Marvel's Spider-Man 2: The Off-Balance Review.
Great power, great responsibility and a high-point for superhero video games.
For most, catching a breather probably means kicking back on the couch (heck, it’s what I’m doing, fuzzy socks included).
But Peter Parker isn’t most people.
He’s currently perched some hundreds of feet above the ground on the edge of a Midtown skyscraper, watching the nighttime traffic on the Queensboro Bridge as it passes him by.
It doesn’t last, though,
A notification appears on-screen. There’s a break-in, just a few blocks away.
Diving from his perch, Peter tumbles towards the street, rapidly picking up speed before I fire out a webline at the last possible moment, flinging him upwards, to hurtle through the glass canyons of Manhattan with abandon.
Not content to simply slow down, I take advantage of the Web Wings, one of Spider-Man 2’s many new features and with a single button press, Peter’s wing-suit engages and I move into a slipstream, rocketing towards the crime in progress at what feels like G-Force speed.
Arriving though, I realize: I’m too late.
The other Spider-Man, Miles Morales, is already there.
“Oh, you started without me!” Peter jokes, as I descend upon the growing melee. But in a barrage of webs, quips and a couple of dual-takedown finishers, we make short work of the criminals-to-be.
As the dust settles, the two heroes seem to consider a handshake before deciding to hug it out instead, unable hold back their laughter.
There is nothing better, after all, than a supportive co-worker.
Later on, I’ll switch seamlessly to Miles in the open-world. Ever-casual, he’s (quite literally) up against a wall, taking a break of his own, fuelling up with a bagel.
But below, there’s an out-of-control car swerving through traffic. He pulls on his mask and pushes off.
Time to get to work.
It is within these smaller moments, these in medias res vignettes, that developer Insomniac continues to capture so well, the way few others have, that feeling of being a superhero.
The third entry in their Spider-Man franchise, following 2018’s Spider-Man and 2020’s sequel/spin-off Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Spider-Man 2, which released October 20th, exclusively for the PlayStation 5, picks up some ten months following the previous instalment.
Miles (Nadji Jeter) may now be fully established as a Spider-Man all his own but it is, in classic wall-crawling fashion, never easy.
Unsure of his next steps, he’s been stalling on his college admission essay and is still dealing with anger over his father’s death at the hands of supervillain Martin Li, also known as Mister Negative (Stephen Oyoung).
His mentor isn’t doing much better.
Now 25 and having been Spider-Man for ten years, crimefighting isn’t the issue for Peter Parker (Yuri Lowenthal).
It is everything else.
Following his Aunt May’s death, he’s moved back into his childhood home in Queens. His girlfriend, Daily Bugle reporter Mary Jane Watson (Laura Bailey) helps where she can but Peter continues to struggle in both holding down a job and well, being a functioning adult amid his super-heroics, forget paying the bills on time.
Great responsibility, never great money management.
But when longtime best friend Harry Osborn (Graham Phillips) unexpectedly reenters their lives, he offers Peter an opportunity he can’t pass up, working at his new research foundation.
The last time we saw Harry of course, was in the post-credit scenes of the previous games. Terminally ill and in stasis at an Oscorp lab, while surrounded by a very familiar black liquid and under the close watch of his father, Norman (Mark Rolston).
Now apparently cured, he seems committed on making up for lost time.
Meanwhile, the mysterious Kraven the Hunter (Jim Pirri) a man of dangerous methods and violent intent, has arrived in New York with his militia, the aptly-named “Hunters”, looking for the ultimate challenge among the heroes, villains and other vigilante types that call the city home, with the Spider-Men (who else?) at the top of his list.
And lurking in the shadows? The monstrous Venom (Tony Todd) for whom simple villainy is quite a few notches below his pay grade.
Perhaps the best thing about Spider-Man 2 is that it doesn’t need to concern itself with too many building blocks, the benefit of being the next chapter in a continuing drama.
Insomniac has shown they’re not afraid to take these, for many, decades-old characters in new directions by crafting a narrative uniquely their own, bypassing what has too-often held Spider-Man, specifically Peter Parker storytelling back in the comics for the better part of twenty years - straight forward evolution.
There is an undeniable sense of familiarity at play here, sure and taking inspiration from various other stories, primarily from the 1980s comic storylines of Kraven’s Last Hunt and the Symboite Costume Saga, the crux of the whole affair is counting on Insomniac to go somewhere different.
They do but there is also the contrasting expectation that they’ll play the hits as well, albeit with the growth that comes with being a proper sequel.
And nowhere is that more apparent than the moment-to-moment gameplay.
Combat, most prominently, has undergone a substantial overhaul.
There are three skill trees, one shared between the Spider-Men, focusing mainly on traversal and movement, with one each devoted to their individual abilities.
Two Spider-Men means, in theory, two distinct ways to play and for the most part, Insomniac delivers.
Each hero, for one, has their unique powers which set them apart:
For Miles, it means using his bioelectric and invisibly powers like the returning Venom Jump or his newer, enhanced abilities like Chain Lightning, as a form of crowd control.
Peter, not to be undone, has been upgraded with the Spider-Arms and then, eventually, the symbiote. Each provides a different approach - the Arms, focusing mainly on dealing with enemies at a distance, while the symbiote, paired with its “Surge Mode” is best for brutal, up-close-and-personal combat and taking out large groups at once.
The overall combat flow, further building on Insomniac’s spider-infused, Arkham-template style of dodging, staying in the air and slowing enemies down with webs, returns. They have also introduced a parry mechanic, forcing you to occasionally go on the defensive against tougher opponents, especially in the expanded (and much more challenging) boss fights.
Stealth has also seen some minor additions, allowing for player-created weblines across large arenas, providing more opportunities for goons-that-never-look-up takedowns (which you can now do two-at-a-time).
The original game’s gadget wheel and large library are gone though, instead mapping abilities to the left trigger, as Miles Morales did, with a streamlined selection of gadgets on the right.
Alongside the parry mechanic, it means, even in smaller encounters, that you’re no longer able to completely dictate the outcome of fights before you even hit the ground, overloading foes with a barrage of web bombs or trip mines.
Admittedly, this adjustment took me some time to get used too, the small timing window on the parry in particular. Perfect? Not quite but fortunately, within the game’s deep accessibly menu, you can tweak the experience to your need or liking.
It is a continued shift away from the initial formula and isn’t without something of a learning curve but by the mid-point and carrying on through to the end, I had found a rhythm and could appreciate the changes.
Revamped too, are the Mary Jane sections, which, during pre-determined moments of the story, put you in her shoes. These segments, a returning feature, received criticism the first time around for being too slow and on-the-rails, even for primarily stealth-focused encounters.
They’ve been tweaked here, with MJ more capable from the get-go, able to take down enemies in open combat, sprint and if needed, dodge for cover.
On a fundamental level though, overall, you’re still doing the same thing and one’s milage may vary in that respect but for me, the evolution did more than enough to keep things interesting.
The same goes for traversal.
Alongside Manhattan, the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn have been added to the open-world, nearly doubling the size of the map and with that, the need to move through it quickly.
The swinging has been expanded, being faster and allowing for more player freedom (should they choose, by limiting swing-assist) but with the Web Wings and bolstered by the PS5’s enhanced processing power, Insomniac has provided a sense of movement nearly unparalleled in recent gaming.
From a gameplay perspective, they’re a callback to Batman’s cape-assisted gliding in the Arkham franchise but there is also a deeper system at play here.
You can now glide throughout New York at any time, utilizing slipstreams or air vents to further boost your respective hero’s momentum.
Now, if you wish, outside of a few instances, you can forgo using them entirely (same goes for the near-instantaneous fast travel) but they are a strong addition to an established system - while not detracting from what already worked as you move through the city: hunting down various collectibles, taking on side missions or tackling the main story.
Returning from Miles Morales is the “Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man” App, the in-game mission tracker, which allows citizens from across New York to reach out to the Spider-Men directly.
It could be Miles, in a series of side missions, lending a hand to fellow students at his Brooklyn prep school or assisting a music museum near his home in Harlem, as they track down stolen instruments. Maybe it is Peter, working with an uneasy ally, trying to stop the activities of a dangerous cult.
Or perhaps you’re the Spider-Man of your choice, helping a someone find a missing family member or catching up with a mutual friend.
These are, generally, smaller affairs. But they do so much to reinforce what has made the characters so endearing over the decades, as they devote themselves, as Friendly Spider-Men, to their neighbours.
But it is the main story, of which groundwork has been laid since the first title, where Insomniac has pushed in most of their chips.
And as a whole? It is a resounding success.
There are numerous storylines and arcs at play and while not all of them land with the intended effectiveness, you can’t help but appreciate the bold… uh, swings.
So much of this comes down to the character work, of which the three leads, in Lowenthal, Jeter and Bailey, alongside Phillips as Harry and Insomniac’s creative team, understand intuitively.
Peter may trust Miles with his life but even with a second Spider-Man and MJ in his corner, following a decade of crimefighting, he still struggles with finding a middle ground both as a civilian and a superhero.
And although he fights against it, he is tired and burnt out. Exhausted (y’know, standard Spider-Man stuff).
He wants to help others, not just in spandex but as a scientist, too. He simply can’t seem to find the time. Lowenthal, both in his voice work and performance capture, is terrific overall but especially as “The Suit” begins exerting more and more control, corrupting Peter under its influence.
He states more than once that it “makes him a better Spider-Man”: stronger, faster, more decisive.
More cruel, not just to his enemies but to those he loves, as well.
It is a nice change of pace, frankly, from the better-known adaptions that feature the creature, 2007’s Spider-Man 3 or the Tom Hardy Venom films most notably, that are incredibly fun but also, purposely, incredibly campy.
The symbiote we see here, in Spider-Man 2, is the complete opposite, devoid of any morals or sense of compassion, making Venom’s eventual reveal all the more unnerving, as Insomniac pulls from more recent comic stories, beyond the character’s initial two decades.
One mid-game sequence, in particular, is absolutely horrifying and sets a new bar for certain deceptions going forward.
In the comics, Eddie Brock’s Venom has been firmly established as an anti/occasionally true hero for a while now and Tom Hardy’s version is someone who hangs out in nightclubs, while dealing with a complicated bromance.
And that’s fine! For those incarnations, it works, often very well. But there’s a balance, yeah? For Peter, Insomniac finds it but MJ and specifically, Miles, can at-times feel shortchanged throughout the larger narrative.
It is nothing to do with their performances (Bailey and Jeter respectively, are both fantastic) but rather the inherent challenges that are going to arise, trying to fit big character work into a story that is about the same length as the air-tight original or as compact as Miles Morales.
The final act, while undeniably strong, arrives and ramps up just a touch too quickly, almost veering into whiplash territory as one big development is followed by another.
It isn’t unexpected, in this day-and-age, to set-up future stories or dangle loose threads but in this case things almost feel, if not incomplete, than lacking resolution until either DLC or the inevitable sequels arrive.
And that is frustrating.
Most importantly though, the larger beats land.
Miles, coming to terms with his own version of heroism and MJ, not content to simply be just “Spider-Man’s girlfriend”, is given the narrative space to develop further, a version of the character that is distinctive in the larger and ever-evolving canon.
Spider-Man 2 isn’t beyond criticism. Nothing ever is. But it is, overall, another home run for Insomniac who continue to provide one of the best interpretations of these characters in modern media, certainly over the past 20 years.
It is a pretty high bar. The hardest thing?
It is wondering where they’ll go next.