Spider-Man 2 Review

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In Spider-Man 2 Insomniac Games’ third run goes Bigger, Faster, Stronger and Darker. 

Fast Facts

Following Insomniac’s first outing with the ol’ web-head and its Miles Morales spin-off in 2020, expectations for were high. Rightfully so. With PS5 hardware, two spidey games under their belt and arguably the world’s most popular hero the bar was set. For most, I suspect it would be a little too high. But in all fairness the team at Insomniac rarely miss. With Spider-Man 2 PS5 they hopped, skipped, jumped and cleared that high bar spectacularly. 

Set around a year after SM: MM with you play as Peter and Miles in the titular roles. They’re in full swing of spider life balancing, love lives, college applications, day jobs and the ever-present dangers of NYC. This time around Manhattan is connected to Queens and Brooklyn which are welcome expansions to the Big Apple. It’s spider business as usual until Kraven the Hunter makes his way to town and things escalate for all involved. 

Gameplay

There’s a lot that’s familiar in Spider-Man 2 from a gameplay perspective. Movement and traversal are funner than they ever have been. Faster and smoother than earlier entries It retains the magic of the first and the style of SM: MM. The introduction of web wings lets you glide around the city in a style not dissimilar to Rocksteady’s Arkham games. While I’ve heard some concerns around what this might do to the overall feeling of swinging through New York the new mechanic adds a lot without taking anything away. Those awkward spaces without the high-rise towers? No problem, just zip over them? Struggling to spot a swing spot over the East River to Brooklyn? Catch a wind tunnel and zoom your way over the water. It adds a lot without taking anything away and contributes a lot to the overall faster pace of movement in the game. 

The combat is solid as ever, holding on to the framework of the first two games. If ain’t broke right? The ‘tech-wheel’ of the first game is gone and replaced with new ‘abilities’ including the iron-spider arms for Pete and the ‘venom strike’ power set introduced in Miles Morales (not to be mistaken for the ‘symbiote’ powers which may or any not have a roll to play elsewhere… The combat, much like traversal, doesn’t do a lot to change the formula instead refining, smoothing edges and producing a more enjoyable flow overall. 

Then there’s the Stealth missions. These are essentially the same as the last game. The fun addition the Web-Line technique (pictured) helped when it came to managing enemy bases. Honestly, I found it made these sections even easier and helped me to chew through them with ease. These aren’t the best stealth missions I’ve played but they do the job. They help fulfil the fantasy of wall-crawling, webbing up bad guys and getting business done on the down low. I enjoyed them overall but if you’re looking for a challenging stealth game, this ain’t it. 

Playable characters outside of the spider-suit return aswell. Some missions in the game pull you out of swinging through the skyline and put your boots on the ground. The MJ stealth missions are back but refined and improved. It’s always odd nipping around corners and taking out Kraven’s goons but it’s lot more fun and dynamic than before. There are some other mechanics, play styles and mission types included which I encourage players to seek out for themselves. They’re different and at times a little jarring initially but ultimately they’re executed well enough to earn their place in an otherwise grandiose superhero romp. 

The gameplay throughout feels tight, thoughtful, precise, fast and most importantly, very VERY fun. 

Visual & Graphics

Spider-Man looks fantastic in every possible way. The city feels vast but on street level doesn’t lose any of the NYC sheen. Ray-tracing technology bounces light off windows and lets it skip across water beautifully (puddle-size looks solid). At Dusk and Dawn, that warm glow of a sunrise or sunset can create some truly beautiful scenes. At night everything from the flashing screens of time-square to the beautiful colours of Coney Island produces colour palettes that feel truly spectacular. When they bounce off character models though…wow. 

All character designs in the game are stunning. While the ongoing conversations around redesigns stir on and on I honestly didn’t feel too phased. The new look on Peter feels consistent with what I expect and while the changes to MJ have offended many I didn’t give it a second thought after the first glance. The villains all look fantastic. Kraven the Hunter in Spider-Man 2 looks…I’m just going to say it…better than he ever, EVER, has before. Full vest, fur collar, ‘comic book’ was a bold choice considering how silly it can look but the result was fantastic. This is consistent throughout with all the enemies. The Sandman feels epic in scale and the Venom symbiote looking appropriately edgy and gross in equal measure. 

Then of course the spider suits.

There’s a lot of outfits choose from for each character with 4 different colour skews being available for most. They look detailed, textures on the material feel neat, tangible and multi-dimensional and I recommend spending a little bit of time getting up close and personal in photo mode to appreciate the work done. As good as the suits look there were some interesting omissions with some fan favourites missing. While they may crop up down the line as many did with the earlier games I can only really go on what’s there right now. I’d also say that whilst it’s great having so many suits from the many movies included, the scales felt like they weighed a little too far on the side of cinema. That’s just me, I would have liked to see more from the comic books, animated iterations and especially more of those odd little ones off’s.

Having said all of that I never felt short on choice and was swapping and changed throughout. 

When it. Comes to a holistic view of this game from a graphical and visual perspective it’s not hyperbole to say that it’s one of the best-looking superhero games of all time. A tall order when, once again, Rocksteady’s Arkham games set such high standards. But I’m yet to see a version of New York quite like the one Insomniac has managed to build. Pair that with some of that high-quality Playstation Studio sheen and Spider-Man 2 is visually and graphically fantastic throughout. 

Story and Narrative

With over six decades worth of source material across every imaginable format and platform telling a great Spider-Man story is a pretty intimidating prospect. On one hand, you get to play with one of the biggest toy boxes imaginable to build a great story. On the other, you’re presenting a tale to an audience who have been playing with the toys themselves for years while being fed endless iterations of their friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. 

The fundamental Spider-Man DNA remains intact throughout Spider-Man 2. It’s a wonderfully presented story with some engaging twists and turns, intense and beautifully performed character work, high-stakes, intense conflict and a whole lot more. While a lot of the plot lines at play in the game feel familiar in places Insomniac has managed to hold it into something all of their own that feels fresh and familiar all the way through. It gave me all the moments I felt like I needed from its story while introducing elements and moments that I either hadn’t considered or never dreamed would be introduced. It’s an amazing ride. 

If there’s any fault at all to be put on the story it’s that I felt it went a little too big in some places. It’s a common problem in modern superhero stories. If you’re not saving the entire world then you’re saving the entire universe or even multi-verse in 2023. I like my Spider-Man grounded and in the third act things felt like they were scaling up a little too big for my taste, but it wraps up comfortably when all is said and done. 

The character work overall is fantastic. Nothing feels crammed in or unnecessary from the side characters to their subplots. Every character gets their moment, has a purpose and feels crucial to the story being told. 

I’d also encourage people to seek outside content. If you’re a completionist then this is likely on your to-do list already but if not, I cannot stress how great the side content is in Spider-man 2. They can feel like thrilling comic book conflicts with old enemies or small, intimate, and emotional snippets of life as New York City’s favourite wall-crawler. I wish there was more of this content but Spider-Man 2 errs on the side of quality over quantity and it pays off. 

Performance and Stability

When it comes to performance the game was generally ok. I didn’t run into any game-breaking bugs that impacted the playability of the game overall but there were some niggles playing through everything in the first week. 

You may have seen Spider-Cube making waves on the internet and while I didn’t experience anything quite that bad I did encounter a couple of odd audio bugs. The game transitions seamlessly from cutscenes to in-game action but a couple of times these transitions left me with partial audio. Certain characters would be having a chat with Miles but on my end, I’m not hearing anything. This would also cut off certain SFX moments, punches, kicks, explosions etc. Irritating for sure but a ‘Re-load previous checkpoint’ cleared things up nicely. 

I also had a few crashes during my play-through. Probably more than any Insomniac game I’ve played before and considerably more often than I’d expect from a major PlayStation first-party release. This happened in open-world areas when I was moving through New York and never interrupted any missions or combat which I appreciated. It felt somewhat similar to the original crashes I experienced in Cyberpunk 2077 (though nowhere near as often) and I wonder if it has something to do with how quickly the game has to load in assets as you move around the city at pretty wild speeds? 

Ultimately these problems were infrequent enough that they haven’t shaped my overall opinion of the game. It’s a little unexpected considering both Insomniac Games and PlayStation Studios track record but it’s getting consistently better with each. 

Gaming in 2023 everybody. 

Conclusion

All in all my thoughts on Spider-Man 2 are pretty clear. This is the best PlayStation exclusive available for the PS5 right now. Second to none. It’s one of the very best super-hero games I’ve ever played and I’ve done a few over the years. What I can say with complete certainty is that this is the very best Spider-Man game out there and a must-play for anyone with a PlayStation 5. 

With a character as culturally gigantic as Spider-Man doing something new is a huge challenge. Spider-Man 2 solidifies in my mind the Insomniacs journey as one of the most important in the history of the character. It is setting the standard for the character in this era throwing punches with Cinema, Comic-Books and Animation and not just holding its setting the pace when its turn comes around. 

There’s a lot of Spider-Man out there in the world. 

This may well be the Ultimate Spider-Man experience. 

Rapid Reviews Rating

4.5 out of 5

4.5

You can Spider-Man 2 now on Playstation Store