This review contains spoilers
and the saga of spiderman replays draws to a close
i got a lot to say about this one.
first off, its clear this game is trying to recapture spiderverse's miles with their own (lesser) miles. the marketing and vibe of the game try so hard to piggyback off that success, and it really ends up falling flat. this miles' isnt the miles from spiderverse. and thats kinda ironic, the character who constantly gets ragged on for not needing to exist, and his arc is not about being just another peter, is resolved by not "being himself" and being trying to be miles from spiderverse. thats really sad, tbh. in the flashbacks we see insomniac miles being super nerdy, couldnt they have leaned into that more than just trying to make him a carbon copy without any of the flair/struggles that made SV miles so compelling in the first place? you see the SV copying influence in other places, with them trying to build a good dynamic between aaron and miles, that ends up falling flat too. not that its that bad, theres clearly something, but it feels so forced, like its trying to make up for all the ground spiderverse did to really make miles his own. doesn't help that the prowler's outfit in this game is goofy as all hell. miles' spiderman suit feels like it's just trying to be spiderverse, too. this whole game just feels so insecure about the existence of spiderverse, it tries its hardest to just hit all the same highs as that movie, but fails... id like if they actually believed in their marketing and also tried to do their own miles, much like spiderverse did. i havent read the ultimate/miles comic run(i plan to eventually, dw) but i know a big criticism of that miles is he just doesnt feel like he has a reason for existence, and until spiderverse came along the character was in limbo, constantly living in peter's shadow with no identity of his own. now spiderverse comes out and wows everyone with their amazing interpretation of miles, but now it's like the cycle's self-perpetuating. every new miles that gets created will constantly try to be the miles from spiderverse. like how the og miles just had superficial differences from peter, insomniacverse miles has superficial differences from spiderverse miles. they are the same character though, its just one has a reason for existence, the other just feels like an obligation because "oh spiderverse is popular lets copy that, hes miles innit thats good enough". anyway, i still gots more to compare SV miles and insomniacverse miles on, lol. it tries to follow the same general arc of teenage insecurity, being yourself, expectations, but it almost never feels emotionally earned. miles always has it figured out, theres no dwelling on those feelings, he just, goes through with it, there's no depth or flaws to him beyond surface level. there's no leap of faith moment.
secondly, the game's story is really dull/predictable. it goes for a "corpo bad" story but it feels far too sanitized, far too removed from anything to say anything that isn't safe/will alienate consumers. particularly about the politics of it all. im not saying it's "woke" , thats silly. im saying any "wokeness" that people glean is a facade, the game is too scared to go into any details about it's politics so it brushes over it for the spectacle and an easy "take out both sides" approach. and i agree with miles. you shouldnt stoop to the level of your enemy to stop them, taking out both roxxon and the underground was morally righteous. but the game just accepts that conclusion without exploring if it was wrong first. it wouldve been amazing to see them explore if spiderman's choice to save everyone, never taking sides, just upholds the status quo that allows for groups/corporations like these to form. if spiderman stopping them is just a bandaid solution? its preposterous to expect a triple a blockbuster game to meaningfully explore such ideas, there's too much profit at stake, like i mentioned. but even so, the story's safe nature is much harder to ignore when there isn't emotional attachment. the base game brushed aside the politics of norman/if hed actually receive justice. and i could ignore that, because the game already hooked me with it's emotional core. miles has little emotional core, and the game feels like it's trying to say more than it's predecessor by virtue of the villains being a corporation. when you combine that small emotional core and how safe it's exploration of these villains feel, it begins to be an actual problem for the narrative.
i say all of this, yet, i like insomniac miles. i really fucking like this game. why?
insomniacverse miles isn't all bad. there are little quirks about him i like. his voice, much like SV miles, is unique and fitting for a teenager. has a really nerdy side to it which i like. hes 17 in this game, though, so it's kinda a bit high pitched but maybe hes just a late bloomer. iunno. hopefully his voice is deeper in SM2. kinda weird when your other-universe you who's 2 years younger than you has a deeper voice. his relationship with ganke, and by extension the friendly neighborhood app, feel really thought out. in ps4, i always felt like a hero, a savior, but i never really got that friendly neighborhood spider man vibe from pete. hearing ganke be your tech guy feeding you intel on missions just scratches a certain itch, and the app side missions make the world feel alive. i only did a few of them because i wasnt going for 100% on this playthrough, but man like, saving a bunch of toys for a toy drive or getting a little cat buddy as a sidekick makes you feel like a friendly neighborhood spiderman. the friendly neighborhood vibe really carries the game and does give it a bit of its own identity that isn't stolen from spiderverse. it makes the line at the end of the game, "hes our spider man" feel earned. because you are doing small scale stuff for the people of harlem.
there are two amazing moments in the story that feel emotionally earned. the first is when miles stands up to rhino and unlocks venom. it's so fucking emotional, so powerful. hes scared, he doesn't think he can do it, but he tries to save pete anyway. that would be a "leap of faith" moment. sadly not only does it happen in the first 20 minutes, and you never see that flawed miles again, but the game also fails to hit the same strides for about 8 hours. the other moment im referring to is phin's sacrifice, even though i wasn't attached to her whatsoever prior, i felt emotions similar to the end of ps4. it fucking worked. very heartfelt and vulnerable, and the resulting end of the setpiece was beautiful too. that explosion of energy might be my favorite shot from either of these games + dlc.
onto the gameplay
so i played on the highest difficulty because the previous game felt too easy for me. and im not too happy with the balancing. enemies feel WAY too spongy, and you can die in like 3 or 4 hits if youre not careful. in fact many times i got instakilled at like half health, fucking terrible balancing. if the enemies had the same amount of health as the hard difficulty but you die in those 3 or 4 hits, i think thatd be a perfect balance. you still need to be really good to succeed, but the fights wouldnt be so padded. also drop the fucking instakill attacks, please. thats just not fair. outside of the sponginess, the hardest difficulty doesnt have much else to talk about.
so now we get to the gameplay changes between pete and miles. pete is way more tactical with his gadgets while you are supposed to get up in the action and straight up brawl with miles. i prefer pete more i think, but theres a lot going for both of them. i love how miles gets less gadgets, and each serve an express purpose to pair with your venom/combos. despite me saying i prefer pete, half of his gadgets i could do without. i think if they cut down on them in SM2 like they did with here it would be good. but would also homogenize the two. finishers being tied to combos is a great qol change, but honestly they should keep it like that only with miles. there's a TON of good qol changes here like the finisher changes and less gadgets, but if they just give peter that, it would just homogenize the two. i think they should lean into peter being tactical more, like swap out the shitty gadgets for more useful ones that always have a purpose. that would be a great balance between the two.
anyway, camo and venom. camo feels tacked on, not a big fan of it. feels like a get out of jail free card. enemies never rediscover you if you go up high so you can just cheese the super hard shield guys with camo. thats what i did. (yknow spongy enemies and all stfu i dont wanna hear it). venom on the other hand is perfect, in practice its like the electric web but has tons more uses, not to mention flair. the style of this game is astronomical, but ill get to that later. a youtuber said that the venom burst attack(takes 3 bars) is op, i kinda agree but kinda disagree, the full heal is honestly egregious and super op but was more than welcome during a few encounters. its like they balanced it for the hardest difficulty but i think it just works like that on all difficulties. but when i was getting tired of all the enemies killing me in a few hits it was so satisfying to get them all bunched and then shock them to hell. so yes, incredibly broken but cathartic for the fucking terrible balance of hardest difficulty. and i give it a pass for that.
anyway, final thing for this review.
style. the game has a lot of it. i love the aesthetic of the underground, theyre cooler than basically any of the other factions that show up, the neon purple and nanomachines(?) just work so well together. miles' tricks and swinging are a lot more flashy than peter. the game is beautiful, too. i still prefer rain as my favorite enviorment, but the snow is just fantastic as well.
i think i figured out why i like this game so much, despite so many glaring flaws i have with it. sure, the combat is great. the traversal is great. setpieces are fun. but that shouldnt carry it so hard. why, then?
the game portrays a really good young spiderman. very flashy but inexperienced, still figuring things out. has a tech bro who geeks out with his friend's identity. they all feel really natural and staples for an inexperienced spidey. its not necessarily a good miles, but this game's spiderman is a great spiderman nonetheless. and that's enough for me, combined with the other great things like combat and the few heartfelt moments. the few that are there, somehow, earned their presence in my heart.
i think im just a sucker for spiders, man.
also i really really really really really really really really really want to play SM2 on launch. im considering a ps5, honestly. fuck....
i got a lot to say about this one.
first off, its clear this game is trying to recapture spiderverse's miles with their own (lesser) miles. the marketing and vibe of the game try so hard to piggyback off that success, and it really ends up falling flat. this miles' isnt the miles from spiderverse. and thats kinda ironic, the character who constantly gets ragged on for not needing to exist, and his arc is not about being just another peter, is resolved by not "being himself" and being trying to be miles from spiderverse. thats really sad, tbh. in the flashbacks we see insomniac miles being super nerdy, couldnt they have leaned into that more than just trying to make him a carbon copy without any of the flair/struggles that made SV miles so compelling in the first place? you see the SV copying influence in other places, with them trying to build a good dynamic between aaron and miles, that ends up falling flat too. not that its that bad, theres clearly something, but it feels so forced, like its trying to make up for all the ground spiderverse did to really make miles his own. doesn't help that the prowler's outfit in this game is goofy as all hell. miles' spiderman suit feels like it's just trying to be spiderverse, too. this whole game just feels so insecure about the existence of spiderverse, it tries its hardest to just hit all the same highs as that movie, but fails... id like if they actually believed in their marketing and also tried to do their own miles, much like spiderverse did. i havent read the ultimate/miles comic run(i plan to eventually, dw) but i know a big criticism of that miles is he just doesnt feel like he has a reason for existence, and until spiderverse came along the character was in limbo, constantly living in peter's shadow with no identity of his own. now spiderverse comes out and wows everyone with their amazing interpretation of miles, but now it's like the cycle's self-perpetuating. every new miles that gets created will constantly try to be the miles from spiderverse. like how the og miles just had superficial differences from peter, insomniacverse miles has superficial differences from spiderverse miles. they are the same character though, its just one has a reason for existence, the other just feels like an obligation because "oh spiderverse is popular lets copy that, hes miles innit thats good enough". anyway, i still gots more to compare SV miles and insomniacverse miles on, lol. it tries to follow the same general arc of teenage insecurity, being yourself, expectations, but it almost never feels emotionally earned. miles always has it figured out, theres no dwelling on those feelings, he just, goes through with it, there's no depth or flaws to him beyond surface level. there's no leap of faith moment.
secondly, the game's story is really dull/predictable. it goes for a "corpo bad" story but it feels far too sanitized, far too removed from anything to say anything that isn't safe/will alienate consumers. particularly about the politics of it all. im not saying it's "woke" , thats silly. im saying any "wokeness" that people glean is a facade, the game is too scared to go into any details about it's politics so it brushes over it for the spectacle and an easy "take out both sides" approach. and i agree with miles. you shouldnt stoop to the level of your enemy to stop them, taking out both roxxon and the underground was morally righteous. but the game just accepts that conclusion without exploring if it was wrong first. it wouldve been amazing to see them explore if spiderman's choice to save everyone, never taking sides, just upholds the status quo that allows for groups/corporations like these to form. if spiderman stopping them is just a bandaid solution? its preposterous to expect a triple a blockbuster game to meaningfully explore such ideas, there's too much profit at stake, like i mentioned. but even so, the story's safe nature is much harder to ignore when there isn't emotional attachment. the base game brushed aside the politics of norman/if hed actually receive justice. and i could ignore that, because the game already hooked me with it's emotional core. miles has little emotional core, and the game feels like it's trying to say more than it's predecessor by virtue of the villains being a corporation. when you combine that small emotional core and how safe it's exploration of these villains feel, it begins to be an actual problem for the narrative.
i say all of this, yet, i like insomniac miles. i really fucking like this game. why?
insomniacverse miles isn't all bad. there are little quirks about him i like. his voice, much like SV miles, is unique and fitting for a teenager. has a really nerdy side to it which i like. hes 17 in this game, though, so it's kinda a bit high pitched but maybe hes just a late bloomer. iunno. hopefully his voice is deeper in SM2. kinda weird when your other-universe you who's 2 years younger than you has a deeper voice. his relationship with ganke, and by extension the friendly neighborhood app, feel really thought out. in ps4, i always felt like a hero, a savior, but i never really got that friendly neighborhood spider man vibe from pete. hearing ganke be your tech guy feeding you intel on missions just scratches a certain itch, and the app side missions make the world feel alive. i only did a few of them because i wasnt going for 100% on this playthrough, but man like, saving a bunch of toys for a toy drive or getting a little cat buddy as a sidekick makes you feel like a friendly neighborhood spiderman. the friendly neighborhood vibe really carries the game and does give it a bit of its own identity that isn't stolen from spiderverse. it makes the line at the end of the game, "hes our spider man" feel earned. because you are doing small scale stuff for the people of harlem.
there are two amazing moments in the story that feel emotionally earned. the first is when miles stands up to rhino and unlocks venom. it's so fucking emotional, so powerful. hes scared, he doesn't think he can do it, but he tries to save pete anyway. that would be a "leap of faith" moment. sadly not only does it happen in the first 20 minutes, and you never see that flawed miles again, but the game also fails to hit the same strides for about 8 hours. the other moment im referring to is phin's sacrifice, even though i wasn't attached to her whatsoever prior, i felt emotions similar to the end of ps4. it fucking worked. very heartfelt and vulnerable, and the resulting end of the setpiece was beautiful too. that explosion of energy might be my favorite shot from either of these games + dlc.
onto the gameplay
so i played on the highest difficulty because the previous game felt too easy for me. and im not too happy with the balancing. enemies feel WAY too spongy, and you can die in like 3 or 4 hits if youre not careful. in fact many times i got instakilled at like half health, fucking terrible balancing. if the enemies had the same amount of health as the hard difficulty but you die in those 3 or 4 hits, i think thatd be a perfect balance. you still need to be really good to succeed, but the fights wouldnt be so padded. also drop the fucking instakill attacks, please. thats just not fair. outside of the sponginess, the hardest difficulty doesnt have much else to talk about.
so now we get to the gameplay changes between pete and miles. pete is way more tactical with his gadgets while you are supposed to get up in the action and straight up brawl with miles. i prefer pete more i think, but theres a lot going for both of them. i love how miles gets less gadgets, and each serve an express purpose to pair with your venom/combos. despite me saying i prefer pete, half of his gadgets i could do without. i think if they cut down on them in SM2 like they did with here it would be good. but would also homogenize the two. finishers being tied to combos is a great qol change, but honestly they should keep it like that only with miles. there's a TON of good qol changes here like the finisher changes and less gadgets, but if they just give peter that, it would just homogenize the two. i think they should lean into peter being tactical more, like swap out the shitty gadgets for more useful ones that always have a purpose. that would be a great balance between the two.
anyway, camo and venom. camo feels tacked on, not a big fan of it. feels like a get out of jail free card. enemies never rediscover you if you go up high so you can just cheese the super hard shield guys with camo. thats what i did. (yknow spongy enemies and all stfu i dont wanna hear it). venom on the other hand is perfect, in practice its like the electric web but has tons more uses, not to mention flair. the style of this game is astronomical, but ill get to that later. a youtuber said that the venom burst attack(takes 3 bars) is op, i kinda agree but kinda disagree, the full heal is honestly egregious and super op but was more than welcome during a few encounters. its like they balanced it for the hardest difficulty but i think it just works like that on all difficulties. but when i was getting tired of all the enemies killing me in a few hits it was so satisfying to get them all bunched and then shock them to hell. so yes, incredibly broken but cathartic for the fucking terrible balance of hardest difficulty. and i give it a pass for that.
anyway, final thing for this review.
style. the game has a lot of it. i love the aesthetic of the underground, theyre cooler than basically any of the other factions that show up, the neon purple and nanomachines(?) just work so well together. miles' tricks and swinging are a lot more flashy than peter. the game is beautiful, too. i still prefer rain as my favorite enviorment, but the snow is just fantastic as well.
i think i figured out why i like this game so much, despite so many glaring flaws i have with it. sure, the combat is great. the traversal is great. setpieces are fun. but that shouldnt carry it so hard. why, then?
the game portrays a really good young spiderman. very flashy but inexperienced, still figuring things out. has a tech bro who geeks out with his friend's identity. they all feel really natural and staples for an inexperienced spidey. its not necessarily a good miles, but this game's spiderman is a great spiderman nonetheless. and that's enough for me, combined with the other great things like combat and the few heartfelt moments. the few that are there, somehow, earned their presence in my heart.
i think im just a sucker for spiders, man.
also i really really really really really really really really really want to play SM2 on launch. im considering a ps5, honestly. fuck....
NOWITSREYNTIME17
10 months ago