“Marvel’s Spider-Man 2,” made by Insomniac Studios and released on Oct. 20, isn’t just some regular video game. The game is a story that puts players in Spider-Man’s shoes. Tailored for players at all skill levels, Spider-Man 2 keeps the best aspects of the classic Spider-Man game and showcases it with next-gen consoles as well as amazing graphics and mechanics, which creates a nostalgic feeling for long-time fans.

Gameplay:
The gameplay is nearly fully customizable, allowing players to work within their skill level or challenge themselves.

Unlike most games, which usually have three preset difficulties: easy, medium, or hard, Spider-Man 2 uses five levels of difficulty, each with references to various Spider-Man comic book series. The easiest is “Friendly Neighbourhood,” meant for players who just want to enjoy the story. The next harder mod is “Friendly,” comparable to an easy mode, “Amazing” for medium, “Spectacular” for hard, and “Ultimate” for a player who has mastered the game.

The difficulty feature is also customizable, so players can choose how much damage they can take from enemies or how many health points enemies can have.

The game follows two separate main characters, Miles Morales and Peter Parker, meaning that players can switch between the two and use their different and respective abilities.

In earlier games, Peter Parker was only given the basic Spider-Man powers, including web-swinging, sticking to walls, super strength, and spider-sense that alerts Spider-People of nearby danger.

In this game, Parker has robot arms that give him new attacks and abilities while later on in the game, he is gifted with new powers and skill sets that are interchangeable in the skill menu and are more effective on certain enemies.

Miles Morales in his first stand-alone game, “Spider-Man: Miles Morales,” was given electricity-based abilities that are represented with a yellow hue to the visible electricity produced by his body.

In this game, Morales is given new stronger blue electric-based abilities along with his old yellow abilities, which are more effective on certain enemies.

“Marvel’s Spider-Man 2” allows players to either simply enjoy the story or learn about the skills and techniques of each Spider-Man, becoming a more effective “Ultimate” Spider-Man.

Traversal and Graphics:
As a Spider-Man-themed game, the game creator focuses a lot on traversal mechanics to make players feel like they are Spider-Man. “Marvel’s Spider-Man 2” does that by taking advantage of the new generation console hardware and making scene changes and loading times near instantaneous.

With most other Spider-Man games, the main traversal method, web swinging, was slow and took a lot of suspension of disbelief, and there are fast travel points that would take some time to finish loading.

Here, Insomniac Games took inspiration from their web-swinging mechanic from the 2004 “Spider-Man 2 game,” created by Treyarch, The Fizz Factor, Vicarious Visions, and Digital Eclipse, and applied it to “Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.” Unlike other games, the webs shot by Spider-Man connect to buildings instead of the sky, making it look like Spider-Man is actually swinging and not floating awkwardly in the air.

“Marvel’s Spider-Man 2” adds two new traversal methods called “Web wings” and “Slingshot.”

The new “Slingshot” traversal method allows Spider-Man to attach two web lines to two poles on the sides, pull back like a slingshot, and shoot themselves across multiple city blocks at high speeds.

Using the built momentum from the “Slingshot” or just from web swinging, the player can use their new “Web Wings’ and even more speed and momentums in highlighted air tunnels to glide across the city without ever touching the ground.

“Marvel’s Spider-Man 2” produces a nearly realistic city skyline, using ray-tracing lighting to enhance the skyline during sunset hours.

Aside from the look of the game, the frame rate is always smooth and has virtually no visual glitches.

Storytelling:
Marvel’s “Spider-Man 2” starts with a voice introduction and a recap of the two previous games, helping players who haven’t played or seen any previous Spider-Man content understand some parts of the story.
Some memes popped up about this fact all over social media, where many non-players have made fun of people who stayed home for 2-3 days to finish the game.

The game has plenty of elements that make a story great, such as serious moments, funny storylines, plot twists, and new takes, making this Spider-Man story an original one.

Unfortunately, along with its great storytelling, it takes 24-28 hours straight to complete the main and side stories all the way through, including all the trophies and achievements.

Overall, the game’s storytelling is one of many elements that add to its replayability.

Overall rating: 4/5