A great sequel!
After a very good first title I was very much looking forward to spiderman 2 so it makes me happy to see Insomniac games have yet to lose their touch.
We will keep this short
Honestly you probably are already playing this title and or have looked into it so I will keep this review short. Spiderman 2 just builds upon the first game and adds more to the formula. To explain , the biggest upgrade imo is web swinging around the map. It feels insanely fluent , fun and fast which makes moving around the huge area of New York very fun. In addition Miles now joins the main crew for the first time ( apart from his spinoff title ) and makes a great addition to the game. His combat is very fun and his story is also very nice. I enjoyed my time with him as a character. Speaking of combat , what is there to say? It's extremely fun mixing punches with your gadgets and web shots. The combat stays consistently engaging and fun throughout the whole game, never once leaving me bored. The bosses for the most part are fine but once you learn how to really combo you will mostly demolish most bosses in the game. Furthermore , the story was honestly very good. I really was entertained throughout it all and I am not the biggest Spiderman fan. I enjoyed the early films but I have never dived deep into the world but these games have seriously gotten me more interested in the many worlds of spiderman. Many great moments in the game I honestly think the story was leaps better in this game over the first title. In addition , the graphics look nice , the map still looks great and the overall vibe of the game is just very free and wonderful. I would like to commend the side quests because while the gameplay loop for them is FINE at best I did really enjoy the sidequest stories in this game.
Some issues
With that being said this game surprised me in the bug department because I ran into quite a few. To explain , there were moments where audio would just completely die out during a scene leaving me to miss whole dialogue sections as the only thing I would hear are sound effects. Graphical glitches happened more than I would have liked with character models completely glitching out. To elaborate, there was a scene where Miles jumps into the frame but he literally had no body , only his floating head. Another cutscene a character's neck was completely stretched out. And to top it all off the game literally spawned me in as a white cube which you have probably seen clips of by this time. It's a bummer because I don’t remember this many issues with the first title and while it didn’t ruin the overall experience It for sure hindered it a bit. Moving on , while improved on a bit I am still not a fan of the MJ sequences AT ALL they are boring and easily exploited making for some very boring “stealth”. However , I do think they play out better cutscene and story wise over the first title but I still do not enjoy these parts. Speaking of stealth even on the spiderman side of things the stealth just isn’t that great and once again very exploitable making it very easy at times to just wipe out a whole section of enemies. Finding my way through the map to 100% it I did enjoy it mostly but I am still not impressed with the gameplay loop the Sidequest have to offer. While the stories for them are solid - Great I think it becomes repetitive at points really never changing up the core gameplay rotation enough.
In the end
This is a great sequel that should have spent a little more time in the oven to iron out some issues but overall they knocked it out of the park again. Insomniac has really mastered these types of games but I really hope that wolverine will serve as a gateway for them to truly evolve spiderman even further. I genuinely believe Insomniac can create a Spiderman 3 that can blow the game to a new level of greatness if they truly innovate even more and get even more risky with the third title. If you enjoyed the first game it's a no brainer that I highly recommend this title. If you didn’t enjoy the first game I would either skip this one as it probably won’t change your mind or wait for a nice sale to give it a shot.
After a very good first title I was very much looking forward to spiderman 2 so it makes me happy to see Insomniac games have yet to lose their touch.
We will keep this short
Honestly you probably are already playing this title and or have looked into it so I will keep this review short. Spiderman 2 just builds upon the first game and adds more to the formula. To explain , the biggest upgrade imo is web swinging around the map. It feels insanely fluent , fun and fast which makes moving around the huge area of New York very fun. In addition Miles now joins the main crew for the first time ( apart from his spinoff title ) and makes a great addition to the game. His combat is very fun and his story is also very nice. I enjoyed my time with him as a character. Speaking of combat , what is there to say? It's extremely fun mixing punches with your gadgets and web shots. The combat stays consistently engaging and fun throughout the whole game, never once leaving me bored. The bosses for the most part are fine but once you learn how to really combo you will mostly demolish most bosses in the game. Furthermore , the story was honestly very good. I really was entertained throughout it all and I am not the biggest Spiderman fan. I enjoyed the early films but I have never dived deep into the world but these games have seriously gotten me more interested in the many worlds of spiderman. Many great moments in the game I honestly think the story was leaps better in this game over the first title. In addition , the graphics look nice , the map still looks great and the overall vibe of the game is just very free and wonderful. I would like to commend the side quests because while the gameplay loop for them is FINE at best I did really enjoy the sidequest stories in this game.
Some issues
With that being said this game surprised me in the bug department because I ran into quite a few. To explain , there were moments where audio would just completely die out during a scene leaving me to miss whole dialogue sections as the only thing I would hear are sound effects. Graphical glitches happened more than I would have liked with character models completely glitching out. To elaborate, there was a scene where Miles jumps into the frame but he literally had no body , only his floating head. Another cutscene a character's neck was completely stretched out. And to top it all off the game literally spawned me in as a white cube which you have probably seen clips of by this time. It's a bummer because I don’t remember this many issues with the first title and while it didn’t ruin the overall experience It for sure hindered it a bit. Moving on , while improved on a bit I am still not a fan of the MJ sequences AT ALL they are boring and easily exploited making for some very boring “stealth”. However , I do think they play out better cutscene and story wise over the first title but I still do not enjoy these parts. Speaking of stealth even on the spiderman side of things the stealth just isn’t that great and once again very exploitable making it very easy at times to just wipe out a whole section of enemies. Finding my way through the map to 100% it I did enjoy it mostly but I am still not impressed with the gameplay loop the Sidequest have to offer. While the stories for them are solid - Great I think it becomes repetitive at points really never changing up the core gameplay rotation enough.
In the end
This is a great sequel that should have spent a little more time in the oven to iron out some issues but overall they knocked it out of the park again. Insomniac has really mastered these types of games but I really hope that wolverine will serve as a gateway for them to truly evolve spiderman even further. I genuinely believe Insomniac can create a Spiderman 3 that can blow the game to a new level of greatness if they truly innovate even more and get even more risky with the third title. If you enjoyed the first game it's a no brainer that I highly recommend this title. If you didn’t enjoy the first game I would either skip this one as it probably won’t change your mind or wait for a nice sale to give it a shot.