Where to begin with this one; after the first game was such pleasure to experience, I had very high hopes for this game in both story and mechanics. And while this game delivered on the mechanics for the most part; I really enjoyed what they added to traversal and being able to take fall damage and slam into the ground while swinging just feels right (also love the slingshot but it should have been in the first game). Playing in the symbiote suit also feels pretty great but I don't feel we have it for long enough in the story and this is personal preference, but not a fan of the anti-venom suit that is forced on us when using venom surge late game. Overall I really did enjoy the gameplay for the most part and while they didn't add a lot of new features, what they did was very welcome. Now we get to the Problem with this game, namely the Writing! I am not going to get into any of the meta surrounding the narratives in this game, only the story itself, meaning characters, dialog, and pacing. To begin, characters like Peter and Miles are pretty much the same as we left them in the last games, but its clear the focus on development and progression of character is heavily focused on Miles. If you like this, don't let me stop you, but Peter will always be my Spider-man and I don't think I'm alone in that feeling. If anything, these games should have worked to establish Miles very own identity with his own superhero name. Having the two spider-men constantly calling each other spider-man in this game just felt kinda goofy to me. The Villains in this game is where the character writing really struggles. Kraven was completely wasted on a cool scene of him killing scorpion and then getting his head bitten off by Venom. He did very little to actually progress the narrative and we learned nothing about him other than he seemed to be completely irredeemable if his relationship with his family was anything to go by. He could have actually been an interesting antagonist if the writers had even tried. But Kraven was never meant to be the big bad of this game anyway so I can forgive that much easier than what they did with Venom. You hire Tony Todd to play Venom and this is all you do with him? We learn absolutely nothing about Venom as a character in this game. I know they may do a standalone Venom game but after the writing for this one, I have no faith in Insomniacs ability to write a compelling story anymore. The strongest character in the game was probably Norman Osborn and he was only on screen for maybe 10 minutes. Considering the story of the first game was so well crafted and really felt like a love letter to Spider-man fans, you could tell this game was written by different people. The dialog felt like I was watching a bad CW show at times and the pacing was very rushed, especially towards the end. I absolutely love the first Spider-man game and was very hyped for this one but was ultimately left really disappointment with the story. When May dies in the first game I genuinely felt for Peter and his struggle, but playing this game, I felt, nothing.
Review of Spider-Man 2
