Reviewer's Note: Although I do my best to avoid SPOILERS, I will mention story details that I liked or disliked, albeit as vaguely as possible.  Read on at your own risk.

You've seen Insomniac's iteration of Peter Parker and Miles Morales take on adversaries before, but never together in a full adventure.  Although doubling the Spider-Men boasts incredible potential – especially with the promise of flexing new technological capabilities – it also implies tougher narrative and gameplay expectations.  How do you sustain genuine interest between two leads to the point where it's a joy to experience each titular hero's story?  It's apropos then for Insomniac to shoulder these burdens with the beloved web-crawler; after all, no other superhero better encapsulates the idea of multi-tasking under pressure.

Said multi-tasking is immediately felt with Peter Parker arriving as Miles' new science preceptor at Brooklyn Visions Academy.  Unsurprisingly, this lesson on surface tension is cut short when the city is attacked by Sandman.  This intense battle stretching across different precincts hints at another villain lurking in the shadows: Kraven the Hunter.  Driven to face off against NYC's greatest fighters, be they hero or villain, his arrival (and private army in tow) marks a different set of stakes.


Those nuanced stakes don't translate to a new formula altogether; then again, if it ain't broke don't fix it.  The gameplay foundation retains that combo of Spidey-flavored Batman: Arkham rhythm and standardized blockbuster open world design.  After the impressive tutorial against Sandman, you're back into that flow of finding doodads between main objectives.  If you're not uncovering some of Flint Marko's memory crystals left over from his excess sand piles, then perhaps you're going to Tech Crates scattered atop skyscrapers, or answering various Spidey alerts of criminals or cultists causing mayhem in the streets below. In between those, J. Jonah Jameson's or Danika Hart's latest podcast blurbs will auto-play during your spare time.

Along with the expansion of Brooklyn and Queens, and the subsequent side content littered throughout, toing and froing between boroughs has never been better.  The sensational web-swinging has been here from the start, but now the duo's Web Wings finally get a test run, acting as a glider for softer landings or maintaining perpetual uplift through select wind tunnels.  It's never been easier to simply wander off the beaten path and handle a flurry of tasks just because.  And while, granted, polluting New York with extraneous stuff reeks of an open world checklist, the consistent noise perfectly pairs with this city’s biggest superhero.

If only every creative decision could share that "ludonarrative harmony" with modern AAA expectations.  Parker's best friend, Harry Osborn, returns from a debilitating illness that's kept him away for years.  Naturally, his first idea is saddling you with a bike and do a boring ride-n-talk sequence and then several tutorialized flashbacks.  The industry's continued trend of cement-shoes walking segments tends to feel like a natural Valium at this point; it's not that the tool should never be used, but more so interrogated about when to do it and for what purpose.  Why splice in a useless basketball mini-game in this segment?  Why is the same fucking Shins song that introduced me to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl playing here?  While some capture palpable tension, most walky-talky bits feel so stale.


Fortunately, Insomniac hasn't lost the touch with fisticuffs combat.  Again, the standardized Batman: Arkham template with a greater emphasis on aerials remain as aurally and kinesthetically satisfying as ever.  The way punches, launches, dodges, and more faithfully emulate the ferocity and momentum from Spidey's best action panels still taps into that lizard brain.  While not as different as they could've been, the unique movesets between both Spider-Men provides a nice layer of variety to the copious amounts of goons on offer.  Peter's knack for gadgets and Miles' bio-electric powers (both in strikes and temporary invisibility) feel complimentary to each other, which is expressed further through split and shared upgrade trees.  Although it's disappointing to see Peter lose some of his previous toys, perhaps that’s tied to balancing out a smoother difficulty curve. 

Whether it's paring down certain gadgets or feeling more measured in its innovations, Insomniac puts greater interest in retooling a familiar script around newer console technology.  Aside from the expected alacrity of fast-traveling between areas, Spider-Man 2 incorporates Grand Theft Auto V’s multi-protagonist swapping.  What it lacks in the comedy of seeing Franklin or Michael transition to Trevor drunkenly waking by a dumpster it makes up for in speed and synergy; on occasion, even both Spider-Men will answer the same alert by pure happenstance.  Melding comradery into its design also reinforces Miles reaching the esteemed Spider-Man title from his previous side story.

The emphasis on refinement over drastic innovation does come with a few asterisks though.  To be sure, other tech improvements like greater urban density and certain missions such as chasing Black Cat through portals (a la Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart) deserve high praise; it's – once again – another impressive technical showcase that sports seamless transitions between interactive sequences and cutscenes, with a fluidity that trumps most modern action films.  But that also comes with a caveat: it works… until it doesn't.  The occasional flakiness of the combat camera or silly bugs would be an afterthought were it not for those infrequent crashes during a good run (especially on Spectacular difficulty).  That's not to over-exaggerate some hard crashes and soft locks either, but polish ranks a grade below the original Spider-Man and Miles Morales in my experience (all of which I played around similar launch windows too).


Refinements even consist of mechanics everyone would've rather seen cauterized altogether.  That's right!  The original's civilian-stealth segments have returned, but only starring MJ this time.  Maybe if she's bitten by a radioactive spider they'll finally go.  While it's true their design has improved, the question is still “at what cost?”  The core template is still boring line-of-sight sleuthing around chest-high cover and insultingly easy takedowns.  It takes a genuine effort to hit a fail state.  Besides the one good exception where MJ’s viewpoint enhances dramatic tension, they feel like lazy stopgaps without any tempo or personality; even worse, giving her a gun feels tonally confused.  How did Insomniac's interrogation of MJ's purpose land on transmogrifying her into Agent 47 with a wig?

These critiques and quibbles across my 20+ hour runtime (will require over 30 for a completionist run) are annoying because its heart still retains a respectable Spider-Man simulation.  Even if the usual open world standard doesn't have the same luster today as a decade ago, Spider-Man 2 is one of the better examples because of those nuances and sincerity.  Parrying expands upon the Spider-Men's action vocabulary in understated ways, some side content ranks among the series' best, and… certain extraneous mechanics (like science puzzles) complement the hero's origins.  The warts are sizable, but it says something when you're still engaged after stacking enough human and robot minions to build another skyscraper.  

Nevertheless, it's hard not to get slightly annoyed at tempering expectations for Spider-Man's first mainline sequel.  Again, not in the sense of demanding groundbreaking innovation but rather maturing in ways expectant of this developer's pedigree.  Those smaller details like the obnoxiously coddling tutorial UI prompts (settings don't seem to change much), the first half's lumpier pacing, most boss fights done in contained areas after the superb Sandman opening, QTE segments that require no input most of the time, and more suggest a "gameplay editor" (shall we say) could've spruced things up.  It's so annoying to be hung up on these things when the grander scheme of traversal, combat, etc. remains a exciting dopamine injection.


The details diminishing the bigger picture perfectly segues to the narrative as well.  When it comes to bigger themes of loss, forgiveness, and so on, most of what's explored is a solid foundation building upon previous threads.  When it's hitting the mark, the "hell yeah!" moments truly shine.  It's just a shame the things in between them – dialogue, character writing, etc. – reveal this writing crew didn’t heed Uncle Ben's greatest lesson.

An important aspect to this overarching complaint is quality characterization.  Little things like Peter & Miles' flatter jokes, or Peter & MJ’s lukewarm dating dynamics – especially compared to the "will they/won’t they?" from the original – don’t often land.  Mixing a big climactic fight with dialogue snippets about relational headwinds and mortgage payments is a new one for me, but the end result sounds as awkward as Anakin’s "I don’t like sand…" speech.  Fresh or less-popular interpretations of Spider-Man canon can spice things up, especially regarding The Symbiote, but the flavorless trust-fund kid approach for Harry Osborn feels like Insomniac didn't capture his better potential. 

Parker & Osborn's tested friendship is still one of the best highlights, but that also means Miles tends to play second fiddle to the main story.  There's not much emotional weight to writing a 500-word college application and saving a music museum compared to wrestling with an alien artifact of unknown origins; there is something tangible in revenge against Mr. Negative however, which walks a tightrope between satisfying and overwrought, especially given how Miles' previous side story didn't share this repressed vengeance.   


There's also this newfound sense of corporate HR continuously leering overhead whilst reading the final script, as though Marvel and Insomniac were sweating bullets over potentially dealing with another cringe-inducing Spider-Cop controversy.  It's tough not to read into the ludicrous scenario of stopping criminals from stealing dozens of AK's out of a privately-owned gun club, in NYC of all places, while Parker makes a couple moralizing quips.  It's also impossible to un-hear this tortured version of "Spanglix" if you’ve been around any fluent Spanish speakers.  Not only does neutralizing a gendered language sound awkward on its face, the tortured way English and Spanish are mixed here feels so condescending.  These are quibbles, of course, but they come back to that point about interrogating one's creative decisions; as a positive counter-example, Insomniac actually did that leg work with a brief side mission starring Miles' deaf almost-girlfriend, Hailey.

Even with specific quibbles or higher-order critiques, there are still several great narrative hooks.  Sure, some setups in the first half can be laggard or clumsy, but most successive payoffs work so well because of their intrinsic sincerity.  Juggling so many new and returning characters doesn't feel unwieldy because the heart of Peter & Harry's friendship, and the similar losses they carry, is consistently reinforced.  That praise still has to contend with the muck surrounding that core though, like a fantastic blueprint tarnished by inconsistent construction. 


It's easier to get sucked into Insomniac's world thanks to detailed presentation too.  Many of the previous cast flexed their talent before and it's no surprise casting plucks good choices for the new additions – Tony Todd as Venom, for example.  While maintaining professionalism in his craft, most of John Paesano's soundtrack sticks to a standard MCU-like soundscape with a few hip-hop inspirations for Miles.  Like the previously-discussed technological upgrades, even the sights of an impressively-rendered New York add a touch of incentive to explore every nook and cranny.  The Horizon series may still be Sony's crown jewel in sheer technical craft & art direction (some enemies here are a bit bland), but the upgrades to destructibility, fluidity, and more still make Spider-Man 2 a marvel to behold.

Apropos of The Symbiote, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is faster, bigger, and stronger than what's come before, but also touched by corruption.  Upgrades in combat and traversal make its otherwise-typical design among the most engaging of the year; and yet, the drudgery of several ancillary mechanics suggests Insomniac being threatened by players having too much consistent fun.  Its narrative core centered on loss and forgiveness leads to several poignant moments, yet the journey to them gets bogged down by weaker dialogue, surface-level characterization, and more corporate HR control – sapping some artistic merit as a result.  It nonetheless remains a thrilling ride, but a few tuning forks to exorcise those parasitic remnants could've made it truly spectacular. 

Contractor by trade and writer by hobby, Lee's obnoxious criticisms have found a way to be featured across several gaming sites: N4G, VGChartz, Gaming Nexus, DarkStation, and TechRaptor! He started gaming in the mid-90s and has had the privilege in playing many games across a plethora of platforms. Reader warning: each click given to his articles only helps to inflate his Texas-sized ego. Proceed with caution.