So... Insomniac's Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (for the PS5. Be Greater. Together!) Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love to Parry.
So good. So much fun. This is gonna be long rambling with no discernable point.
Every scene where Pete & the Symbiote communicated? Chills. "You want to destroy... US?" and then Connor looked over his shoulder, terrified? BABY!!! THAT'S SPIDAH-MAN!
The Daily Bugle trucks being Black in this game when they were Red in the first? Such a small change, but I felt it!
The emotional beats were GOOD. Harry trying his best to reignite his throuple, NORMAN OSBORN. (Every scene. Just ALL OF THEM.),
Kraven's WHOLE VIBE! As someone who's also constantly dying, him just wanting to go out on his own terms was so simple a motivation that I could not deny him. Get your last hunt in, you wide-bodied bastard, I support you!
DMITRI REFERENCED. CHAMELEON SPOTTED. FAMILIAL TIES CANONIZED.
IT'S NOT A JOKE, NADYA IS CANON!
Miles putting vengeance away to clear the last gap on his way to being Spider-Man (losing family is step one. Power, responsibility, etc. Fighting a former family friend across New York while begging for them to stop is step two. Finding the fuck that killed your family member, whipping their ass, and then not finishing the job? Congrats, Miles, you're here! I don't care what those white boys on twitter say. You're spider-man!)
The whole Scream fight fucked me up. Emotionally, of course, hearing Scream say the quiet part out loud* while comboing Peter really fucking bowled me over. Add to that, I wasn't parrying at all during the fight, so I had to fight each stage of the battle maybe 4-5 times before moving on.
QUENTIN BECK REDEMPTION ARC!!! MY FUCKING GUY!!! Make your weird arthaus VR Experiences, Q, I will be at the next Mysterium no matter what!
My friend put it really well while I was playing. "This is great Spider-Stuff, cause it'll be goofy as fuck one minute and then the very next second the air will be sucked out of the room." One of many examples: MJ mission to rescue Connors. (Shout out to MJ, by the way! Shorty is gonna have a Ratchet & Clank weapon wheel next game, and I'm all for it!) I'm doing seal team six manuevers around the zoo, having a gay old time. Next thing I know, KRAVEN STAB- !!
The 'NOOO!' I let out? The frantic rise in my heart rate as we're limping through the battle, and the apologies start? I KNEW what time it was, mechanically. Academically, I had an understanding of what plot beat was coming. But emotionally? Fuck you, Mr. Insomniac.
Gameplay, swinging, traversal, etc. We all know that's better now. I turned my HUD off after I finished the game, so now I'm just traveling NYC enjoying the schmooving mechanics.
Unbelievably excited about THREE (3) things that were for sure sequel baits.
The Cindy namedrop, obviously. I love Silk, I hope she's okay forever.
The G-SERUM. Which... Norman, buddy, read a comic. This isn't gonna go well.
AND THE SUPER SLY EDDIE BROCK REFERENCE THAT MJ DROPPED EARLY ON! She mentioned that the front page at the bugle went to 'a new guy that Jonah likes' early on and I immediately. Zeroed the fuck in on that. Considering we got Venom, Anti-Venom, Cletus Fucking Kassady which I did NOT see coming up until the very last mission, Agent Venom, Flash Thompson (and Andi from Chem) all referenced pretty blatantly in the symbiote sequel?
I feel safe in my assumption about Eddie.
This game had like two or three unforgivable sins to it that really held it back, in my singular opinion, from being a true banger. If you've read this far, you can fully skip this last bit. It's just me complaining.
I HATE. That the MCU & Movie suits took up that many god damned slots on the roster. They made the Max Level suit in the game the fucking inverted black & gold suit from no way home? Go RIGHT to hell, Disney, you know that was fucking foul.
Spider-Verse got four suits altogether (Miles' 3 and Noir for Pete) why... why didn't we get Peter B. Parker? We have every flavor of Spider-Verse Miles, including a Spider-Verse easter egg that was cut for time from the fucking MOVIE, but no sweatpants for Parker? That's not even a legitimate complaint, I'm just confused.
The complaint would be that Miles' 'end game' suit was also terrible. Insomniac hasn't come up with a good 'story relevant' suit since Anti-Ock (the way I see it). The Advanced suit (1.0 & 2.0) never felt right to me. Miles' weird glowing suit is bad. It's just bad. The... the fucking Jazz Suit Miles has too? Oh, my days. That sorta flows into my next issue.
Miles needs better stuff to work with
This whole game felt like Miles was an afterthought. I know it's Peter's story. One of his most iconic ones, at that, and literally what the entire first game in the series was building toward, but... man Miles felt fucking ancillary!
The whole plot line of him feeling 'left behind' as Peter chose Harry (and then the suit) felt almost like a meta-comment on how Insomniac was leaving Miles behind to focus on 'the cool alien stuff'.
All of Miles' main missions felt so... like they could've just been an email. The Felicia Mission? Travel from point A to point B several times. Do a re-skinned hideout. Chase Felicia while we show off the portal tech from Ratchet & Clank. Cut print. Next mission.
Go talk to Uncle Aaron. Guess what? Scavenger hunt!
Go talk to Mysterio. Surprise! Challenge missions!
The Boss Battle with Li was great, because that felt like it was expanding Miles. It was about him. It was HIS ARC! And then we followed that up with the Anti-Venom mission, which- I mean... it was mostly about Peter. WHICH I GET. I UNDERSTAND WHY.
But still! All that promo about 'they're both Spider-Man. Spider-Man Blue & Spider-Man Red' and then Miles either fails the Spider-Bechdel test every time he's on screen, or when he's not, he's got fuck all of substance to play with.
I just want better for my cousin, Miles, man. That's all! If he had better shit to work with, it'd be SO MUCH easier to shout down all the people claiming he's deadweight, but now, Mr. Insomniac, y'all have me having to use comic references to support my claims instead of sticking strictly to the medium at hand.
Villainous Pacing Efforts.
It felt. To me... like Kraven should've been the big bad all the way to the end of the game. Considering that the last suit you can obtain through story completion is the 'Life Story' suit, a suit from a comic where Kraven and the Venom Symbiote merge and hunt Spider-Man literally off the planet, it seems as if that was an idea floated around somewhere during development?
Kraven gets the suit. Becomes 'Venom'. (Which would fit with Venom being fucking Brolic. Harry was built like a bean. He shouldn't be that thick.) And then he's turning the planet into his Hunting Ground.
There'd be a consistent villainous throughline from Cold Open to Credits. Harry could still lose the suit, Pete could still be a dick about it, Norman still blames Peter, bim bam boom.
Making Harry the bad guy made the game more emotional, which was awesome.
My feelings were in the BLENDER, babe. But analytically... that shit kinda came outta nowhere. At least in SM1, Devil's Breath was set up from Act 1 and Octavius losing his footing was worked into the narrative from early.
Harry having the symbiote and him being a Spider-Pal was dope. But them going full burn with Healing the World afterward, mishearing Big Mother's calls from Knull as Harry's mom? (which geeked me the fuck out, admittedly. I LOVED THAT. LOVED that the generic symbiotes were Knullified too, that was- MAN! Between this game and Midnight Suns, Knull is on his way to the mainstream soon) I dunno.
It just felt like there were choices made. I don't agree with some of them, is all.
8/10, though. Stellar video game. If Alan Wake 2 wasn't heavier, I'd lock it in for 2023.