Spider-Man 2 - Two Years Later

Sony's Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Not the movie or the game based on the movie, but the PS5 game from 2023.

This game came out a couple years ago, and I avoided watching any reviews about it because I knew I would eventually get around to playing it and wanted to avoid spoilers. But now I have a ps5 and I've played it and I wanna talk about it. Are my hot takes just retreading whatever people said two years ago? Am I adding anything new to the conversation? I have no idea, but let's get into it.

Spider-Man 2 is about balance. I know because they told me that's what the theme was in a cutscene. Which is maybe ironic because I think that is where the game struggles. There is a lot going on here, and so many characters. We got the Danny Phantom trio of Pete, MJ and Miles. Then Harry, Norman, Dr. Connors, Jonah, Kraven, Sandman, Mysterio, returning characters like Martin Li, Black Cat, Tombstone, all of Miles' supporting cast, like Rio, Uncle Aaron, Ganke, and even Hailey. What? You don't remember Hailey? The deaf graffiti artist from that one skippable side quest in Spider-Man: Miles Morales? Well, she's a main character now, and Miles' love interest. They establish that he likes her in the 'previously on' cinematic that you can skip. What do you mean you don't remember famous Spider-Man character Hailey? There's a whole sidequest where you play as her and have to do graffiti with goofy motion controls. The Ultimate Spider-Man experience!

I tease, but I actually don't mind Hailey that much. Miles is a newer character in the comics so he doesn't have the decades of supporting characters that Peter does. Plus, the first few arcs of his story in the Ultimate comics were him dealing with the fallout and baggage that came with the death of Peter, and learning how to deal with his villains and various supporting characters. Miles also doesn't have that many popular love interests, aside from Gwen, who works better in the movies. So I'm actually fine with them creating some new characters for the games. Although, it is kinda weird that Hailey goes from a side character to one of Miles' best friends and love interests, off-screen between games.

What was I talking about? Oh, yeah balance.

See I think the problem with this game is that it tries to be so many things for so many people, that what works about it gets lost in the spider-sauce.

The main thing this game excels in is the gameplay. It is just so much fun to swing around. There's great new additions like the web-line, and sling-shotting yourself across the map.

There's also the web wings. I don't like the web wings.

I think they were mostly included to make traversal easier. The map is huge, significantly bigger than the first game with the inclusion of some of the burrows. Which means, you have to travel back and forth across the East River quite a bit. So, enter: Web Wings. This concept goes all the way back to the Ditko design, and I always wondered what it would be like if Spidey used those armpit webs to glide from building to building... until I got it. They do it a bunch in the MCU, and now in the games as well. And I realized that I don't like that Spidey can just fly now. It's not even falling with style. It's kinda just flying. And I don't want that. The thing that's cool about Spidey is that he swings on webs. The swinging in these games is great! It looks great, and feels great! Don't mess with that. But ultimately, it's fine. Like most of my criticisms of this game, this is a nitpick and more of a personal prefference. The web wings are optional, and you don't have to use them outside of a couple side missions. You can even slowly swing across the bridge if you prefer, and I do.

The combat is also a blast.

With Miles Morales, you add all these fun electricity attacks, plus he can turn invisible. So why would I even want to go back to playing as Peter? Easy: Symbiote. Peter gets all these really fun Symbiote powers. You can pick up like five guys at once and slam them into the ground. You can throw goo blasts at enemies. It's just cool and feels very satisfying. And even with all these extra powers that Miles and Peter have, the combat still manages to feel focused. The Spider gadgets have even been reworked so they're actually usable. All good stuff.

This is one of those moments where the game is perfectly balanced (as all things should be). Both Miles and Peter are incredibly fun to play as. I never felt like something was being taken away from me when you have to switch from one to the other, because they are both equally a joy to play as.

The balance between Miles and Peter begins to waver with the story.

Miles gets sidelined for a good chunk of the game. They definitely had the idea to do this story with Harry and the symbiote as far back as the first game, and since those comic stories were written long before Miles was created, there isn't really a place for him. I actually really like a lot of the stuff they do with him here. I like the stuff with Martin Li, and how they tie that into the symbiote story. I really like the boss fight against Peter when he's gone full goo mode. But because the main story is focused on Peter, MJ, and Harry, Miles has far less to do.

Miles gets the shaft here with a lot of the more boring side quests.

Peter: Miles! Kraven is hunting down villains across the city and blew up my science factory! I need your help!

Miles: One sec Pete, I gotta get this guy I go to school with a date to the prom!

Peter: Miles! Venom has covered the city in goo! He's turning people into symbiotes like it's Web of Shadows!

Miles: Sorry Pete, I gotta find Charles Barkley's stolen trombone!

I don't hate the Jazz instrument mission, but it is super goofy. It's an optional side quest, and it's not a bad idea to try educate some of us dumb and uncultured whites. But I do think the contrast between how crazy the game gets, and how low stakes some of these side quests feel, is pretty funny.

But if you thought Miles was the only one with boring side quests, not to worry! Peter also gets boring bike levels!

There's a bike riding mission early on with Harry, which is more like a playable cutscene. But it turns out that it's setting up these innovative bike mini-games where you press R2 to move at a middling pace. I don't even hate these either, to be honest, because they're so dumb that I think they're funny. Like, why were they so proud that they make you do this more than once? It is technically optional, but still. You can make anything you want, why not something fun? The bike mini-game in Yakuza is actually fun. You could make like a Tony Hawk skateboarding mini-game. Why this?

These EMF science missions are so dumb. There's one where Peter's like, "If I don't finish this bike route in time, my bike's gonna explode!" What the hell kind of science are you doing, Peter? You know what a normal bike, never does? Yeah. Explode. And all so I can go off this ramp kinda fast?

There's one EMF level where these plants are dying, so Spidey's like, "I know, I'll splice it with fish DNA so it doesn't get sick!" What? What the fuck? Don't do that! That's how most of your villains were created Spidey! Why are you so casual about making a plant-fish hybrid?

This is a weird criticism, because it doesn't really matter to the overall quality of the game, but what the hell is EMF supposed to do? I feel like all of there science, completely lacks basic understanding of the world ecology, and has no practical applications.

There's these little bee drones that are supposed to shoot lasers at bee's predators so they don't go extinct. But like, bees aren't in danger because they keep getting eaten by rats. It's global warming, pesticides, human interference. It has nothing to do with natural predators, and if it did, how would sci-fi robot drones with lasers fix the natural ecosystem?

I'm glad EMF blew up. It was a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Let's talk about Mary Jane.

Where do I even start with this one?

I have so many mixed feelings about MJ's role in these games. Mary Jane is just Lois Lane. I don't know why. Well, I do know why, I just don't like it.

I'm not sure if this came from one of the higher up executives, or what, but at some point during development, they decided that MJ had to be a playable character in the game. So reverse-engineering the character with that end goal, the easiest way to make her playable, have some sense of agency, and still advance the plot, they just copy-pasted Lois Lane's personality onto her and now she's a reporter at the Daily Bugle. Something that Mary Jane in the comics has pretty much never done. (I guess there's the Ultimate comics, but I don't know, that's still pretty different)

So… Here's my question: What is a character? For a franchise as old as Spider-Man, you end up with dozens of adaptations and continuities, so characters can vary drastically from version to version. The MCU's MJ isn't even named Mary Jane. So is it the same character? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So this Mary Jane is an investigative reporter, and she's defined by doing whatever it takes to get the truth. That's Lois Lane. That's what Lois Lane's character is. And don't get me wrong, I love Lois Lane. I think she's an excellent character. And she's great in pretty much every version of Superman. But why is Mary Jane this character? I think it comes from like a really lazy and surface level understanding of superhero media. It feels similar to how they made April O'Neil a reporter in the TMNT cartoon even though she's like a scientist/antique shop owner in the comics. It's a comic book thing, and she's the girl, so she's a reporter, right?

That's the amount of thought they put into MJ in these games. Mary Jane is the main Spider-Man girl, and comic book girls are reporters, therefor, Mary Jane is a reporter, right?

I do at least appreciate that literally ever version of the character except for the main comic continuity recognizes that MJ is Spidey's endgame true love, and should be featured as such. So at least gamer-verse MJ is better than the 616 MJ, who has just been a fuckin' mess for decades now.

So, whatever. MJ in this version is a reporter, even though it doesn't really fit her character. Because I guess female characters can't be interesting and charismatic and flawed, but nuanced, unless they directly move the plot forward in a stealth section. Mary Jane is a really interesting character, with this fun personality, and tragic backstory that they never do anything with. But sure just make her a different character.

I have a similar problem with the MCU version of Ned, who is just Ganke. He looks like Ganke, he acts like him, he serves the same roll in the plot as Ganke usually does. You just have to swap out Miles for Peter. But he's named Ned Leeds, a completely different character from the comics. This was mostly done, allegedly, so that they didn't have to pay Brian Michael Bendis royalties. I forget the specifics, but Marvel only allowed their creators to own a percentage of characters that they created in comics they wrote very recently, like this century. So characters from around the Miles Morales era going forward, if they are adapted in some way you have to A: properly credit the creator, and B: pay them some amount of royalties. Which is part of why Bendis spent a good chunk of his last few years at Marvel just creating new characters left and right, even if it didn't make sense, because he new that if they got adapted, he would get a paycheck. Smart.

So anyways, Ganke is in Spider-Man: Homecoming but his name is Ned, so we don't have to pay Bendis. And like, he's not Ned either. Ned Leeds, in the comics, was a reporter at the Bugle and a romantic rival for Betty Brant, one of Pete's early love interests. (which, another reason I don't like gamer-verse MJ, if you were deadset on having a Spider-Man love interest who worked at the Bugle, you could just use Betty. It doesn't have to be MJ) But the MCU is all like, "Oh we're reinventing this character. It's a modern take on Ned, one of Peter's oldest friends." No it's not. Comic Ned is Pete's college at best. They were never really friends. They never went to highschool together. The closest movie Ned comes to comic Ned is that he briefly dates movie Betty, who is also pretty different from comic Betty. But that's it, and even that is a stretch. It's why it drives me crazy when people are like, "In No Way Home, when Ned says he'll never become a villain, it's ironic because he becomes the Hobgoblin in the comics!" Like, is it? Is that line supposed to be ironic? Or a reference to anything? Ned becomes a Hobgoblin in the comics, but not the main one. Which is also debatable because there's been several Hobgoblins, and the continuity is convoluted as fuck. MCU Ned is just Ganke but he becomes a wizard for no reason. Of course he would never become Hobgoblin. What the fuck are you talking about? At what point does a different version of a character just become a new character? And if you wanted Peter to have a high school friend that he confides in, why not name him Harry? There's no reason he can't be Harry. He has a lot more in common with him than he does Ned. They wanted to do something different, I guess, but that different thing was just Ganke! Who shouldn't even be friends with Peter because he's friends with Miles! So by the time we get Ganke in Across the Spider-Verse, he has to be a different version to distinguish himself from MCU Ned! AAAAAAAHHHH!!!

So anyways, Mary Jane is Lois Lane now, and she's gonna have her own stealth levels, where she progresses the plot, and throws things to distract guards. In the first game, these levels are not fun. They drag down the pacing, they advance the plot, but not the characters or story, and there's a few too many of them. Paired with the Miles sections which are slightly better, but also not very fun. (aside from this part where Miles' dad blows up, which kinda works because it's more of a playable cutscene, and the powerlessness you feel actually enhances the story) but the MJ levels were just boring and frustrating. And gamers did not like them. So for the sequel, Insomniac listened to fan feedback… kind of.

In fairness, these levels are an improvement over the first game. They're shorter, and there's fewer of them. I think there's only 3 total. And they're not annoying stealth levels. Instead, MJ uses her trusty laser gun to take out bad guys like the girl boss she is. This does give these sections more of a survival horror kinda vibe, especially when you're gunning down symbiote zombies in the final goo factory level. And I do sort of like this part where Peter's gone full goo mode, and chases after you with spooky A24 lighting. But like… we're mistaking the forest for the trees here. We're treating Goblin symptoms, but not the Goblin disease.

The problem was never that Mary Jane wasn't powerful enough to be fun to play as, it was that nobody asked to play as Mary Jane in the first place. Mary Jane is just a human woman without superpowers or abilities. She's not even a reporter or some other "strong female character" job. She's an actor. Or at least she used to be. Like, not every character needs to have direct agency and move the plot forward. Sometimes a supporting character can just be a supporting character. They never made an Aunt May level, because that would be dumb. Do... do you see the problem?

The other weird thing is that if you wanted to have a level where you play as a female Spider-Man character in your action game, there were plenty of candidates to choose from. Black Cat is right there, and totally underused in this series. You're already copying so much from the Arkham games, why not just copy the Catwoman levels? (Which are fun, because Catwoman is fun to play as.) In the second game, you could have levels where you play Yuri, who I guess is a ninja now? That must've happened in the DLC I didn't play. I tapped out of the DLC as soon as Black Cat was off screen.

I don't even think an MJ themed level is a bad idea inherently. I think you could make a fun dialogue choice based acting mini-game, kinda like that one level in Witcher 3 where you have to put on a play. You could have a dating sim level based on Secret Hospital. They give Miles a Mysterio themed rhythm game, which is one of the better mini-games, so why not get creative!

Here, I will do it for you!

MJ is doing MoCap for a new video game that she is working on, because actors are in games now. Maybe you could have her doing a scene with Laura Bailey, for some confusing meta-commentary. It could be a reference to a Spidey villain of some kind, you could use Myterio again or maybe Arcade? Maybe it's based on the Enforcers, they haven't been used in a while. But uh oh! Something goes wrong and she ends up trapped in the game somehow! Or you just play an in-game level, where MJ is playing like a Lara Croft type. Or you could just do an Uncharted level that takes place on the set of her new movie. See? It's not that hard.

It kind of completely misses the point of MJ as a character, but Spider-Man as a story as well. Spider-Man is one part action, for sure, but it's also a melodramatic soap opera. It's just as much about the romance, and character drama as it is about the punching bad guy stuff.

It's why I think Web of Shadows actually did MJ much better by having her be one of the two romance options that you can end up with if you make certain good guy choices throughout the game. The other being Black Cat, who you can end up with if you instead pick the Goo guy path.

But my favourite MJ video game inclusion is probably the first Spider-Man movie game, where she's a playable skin if you enter a cheat code. This also made the ending of the game so gay that it was banned in certain regions. 10/10.

Also MJ turns into Scream I guess. It's nice when we can help out the pervert community.

Harry is the last major piece of the puzzle that completes the Danny Phantom trio whenever Miles isn't around.

So Harry has this mysterious hereditary illness, that is never specified so I think we have to assume it’s the Goblin disease from Amazing Spider-Man 2. Weird that some of the DNA from that plot is actually in this game. Anyways Harry ends up becoming Venom as the true final boss.

In these games, most of the villains are portrayed as sympathetic. Which I think works really well for the most part. Doc Ock is great, Mr. Negative ends up being pretty interesting, even Norman seems to genuinely care about his son for the first time ever. But Venom is a villain fuelled by pure hatred. So how does that work? Well…

It starts off awesome! Venom looks incredible, he's even got the logo (can't believe I have to specify that) and he sounds great, voiced by the legendary Tony Todd. You get to play as Venom for a level straight out of Ultimate Spider-Man for the PS2, where you just kill dozens of men in a pretty brutal fashion for a T rated game. You have this cool boss fight with Kraven. Find someone who looks at you like Kraven looks at Venom. I really like how Kraven is used in this game. He's just this crazy roided out russian man with cancer looking for a warrior's death. And he gets it when you get to eat his head. Incredible stuff.

But if you stop to think about it a bit, the Venom stuff actually doesn't work that well for me. Part of the reason Venom is a compelling villain is that both Eddie Brock and the Symbiote have equal motivation to hate Spider-Man. It's why Spectacular Spider-Man probably has my favourite Venom. They spend the whole first season building up tension as Eddie keeps seeing Peter neglect his friends, and Spider-Man ruin his career, until it all comes together in the finale, when he bonds with the Symbiote and learns that his two enemies are one. So you buy both Eddie and the Symbiote's motivation for wanting to kill Spidey. But it's also tragic because Eddie and Pete started the season as friends. My point is that both Eddie and the Symbiote are on the same page, that's why they say "We are Venom."

Then Harry eats a guy's head. They don't even really lean into the motivation that Harry might have for killing Kraven, like how Kraven almost killed Pete, and blew up his science factory. He's kinda just like "Bleh! Venom!"

In the moment, I'm not really thinking about this, because playing as Venom is cool, and it's refreshing to see a Spider-Man villain in a Spider-Man story interacting with Spider-Man. But when I was thinking about it later as I was getting my venom juice out of the fridge I was like, "Wait, why did Harry eat that guy?" He also transforms into full Venom super quick. When Peter is wearing the suit they establish that the longer he's in it, the more it has a hold on him. And you can see that in the design as it gets gooier over time. But Harry goes full Tony Todd immediately. Sure he had the goo for a bit before, when he was in a bacta tank or whatever. But still, it's big leap from Agent Venom to eating a guy's head.

And the whole time, Harry is still fighting against the Symbiote, which if he is, then why is it so strong? I thought the whole point of Venom being such a threat was that he willingly bonded with the Symbiote, thus the "We."

But there's a lot of "Harry's not himself!" Which is true because Harry really doesn't have much reason to be a villain in the first place.

Pete took the suit and kept it for himself while Harry was dying of Goblin, which is reason to be angry. And we see through Pete that the Symbiote amplifies your fears and insecurities. Pete gets much more angru and aggressive, but it comes from him associating Spider-Man with helping people, and mistaking his power to do so with the power itself.

Harry definitely has a lot of fears and insecurities, with feeling that Pete is replacing him with Miles, and his father replacing him with Pete. That can lead to anger, resentment, maybe even hate. But it's still a pretty big jump to killing people and eating brains for lunch.

There is a lot of time spent on Harry's dream to "heal the world." Like Tony, he sees a suit of goo around the world. The Symbiote gives him a vision the world becoming a more gooey, Web of Shadows-y place. And I guess, because the goo can heal the Goblin disease and any other injuries, the implication is that if everyone is goo, no one will be. But if the Symbiote wants to turn everyone into goo, then why was it craving Kraven as a midnight snack?

The game gets itself stuck between an alien rock and a hard place by wanting to have a visually faithful depiction of Venom, but a sympathetic villain story with Harry. And as fun as the Venom levels are gameplay wise, story wise? The balance is off.

The thing is though, none of this really matters in the end, because the game is fucking fun to play. It's a blast to swing around as Spider-Man and collect things and fight little random crimes. The combat is fantastic, and both Miles and Peter have fun and cool abilities. You have two main characters and they're both likeable and fun to play as. That's an incredible achievement!

I know I spent the majority of this video complaining, but I really did have a blast playing through this game. I wouldn't have 100% it in like a week, if that were not the case. I just have a lot of thoughts about Spider-Man crawling around my broken brain, so every now and then I have to yell about stuff that doesn't matter.

Also, my heart skipped a beat when they teased Cindy Moon for the third game. I fucking adore Silk, especially her initial run. One of my all time favourite comics. Maybe I'll talk about her more in another video sometime. But anyways I am very excited to see what they do with her, whenever we eventually get that third game. Still waiting on that Wolverine game too, very excited for that.

Tl;dr, this game is a blast to play, but the story has some issues balancing all of its many ideas. But nitpicking aside, this game as fun as hell, and I gladly await playing another one, whenever that day comes.