Shane
Insomniac Games are well known for their beyond Triple A games and Spider-Man 2, exclusive to PlayStation 5 is most definitely no exception.
Miles Morales is back, but this time joined by Peter Parker.
Twice the fun means twice the action.
After a brief intro, where Miles is dealing with teenage school life and Peter is simply trying to hold down a job it’s not too long until you’re literally thrown direct in to battle.
Both Peter and Miles team up in Spider-Man 2 in what feels like your very first boss battle against Sand Man (aka Marko).
There’s not a lot of room from the onset to get to grips with your Spidey powers as you partake in epic and cinematic combat. So you learn on the fly and within the heat (or sand) of taking down a very grumpy, larger-than-life foe.
And while Sand Man retains a theme throughout much of the game, in hindsight, he is a mere walk in the park enemy as the true villain becomes apparent throughout play.
What triggered Sand Man’s wrath on New York? What happened to his memories…?
You’ll assume the role of Miles and Peter at game specific intervals and with a full RPG flavour you’ll pick up missions throughout the city as they happen in real time. Some you may simply stumble across. I did many times.
But most are via an alert thanks to Miles’ school buddy Ganke.
It’s real easy to go off course from the main story, stamping out crime as it occurs, one after the other.
As you take down criminals Focus is earned in melee combat and successful dodging of attacks. This enables you to heal or use power moves.
Both Peter and Miles can level up their existing abilities or gain new ones via three skill trees, You can opt who you level up, Miles, Peter or both.
To level up you’ll need Skill Points. These are earned with the completion of missions and giving enemies a good beating. Try to enact as many finishers or special moves as you can to get more points.
Your Spidey gear can also be fine tuned by finding and collecting tech parts which can be used for crafting super cool upgrades. Photo ops is a fun and additional aspect added to Spider-Man 2. As Peter has a hard time retaining employment whilst keeping the city safe, he needs to earn extra coin along the way. He does so with submitting photo’s of events in and around the city, with the help of Miles.
Photo ops, crime and of course your main objective(s) are dotted on the city map – and you can pin to an event as well as fast travel. Each district of Marvel’s New York City has a three tier reward system.
You can use L3 in play to track your progress during any event – so there’s no need to always stop the game and check the map screen.
Spider-Man 2 makes use of the PS5 controller touch pad and built-in speaker and graphically, flawless on PlayStation 5.
Spider-Man 2 has turbo-charged everything from the previous title and with a sprawling, dynamically evolving New York, there’s no limits or shortage of things to see, do and criminals to take down.
If I could give Spider-Man 2 more than 5 out of 5 stars I absolutely would.
Released: October 2023
Rating: M15+
Platforms reviewed: PlayStation 5
Genre: Action
Developer: Insomniac Games
Publisher: Sony