Spider-Man 2 review

 
    MARVEL'S SPIDER-MAN 2 was one of my most highly anticipated games. I was a huge fan of Insomniac's MARVEL'S SPIDER-MAN and it may be my all-time favorite video game alongside VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE: BLOODLINES. I also enjoyed SPIDER-MAN: MILES MORALES despite a much weaker story. So, if I was so excited about it, why did it take so long for me to review it? Well, uh, it's because I didn't really like it that much.

    I know! How is that possible? Isn't it just the same game as Spider-Man? Well, no, it's not. Just about every change that the game made is one that I'm iffy on. The choices made in the game for characters, plot, and gameplay are all ones that I disagree with or dilute the original game's experience. I still 100% the game so I must have liked it a lot still but I have to rank it third of the three games.

    The premise is Sandman attacks New York City as a superpowered kaiju version of himself. Peter and Miles team up but this gets the former fired from his job teaching the latter's school. Peter then is hired by his childhood friend, Harry Osborn, for their new charitable foundation devoted to fixing everything. Harry, if you remember the original game's stinger, has recently recovered from a terminal disease with the help of the Venom symbiote. Meanwhile, a breakout at the Raft occurs with the help of Kraven the Hunter and his army of mercs.

    Basically, the game feels off the entire way through in terms of pacing. You start the game with a "cinematic" fight against the Sandman that should have been built up to and is mostly just quicktime events. There's very little street crime fighting because New York is now full of Kraven's mercs, insane cultists, and . Even the lowliest thug has access to rocket launchers now too. Both Spider-Men also rely on gadgets way more than their actual spider-powers and it takes you out of the game.

    Everyone's characterization is also way off too. Kraven having an army that captures people for him to hunt defeats his entire ethos of hunter versus prey. Venom isn't Eddie Brock but Harry and the symbiote is more like Knull than the one we currently have in the comics. Mary Jane is a reporter working for JJ Jameson and that still feels way off. Black Cat is barely in the story and there's no follow up to her DLC. Oh, and they kill off a huge chunk of Spider-Man's rogues gallery off-camera. Maybe it's weird  but Tombstone going straight works for me about as much as Wilson Fisk doing so. No Janice in this universe, I guess. Mysterio also turns out to be a good guy.

    Indeed, much of the game's issues seem to be the way that they are disconnected from the original game despite being a direct sequel. One of the build-ups from Marvel's Spider-Man's DLC is Yuri Watanabe AKA Wraith has gone off the deep end and is now a cold-blooded murderer. She still is but it's treated more like a character flaw and Spider-Man is working with Wolverine versus the Punisher. They're hunting Cletus Cassidy in their subplot, who isn't a symbiote-empowered serial killer but a fire-obsessed cult leader now. Another case of, "We are going against what this character is about to give him more goons." Which is weird because it's not like Spider-Man is lacking in villains with hordes of goons. Like, say, Tombstone.

    There's some improvements in this game. Mary Jane's stealth sequences are dramatically increased with her having access to a stun gun. She might even be overpowered because one level had her disable like thirty of Kraven's henchmen. I also appreciated Miles' community-based side quests that involve him recovering cultural treasures. Even those are troubled by the fact Miles doesn't have much of a role to play in the main story and is treated like Peter's Robin despite all the attempts to avoid that with the character's adaptations.

    In conclusion, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is okay but not nearly as good as the original or its spin-off. Part of this isn't the developer's fault because hackers caused the cancellation of all of its DLC expansions that would have at least brought Cletus closer to his comic book persona. Still, I think this was a work that would have benefited from trying to be more like Spider-Man in the comics and not Gadget-Man. Same for the many villains. I'll give it an extra point though versus other games because it's still Spider-Man.

7.5/10