I really thought I would feel different about this game during, and after my playthrough.
Spider-Man 2 is a masterful upgrade to the previous two entries when it comes to visuals, traversal, and even combat. Unfortunately however, these are the only things that managed to really "wow" me this time around.
Spider-Man 2 is a predictable and short story desperately drawn out by uninteresting slogs of playing as Peter, Miles, or MJ just to reach that 20 hour mark. The non-hero gameplay, the poor writing, and the drop in quality of free-roam dialogue (quips, soliloquies) hit me like a truck here, and I quickly stopped caring about anything going on in NYC, or between characters.
Swinging around NY felt incredible, and while I did my best not to use the web wings whenever I could, the execution of them is admittedly near flawless. Sometimes the flashier movements felt a little over-the-top, especially as Peter's Spidey, but the way they handled transitioning between so many swinging animations is just so cool, it's hard not to love.
The Platinum trophy respected my time, the suits ranged from amazing to "okay what the fuck is that?" but were generally good, and Howard's side mission is far and beyond the best content in this entire game.
Insomniac has a pretty spectacular team making these games, and what they achieved technically is outstanding, but it came with a lot more bugs than previous entries to the series. I had multiple hard crashes, got stuck several times, and had an abundance of visual glitches, including becoming the infamous white cube.
I want to love this game, since its undoubtedly an improvement, but the safe and uninspiring story and lack of character visually, musically and emotionally is really holding it back. I hope the next Spider-Man game can reach further with its personality using music, culture, and visual style to create something that can be more than the sum of its parts. I'm not disappointed. I enjoyed my time playing this game, it just didn't pull me in the way Spider-Man PS4 did.
Spider-Man 2 is a masterful upgrade to the previous two entries when it comes to visuals, traversal, and even combat. Unfortunately however, these are the only things that managed to really "wow" me this time around.
Spider-Man 2 is a predictable and short story desperately drawn out by uninteresting slogs of playing as Peter, Miles, or MJ just to reach that 20 hour mark. The non-hero gameplay, the poor writing, and the drop in quality of free-roam dialogue (quips, soliloquies) hit me like a truck here, and I quickly stopped caring about anything going on in NYC, or between characters.
Swinging around NY felt incredible, and while I did my best not to use the web wings whenever I could, the execution of them is admittedly near flawless. Sometimes the flashier movements felt a little over-the-top, especially as Peter's Spidey, but the way they handled transitioning between so many swinging animations is just so cool, it's hard not to love.
The Platinum trophy respected my time, the suits ranged from amazing to "okay what the fuck is that?" but were generally good, and Howard's side mission is far and beyond the best content in this entire game.
Insomniac has a pretty spectacular team making these games, and what they achieved technically is outstanding, but it came with a lot more bugs than previous entries to the series. I had multiple hard crashes, got stuck several times, and had an abundance of visual glitches, including becoming the infamous white cube.
I want to love this game, since its undoubtedly an improvement, but the safe and uninspiring story and lack of character visually, musically and emotionally is really holding it back. I hope the next Spider-Man game can reach further with its personality using music, culture, and visual style to create something that can be more than the sum of its parts. I'm not disappointed. I enjoyed my time playing this game, it just didn't pull me in the way Spider-Man PS4 did.