry surprises Peter with a badge ID, one to the Emily-May Foundation. Harry establishes him as a co-founder and tells him to come by the lab the next day. Meanwhile, Kraven’s capture of Sandman has failed, and the Big K tells his boys to plan a jailbreak from The Raft instead. There’s also a bit of a subplot involving Miles working on his college essay and struggling to figure out what to put down, while also dealing with his Spider-Man activities and his mother Rio starting to date again.

Soon, the two Spider-Man prepare to protect a prisoner transfer from The Raft, with Scorpion and another prisoner being moved due to Sandman’s antics. The other man is Martin Li (aka Mr. Negative from the first game), and his tie-in to the story and Mile’s anger will also build up and tie in later on. However, predictably, a prison break occurs from a group of mysterious hunters and after a bunch of beatdowns, the boat is nearly sunk into the river. Miles goes inside to save people, however he’s ambushed and poisoned by Scorpion. Scorpion escapes, and Miles experiences freaky visions as well as an electrocution that overcharges his Venom (bioelectricity abilities, not the symbiote) to an umph degree after he attempts to save Martin Li (though hesitant due to him killing Mile’s dad). A bunch of fighting, explosions and saving civilians from near death later and with Scorpion presumed captured, Miles fights to stop Martin’s kidnapping. However, Miles' anger almost gets the better of him in the choice between saving civilians and getting Martin Li back but he chooses to save the civilians. Kraven gets away with the villains, but Peter promises that they’ll get the villains back to prison. Afterwards, Miles gets a call from his Uncle Aaron, who just got out of jail after his tenure as The Prowler from the previous game. Telling Miles that he’s reformed and that he wants to change for the better, he asks Miles to go to all of his old hangouts and take the Prowler tech so no one else gets their hands on it. Miles does so and gets some upgrades for himself while he’s at it.

The next day, Peter travels to the Emily-May Foundation and meets up with Harry, who shows him the scientific equivalent to a utopia. Along the way he controls robotic bees, meets Dr. Curtis Connors (aka the former Lizard), learns of a huge particle accelerator, and gene splices some plants before he formally accepts a job at the foundation with his best friend Harry. You get access to EMF Experiments around the city (where you never meet any of the other scientists in person again) and promising to meet up at Coney Island later, Miles tells Peter about tracking the hunters to a nearby bridge, to which Peter tells Miles to focus on his essay and he’ll investigate it. Peter investigates the nearby bridge to learn that they have weird cloaking technology and after taking down a bunch of small outposts, he learns of one of their bigger bases. He sneaks through and learns not only of Scorpion’s death by Kraven in a duel (in found footage) but a giant hitlist against other villains such as Vulture, Mr. Negative and Black Cat. After he discovers giant robot dogs, Peter escapes and messages Miles for help in saving Black Cat. Miles has to skip out on meeting his mom’s potential boyfriend AND writing the college essay to help him out.

Soon however MJ gives Miles a call to let him know that Peter’s ex-girlfriend, Black Cat, needs help and sends him a potential address where she could be at. Scanning the crime scene reveals an ambush between Felicia and some hunters when Miles sees a giant explosion in the background. Going to that crime scene, he scans everything again to reveal that Black Cat was planning on robbing the Sanctum Santorum for a magic wand meant to teleport people to places they wanted to go along with a postcard to Paris. Miles knocks out all the hunters outside and chases Felicia through a series of portals before they team up at a park to beat up the nearby hunters. A cooperative beatdown later and she reveals her motives: she needed to steal the wand to rescue her girlfriend, who was in trouble after being kidnapped and brought to Paris. Miles and Felicia think of Paris while holding the wand and they wish each other well as she teleports across the globe.

Another thing I should mention before I continue is that since Spider-Man 1 and Miles Morales, MJ has come back from Symkaria with Peter and created a book that didn’t sell well. Since then she’s joined up with JJ Jameson at the Bugle, who sold his podcast to buy out his former news place. Throughout the game she struggles with finances and getting an upstart in his career while trying to help/dealing with Peter’s overwhelming Spider-Man obsession. After she writes up to Jameson an article about the Black Cat escapades, Ganke gives Miles a call to head over to Coney Island both for potential date material with Hailey (his sorta love interest from Miles Morales) as well as to check out the former Mysterio’s new attraction. Miles and Ganke head to the attraction but only Miles goes in, and while the whole illusionist thing is cool for a bit reenacting a rhythm minigame, shit escalates really quick. The illusion goes badly and goons try to beat up Miles, only for Miles to tumble out through a portal and get thrown out of the ride. Mysterio (or Quentin Beck), closes it down and after a semi-awkward meet and greet between Miles and Harry Osborn, who arrives with Peter and MJ to have fun, Miles leaves because the ride messed with his head.

The trio have fun around Coney Park and banter with each other, noticing Tombstone working a job with the Go-Karts after getting out of prison. Enjoying the night just the three of them, Peter and MJ have a romantic moment on one of the rides before chaos strikes again. Kraven’s hunters are coming to pick up Tombstone for one of his hunts. Spider-Man and Tombstone fight off the hunters before more lives are put in danger at a nearby roller coaster. However, while trying to save everyone, Harry is revealed to be using black goo to lift nearby debris. Harry figures out quickly that Peter is Spider-Man and after saving everyone, Peter and Harry go to a nearby rooftop. They talk shop about the powers Harry has, and they decide to meet up later at the Emily May Foundation. Later that night, they do exactly that as they test the limits of Harry’s suit cure, before waking up in the morning to Harry’s father Norman. Peter quickly leaves the two alone before heading out and finding a strange spider-bot that has to do with a side quest.


Later on, Black Cat contacts the Spider-Men as a favor for helping her escape and explains that Tombstone might be held by the Hunters at an industrial plant up the road from Coney Island. Peter infiltrates to find him and accidentally gets spotted before Harry arrives in a makeshift black suit to help him save Tombstone, getting sucked into the hero fantasy. After witnessing a suit weakness in the form of loud sound due to metal beams, the two are able to save Tombstone (though only due to accidentally blowing up the plant due to a meltdown) and escape. Reconvening together, Peter and Harry fistbump though something strange happens: a piece of the suit seems to grasp onto Peter and steals his spider sign. They shrug it off and part ways for now and Miles is asked for help by his mom, while also discussing with Peter over the phone the results of the escape and learns himself that Harry has powers.

Miles' help mainly revolves around the theft of goods from a Harlem Musical Heritage museum and opens up another series of side quests but afterwards calls Peter again to call. However, Peter hangs up again due to another call from Harry, the tension growing with Miles feeling ignored by Peter. Switching to Peter, both him and Harry have been waiting for Dr. Connors for a while to help the young Osborn kid with his miracle suit cure, however he’s effectively disappeared. MJ gives a call and is effectively one step ahead, and goes to the doctor’s house only to find hunters looting it. Calling Peter, she tries to give him intel on where Connors is being held before losing her phone. She ends up stowing out in a van and she’s brought to an abandoned zoo in New Jersey. Using her stun gun and stealth techniques, she learns that Vulture was also killed by Kraven and finds the cage that Connors is being held in. After finding the code to the gate (0451, shoutout to Looking Glass Studios baybeeeeeeeey) and attempting to break out Connors, Kraven appears and throws her ass out of the way before injecting the doctor with a serum to turn him back to his former Lizard self. Peter and Harry arrive and a giant brawl ensues, which ends up in Connors turning feral and running off and Peter stabbed in the gut and thrown around by Kraven. Harry goes AWOL and fights Kraven with his powers as MJ rescues Peter, however the suit abandons Harry entirely and crawls its way onto Peter as he’s seemingly dying. Getting a fresh lease on life and a whole lot of rage, Peter goes berserk on nearby hunters who ambush in a violent display of power, wiping out a whole room of them. Kraven watches on in awe, and wants to fight Spider-Man by himself as the three leave. Back in the EMF office, Peter attempts to give Harry back his suit to no avail. Needing to find Connors and fast, they attempt to track the blade that fell off Peter and promise to reconvene soon.

Tracing the blade to a pawn shop in Little Odessa, the pawn shop owner tells Peter that he wants nothing to do with Kraven and that “the fires have been lit”. Swinging nearby he finds several different bonfires which he takes down and computer intel relaying the location of a special party. Infiltrating the party and witnessing several unhinged acts, he infiltrates his office (after distracting his tiger, Dima, with steak that knocks her out) to find chemotherapy medicine and word of a “chapel being prepared”. The symbiote acts on its own here and starts to slowly take over Peter’s being piece by piece, launching a hunter through a window. Peter travels to a nearby church and fights Kraven’s shieldbearer as well as Kraven himself a bit. After a small back and forth, Peter steals the vial of Lizard cure from Kraven’s neck while also getting molested with loud bell noises and escapes. He calls MJ to let her know how everything went and notes that the suit's weakness is loud sound frequencies, before making his way back to the Emily-May Foundation. However, a tracking device is planted on the bottom because of course it is.

The next mission consists of Harry and Peter working together to boost the cure for Dr. Connors involving particle accelerators. Peter continues to slowly act a bit off due to the symbiote’s effects and hunters come down to crash the party. Multiple beatdowns as well as dad jokes later, the cure is secure but the entire building is trashed. Both Harry and Pete get out, and Norman comes out in a helicopter to check in on his son. Miles attempts to call Peter with no answer, but Ganke gives him info on the potential location of Martin Li. This doesn’t really do much except introduce you to another side quest where you chase down robot eagles or something and get info on potential targets of Kraven. However, you do get a call from Harry where you bond over dead parents so that’s pretty solid.

The next mission is the one that plays out during E3, where you play as Peter and you go to Connors house to try to find him and give him the formula. Raiding the place, you find footage of the Lizard transforming again and hunters arrive. Jumping out of the house, Peter wallops the nearby hunter goons before hearing over a nearby radio of the Lizard hunkering down at a nearby fish market. Interrupting Miles’ bonding time with his future girlfriend Hailey at the park, he’s asked by Peter to go to the nearby Harlem Fish Market to find him. There’s also repeated stress over finding Martin Li with Miles over the whole dead dad thing, so keep in mind that’s another plot thread to hold onto. Arriving at the market and experiencing near horror levels of tension, Miles finds shedded lizard skin and meets up with Peter as the former Connors bursts through the floor and out into the wild where they give chase. A whole lot of explosions and close calls with civilians later, Peter and Miles meet up with Kraven and the Lizard getting away. Peter swings off declaring Connors “his” while Miles and Ganke talk about how he’s a bit off. Nothing is as off as declaring Miles a liability in a call to MJ, which is very uncharacteristic of Peter and spirals him even more down the rabbit hole of suit corruption. One thing I like out of this is how Miles lands next to Peter at the end, and Pete replies “He got away from US”. You don’t know if that’s the suit talking or if he’s referring to Miles, and there’s something cool about that little detail.

Crawling through the sewers and arriving at a makeshift lab, you see whiteboard drawings of space stuff hinting at the symbiote’s alien origins before finding a small piece of meteorite that the suit REALLY wants. The Lizard pops up however, and after multiple fights and a chase through New York City back into the sewers again before a pop in the gums later and Connors is back to his old self. However, Peter is really becoming a bastard here as his usual playful taunts and cries of trying to help lead to personal insults against Connors, talking about how he shamed his family and how pathetic he is. The suit is corrupting Peter into the worst version of himself, and Connors explains the origins of the suit: an asteroid landed years ago and the resulting goo latched onto Curt, who was on a mission for Oscorp and the local corporate security squad. His arm gets shot off, and after the flashback is done, Peter realizes he’s wearing an alien being. Urging him to take it off, Peter staunchly refuses and after throwing Connor’s phone disappears into the night.

Calling MJ, Peter goes full dick as he dismisses the destruction caused by the earlier chase as well as shrugging off concerns about the alien latched to him. MJ wants him to read her new article and an argument sort of occurs before she hangs up. Confused but giving space, he later heads back and falls asleep almost immediately without reading the article before hunters show up to capture Pete. Another Mary Jane stealth sequence arrives, and Peter disappears, not intently controlled by the alien that’s basically wearing Peter at this point. This is probably hands down one of the scarier missions in the game, mainly because while you sneak through construction sites you never know when the symbiote will pop up and if they’ll try to go after you. Later on, MJ calls Miles and asks for help getting the symbiote off. Fighting off numerous goons, MJ has Miles trap her in the tunnel that Symbiote Peter ran into so that the Hunters don’t get him. Miles does so successfully and fights a bunch off, however a successful kidnap attempt knocks Miles out and he’s loaded on a helicopter. Meanwhile, MJ finds the Symbiote and he’s knocked out by the sound of a power drill. She decides to wake him up with the stun gun, however it’s a bad idea and the alien suit wearing Peter decides to chase her down and try to kill her. She escapes and after a strange dream involving a meteorite, Peter wakes up on a park bench wondering how he got there but feeling pretty damn good.

Begging for the suit back due to the limited time he has and seeing a hit piece by MJ on Spider-Man’s recent behavior, Peter confronts the two at the Oscorp Penthouse. Realizing Peter doesn’t remember anything, she prepares the stun gun but basically he flips both of them off before checking on Norman Osborn, whose efforts in preparing another cure for Harry fails. He thanks Peter for being Harry’s friend and seeing this makes Harry mad at the apparent betrayal. Miles wakes up in one of Kraven’s prisons and makes his way through numerous goons before he makes his way to an arena where Martin Li is currently. Kraven wants the two to duke it out and after Miles vents his frustrations on how Martin is a real bastard. The fight leads to Martin overpowering Miles and entering his mind and taking him apart with his insecurities. However, Miles reverses it and pulls them both out of the dreamstate after the revelation of who Miles is is made. Deciding in the moment to do the right thing instead of killing Li, Miles throws him to the roof and tells him to get the attention of the other Spider-Man.

In order to do that, Martin Li goes full Mr. Negative near the FEAST Shelter, and Peter shows up to confront him. In a bit of foreshadowing, the suit attempts to attack Li but backs away due to the sheer power he has. He gives Peter the location of Miles to pay off the debt of saving him, and Peter races off to find Kraven. On the way, he goes berzerk mentally about all of his problems like losing his home and MJ’s hit piece, and the voice in the suit tells him to kill Kraven. Fighting his way through the abandoned mansion and escapes a trap from Kraven, before brutally fighting him inside and then later outside of the mansion. Violence continually erupts as Kraven attempts to use a bell to weaken Peter but he’s overwhelmed by the Symbiote. Miles escapes from his trap and attempts to talk sense into Pete to stop him from killing Kraven, but ends up having to beat the sense into him before cheering Peter on to fight against the suit after ringing the bell. The struggle is real, and you have to tap Square to really force the alien suit off of Peter. After trapping the alien in a special science tube, the two Spider-Men make amends for everything that happened and proceed with the plan to destroy the alien once and for all as Kraven disappears again.

Nothing goes as planned however, as his attempt to bring the alien back to Oscorp Tower results in Harry cracking the tube and possessing the alien once again. In a staunchly powerful display, Harry turns into Venom and smacks Peter out of the room. His father attempts to get the suit off of him with the security guards but things go poorly for them and fun for us. In a way to differentiate the gameplay I must say, I didn’t expect the ability to PLAY as Venom but goddamn is it fun. Venom rips and tears his way through Oscorp before escaping and jumping out of the building. Kraven and the hunters set up a trap in Times Square where a lethal battle ensues before Kraven, now satisfied with his final hunt, tells Venom to kill him. He does just as asked before turning back to Harry who is horrified at himself. Running to the gravestone of his mother, the alien symbiote manipulates him by pretending to be his mom and telling him to “Heal the World”, the tagline for the Emily-May Foundation. However, Venom’s version of that is to Symbioteify everyone of course.


New York is now under full DEFCON level Avengers threat shit, but with no one in sight it’s up to the Spider-Men to save the day again. Miles uses his music engineering skills to recreate a frequency to destroy the alien goo while Peter follows the tracker on Harry’s ID to find a symbiote nest where he’s turned normal civilians into creatures. They later find Venom bringing a bunch of civilians into a subway nest and after blowing it up with a noise bomb, they rescue Miles’ mom and Ganke, who were trapped after attempting to find Miles. Peter attempts to call MJ and she gets a call from JJ, loving her hit piece against Spider-Man. Someone knocks on the door and while Peter tells her to stay away from Harry, Harry shows up right at her front door. Going to rescue MJ, Peter and Harry confront each other which ends in Mary being turned to a symbiote named Scream after Peter calls the alien suit “a thing” (that “We are Venom drop is pheww so good). A fight between Peter and Scream leads to Peter profusely apologizing to MJ and telling her to fight off the negative emotions, and later she rips it off of her. They embrace and apologize to each other, with Peter promising to do better for her. JJ calls her and she tells him to fuck off without curse words and tells Peter that Harry is trying to go after a space rock. Miles later hits Peter up and tells him he’s at City Hall and that he needs his help and Pete races off to help Miles.

Attempting to save civilians at City Hall results in Peter being knocked out by a heavy Symbiote goon and transformed by tendrils again. Before Miles and Peter can get overwhelmed, Mr. Negative appears and protects the both. Proposing a temporary alliance out of respect and remorse for his previous actions, Li and Miles go into Peter’s memories with his powers and explore Pete’s past and motives. Apparently with no surprise as to Peter’s identity as Spider-Man, the two movie through hallucinations of The Raft and Aunt May’s house before Li decides to transfer all of his powers into the Symbiote to eliminate it. Realizing this may be the end, the two make peace: Miles won’t forgive but won’t carry the hatred for Li anymore. They purge the symbiote and comfort dream Pete over Aunt May’s death bed before waking up in the real world, having completed this story arc as well as giving Peter the Anti-Venom suit. Joking how he’s never reformed his greatest villain but that Miles has as Li gives himself to the police, there’s a bit of a “after this, you’re Spider-Man” moment I really appreciate before MJ calls with news: she’s given her notice to her landlord and is moving in with Peter.

Dr. Connors also calls, telling him to get to the sewer labs immediately. Venom is there and after confronting Norman about his son’s state of health, he steals the space rock. Attempting to chase after, Connors tells Pete that he’ll probably have to kill Harry to get rid of the alien once and for all, while Norman pleads for Spider-Man to save his son. Back on the surface, it looks like Web of Shadows 2 as the entire city is COVERED in gooey tendrils in a hella cool oppressive atmosphere. The last two missions consist of the Spider-Men attempting to clean up the city but the first of the two focuses mostly on Miles. After he almost gets possessed by tendrils himself, he goes through mental mind games before he uses his bioelectricity to escape, seeing visions of the space rock AND Hailey being attacked. He tells Pete that the rock is under the Harlem Subway Station but to wait up as he has to save Hailey. Peter presses on anyway and Miles saves Hailey before asking her out. Fighting the symbiote goons and attempting to save Harry, Pete is almost overpowered and turned once again before Miles saves him from Venom with the bioelectricity before they escape. MJ calls and tells the two that they need to formulate a plan to get rid of the space rock once and for all.

The final mission culminates with them getting together so that Peter will distract Harry/Venom and lure him away, and Miles will distract the symbiote soldiers while MJ will go to get the rock. The last sequence with MJ in the game sees her getting a sonic boost attached to her stun gun, and she shoots her way to steal the rock. Barely escaping with her life with Miles, it switches over to Peter fighting Venom at their old high school together, which is levitated into the air. Back and forth accusations arise and the fight finishes off with Venom sensing the meteorite being stolen and growing fucking wings! Miles and MJ make it to the EMF building for the second phase: overloading the rock with the Particle Accelerator/Hadron Collider thing he’s got going on. Miles ends up fighting Venom as Pete and MJ try to figure out the accelerator, all while fighting off more symbiotes and stealing the rock from each other. Eventually after some crazy QTEs and fighting in mid-air, Harry comes to his senses finally and asks Pete to kill him. Finally, the accelerator works and Venom is purged from the city, however Harry is basically dead. Using his bioelectricity, Miles brings him back to life but he’s barely clinging on as Norman and his team bring him out for special medical treatment, blaming Spider-Man for his near death. Even when it’s just MJ and Peter, he’s in full rage and calls someone to tell them to “bring out G-Serum”.

There’s some final scenes as well as a post credits one: MJ starts a podcast about keeping hope in NYC, with parallels to COVID; Pete and MJ have Miles, Ganke, Rios (Mile’s mom in case I forgot the mention) and Hailey to have pancakes and there’s an EMF setup in the garage to continue the “Save the World” mission. An alert on the Spider-Man app goes off, but Pete tells Miles to continue on his own as he’s semi-retiring for now so he’ll be the only Spider-Man so he and MJ can make use of their “second chance” together. The two post credits scenes involve Norman Osborn asking his old nemesis Otto Octavius for help but getting brutally rebuffed, and Otto mentions how he is planning “The Final Chapter”. Meanwhile Miles and Hailey are introduced to the new stepdad, Albert Moon, by his mother and also meets his new potential stepsister, Cindy Moon (aka Silk).

How do I feel about the story? I liked it a lot! It was pretty cool, it hit all the story beats well and I generally don’t have much in the way of complaints. I personally feel like it hits a bit less hard than the first one and even Miles Morales emotionally persay, but it more than makes up for it in bombastic spectacle. If you wanted more action and setpieces in the previous games then you’ll get your setpieces now. A lot of people were disappointed in this game, but honestly most sequels are usually a bit on the lower end side as some things tend to be upgraded while others are lost in translation. I think the game however makes use of everything pretty well, especially on it’s themes. The main recurring themes are the usual like “revenge takes you down a bad path” with Miles and “don’t overlook your personal relationships and take them for granted” like MJ, but I think the game is definitely built on “Second Chances” and reformation. A lot of the villains in this game have moved on or try to be better, from Mysterio and Tombstone to Martin Li themselves and they end up living by the end of the game. Most of the other villains who were still alive (like Vulture, Scorpion, Shocker (who also died by Kraven’s hand)) are dead due to their criminal activities making them a target. Pete and MJ’s relationship here continues on their second chance after getting together in the first game, Pete gets a second chance to redeem himself after escaping the suit. There’s a whole lot of fucking “Two” symbolism and it doesn’t escape my grasp and is something I enjoy. It makes me wonder what the plan is for the third one but nonetheless, it’s pretty cool shit if not obvious. There’s also the “Be Greater Together” tagline, not only continuing the togetherness of Two but also continuing the theme of the first game with teamwork being the catalyst of what makes every relationship survive. All of that shit is good, however, there’s only one more thing that I want to kind of trash and then I’ll move onto gameplay.

My opinion on Kraven as a main villain is as follows: I like him as a threat. The whole hunting the black symbiote thing goes back to the comics even, but in this game why does he need a whole ass organization of hunters behind him? He’s one of the greatest hunters of all time? Maybe I should just shut up, but I feel as if the game would’ve been better with him as an omnipresent serial killer threat, with the other gangs and villains going nuts out of fear due to him striking sheer terror in the city. That would’ve been my preference, but other than the organization thing I think he’s a pretty cool villain and I can’t complain about that whole bit.

The gameplay for the most part is similar to the first game: you swing through New York City as Spider-Man, beat up criminals of various groups, get collectibles and do side-quests all while looking cool as hell and throwing out quips. See, what I can tell you about this though is that the game escalates everything that the previous two games did, and makes it feel even better than the original two. In fact, it all starts with the fact that you can play as BOTH Miles Morales AND Peter Parker, both with their own styles of fighting (or at least attack animations) and exclusive dialogue during side-quests. Let’s take one of the side missions, where you meet up with Howard the Pigeon guy from the first Spider-Man game. If you play as Miles like I did, he has his own dialogue where he talks to Howard and it’s sad, but if you play as Peter when you’re with Howard then the dialogue is even more emotional due to Peter’s tone and his experiences helping the old man in the first game. In fact let me just say, the level of detail in this is fucking insane. Not only does it account for which Spider-Man you’re playing as, but it could also account for the fact (potentially, untested on my end) that if you play as Peter the dialogue could change according to if you’re wearing the Symbiote suit or not. Nothing is ever so present as if you were to go to the gravestones of both Aunt May/Uncle Ben as well as Jefferson Davis, whom each Spider-Man has different dialogue for (not that much, and I don’t think there’s anything for Jefferson while wearing the symbiote but who knows). Switching feels seamless between the both of them, and reminds me of GTA V (though in this case both Spider-Men spawn close to each other). A part of me is kind of mixed on this, and I wish there was an option to spawn far away between the both (say switching to Miles who's fighting off crime before switching to Peter whose eating pizza and talking to a guy) but at the same time these are such non issues that who cares, it’s for convenience sake so you can spawn close to whatever you wanted to do as the other Spider-Man.

They also play differently as well: Miles plays basically the same as in his spin-off game but with a little bit more fluidity as far as I’m aware. You’ll have your special venom (in the context of this game, that always gets me confused to be honest) abilities where you can punch people out with your Venom Punch and such. These abilities start out as blue before a story event overcharges Miles and gives him Yellow abilities, which are powerful as hell and feel great in the midst of combat. I don’t really have much in the way of differences between Miles Morales and this game because both games felt great, nor am I sure there is any but he feels great to play and as you unlock your abilities overtime, Miles grows into his own character as Spider-Man at the end of story.

Peter on the other hand changes the most throughout the entire story and that’s due to the obvious: the Symbiote Suit. At first he fights with his usual arsenal: the metal spider-legs he has coming out of his back and such. They fight fine, with the usual stock abilities of a charged punch (or charge attack) and knocking people into the air for some nice juggling. However, after he loses against Kraven at the zoo, he’s bonded with the black suit and that’s when you get your taste of power. Playing with this is how Peter would feel, and in a meta sense Insomniac did a fantastic job giving you the ultimate power fantasy between how hard your punches hit, your special abilites like the Venom Blast clearing the room to the rage mode where Parker just knocks everyone the fuck out in a punch or two. You’ll have the Black Suit for a while until you take it off, after which you’ll get the Anti-Venom suit which is the same thing a bit later so don’t worry if you miss the Symbiote attack trophies because you’ll still have the suit regardless. This is about as much as I can give for nuance in terms of combat, I’m not a fighting expert nor do I know weaknesses and such because they both feel the same for the most part, just with different abilities and quips and I’m not going to complain about it because it feels good.

Now let me address the giant fucking black suited elephant in the room: playing as Venom. By god, it’s so fucking cool and I fanboyed the fuck out. It’s very much a limited moveset and can kind of feel a bit sluggish sometimes due to this and the big stature but oh shit do you feel like a monster playing as Venom. You’ll only get two set pieces to play as him, but wiping out goons and tossing them around, Insomniac made a hell of a choice doing this. Not only does it feel great (minus traversing heights a bit) but it sets a sort of baseline for a potential Venom game that the developers hinted at “providing the fans want it”. The answer is no shit, the fans want it and I want it bad. Take my money dude, I want to eat people and shit out their brains as this kooky fuck in the living suit.

The other elephant (or elephants) in the room is playing as Mary Jane/different side quest changes. Mary Jane’s playtimes are way more fun and overpowered this time, as was intended by the director. For the most part, you’ll have your stealth sequences but it mostly revolves around throwing rocks and using the stun gun. Would I want to play as Mary Jane in her own title with these mechanics? Eh, but they improved on the complaints of the OG and made you feel good doing it all the same. You’ll have to watch out for patrols but stunning them and outthinking the AI, while simple, is a fun time and when it gets to the later portion of the game it feels even better with the abilities to shoot out of this stun gun with the web shooters. They’re short, they don’t get too frustrating and work for the most part. Other times you’ll switch perspectives involve maybe playing as Hailey Cooper (where you hear nothing but take part in graffiti tagging) or maybe Peter Parker riding a bike. They don’t feel as great but vary the gameplay enough to where I didn’t mind any of it either.

Combat overall, while I don’t remember every nook and cranny from the first game feels just as great as the older games did PLUS more. You’ll switch between your special abilities and gadgets, racking up all sorts of combos and choosing to either go stealth or go loud and it all feels amazing. You can still choose between instant takedowns or health boosts and do all of the fun shit and I don’t know how to expand upon it anymore other than it feels amazing. The only other addition I can think of honesty is the ability to parry, which I THINK is new to this game. Certain enemies you can’t attack any other way other than to doge, and parrying requires you to tap L1 twice while an enemies attack is in the red before wailing with powerful punches.


Navigation feels more fantastic then the last game, when I thought they couldn’t improve it even more. My main gripe in this game is how you have to kind of work your way up to get certain abilities back from the past games like using launch points again. However even with that in mind, you’ll get all of these abilities back and THEN some more. One of these is the Web Gliders; they do exactly what they state and whereas I never exactly expected them to pop up in a Spider-Man game, I can’t imagine a future where they don’t appear at all to be honest. They feel fucking amazing, from the momentum you can gain from moving up and down through the wind, to catching wind tunnels that make traversal through New York fun. Other ways you can gain speed is through both specified launchers donated by the Emily-May foundation on rooftops or (something I learned from Youtube) if you have the Web Line you can shoot it between two different buildings and then launch yourself from there.

Fast Travel is something that I used a little bit trying to get all the side objectives but for the most part it’s fun as hell swinging and you don’t really need to use it unless you’re starving for time in the real world. It’s seamless as hell to transition on the Playstation 5, though you’ll only unlock fast travel for certain districts by beating side missions and solving certain crimes. If you were to use Fast Travel then I wouldn’t blame you because the city is a lot bigger now. It’s not just Manhattan, it’s also Brooklyn, Coney Island and Queens on the right side of the map. They’re all decently sized though can be traversed in a smaller amount of time then Manhattan due to the scale of the buildings themselves. One thing that I will say is kind of odd about this is just the invisible walls/game boundaries” thing if you go too far right. This isn’t Insomniac’s fault, I mean you can only have so much scope and realistically the game has a lot going for it already due to geographical locations in real life, but it feels weird having “Can’t go past this point” when you can see the other side so closely.

However speaking of fighting crimes, everything varies depending on how far in the story you are. The most common crimes you’ll be seeing are Hunter crimes and Cult of the Flame crimes but you’ll encounter regular goons as well as Symbiote possessed civilians later in the story. One thing that’s cool as hell when fighting goons is the ability to accidentally run into other heroes. Now these other heroes mainly include Miles/Peter depending on who you play as but you can also run into Wraith (aka Yuri) from the previous games as well as a new one depending on story progress: Harry himself with his makeshift hero suit. They all have their own moveset and Harry disappears once the suit jumps to Peter, but it’s cool to see other heroes fighting in the wild and teaming up to do tag team takedowns. Each one has their own set of interactions with each other at the end too, like Peter and Miles doing the Spider-Man pointing meme at each other, or Peter going for a fist bump with Yuri only to get declined or Miles and Harry talking about the new team name. All of this just escalates the standards for an open world superhero game and I hope in future games I’ll see as an example perhaps Miles fighting Ultron goons with the Incredible Hulk. I don’t know, just an example but it would be pretty cool!

The last thing I want to point out at least in terms of crime structure is that for the most part trophy wise it’s required to get 100 percent of all districts in order to get the platinum. However, luckily you’re not required to get all the bonus objectives with each individual crime type because that shit was a pain in the ass before. It’s mostly boiled down to unlocking special unlockable tokens, skill points or fast travel. The side quests in this game for the most part are fantastic minus a few different things here. You’ll have your combat oriented stuff, your specific story quests and they’re great though if I disliked any of them the most I would say it’s the Mysterio quests. This isn’t for the story structure but some of them include “don’t get hit once” or they’ll be the one up in Harlem where you have to knock out thirty people in under a minute which actually induced rage and made me lower the enemy difficulty just so I could beat this one side quest. It feels kind of unfair in all honesty, and I would’ve rather either had an extra minute or a different structuring of the map or something but I don’t know, maybe it’s just a skill issue. Other ones include racing behind flying metal birds to collect data, finding Spider-Bots (with a canceled Across the Spider-Verse cameo at the finish line) puzzle sequences with gene splicing that are an improvement to the ones in the first game, fighting off Cletus Kassady and his flame cult (with an ending that makes me hyped for the next game) to protecting pockets of fleshes armed with sonic bombs from Symbiotes to get rid of nests. It’s varied and whilst not as memorable as the original game’s side quests, do a good job and make their own unique spin. Some of them are exclusive to certain Spider-Men only, such as again gene splicing with Peter or finding Prowler stashes with Miles, but each add their own bit of lore building or community lessons to the world and are all around a good time.

As for the final paragraph in the gaming section, I’m just going to point out that the level of detail here is insane. You’ll have your easter eggs like playing Miles and doing the Wakanda Forever pose in front of the Wakandan Embassy, interacting with the graves or the special award trophy with Phin at the church from the end of Miles Morales. But there are so many secret interactions (like one involving a porta potty and a crane) and easter eggs around the entire game that it’s amazing and brings me into the lore of this Marvel universe they got even more. I don’t have all the answers (neither did Sway) as to how many and what they are but you could look up all the Easter Eggs on Youtube and there still won’t be enough. I’ll say while I didn’t go too much into accessibility options other than to get one Mysterio side mission done quicker and adding the ability to get hurt web swinging for a trophy but I’m glad these options exist for those who need it because everyone deserves to play this game. Also keep in mind I played it on launch, so it was a bit buggy here and there where I’d have to replay from checkpoint or something but for the most part the game ran fine. If I’m missing anything in terms of gameplay, feel free to let me know as I tried to cover as much as I can but I feel I missed so much nuance to the gameplay because it’s so expansive that it would take me more than a day to write it all down for this one section.

The atmosphere surrounding the game is pretty cool as the city evolves in the story. Certain locations towards the beginning will still be covered in sand due to Sandman’s attack, while the remains of other areas such as destroyed buildings due to story events appear throughout. The most change you’ll find is probably during the end with the Symbiote invasion. For all intents and purposes, this is a Symbiote apocalypse and you’ll find slime and goo connecting through the buildings and looking like a worse version of Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. Now that’s amazing, though I also kind of felt playing the game that this invasion didn’t exactly have the “oomph” that the former game did in terms of atmosphere, especially considering once you beat the game it’s mostly all gone, which is great but at the same time doesn’t always hit as much as I wanted it to. In fact, the game kind of straddles the line between a dark and depressing atmosphere and one filled with more hope than we have in the current modern day. While playing with the Symbiote, you’ll experience Peter change to a more nasty version of himself, losing himself to the darkness. All the while, there’s still a lot of talk about advanced science, helping the community, saving people’s lives and such. On one hand, the hope and community stuff feels really nice and wholesome, though somewhat unrealistic to me (though maybe I’m just a depressed piece of shit I don’t know), like an idealized version of what the world SHOULD be. I love it, but it does kind of contrast a bit with how dark things get towards the end though I guess that’s the whole point: always trying to find hope in the darkness, trying to build a better world together no matter what, to always keep fighting and redeeming yourself to become a better person (in the case of multiple Spider-Man villains who pop up in the story). I’m somewhat mixed on the delivery but I love the thematic message and the atmosphere surrounding it and again, the game was very helpful with my anxiety personally, at least distracting me temporarily for a week so I’ll give it a plus.

Graphics wise the game looks fucking phenomenal and I can’t complain. While a part of me will always be iffy about the new Peter Parker reskin, his appearance in the game makes him look a lot better and I’ve kind of settled into his new look now. As for everyone else, everyone looks like a newer glossed up version of the PS4/Remastered games and really proves the PS5’s graphical capabilities. It also continues the seamlessness of the portal technology from Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, at least in one instance where Miles is chasing down Black Cat throughout the story and she throws portals across the place. How do they do that technology? I don’t know but it looks cool! Regardless however, I was showing my Mom this game a bit, and while it’s easy to impress older people who don’t play video games with newer stuff because of the “lifelike capabilities”, there were times where I was just as impressed as my mother was just looking at the game. I don’t have much else to add except everything’s good and vibrant, though shoutout to the lights on Coney Island for looking amazing.

As for the audio design, this is probably where I’ll personally have the least amount to say. The soundtrack is either the usual bombastic horns and strings sound that’s in almost every Spider-Man game or the more interesting hip hop-like sounds of Miles Morales (though shoutout to the Wu-Tang Clan shoutout in the game, Wu Tang for life baby!) that play in the background. All of it is to say good, nothing that I would really write home or bump in the whip per say but it’s still good and adds to the ambience of it all. Other than the soundtrack stuff, the most you’ll hear in the city is the Danikast (which can be a little bit too optimistic for me but that’s the nature of the story so I won’t take it personally) or the hilarious JJ Jameson, who is so unhinged in his nature that he’s pretty hilarious, even if some of the things he says can kind of make sense even if it’s taken way out of context and bastardized to fit his own anti-Spider-Man narrative. What I can say is that I did read a story where, to add civilian sounds to the city, they got a bunch of random people to walk in a circle and talk into a mic during capture (I’ll link the article) and I’ll say that I found that shit to be hilarious. You’ll also hear bits and pieces of audio (mostly the symbiote) talking through the controller at times though I don’t remember hearing much of anything coming from the controller that much. Voice acting as usual is great as always between Yuri Lowenthal and Laura Bailey as Peter Parker and Mary Jane, or Nadji Jeter as Miles Morales. Newcomers like Graham Phillips do a good job as Harry (though apparently it’s a different voice actor from Spider-Man’s greenhouse side quests), but I’m going to just sit here and point out the MVP: Tony Todd. I fucking love him in everything he does and while he voices the Symbiote Venom in this game and does a great job, my only complaint is that I wish there were MORE of him. All I want is more Tony Todd, and if they do that Venom spin-off game I keep hearing about then I want Tony Todd to please dear god come back I love that dude he’s awesome!

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is an expansion to an already fantastic formula, and one that I would urge everyone to try even if they aren’t into the Superhero genre much. Whilst it may not hit the emotional high points like the ending of Marvel’s Spider-Man did, the sequel more than makes up for it in bombastic action and spectacle, expanded travel systems, more locations, the fucking black suit; I mean the game is fucking fire. I could probably safely say that this is my favorite game that I’ve experienced on the Playstation 5 thus far, and that includes God of War: Ragnarok (which was my favorite though I have issues with certain gameplay aspects, will go into one day), Elden Ring, Horizon: Forbidden West and Astro’s Playroom. Honestly, I’m curious as to the future that Insomniac will take from here on out though. I’ll say that I’m super excited for Marvel’s Wolverine, which is rumored to have God of War 2018/Ragnarok styled gameplay (though I pray it doesn’t copy the same gear system with all the numbered UI bullshit), the rumors on a potential Venom game (which I would love a fleshed out system of this game and Ultimate Spider-Man), and the craving for a Hulk and a Punisher game makes me hungry to no end.

HOWEVER, I also kind of hope they don’t just become the Marvel guys ya know? I’d love for them to work on bringing their old games to PC like the entire Ratchet & Clank series or again, Resistance. While not always the greatest with quality, Resistance 3 felt like it was only getting to where it needed to go and then it flopped so I wouldn’t mind seeing more to that. A lot of people want Sunset Overdrive too and while I didn’t care for that game, I feel bad for the people who want it because that was a Microsoft game owned by a now Sony company so that’ll be a no-go. I guess my main point is, I hope they do more than just Marvel games, I hope they remaster their old games and work on some other projects too when they can. However, as for the Marvel train I’m interested in where they end up going, and if they make DLC for this game akin to The City Never Sleeps on Spider-Man 1, then you bet your ass I’m going back to play this. Hell, I’ll probably end up doing that anyways because there’s a Playstation Stars collectible for getting the Platinum trophy and I already have it so why not hop on and goof around with some combat. As for potential port stuff, let’s be real, this game will get a port to PC really soon, and I’m excited for PC players to finally get a hold of this game as well. Just prepare a lot of Gigabytes because Jesus H this shit was like 130 GB overall and that was within the first few days of downloading it to my PS5.

Links:
https://mobilesyrup.com/2023/10/19/insomniac-games-marvels-spiderman-2-ps5-tech-interview/

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/MarvelsSpiderMan2

https://read.marvel.com/#/book/63125 (Spider-Man 2 tie-in comic)

https://www.gamesradar.com/marvels-spider-man-2-developer-created-the-sounds-of-new-york-city-by-getting-a-bunch-of-people-to-talk-and-walk-around-in-circles/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man_2_(2023_video_game)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YoUSP__V9vM (Secrets and Easter Eggs)