I'm not exactly sure what to call the timing of starting this game right as Insomniac got hacked and all of their internal documents and budgets got leaked. I don't want to call it unfortunate because I don't think they affected my enjoyment of Spider-Man 2 in the moment, but rather reframed it once I hit certain checkpoints. First, seeing the plans for the Venom spinoff thankfully didn't ruin the surprise of a playable Venom, the climactic midpoint of the game that serves as a similar "flip to side-B" that Sable's encampment of NYC was in the first. This section starts with rampaging through walls at Oscorp and you might think that your wishes of playing as an appropriately bulldozing powerhouse that is Venom have been fulfilled, but it doesn't do enough to hide the fact that you're playing as a slightly larger version of the regular Spider-Man with a Venom aesthetic. This section and how I feel about it, may define the entire experience for me. With such an opportunity to have a meaningful difference, it's surprising to see Insomniac choose not to sacrifice the formula for something more memorable.
Maybe only surprising until you learn about the second most relevant part of the leak that pertains to Spider-Man 2; it's budget. Once you see the amount of money that was spent on this game, that surprise turns into befuddlement. And I really don't want to come across uber-contrarian or unfair, but I read that budget, and I played this game, and I just have to wonder what the hell it was spent on. Nearly every pitfall of the first is present. Controls are wonderful when you're swinging around but are so cumbersome when you're on the ground. Combat feels entirely lifted from the original, Manhattan feels completely unchanged, and the addition of Brooklyn and Queens add nothing of real significance to the layers of the overworld. It's nice that there are mansions in the woods and suburbs for variety and to ground the Scream fight but for the sake of copy-pasting some skyscrapers, it was not worth it. And you may think this next critique is petty, but in nearly every Spider-Man movie, comic book, etc., the city of New York always looks like New York. The native in me knows the new map looks NOTHING like Brooklyn or Queens. Insomniac being based in California really should've done their research in this regard. Not sure if they couldn't use exact licenses for certain buildings, but this was an opportunity to build on top of the city they impressed with back in 2018. To find that absolutely nothing feels changed is really unfortunate. The new boroughs could've been called anything else. Coney Island could've been any other fair. The suburbs of Astoria could've been Tarrytown for all I know.
All the new boroughs serve to be is the same playground in a slightly bigger backyard, that only feel utilized for the sake of adding more busywork for more characters that add very little to the overall structure. Spreading every kind of quest over every borough took what was manageable and fun in the first Spider-Man and made it feel daunting. To help give individual boroughs more importance or a sense of place, I wish there was more focus of certain crimes or gangs in certain places. Maybe the Flame hideouts could be in Brooklyn/Queens and the Hunters could be in Manhattan. Sure it might have shortened the run time but it would've given something this game lacks which is FOCUS. Putting every side mission everywhere only makes the entire map feel repetitive. It's everything, everywhere, all at once.
Every quest begins and ends with either of the Spider-Men talking to themselves entirely too much, and then talking to someone else. I have not seen the script for this game but I'd imagine it is a page long for every million dollars that was spent on production. Nobody stops talking. Ever. And when they do talk, they don't sound like real people. The Coney Island section, while endearing in its own right, is full of this. I feel like I'm listening to dialogue being written either by AI or by people who never go outside. Riding the roller coaster and listening to isolated yells that are mixed so high above the game's volume feels cheap and rushed. The worst offender is the banter between characters during boss fights. I have never wanted people to stop talking more. Why are they talking like this? Why is Peter yelling at Dr. Connors after he's a literal DINOSAUR to please remember him? Why are Peter and Scream-MJ talking about unearned problems in their relationship we don't see occur in the middle of a boss fight? Why is Venom suddenly Spider-Man's jealous boyfriend? MJ is supposed to be sneaking around the Hunters; the dangerous clan that proves to be a significant threat to both Spider-Men combined; why does she keep talking to herself at full volume?
Why does the game feel the need to throw so much on screen that it becomes disorienting and exhausting?
The Sandman section is a cool set piece to open the game with but the amount of tutorials thrown at you in only 20 minutes, especially if you haven't played the first game or Miles Morales in a while, creates a frantic pace that doesn't settle you into the experience. Give it about an hour and you're in a nice spot to be Spider-Man in Manhattan, but it's here you'll see that very little has changed for the better. This might be an accurate representation of what it's like to be Spider-Man after all, because every time I move in a direction for a quest, I am stopped and distracted by constant alerts. From repeated crimes, to Prowler stashes, to following drones through slipstreams (you know, as Spider-Man does), it feels like there's never a break. Sandman is also, unfortunately, the only villain of the main story that gets a true setpiece like this. The closest the final encounter with Venom gets to it is after he grows wings (I looked it up after the fact and now understand this has happened in comics but it's still lame) and we get to the Emily May Foundation HQ, but by then Venom has overstayed his welcome as a boss fight. His arena is giant patches of land raised by the symbiote in a weird cut-to-black transition, he has help from other multicolored symbiotes, and there's nothing in the fight helping him stand out among the rest of the game.
The bosses, overall, are a major downgrade from the first. I would imagine that the city being reused as it was, the variety had to be in tighter arenas for the boss fights. This results in every major boss encounter feeling exactly like the same tight-corner arena-style boxing matches, with occasional webs being slung. Mashing attack, dodging occasionally, for one, probably two health bars. Really the only deviation from this is the obvious best boss in the entire game, Mysterio. And one that replicates the style of encounter from the first game; setting you loose in a bigger environment that lets Spider-Man be Spider-Man. Better yet, we see the most creative liberty this game ever has to offer, pulling Miles outside of the played-out overworld and inside a world of Mysterio's creation. Something the game could've used so much more of to make this truly feel like a special Spider-Man game worthy of him.
Maybe the biggest addition to gameplay is the Web Wings. I know they're canonical. I know they're silly and video-gamey. But I could not help but feel like using them was in direct contrast to the fun of Spider-Man's traversal. Like they exist to solve a level of tedium that a player might eventually feel with the most fun mechanic. Maybe I'm thinking too much about it but it just felt like an addition that is unnecessary, especially since the Spider-Jumps from Miles Morales are in here. Really, that thinking shapes the overall design. The game kind of assumes you're an idiot and any time you don't go to the objective fast enough, Peter, Miles, or MJ have to monologue about where they're headed.
On the topic of MJ, her sections are one pretty positive improvement over the first. I'd rather it not be there at all, but giving her some type of weapon to use at least helps those sections feel like fun stealth bits. Though I do take a little umbrage with how her sections kind of nerf the same enemies that give Spider-Man so much issue. "Mary Sue" is a stretch, since she dies in 2 hits, but it's another example of Insomniac choosing the formula over something that makes sense. Making a mandatory stealth section with a player character with little-to-no moveset too difficult would've grinded the pace to a halt, but making them too easy ruined the illusion of strength in the enemy you've been fighting all game. I think the right answer likely would be to switch her segments to side missions similar to Hailey, where she investigates the followers of the Flame instead.
I realize I'm being overly negative, but the things I don't talk about are things I'm pretty okay with. Despite my originally stated issues with the Venom segment, it did show signs of promise if Insomniac can truly take charge of the character, and not just adapt him to already existing world. I loved, loved, loved seeing Venom be the one to kill Kraven, especially by biting his head off. Felt appropriate. Otherwise, there are plenty of notes that I do like. I like seeing Miles and Aaron patch up their relationship, I like Mysterio's ending line (this in particular feels poignant to the rules of Spider-Man's world), I like seeing Martin Li's redemption arc, I like seeing Peter and Harry reconnect, and I LOVED seeing them in the flashback sneaking back into the school. Peter and Harry's relationship in particular is something I felt was really well done, and correlated well with the overdone Black-Suit drama. Adding the stakes of healing Harry to the suit, on top of it being poison for Peter, was a cool idea and a great twist on the Peter-Harry storyline. Shame that it ultimately culminates in a rushed ending, while also adding maybe the worst examples of "formula fodder" so far. I have nothing witty to say about the Symbiote enemies. I don't like them, I don't like the concept of them, and I don't like fighting them. I don't like that they still show up after the endgame. I don't like that they still show up after you clear the Symbiote Nests. Just a lazy idea executed lazily.
In summary and in summation, if the first game is your favorite game of all time, you're going to eat this up. It is, to use a coined Kyle Bosman phrase, a bucket of chicken nuggets that masquerades as a 5-Star Meal, but chicken nuggets are designed to be eaten. And there is plenty to eat in Spider-Man 2. I reached the credits and am stopping at 90% completion so it has to be doing something right. But ultimately, the Spidey's deserved better. They deserved more than a cheap-feeling sequel, rife with bugs, missing polish, and using the kitchen-sink approach. Instead of throwing things at a wall to see what stuck, it feels like Insomniac threw everything from dialogue, to combat, to setpieces, to endlessly repeating quests, all at my face in an experiment to see what I'd latch on to. And at the end of it, outside of the Mysterio quest, and Peter and Harry's bond, nothing really did. It all winds up feeling overwhelming, and like a game that has every right and reason to evolve past the standard AAA fodder. Not sure what Insomniac are thinking for Part 3 or the Venom spinoff, but going forward, Focus has to be the word written in big bold letters on every whiteboard in that office if they want those games to have any impact the first and Miles Morales had.
