There’s always a few questions that everyone asks other people to get to know them. What’s your favorite color? What’s your favorite film? It’s no surprise that in the age of the MCU, another question has become commonplace: “What’s your favorite superhero?”
When I was younger I used to go back and forth on this question, but these days, it’s no debate: It’s Peter Parker, Spider-Man, with Miles Morales as a close second. And the reason for that is simple: At the end of the day, both Peter and Miles are just regular dudes who want to help other people less fortunate than them in any way they can. And naturally, they can’t help everyone, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to try.
Spider-Man 2 works for me because it truly understands that being Spider-Man means helping others and not giving up if things don’t go the way you expect them to. It’s not only a story about Peter and Miles helping the people closest to them, but it also explores how Peter and Miles’ friendship brings out the best in themselves. And, hot damn, if that’s not Spider-Man in a nutshell, I don’t know what is.
Gameplay wise, Insomniac thankfully didn’t fix anything that wasn’t broken and added more cool stuff on top of the existing cool stuff. I wasn’t sure what to think of the web wings at first, but once you get the hang of them they complement the web swinging (which is as fun as ever) surprisingly well. Traversal is extremely important to making an open world game compelling to me, and the combination of swinging and gliding makes NYC a joy to explore.
The combat still feels intuitive while having more depth; I’m absolutely dogshit at parries in every single video game, but the parries in this game have a generous timing window while adding a bit more complexity to the “dodge, hit, repeat” mechanics. And Peter’s new symbiote abilities feel appropriately powerful and brutal. While I don’t quite agree with the developers that SM2 is as much a Miles Morales story as it is a Peter Parker story (I’d say it’s 60/40 in favor of Peter), I appreciate that Miles doesn’t just feel like a Peter reskin and has his own personal issues to sort through while Peter is dealing with the symbiote.
My only real complaint with the game is the same problem I had with the first one: The pacing. The first act is a lot of exposition, with several missions that are mostly walking and talking, and then the other two acts feel like it rushes from one big moment to another until the very end. I really wish they would space out the action-heavy missions between the story heavy ones more often. I will say Acts 2 and 3 feeling rushed is mitigated somewhat by the side content, which I highly recommend - some of the side missions in this game are incredible and the game would be lesser without them. I also have to give credit to Insomniac for The Flame side missions, where they managed to turn a villain I’ve never liked into a compelling threat.
Overall, I’m just glad this game reaffirms that Insomniac truly gets Spider-Man, and why Peter’s character has survived so many decades. It’s simple, but true; helping others helps yourself.
When I was younger I used to go back and forth on this question, but these days, it’s no debate: It’s Peter Parker, Spider-Man, with Miles Morales as a close second. And the reason for that is simple: At the end of the day, both Peter and Miles are just regular dudes who want to help other people less fortunate than them in any way they can. And naturally, they can’t help everyone, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to try.
Spider-Man 2 works for me because it truly understands that being Spider-Man means helping others and not giving up if things don’t go the way you expect them to. It’s not only a story about Peter and Miles helping the people closest to them, but it also explores how Peter and Miles’ friendship brings out the best in themselves. And, hot damn, if that’s not Spider-Man in a nutshell, I don’t know what is.
Gameplay wise, Insomniac thankfully didn’t fix anything that wasn’t broken and added more cool stuff on top of the existing cool stuff. I wasn’t sure what to think of the web wings at first, but once you get the hang of them they complement the web swinging (which is as fun as ever) surprisingly well. Traversal is extremely important to making an open world game compelling to me, and the combination of swinging and gliding makes NYC a joy to explore.
The combat still feels intuitive while having more depth; I’m absolutely dogshit at parries in every single video game, but the parries in this game have a generous timing window while adding a bit more complexity to the “dodge, hit, repeat” mechanics. And Peter’s new symbiote abilities feel appropriately powerful and brutal. While I don’t quite agree with the developers that SM2 is as much a Miles Morales story as it is a Peter Parker story (I’d say it’s 60/40 in favor of Peter), I appreciate that Miles doesn’t just feel like a Peter reskin and has his own personal issues to sort through while Peter is dealing with the symbiote.
My only real complaint with the game is the same problem I had with the first one: The pacing. The first act is a lot of exposition, with several missions that are mostly walking and talking, and then the other two acts feel like it rushes from one big moment to another until the very end. I really wish they would space out the action-heavy missions between the story heavy ones more often. I will say Acts 2 and 3 feeling rushed is mitigated somewhat by the side content, which I highly recommend - some of the side missions in this game are incredible and the game would be lesser without them. I also have to give credit to Insomniac for The Flame side missions, where they managed to turn a villain I’ve never liked into a compelling threat.
Overall, I’m just glad this game reaffirms that Insomniac truly gets Spider-Man, and why Peter’s character has survived so many decades. It’s simple, but true; helping others helps yourself.