Insomniac Games
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2: An amazing story combo
Peter Parker and Miles Morales take to the skies on PlayStation 5.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 from Insomniac Games arrives with several new additions debuting in a year full of great candidates for video game of the year, will this be one of those? Here, we give you our experience after finishing it after 24 hours of gameplay, getting pretty much everything.
A story that tries to redeem some of the characters
To avoid spoilers, we can say that this installment brings Peter Parker and Miles Morales even closer together. We see more of the bond they forged in the last two video games, and we see them working as a true team of friendly neighbors fighting crime in New York. These team bonds are not the only ones we see throughout the game, as the two protagonists expand their relationships with Mary Jane, Ganke Lee, Rio Morales, and Aaron Davis (the latter as an antagonist), who will lead the two Spider-Men by the hand in this incredible storyline.
Although the game does a great job so that it is not necessary to have played the two previous titles, it is a reality that is more enjoyable since we will get to know more about both characters. One of the main axes is Harry Osborn and an event that leads him to be practically cured of his disease that was mentioned in the first game. Somehow this will be the catalyst for us to see everything from Venom to the fearsome Kraven the Hunter.
Again, we do not want to tell you much because of spoilers, but the way they tie up the ends will lead us to take alternate routes that will lead us to reunite with other already-known characters who have even starred in previous games. All of this will reveal Parker’s close relationship with Jane and Morales with Lee as inseparable companions of both superheroes. Undoubtedly, we will find more villains, but it is up to each of us to discover them, since it plays a key role in accepting or not the alternate missions.
Complex controls that develop our spider sense
This gameplay section is one of the most outstanding, as we will be using practically all the buttons, including the triggers. Each of them in different combinations will allow us to use gadgets, powers, and, when the time comes, skills with the symbiote.
The move that stands out the most is the ability to glide, whether you do it with Morales or Parker, you will be able to reach farther places and even ram enemies with this new technique. Since the city has more than doubled, this ability will become part of us and can be maximized with other moves that we will unlock or with a kind of slingshot that can be found in the city, air currents, or the air conditioning vents of some buildings. The evolution of the moves depends on the experience points, and this time we will be evolving both Miles’ and Peter’s moves. The interesting thing is that they both share a common skill tree that they will both be able to perform.
Side missions that add to the lore
In this installment, all players who complete the submissions will be rewarded with both experience, costumes, and additional gadgets. However, they are accompanied by great stories related to Brooklyn, activities related to the investigation of pests in the city, cults (with an incredible surprise for comic fans) and even just helping the community.
Next generation graphics
As we talked about in our preview, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has done a great job of bringing the city to life, from better NPCs, details in the textures, weather, reflections, and there are even rats. So much care has been put into this installment that we even took the time to visit emblematic places to compare the care that has been put.
Taking advantage of the PS5′s SSD technology, it’s wonderful the work they’ve done for the fast travel you’ll unlock when you do some of the game’s alternate missions (it’s also a way to compensate for those players who want to complete everything), as you can put the cursor wherever you want and in the blink of an eye you’ll appear there with an incredible Spider-Man flight sequence. There’s a nice touch here where they don’t let you take the trip when someone is telling you something important. It is handled so well that if they’re telling you something important and for some reason, you get stuck on a mission or decide to prevent an attack, the chat will resume as a smartphone call.
Gold for those who want to complete 100% of the game
The bonuses you get for completing all the missions are an ode to all Spider-Man fans, as we will find costumes with a brutal level of detail, regarding this, we can only say that if you liked the movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, they have taken the execution of these costumes to a level where even the frames per second are involved.
The game has a performance mode and a fidelity mode, the former uses 60 frames per second including some raytracing features at lower resolution with lower density in some areas, and the hair effect is simplified. The second uses 30 fps at a higher resolution, better raytracing effects, including water and windows, and a higher density of pedestrians, traffic, and hair details.
Sounds full of life
When the music and everything you hear in a game makes you feel like you’re there, we say you’re practically another character. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has just that, the timing, the tunes, and the sounds that, whether you listen to it with a good surround audio system or with headphones, it’s simply spectacular.
Another great feature is the JJ Jameson and Danika Hart podcasts (which you can turn on or off at will), as well as the Content Creator mode that turns off licensed music. Also incredible are all the complementary sounds you can hear with DualSense and the special 3D audio mode for compatible headphones.
A villain that doesn’t overshadow the Spider-friends
The size of the game and the city is so large that from time to time we had NPCs floating around like ghosts, sub-missions that didn’t explode, and even combos where we went through walls, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed by restarting the mission. We also had at least 3 restarts with no data loss, something we hope will be fixed in some of the upcoming updates. None of this disrupted our gameplay experience.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will give us a combination of emotions
It is a fact that this installment is another strong candidate for video game of the year because it has everything. It is an experience that is enjoyable at all times and will even give us two big surprises at the end. It is, without a doubt, another great PlayStation 5 exclusive.