Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Review [IGN]

Despite a couple of new tricks up its sleeve, Spider-Man 2’s combat is very familiar – it doesn’t have that new suit smell anymore, but it still feels incredibly comfy to slip back into. The rhythm of precision dodges, the new perfect parries (so you’re not only swerving and striking now), and acrobatic finishers are hugely satisfying, as is chasing high-hit combos to keep the fight as stylish as possible. The movement is smooth and the hits are crunching, like some sort of peanut butter hybrid that every one of your foes is allergic to. Power and elegance are brought together in a brick-to-the-face ballet as enemies are thrown around like dolls, juggled in the air, slammed across concrete floors, and slung into each other like body-armoured bowling pins – but, naturally, never killed. Every bone in their body may be broken and every organ punctured, but of course, they’ll somehow live to commit crimes again.

Overall, there’s slightly less emphasis on stealth encounters this time than in either Spider-Man or Miles Morales. As someone who found the stealth action of the previous games a little simplistic and routine, this new, louder approach is welcome. Naturally, there are story missions where Miles or Peter have to slink across ceilings and take out thugs who never look up, but Spider-Man 2 is much more eager for you to get into the action, with many abilities designed to let you group up enemies and then deal big damage to all of them at once, rather than spreading them out to pick them off one by one.

A new personal favourite gadget called the Web Grabber – which pulls enemies in from a distance and makes them smack into one another – also playfully builds into this philosophy. I had a lot of fun using this before landing a sharp burst of Miles’ Venom lightning onto grouped-up goons, and now Peter can get in on that fun as well. It takes a bit longer than I expected to arrive, but once Parker dons the symbiote suit already shown off in trailers, the gooey, angry powers that come with it make a big impact, adding more of a brawler nature to fights and giving Peter a set of tools to match Miles’ satisfying electric abilities. They’re just as enjoyable, as it feels like the suit is trying to burst out of the rumbling DualSense controller in my hands. This aggressive style of play is rewarded, as the only way to heal is by building up your focus bar – filled by landing hits and timing perfect dodges – and is another way to make sure that exciting rhythm of combat is never lost.

One area that Insomniac has made improvements in is that Spider-Man 2 offers significantly more in the way of enemy variety, so you’ll no longer be battering the same five balaclava bullies with baseball bats. New factions and units, such as flamethrower-wielding cultists that keep you at a distance, flying drones, and hunters who deploy laser grids above your head to limit aerial attacks keep you on your sticky toes. Certain enemies are weak to different types of abilities, such as electric or symbiote attacks, which also adds an enjoyable extra wrinkle to fights. It’s by no means revolutionary stuff, but a welcome added level of complexity that makes you consider which powers – or even which Spider-Man – are best for a given job.

That’s not to say there aren’t benefits to taking a sneaky route, though, especially when you’re playing as Miles and using his invisibility power to quietly take out enemies. There are many perch takedown possibilities offered and new toys to play with too, such as the Web Line, which allows you to create your own highwires over your enemies to prey on them from above. It’s a fun tool that allows you to reshape the tightly designed arenas into a battlefield more in your favour, and in doing so, redecorate the room with web-wrapped people piñatas. On the other hand, much like combat, stealth isn’t a far cry from the many warehouse encounters you’ll have played in the previous games, as you clear out enemies using largely the same techniques.

On the topic of covert ops, the playable MJ sequences from the original return, and while they are more involved this time around and serve the story well, they never add up to more than simple stealth missions or splashes of basic third-person shooting. She’s certainly not sidelined, but it does feel like a little more could’ve been done to make her gameplay sections a bit more exciting – or at least more in line with her established character as an intrepid investigative reporter than the missions she’s sent out on here.

Combat aside, our Spider-Men can now swing around their friendly neighborhoods in more stylish ways than ever, with new spins and flips added to the repertoire providing a Tony Hawk-like edge. Performing web acrobatics is as gratifying as you remember, and still one of the best ways to get around any open world. The new web wings are undoubtedly a standout, however: like Batman before him, Spider-Man can now glide and soar with ease through the city, but not without limits – you’ll need to get the hang of managing your altitude and forward momentum, with the aid of windy corridors through the city that can quickly carry you from one district to the next.

The story swings just as elegantly between upbeat hijinks and solemn moments of reflection. It’s undeniably a fun time to don the suit and enter a Kratos-like rage mode where you push in both thumbsticks and start one-hitting everything in your path, but the writers never once forget to take their eyes off of the humanity inside these superhumans. The same can be said for both its heroes and villains, as Spider-Man 2 tackles the reasoning behind each character’s actions and the good that can hide in the shadows of evil.

For those with a hazy memory, there is a brief recap of both Peter and Miles’ stories so far available, which is handy, as this is very much a sequel that weaves in both plotlines and characters from the previous games and accompanying DLC. You won’t want to jump in for the first time here since Spider-Man 2 builds on the first two games both in its mechanics and its story – but of course, there’s little reason not to, since those games are also excellent. Avoiding spoilers, the basic premise revolves around Kraven the Hunter, who is, well, craving a hunt. For those uninitiated in the character, he’s essentially The Predator, an Apex hunter blessed with super strength who has chosen New York as his next hunting ground. It’s a great starting point that sends the city’s hero and villain dynamic into flux as he sets his sights on the biggest prey possible.

There are also smaller stories at play, though, ones that may seem less important when compared to city-wide chaos, but feel like potential world-enders to those who inhabit it. Both Spider-Men tackle the most extreme examples of trying to manage a work/life balance you can imagine, exploring a range of personal issues including strained relationships and loss that plague us as humans, no matter how superpowered we may feel. It’s the best-written story in the series yet (if still a bit cheesy at times), with performances worthy of the script. It’s a real triumph that it manages to cover such a wide spectrum of themes without suffering from tonal thwip-lash. A particularly memorable mission under the dancing lights of Coney Island’s amusement rides is a highlight that manages to impressively capture the story’s essence and bottle up its emotional tension before emphatically smashing it.

Primarily a Peter Parker story, Spider-Man 2 explores his relationship with MJ and the reintroduction of childhood best friend Harry Osborne into his life. It’s always compelling to watch him contend with which pieces of the past to leave behind and what future self he wishes to be. In some of the missions where you control normal, everyday Peter, I couldn’t help but feel the Uncharted influence more than ever, both in the techniques it uses to tell his story and the show-stopping action sequences when he slips into the suit. No matter how hectic a scenario gets, though, he always has a quippy one-liner ready to be expertly delivered by actor Yuri Lowenthal.

Miles still gets his time in the spotlight, however, and has some fantastic moments towards the end of the main campaign, even if some of the more interesting explorations of his Puerto Rican/African American culture are reserved for side missions. Obviously, what you take away from the story and its diverse cast of characters will be unique to you. On the surface, it’s another thrilling superhero story packed full of surprises, cameos, and Easter eggs – but there are deeper meanings to be found here, too.

Spider-Man 2, and to an extent all great Spider-Man stories, tackle themes of adolescence and puberty – a time of uncertainty for even the most normal of teenagers trying to control bodily fluids. We join Miles at this exact point in his life, with family ties straining, friendships facing fresh challenges, and life decisions of genuine importance being posed for the first time. Actor Nadji Jeter displays all the range needed for the role, continuing to excel as a younger Spider-Man maturing before our eyes. For Peter, these themes manifest in a much more physical sense. He’s in his early twenties so has already navigated the difficult years that Miles finds himself in, but thanks to the symbiote suit, he’s working his way through yet more bodily changes.

This physical manifestation is also representative of mental health issues that have developed for each Spider-Man. Venom hangs over the main characters like a spectre of grief, drenching them in black as if in a state of mourning. The story does a great job at gently exploring these issues and how, when not healthily addressed, personal demons can eat at us and lead to people we care about being unintentionally caught in the crossfire of the anger and pain those feelings can produce.

Of course, a hero is nothing without its villains, and Spider-Man’s rogues gallery is almost unparalleled. Outside of the likes of Venom, Kraven, and Lizard seen in the trailers, Insomniac has kept many more cards hidden up its sleeve. I won’t even hint at any of these except to say that Spider-Man 2 opens with a bang, offering up a sense of scale not previously seen in the series. It’s an adrenaline-fuelled reintroduction to the series that tests how well you remember the combat, as well as providing a few new tricks. It’s also the start of one of the new side-story villain threads that are optional, and while those don’t offer anything overly new in terms of gameplay, they do add valuable extra scraps of story. They flesh out these villains, allowing fully formed characters to emerge where once they were merely one-and-done boss battle appearances.

Speaking of boss battles, that’s one area that takes a noticeable step up from our initial tangos with Kingpin, Vulture, and the rest. One of my criticisms of the first in Insomniac’s series was how uninspired many of the showdowns felt, with their quicktime-heavy fights making a light impact. Improvements were made in Miles Morales, but here in the full-fledged sequel, boss battles really come to life. You’re made to wait a little too long for them sometimes, but when they do arrive they never fail to excite. They are evolving brawls packed full of danger that put all of your skills to the test. Dodges and parries are key, as well as using environmental tools dotted around the arenas for your benefit.

The latter third of the campaign essentially becomes a boss rush mode that will put the sturdiest of thumbs to the test – not necessarily because it ever gets too difficult, but because of the sheer number of times you’ll be hammering that Square button. These later stages are where the majority of Spider-Man 2’s thrills lay, however, as it really hits its stride late on, and emphatically wraps up a tale with miles of emotional depth that never once threatens to peter out.

The main story took me around 18 hours to complete before I hit 100%, and the subsequent platinum trophy popped up to congratulate my efforts after 27 in total. To earn that precious trophy, you’ll be spending a lot of time mopping up the many, many side activities that Spider-Man 2 throws your way – and while not everybody must or should do all of that, it’s a reminder that quantity doesn’t always equal quality. Despite whatever loftier ambitions the story may have, this is still unapologetically an old-school approach to open-world game design, and nowhere is this displayed more clearly than in its optional quests.

To their credit, the way you can highlight side objectives by pressing the right stick is a welcome upgrade over mere icons on a map. Even without that, you can spot ominous clouds or glowing purple rooftops with the bare eye signaling activities are there to be found. This isn’t a world that beckons exploration or discovery, necessarily, but it is a step in the right direction toward creating greater immersion and mercifully less time spent looking at the map screen.

That being said, I can’t help but have hoped for a few more flashes of Gotham City to make their way into New York. Something like the spontaneous shock of Manbat jumping at you out of nowhere went a long way to making Rocksteady’s superhero open world feel more reactive than what we get here (even though it always cheated by finding ways to keep civilians off the streets). When you consider the evolution of open-world game design that the Arkham series took over the course of the trilogy, and its multilayered villain side quests, it’s a bit disappointing to see Insomniac’s series stuck in time when it comes to its side content and the way it presents itself to you.

Standard open-world filler activities are here aplenty, and that’s one area where Spider-Man 2 hasn’t moved with the times or shown ambition at all. Collectibles, photo opportunities, and rather basic street crimes are still here and, despite having a few slightly more interesting quirks this time around, they only very occasionally excite. You’ll regularly be stopping the same getaways with the same few button presses (the button-mashing from previous games is mercifully largely gone) or stopping a break-in by battering the same few goons. Granted, the additional enemy variety in play makes these activities take a little longer to get old than they did in the past, but that still isn’t quite a strong enough twist to make prioritising photographing a couple of amateur cosplayers over saving a house full of people from a raging fire not seem ridiculous.

Fun, quick side missions like helping a student ask their crush to homecoming or rescuing the Brooklyn Visions’ mascot from a rival school by solving a series of light and mirror puzzles add dashes of charm, but I’d love to see yet more life breathed into this world to match its visual splendor. These characters do add a bit more flavour to the world and its largely homogenous population of NPCs you’re clearly not intended to look at too closely.

There are exceptions to the rule, however: there are a couple of more involved questlines that are much more nourishing, almost to the point of being a series of mini main plot missions. My favourite was The Flame questline, which begins with simply helping out the fire brigade, but quickly spins a layered and mysterious web. It’s full of twists, turns, and surprises, like a great, short comic book run that separates itself from the rest of Spider-Man 2’s optional time trials and simple puzzle minigames.

Rewards for completing these various activities vary, with some ranging from genuinely exciting story teases for what’s to come, to simply gaining some tech parts to upgrade your abilities with. The tasks are often so mundane and repetitive, however, that I did frequently question whether these small, congratulatory nuggets were worth the slog they too often turned out to be.

All of this contributes to fighting back against crime in each district of New York, a city now twice the size of what we’ve seen before including the leafy residential roads of Queens and the bustling borough of Brooklyn. There are 14 unique districts, each with its own set of objectives to complete before you can unlock fast travel to that part of the map. Not making fast travel readily available is smart, and truthfully, I barely used it anyway as swinging and gliding around the city is so much more fun, even though the load times are nonexistent and the speedy, swooping camera effect of switching between Peter and Miles is very cool. Gliding is especially great for crossing long distances thanks to the numerous wind tunnels that carve their way through New York’s seemingly endless grid of streets flanked by art deco architecture and modern mirror-like skyscrapers.

Of course, if you’re going to be catching your ray-traced, 4K reflection (if you opt for the 30fps fidelity mode) in that glass so often, you’ll want to look your best. Fear not, because there are dozens and dozens of suits to unlock, with myriad colorful skins to pick from on each of them. From modern interpretations of classics to returning fan favourites, there are treats waiting for Spider-Man fans of all generations. They are now all pure cosmetics as well – a smart separation of form and function means picking the skills and abilities you equip are separate from your choice of suit.

In keeping with Insomniac’s track record, the music behind it all is stellar, with Miles’ and Peter’s respective signature tunes playing depending on who you’re controlling. A highlight, though, is the theme that follows in Kraven’s footsteps, which bears more than a passing resemblance to Howard Shore’s Uruk-hai war march from The Lord of the Rings score. It soundtracks a world that looks stunning, even when played in performance mode at a stable 60fps as I did for most of my playthrough.

In fact, Spider-Man 2 is a technical marvel as a whole. From the near-instant load times, the ability to pinpoint a fast-travel location and be there in a second, atmospheric lighting, and crisp reflections, all of the pieces fit into place wonderfully – aside from the very occasional NPC getting stuck where they shouldn’t. I can’t say that I noticed one dropped frame in my dozens of hours of playing. This allows Spider-Man 2 to shine in its most jaw-dropping moments – of which the main story offers many – as explosive action, sparkling electrical effects, and fittingly slimy symbiote gloop fill the screen.