Spider-Man 2

 

Spider-Man 2 became available on Playstation Plus and I almost immediately started playing the game. I really enjoyed Spider-Man the original game, as well as Miles Morales. The gameplay is nearly identical in this game as the previous two games. The biggest two differences is that you can switch between Miles and Peter, and the map of New York in this game seems quite a bit larger than prior games. The larger map is appreciated, though sometimes you do spend quite a bit of time going from point A to point B. With that being said, it is quite a bit of fun slinging your way around Manhattan. My only complaint with these games is that the action can feature quite a bit of button mashing. Oftentimes, you are facing multiple (20+) enemies at a time, usually alone (though sometimes the other Spider-Man comes to help out), requiring you to use all of your Spider-Man skills to survive, which requires a lot of button mashing. Because of this, I wasn't sad to periodically give up Spider-Man's skills to do a stage as MJ or even as Peter instead of Spider-Man. It was always a nice break from the button mashing, but ultimately this is a Spider-Man game, and I was always happy to return to Peter Parker or Miles.

The plot of the game was good enough. It was a little helter-skelter, and a bit psychedelic at times, but overall it was a good story. The game starts with you facing Sandman, but quickly shifts focus to Kraven the Hunter, who is in town to collect superheroes for experimentation. The focus quickly shifts to Venom, however, who first infects Harry Osborn. Later it infects Peter, and then Harry again. Harry as Venom becomes the final boss, and saving Harry from Venom becomes the final task. Harry-Venom causes a ton of chaos and damage to the city along the way. I'm not a very big fan of the character Venom, and would've been just as happy sticking with Kraven the Hunter as the main villain throughout the game, but maybe that's just me?

Beyond the button mashing, with the plot of the game being decent, the rest of this game is top notch. This is one of the best-looking games I've seen on the PS5. The audio and voice acting/dialogue is really good. At several points throughout the game I found myself chuckling at something that was said by one of the characters. I also want to applaud the duration of the game. I finished the main story in 10-15 hours. I did a couple of the side quests, but there were several more that I could have done had I decided to. But I was happy with the duration of the main story of this game, going to show that you don't have to have a 40+ hour main quest to justify a good game.