Spider-Man 2 Initial Thoughts

A spectacular follow-up

I’m about 20 hours deep into Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and so far its been a great experience. I’ve yet to finish the game, as I keep getting sidetracked, but I do want to lightly talk about it before I give a review in a few weeks.

‘No Story Spoilers’ will be discussed below. As I’ve yet to finish it, I’ll be discussing my thoughts on the story at a later date.

The magic of the first game was held in a few different aspects, the fluid web swinging, developed combat, and the heart of the story. All of these points have been thoroughly expanded upon to provide a more in depth experience. So let’s start with the web swinging.

In the first game, you had web swinging, point launch, and web zip. These were the main hallmarks of swinging, and it was fantastic. You still have all of these, but Insomniac has provided a more tuned web swinging experience that brings enough new aspects to the table, that instead of pressing R2, there’s a system to master. Now you can do a few more tricks, with the first being this ability that lets you zip around corners while swinging – kind of like the spider man equivalent of drifting. On top of this, as seen in the trailers you can now attach your webs to two different surfaces, and catapult yourself gaining massive amounts of momentum.

The biggest game changer though, are the web wings. These things are absolutely incredible, allowing you to zip through the skyline at astronomical speeds. All of these additions leave the user with an incredibly fluid, intuitive, and smooth web swinging experience, with the ability to chain different aerial maneuvers together, feeling more in control of Spidey.

On a technical level the game is a masterpiece, and once you play it, it’s easy to understand why it is exclusive to PS5 and not playable on the PS4. The rate at which the city is generated is absolutely incredible. While in game, I went over to Oscorp tower. Once on top you can see the entirety of the map, its breath taking. This increased power of the PS5 also allowed Insomniac to speed up web swinging, now allowing you to travel at mind boggling speeds.

As stated the game is a masterclass on optimization and performance. The ability to switch seamlessly between Miles and Peter in a matter of milliseconds is absolutely incredible. That’s not even the biggest achievement of the technical aspect of the game, the winner of that is the fast travel ability. As you progress through each district, you unlock district rewards, with the second tier of those rewards being fast travel. Unlock most other games, the fast travel isn’t restricted to certain points of the map – for example synchronized viewpoints in Assassin’s Creed, you can fast travel anywhere on the map. It doesn’t end there either, to fast travel you can pick any point on the map that you wish to go, then instantly the map will transition down from bird’s eye view, into the exact point of the world you traveled to, and miles or peter will be swinging through the city. This, I shit you not, happens in a matter of milliseconds.

Without discussing too much on the story – as I’d prefer to save all of that for an official review, the set pieces of the game are massive. Spider Man 1 may have had a more emotional story so far, but Spider Man 2 has an insanely higher amount of incredible action set pieces and missions. The second you begin the game, starting with an incredible boss fight from an iconic villain, it’s full throttle.

On every level Spider-Man 2 is a masterclass on how to develop and release a triple A game in a finished, polished, and complete state. Insomniac are now embedding themselves as the kings of the gaming industry. If you buy a single game this year, buy Spider-Man 2.