WARNING: MAJOR STORY/GAME SPOILERS, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK




Gameplay - 10/10
This is the best Spiderman has felt and should be the standard going forward for future games in the series. The map is doubled in size and as a result the traversal is so much faster. You're also given more options to get around and gain speed with the web wings, slingshot, and loop swing move. I'm not exaggerating when I say I didn't use fast travel once my entire playthrough, because swinging around was just that fun. There are still MJ segments, but Insomniac did the impossible and actually made them fun by not making her feel like a scared little rat anymore. In this game she actually has a weapon and engages with the enemies instead of just sneaking around them which is much more exciting.

Story - 9/10
In my opinion, this game has a great story. I can't really say whether it's better than the first but both Peter and Miles have their battles and arcs and both characters feel relevant and significant, though Peter is still clearly the main focus. There's a period during the midpoint where Miles feels like he's on the bench but he makes up for it in the beginning and latter half. Seeing Miles come into his own and slowly take over Peter's role as the main Spider-Man, while Peter takes a step back to focus on his life as Peter Parker was really nice to see. MJ is much cooler in this game and plays a much bigger role which was also nice to see. I had one gripe with the ending where Norman was upset at the Spider-Men for Harry being comatose when its a miracle he's even alive at all, not to mention he's no longer a raging alien monster trying to destroy the world. That didn't make a whole lot of sense to me but that's about it. It's also very likely that Green Goblin and Silk will be in the next game so interested to see how that plays out.

Combat - 9/10
I would say the combat is overall an improvement over its predecessors with more options and moves to perform, as well as new finisher animations. I enjoyed the ability system with both characters getting 8 different special moves to use and swap between. Miles' upgrades venom powers are really cool and while Peter's spider arms aren't as cool, the symbiote powers feel very powerful and were a lot of fun. The gadgets, however were a huge downgrade in my opinion. We went from Peter having several gadgets in the first game to this game only giving you 4 gadgets, and they're the same across both characters. I always saw Peter as the gadget guy so for him to have basically none of his gadgets from the first game was disappointing. I also miss the perfect timing damage boost from the first game. The abilities and new moves outweigh it for me though. The boss fights in general are really cool and the final battle against Venom was awesome to say the least.

Side Content - 8/10
I enjoyed most of the side content in the game, particularly the Mysteriums, Sandman crystals, and Symbiote Nests. The Brooklyn Visions missions were a neat glimpse into Miles' school life but there's only 3-4 of them, at least right now. I didn't care for the drone chasing missions and I wish there were more than 4 bases considering how big the map is. The FNSM app quests (basically the game's side quests) were well done and a few were surprisingly emotional instead of just focusing on fighting goons. I really enjoyed the Flame storyline, seeing Yuri again was cool and the setup for a Carnage DLC was really exciting.

Bugs/Glitches - Minimal
Out of the few bugs I experienced in my 30ish hours, none of them were gamebreaking. The worst was probably when I knocked an enemy into a weird spot in a Mysterium and they got stuck in a wall which led to me running around looking for them for a couple minutes. But again, that's probably the worst one I've gotten and it's not even that bad. There's also the infamous bug where your character model gets replaced with a white cube, but that only happened to me once and it's kinda funny to be honest. Aside from that there were moments where the game felt janky for a couple seconds but again, those were few and far between. Overall bugs are there, but they're rare, non-gamebreaking, and the game plays great 99% of the time. Games are always going to have bugs, that's just a fact. However, when you compare this to something like Redfall and other AAA releases in the past few years, to have this game release in such a stable state is a blessing and testament to the care Insomniac put into it.

Overall - 9/10
An amazing game that improves on its predecessors in most ways, and a must play for fans of spider-man, superhero games, or PS5 owners in general.