Review of the long-awaited Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. It’s 10 spiders out of 10 and almost the game of the year

The main exclusive of this year, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, was released on PlayStation 5.

Insomnia Games has repeatedly shown us improvements recently, but you need to experience them yourself. Never will one video exceed the scale of the work done, for which I declare with full responsibility.

The release, as is customary in the gaming industry, went off without any problems. Some owners of disc versions of the game complain that it does not want to be stored in the console memory and run. When installing Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 from a disk, the process slows down by 36%. Reinstalling, rebooting, resetting the cache and rebuilding the database does not help in most cases.

As Reddit users note, their copies of the discs are scratched.

But that’s a big part of what mars the release. Otherwise, the game is in perfect order.

We’ve already played 15 hours of Spider-Man 2 and are eager to share our impressions. First things first.

The game has doubled on all fronts

Sony allowed the developers to stage a PR campaign that even included the famous ball in Las Vegas. Just look at this massive ad that came out right after Microsoft’s Xbox.

These developers alone noted how much they invested in the game. And they are trying just as hard to promote it. Epic. Cool.

Returning to the project itself, I will note an increase in scale in all aspects of the game. The only thing that remains unchanged is the time to complete. According to the authors, it is in the middle for gamersat 17 o’clock (plot only). The same result as the first part.

Everything else has changed. Insomniac decided not to touch what already works well, and it turned out to be very formal. The developers focused on the best aspects of the original and supplemented them.

This time we have the story of two Spider-Men at once: Peter Parker and Miles Morales. The player can control both characters, the story also tells about their relatives.

The plot is standard for superheroics and tells us about the almost carefree life of the guys. Parker teaches at Miles’ school, but quickly changes jobs due to her being unable to team up with saving New York. Here he meets his best friend Harry Osborne, who has finally undergone treatment and returned to normal life. Of course, it’s not that simple.

From the very first seconds we are thrown into an unrealistically epic battle with the Sandman, who suddenly decided to attack the city. Staging is the new Spider-Man’s strong suit.

The battle with him looks fantastic and incredibly spectacular. The extreme detail makes your jaw drop. There is attention to detail in every area and this is the only game that can be called a next gen. It is clear why it was not released on PS4: although the graphics did not become noticeably better, they grew in scale. Work at the highest level. For example, the same Sandman – you see literally every grain of sand that falls from him.

And I’m keeping quiet about the city itself. The developers decided to share more attention to technology ray tracing. The reflections look fantasticThey’re even in the damn balloons in one of the story missions!

And, in general, it is clear why so much attention is paid to him. The city began to look much better than in the last part and Miles Morales’ additions. Each window sparkles and reflects everything that is visible in front of it. In any puddle, even the smallest one, you can see what is marked in them.

A separate delivery was made here on the water. And all because the “spiders” can now literally fly. I added wingsuit analogues, they fly along the air flow that passes by the buildings of New York. So you will often have to fly over sea surfaces.

The gameplay hasn’t changed much, but it’s much better. How is that?

Switching between the superheroes themselves happens almost instantly. It takes just under a second and without loading screens, as the developers promised. Outwardly similar to the solution from GTA V, only the camera does not protrude above the city.

Each “spider” minds his own business; you can meet them in the city completely by chance. It’s nice that in case of a meeting they had a small dialogue, and if you catch Peter or Miles late, you can also help him. By the way, they will be together, have their own double combo.

The combat system has undergone minor changes. But they fundamentally relate to the sense of behavior of fear itself. Battles with enemies have become richer, more epic and more thoughtful. And due to the fact that now the two of you can fight the manifestations, it’s even more diverse.

Combo attacks increased by 2 times not only by adding a second superhero, but also personal combinations. As before, here you can upgrade your spiders’ skills, unlocking new abilities and gadgets to defeat your enemies. At the back, pumping here occurs not only for each character separately, but there is also a general leveling that complements their interaction with each other.

In the first part there was an arrangement on the left, here they also added on the right.

The world map has also doubled in size. Now two new New York boroughs have been added to it: Queens and Brooklyn. Yes, together they are a little smaller than Manhattan, but overall they expand the game structure. And how were they worked out? the world is really cooling alive.

There is more traffic, there are also more people on the street, and there are also more accidents. They began to react more actively to the players’ actions, rejoice, be indignant, and shout after them. I just simply liked walking the streets there, and not just flying on the web. Just awesome (not Red Dead Redemption 2 level, but still cool).

Now the Spiders have an augmented reality visor. This takes away from the immersion a bit, but the game also beats it. So you see all the targets literally in space, and this element is thoughtfully built into the gameplay. Like, repost, subscribe.

New supervillains are exciting

One of the main opponents of the spider-men was Kraven the Hunter, a Russian immigrant who decided to turn New York into a large hunting field. He, like the spiders, is looking for other villains. However, he has his own motives, and call them good.

In total, several villains await us:

1. Kraven the Hunter
2. Lizard
3. I
4. Black cat
5. Grizzly
6. Sandman

There are others, but I won’t spoil them. They were all locked in ordinary containers and transported to another prison, but Craven organized an attack on the ship and freed them.

We also worked on other aspects. For example, thanks to the symbiote in St. Petersburg, which unlocks a number of new attacks and creates a rage bar, it can be used in combat and in adaptation gameplay.

Miles also gained more strength and superpowers. But I won’t talk about this so as not to spoil too much.

And yes, the new part has full Russian voice acting. This is now a rarity in terms of the number of sanctions against Russia. And this is a big plus for that. Even the voice acting remains the same.

Technical condition is excellent

The game itself looks and plays great. In all my time I have only met one small sack, and that’s all.

There are two graphics modes: Quality and Performance. In the case of the next game, start development, but you won’t suffer too much from it.

However, I personally chose the first mode for myself. The game in it produces a stable 30 FPS, and on TVs with VRR support you can achieve 40 FPS.

Performance is stable at 60 frames per second everywhere. I have not noticed any subsidence yet.

This game will definitely win prizes

There are many contenders for Game of the Year in 2023, and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is one of them.

It was done perfectly. Here more attention is paid not only to the “spider” life, but also to ordinary. The characters are revealed to us better, all scenes are staged at the level of a full-fledged movie, new subtle mechanics have been added, like riding a bicycle. Absolutely all the characters are created with a bang.

The only thing that confuses me is some of the side quests. They are the same as in the last part, some with their own mini-stories. But there are also outright Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V. But it’s not so scary. But you will get platinum faster.

There are various “scientific” activities, such as growing genes and deciphering molecules. There are their own drones that can be controlled to enhance information about what is happening in the city. There are puzzles that are closely related to the adapted triggers in the DualSense. In general, there is really enough activity here, and a lot of them are interesting, although not without problems.

In Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, I can safely abandon both the supporters of the first part and Spider-Man fans in general. This sequel exudes a true sequel, a small expansion, just like God of War: Ragnarok did. 10 spiders out of 10.

Exclusive game available on PlayStation 5.