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12:30 flags are a big issue when removing them is somehow "wrong think" to mod sites and forum, its clear the agenda on that, same to obvious token character side missions that are clear why they're there, them being short misses the point on the why especially when the mission location is also filled in virtue signaling at that location apparent through the game how agenda affects it and "its at its best" when its spidey in the suit i.e. away from agenda - the issue is apparent and pointing it out isn't some bad think or evil remark
Yeah, I thought the final should've been Venom Peter and Miles finally beat Kraven and Spider-Man 3 could've had Venom as the main villain which then ends the trilogy, because of course Venom is one of the best Spider-Man villains
Well there was some development drama behind the scenes. Basically the game became too expensive / bloated especially with the expensive Disney licensing cost so they basically butchered the 2nd half so that we can get a Venom spin-off game now before Spider-Man 3 comes out plus they originally planned a multi-player / co-op mode of some sorts too that got cut look up the Insomniac leaks
I haven't played SM2 (or even Miles Morales), but that seems like a clear case of 'Arkham City syndrome'. Though I'd assume the main story is more than 4 - 5 hours.
@@ElderLaFollettewhat arkham city syndrome? City improved on asylum in every way.. Like if you prefer one over the other I'm not gonna argue but if someone say one is worse then the other then I need to disagree
I would've much preferred if the Venom shit was more grounded. Like Idk bout y'all, but the Knull, symbiotes, alien shit is extremely uninteresting to me. I much prefer a more levelled story with better stakes. I thought it was cool they paid homage to Web of Shadows with the infected city and all that jazz, but it just doesn't fit for Insomniac imo. They're better at crafting their own story with their own characters and plotline instead of taking from shit like Web of Shadows and King in Black. I would've much preferred Venom was this hulking and looming threat over Spider-Man and not the typical cliche of taking over the world. It js didn't work for me that much I'm not gonna lie.
50:00 I think the main reason they put anti-venom in there is because they didn’t want to take away all the player’s venom abilities that they spent a ton of time with/a lot of skill points upgrading, so they needed a way for Peter to still use his venom powers even after giving up the symbiote.
For sure. I’m just curious to see what they do in the thurd with said abilities. Maybe a scene in the beginning where he discovered how to completely remove it with his work.
@@Morfe02 OR just do something that's actually fresh like making Peter VENOM. That way you have your cake AND can eat it too. Miles is now the "main" spiderman cause Peter is no longer Spiderman and is VENOM. Would've been such a CRAZY way to end this game...nut nope we get bootleg Knull Venom for some odd reason
@@no.1spidey-fan182 or even better put Eddie Brock as Antivenom ! The Story of a Guy having cáncer yet doing good stuff with a Monster is quite the opposite of Harry doing Evil with a same desease I dont mind Venom Spiderman in fact would fix the ending with Peter getting retired by Miles hahaha or even fix the fact Harry is in coma having Antivenom powers
One of the best things about the Arkham games is that it lets you fight other villians as part of side quests, in this game you just get at cameo from Chamleon and 'Carange'. Like yeah you fight the Lizard, Mr Negative and Sandman in the game but Spiderman has such a varied rogues gallery actually let us fight them in the side missions
Old spider man games always did a good job of this stuff too. Shit last one we got to battle tombstone at least. But I mean they did use up the sinister 6 in the first game
@@heetman4785 but you also fight the mad hatter, Bane, Deadshot, Zasaz, the Hush mission is quite good in city, and the Freeze side mission is great at least these all have story lines
I agree but I do also think the side mission were needed to set up future either dlc or side missions for the next game as we seen 5 villains die in this game ( personally I thought they killed to many) so we need some build up to the next game that isn’t just green goblin, look at hush in the Arkham games although it wasn’t the side mission we liked it to be in the end we were excited for it in Arkham Knight because it had good potential and a few ways it could go.
Personally its not just "Too many things crammed together", because you could say the same about the first game, but too many BIG THINGS stuck together. Kraven's last hunt, Peter's first exposure to the suit, Venom's first appearance, Agent Venom, and the freaking SYMBIOTE INVASION. Big stories that need their own time to be properly explored, all of them rushing to a conclusion. This game should have been just Peter, the black suit and Venom about half way, maybe say that the vemon Symbiote itself is looking to spread and thats the first hint of the invasion or something more in the next game.
@@Sniper_T_2x Exactly. Start out with the whole black suit thing for the whole game, maybe some Venom stuff or evil Pete shenaningans. Then maybe a full Venom DLC, maybe Carnage, then MAYBE a Symbiote invasion, a small one. THen a 3rd game that goes full planetary invasion.
@@RageaholicCensorsPeople First off 70 Dollars for a game is still ridiculous and i hate it. Second, if the game is good and the DLC expands on that story dont you want to reward Devs for making worthwhile content?
The symbiote invasion absolutely should’ve been in the next game imo. It being a less than half an hour part of the game just killed it for me, i couldn’t take it seriously. Personally i like the formula where in the second part of a series ends with the villains getting a huge W. I would’ve ended it with Venom running off with the meteorite and Cletus running off with the Carnage symbiote. Then the third part could’ve been a full blown symbiote invasion. All of Peter’s villains boosted by symbiote powers at first, then when they get defeated Venom and Carnage shows up and the invasion begins. Idk, Carnage running around as a lone symbiote would feel weird, but if they do a second invasion, it will just feel cheap.
I've always theorized that the suit actually was manipulating Harry subtly from the beginning. He talks about hearing his mother's voice while he was in the pod, then later we hear the symbiote talking to him while also using his mother's voice. I think Harry's vision for the Emily-May foundation was subconsciously shaped by the symbiote as a way of ultimately propagating itself around the world quietly. Imagine them shipping pieces of it to other sick people once they realize it can self-replicate and they still think it heals people without consequence. But the Symbiote changes plans when it sees how naturally powerful Spiderman is, and decides to use Peter as a means of increasing its own power and achieve its goal more aggressively.
I've theorized this too. Here's something I noticed in EMF; in the energy department there are plans to overhaul the NYC Water System starting at the Central Park Reservoir. That happens to be exactly where Venom installs the meteor to spread the Symbiotes through the city, which I just can't see being a coincidence.
I knew this the moment I played it. The problem is they played the whole “we” thing with Venom a bit too hard. The suit basically is the ultimate gaslighter, pretending to be Harry, while also subtly hinting it wasn’t, like when he tells Norman “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Which feels more like the suit laughing in Norman’s face for forcing their bond rather than Harry. The problem is a lot of people didn’t pick up on this because they are either not paying attention to the dialogue or because Insomniac doesn’t really show it outside of said voice lines.
35:57 Yeah but, here’s the thing: in Spider-Man 2 (the movie), Peter Parker’s struggles just feel way more intense compared to Insomniac’s version of the character. For starters, Peter is still in school, and he’s failing to keep up with his grades because he’s constantly juggling being Spider-Man with his academic life. Early on in the movie, he loses his job delivering pizzas because he can't manage both responsibilities. Then, when Peter tries to attend Mary Jane’s play, he gets delayed after being run over by some goons, forcing him to stop them as Spider-Man. By the time he finally makes it to the theater, the doorman won’t let him in because he’s late. Mary Jane feels like Peter isn’t prioritizing her and that he's putting his responsibilities as Spider-Man above their relationship. His best friend Harry, who is already upset over his father’s death, finds out that Peter is connected to Spider-Man and cuts him off completely. On top of that, Peter barely has any money. Mr. Ditkovich, his landlord, even takes his last 20 dollars. The piling financial and emotional stress paints a picture of a Peter who’s really struggling to hold his life together at every level. In comparison, Insomniac’s Peter doesn’t seem to have as much weight on his shoulders. Sure, he faces problems like the mortgage on Aunt May’s house, but the game doesn’t dig too deeply into how this affects him day to day. He also loses his job as a teacher, but that moment plays out more as an inconvenience than the crushing defeat seen in Raimi’s film. We don’t even see him truly mourning Aunt May’s death until much later in the story, in the third act. His financial struggles are brushed aside pretty quickly, and when he joins the Emily May Foundation, Peter’s exited to be finally have a decently paying job but we never see him getting paid, which may seem irrelevant, but it felt like a missed opportunity to show how much he needed that income. I’m not saying Insomniac’s Peter has it easy-he’s definitely dealing with serious issues-but compared to Raimi’s Peter, the emotional weight just doesn’t hit as hard. Raimi’s version really shows the constant pressure on Peter, whereas Insomniac’s Peter seems more capable of brushing his struggles off and moving forward. And that’s why I don’t buy the whole “Peter is so distracted by his personal problems that he ends up being a worse Spider-Man” argument in Insomniac’s story-it just doesn’t feel as justified.
Firstly, I want to say you did a great job comparing and contrasting the two Peters and why one works better than the other. Secondly, I really wish they had given these games some kind of subtitle or adjective in the title, because boy is it confusing which piece of Spider-Man media people are talking about.
…you’re also comparing a Spiderman who straight up lost his powers from stress to a Spiderman that people were pissy about cause he didn’t do a backflip, snap the bad guy’s neck, and save the day
I don’t view Peter’s nerf as Insomniac pushing Miles as superior, I view it as a lazy way to make villains seem more dangerous. “Kraven was able to stab and nearly kill Spider-Man without trying? He’s going to be nearly impossible to take down!” Or it’s a lazy way to move the plot along, like Peter being able to react faster than MJ. And I disagree that Peter’s life is at its most chaotic here; his new job with Harry gives him everything he wanted: lots of money, lots of science, and lots of good for the world. And Aunt May haunting him isn’t properly developed in the game’s story, so if that’s what Insomniac was going for, I’d say they failed.
Peter wasn’t nerfed. Whoever still believes that is stupid. The knife that he was stabbed with was poisonous (you can see red gas) and Peter doesn’t know if he’s breathing. He even can’t see. And MJ didn’t react faster. Y’all are blind. Peter actually did but you could see he looked at MJ. MJ just jumped in front of him
@@SuperSteph5 he knows how rich Norman is, and that he’s more than willing to fix it. As long as it’s backed by the Osborns, the Emily-May Foundation can blow up another 100 times before it damages their work
I’m still incredibly salty how the offed so many iconic villains in this game unnecessarily. The world for me just started feeling less like a comic superhero world. They could’ve used them for so many different things in the future
I disagree. Firstly, a lot of those iconic villains have been in so many past Spider-Man games. For example, Counting just main series Spider-Man console games Shocker was in at least 6 (SM1, SM2 2004, US, TASM2, SM2018). It's a similar case for most of the Sinister 6. We need some new stuff. And it's not like Spider-Man has a shortage of villains. His rogue's gallery is massive. Killing off older villains means now we are guaranteed to see actually new villains in the next games. Like, we haven't seen any of the following villains properly in Insomniac's games: Beetle, Spot, Swarm, Hydro Man, Jackal, Chameleon, Carnage, Toxin, Molten Man, Tarantula, Kaine, Hobgoblin etc. Secondly, even if those villains weren't killed, what role are they going to serve in the next game? Characters like Shocker and Rhino have been jobbers and stepping stone for major villains in all their appearances. Be it Dr. Ock, Negative, Goblin, Venom etc. If Shocker survived and showed up in the 3rd game, he'd just be another regular villain Spidey beats before the real major villain shows up. Thirdly, killing villains actually makes Kraven appear like a threat and that the story has actual consequences. Like, there is a chance things actually change rather than revert to the status quo. Fourthly, it's a comic book universe. They're going to reboot it eventually like they do with every comic book universe. All the villains are going to come back anyway. So might as well allow this one to be unique and risky for as long as it can.
@@FraserSouris Consequences should NOT happen OFF screen and EACH of those characters had set up in the first game. Rhino wanted out of his suit, Shocker was FORCED into being a villain again, Electro wanted to become fully electricity, Vulture had CANCER FFS theres such a COMPELLING relationship to have there with him and Kraven since they are BOTH dying men. The only throwaway character is Gargan cause he just wanted a clean slate for whatever reason but even he couldve been utilized and tied into the symbiote storyline. I literally broke down how they could have impacted the story on my community posts when this game dropped. The writers just used CHEAP shcok value and didnt even have the BALLS to SHOW the deaths onscreen. These characters died and we FORGET that even happens by the time the game ends...wtf was THAT!? Theres soooo mich that couldve been done. Sure Spiderman has a lot of villains but theres a DIFFERENCE in QUALITY. Theres a REASON not ALL of them are popular. From a story or marketing standpoint they domt have as much to offer And Toxin is NOT a villain😐
@@no.1spidey-fan182 *>"Consequences should NOT happen OFF screen"" EACH of those characters had set up in the first game. Rhino wanted out of his suit, Shocker was FORCED into being a villain again, Electro wanted to become fully electricity,"
I'd have been fine with it, had we seen it. Yes, show don't tell is important, but when offing major villains, you need to show that, especially if they're being hunted by freaking Kraven. It would've been sick to see.
Wh that's your nostalgia bias. Thankfully spiderman 2 sold 11 million and has high reviews. Your opinion is a minority. Maybe go stick to fortnite since you dislike games like this that have amazing gameplay and no microtransactions
@@RageaholicCensorsPeopleI can’t tell if this is rage bait or not but OP is right. Spider-Man 2 started strong but began to lose itself during the end of the 2nd act and the 3rd act.
For me the biggest problem was how underwhelming and nerfed Peter felt as Spiderman without the symbiote, storywise! We didn't even had a fair fight with Kraven, He just stabbed him and that's that! So much for spider-sense 😑
you might as well cry about how every spiderman movie ever has Peter taking damage. Spider sense isn't 100% perfect. I guess you don't like spiderman 2 where a random scientist with octopus arms gives Peter a beating
@@RageaholicCensorsPeople I don't mind him taking damage. Especially against someone he never fought against! But this is supposed to be the OG Spider-Man, older and more skilled and in tune with his own powers. The fact that we didn't even had a first fight with Kraven, It's what's truly disappointing.
I found it incredibly strange how there wasn’t a single Just The Facts where Jameson talked about Black-Suit Spider-Man’s behavior. He mentions that Spidey got a new suit, but he doesn’t comment on his behavior. Danika does, but it would have been so cool to see Jameson all proud and mighty believing he was truly right about Spider-Man.
@@AtomicTitan1954 How the heck do you have Spider-Man becoming evil, a JJJ podcast that regularly plays after missions, and NOT have the biggest Spider-Man hater fulfill his anger fetish?
Rushed . Rushed . Rushed. A gaming ecosystem where overinflated budgets means that you prioritise spectacles that appeal to majority. It’s a miracle that this game still turned out great. Suppprt indie devs
@@bruhmoment1761 This is my opinion. Any good game can always be greater if you give it time. Even the best games we know of would be even more incredible if they just put in one more year.
@funnybambino22 There's a difference between purposefully making quippy jokes and the fact that the original comment was talking about how ALL of the dialogue was cringe feeling.
I just don’t connect with the characterisation. Peter is kinda bland and Miles is just a blander Peter. Miles is also so unconnected from the rest of the plot. Also doesn’t help that I found only a single joke from Peter to be funny. The vast majority of his big jokes are “intentionally bad” which gets old and aren’t even good irony.
Finally, someone said it. Insomniac's characterizations are just so watered down and safe. Also, Peter's quips are supposed to be digs towards his enemy's to throw them off their game, not intentionally corny dad jokes.
@@animationcity8178 The "we're out of honey" joke at the guy dressed like a bear. It's not trying to be ironic or intentionally bad, it's just Peter making fun of an enemy to his face.
5:54 I personally would’ve liked more crime events on the water, bridges, and air. Even if criminals are basically just doing the same thing, the context of the crime would make it feel unique.
This is the only game where I've ever wanted a "Director's Cut"/"Extended Cut" because of how much I love the game already, despite all of its flaws. A lot was clearly left out from the main story, and the second and third acts feel rushed due to that. I will gladly pay for a new game disc that has like 3 extra hours of stuff in the story mode and more main story missions that properly flesh things out.
I was so hyped for this game and as the story went on I just felt less and less interested which for me is surprising as a Spider-Man fanboy in all forms of media so unfortunately I'd rather play the first game. I really wanted to love this game and I'm still looking forward to the future of this franchise and other insomniac games I just wish I enjoyed this game more.
@@michaelchapman454youre exactly right. the previous two games had an amazing story but this one is somehow the worst one of the 3. They didnt do anything with kraven
the new car takedown mechanic, the fact that you can't turn off/on other people helping you with crimes, turn off specific types of crimes (i.e. turning off all symbiote crimes), cant make it rain at night, can't re enter locations after the game like peters house and miles apartment ,and cant have all the suits from previous games really take this game down. it's still INCREDIBLE, but it could've been better
@thetempleton6622 I don't think it's about budget they definitely had the budget. Not the time, immorrtty sure the insomniac director said they had alot more planned on podcast. But they had to scrap all that. This game should've release either end of this year or next year
You mentioned that the story of the game created issues that led to people making their own conclusions and you sort of do that yourself in the story section. Even if the intent was for Peter to be suffering from Aunt Mays death, we’re not shown enough material both before the game comes out (like Spider-Man TCTNS DLC or Miles Morales) or the early parts of Spider-Man 2 that tell us that Aunt Mays death is having a major mental toll on Peter. We only realize that it’s about that when Miles goes inside Peter’s mind and directly see’s the trauma which I feel is a little too little too late by that point. What’s worse is that Spider-Man 2 never ADDRESSES that Peter is off his game as none of the characters comment on Peter’s weaker performance, not even Miles who directly works with Peter. For example: it would’ve been perfect if Miles commented on Peter unnecessarily putting himself in compromising positions by jumping to attack Sandman MULTIPLE TIMES which only resulted in Peter being swatted away. Even if the intention was for Peter to be off his game, Insomniac did a terrible job communicating that to the audience or even clueing them in that that’s what happening and instead just assumes that they’d get it all the while having Miles being practically perfect in this game as he hardly ever needs Peter’s help and instead is the one helping Peter Also, your thing about Peter “conquering his inadequacy” doesn’t really hold when you consider that Peter does basically nothing during the segment and that it’s really all Miles and Martin doing the “healing” and overcoming the inadequacy with Miles even finishing off the segment rather than really Peter himself. In fact there isn’t even much difference between Peter before that scene and after. His character doesn’t feel like it’s conquered his issues or inadequacies or like he had some significant change after that moment. What’s worse is that pretty much the same thing with Aunt May occurs again and rather than Peter saving Harry himself, it’s Miles that saves Harry for some reason which does nothing to argue against the “Peter nerfed, Miles being shoved in everyone’s face” claims with Insomniac themselves declaring not long after the game was released that Miles was now the main focus and not Peter. Also, note Insomniac originally intentioned for the symbiote to NOT being your typical “take over the world villain” and instead be all about vengeance against Peter and well… we saw how that turned out Edit: a lot of your defenses for the story is focused on the IDEAS rather than EXECUTION. You’re giving Insomniac WAY TOO MUCH leeway you’re focusing on ideas and not executions, not to mention assumptions that you make yourself that you build off of rather than what the game itself presents.
One of my issues with the story and Kraven’s characterization is that I don’t buy Kraven not taking Spider-Man seriously until the symbiote at all. Like, he wants to hunt all these villains, but he doesn’t want to hunt the guy who beat them all and put them all in jail? Hell, Peter took on multiple villains at the same time on at least 2 separate occasions and beat them all.
I just wanted to say, i laughed so hard when that dev talked about how bad was the reception to Mary Jane's missions on the first game. He said it was a personal goal to get it right on the sequel, yeah it is better but far from good (just take it out already)
It’s like they think everyone just hated playing as a girl when everyone hated the miles sections in the first game just as much Honestly if they weren’t obsessed with making MJ Great Value Amy Adam’s Lois Lane I would’ve loved to play her through a yakuza 5 style side story about her modeling gigs
I guess I’m probably in the minority here, but I actually thought those missions were great because it took away from the acrobatic and superhuman gameplay and made you more vulnerable because you’re not a superhero who can swing from webs and stick to buildings anymore. You’re an average person, who can easily die I will admit on different play through. They can get kind of boring, but I never thought they were bad.
I liked them way more in the first game. They were immersive, good for pacing and provided a unique perspective. In the sequel it's just a boring simple stealth game with a comically op Mary Jane. Yes there's more depth but it's still not enough to be fun, and now it's not immersive either.
@@LEANxGOBLIN I agree dude, they should swallow their pride and listen to their fans. Also, can we get an accurate depiction of MJ outside of the comics for once😭
37:26 I can’t help but not blame people for claiming that Peter was nerfed to make Miles seem more appealing. While I don’t buy into it myself and see the “nerfs” more to do with narrative tension and stakes, the game in no way communicates to the player that Peter is “struggling” either as Spider-Man or with the death of May until the end of the game when Miles enters Peter’s mind and sees that he’s still grieving her. Peter himself nor Miles comment on how he’s “off his game” or how he’s struggling since the events of the first game and how that’s at all contributing to his performance as Spider-Man.
yeah its definitely a screw job when Pete can't win any fight on his own without a boost or miles, him putting himself down and miles up shows how bad insomniac wants to just get rid of peter for their better "more diverse" spider-man and it shows in the final fight pete clowned on but Miles with no symbiote does better than him is lunatic writing
A couple other little things that get to me is how Peter struggling is showcased versus Miles. When Peter gets beat down he gets beat down BAD whereas with Miles it's way less severe or was done offscreen. The only time I remember Miles getting any real on screen beatdown was from the Tinkerer. Hell even the Peter fight felt like it was there for Miles to look even better since Peter should have been mopping the floor with him. The excuse given is that he's holding back but the game does a terrible job of conveying this. Nowhere do we really see Peter pulling his punches or stopping himself from killing anyone and Miles is just straight styling on him.
@@SCF721 So wait, you think the ONLY excuse for Miles "beating" Peter is that Peter was holding back? Did you just forget about the bell? Did you just happen to also forget that Peter was agreeing with Miles MID FIGHT about how bad the Symbiote was for him? Why do you ignore these things? You also say that Miles was "straight styling" on Peter but Miles also literally got slammed into the ground TWICE and pushed off of Peter WHILE Peter was conflicted 💀I genuinely can't understand any of these points.
@@KingdomKeyJT My point is the fight should have been portrayed as more one sided. Peter should have been mopping the floor with Miles but it honestly looked like Miles could have beaten him regardless. You mentioned Peter slamming Miles on the ground but Miles did same thing but with way more impact. Peter simply grabbed him and pinned him to the ground whereas Miles gets go do a flashy dodge, pins him down to then toss him in the air and slam him again with his electricity. The bell is there but in gameplay you can beat Peter without using it and in the cutscenes he only uses it at the end to get the suit off Peter. Man should have been getting overwhelmed and using the bell as a means to keep up. With how apologetic Peter was after taking the suit off, I feel like almost killing Miles would have at least helped to sell it more.
Honestly what happened with Spider-Man 2 reminds me of what happened with The Legend of Zelda Tears of The Kingdom. Both were highly anticipated sequels to some of the most critically acclaimed games in the past decade. When they were finally released they received wide praise, but as the months passed and the hype died down, people started to realise just how flawed they were in both gameplay and story, and they eventually became one of the most divisive games in their respective fanbases. Some fans still loving the games despite their flaws, while other grew to despite the games for said flaws
Sums it up perfectly. I just hate people that dismiss criticisms because they had fun. Like yeah, it’s hard to make this game bad, but I believe they actively added nothing and in some parts made it worse than the original
tbh in spiderman 2's case its kinda worse, at least totk is still remembered as a good game by the gaming community, while spiderman was considered good and then terrible and then good again and then terrible again and it was constantly switching all the time, it's like people can't make up their minds
its weird how its divisive tho bc its been clear as day to me that once the honeymoon phase is over, people will realize it just aint that good. its mad underwhelming considering how phenomenal the first two games were. People arent just blind to presentation n spectacle anymore. we want a good story (and engaging gameplay) first and foremost and as im playing totk rn, I think the gameplay and combat shoulda been a massive step up. im liking it so far but just doing X and basic ass combos that ive been doing since BOTW are annoying af. thats my only gripe so far
In simple terms. It was good but it was missing so much. Felt like venom wasn’t developed as a character, felt like bad Peter was bad for like 20 mins and then forgiven right away, Harry’s relationship with the symbiote was never shown. So much was missing.
This is probably on of the best Spider-Man 2 critique video I've seen so precious and accurate and you make it clear that even though you have your biases you don't let those biases bleed into the video and I love that about your style keep up the good work 👍🏾
I like that you’re one of the most fair TH-camrs that make videos like this. Honestly one thing I truly hate is how many TH-camrs critique a good game and spend 95% of the time talking about it’s flaws. They say it’s a good game and yet their video makes it look like they only tolerate it. You on the other hand talk about enough of the good and bad and that’s why I like your videos. Personally I rarely look at flaws if the game is overall good and to me this is a very good game, that had some shortcomings in its story. I hope you continue to make videos like this that people enjoy and I hope that if it’s a good game, then you continue to fairly talk about what it does well and what it doesn’t
To be fair, the best feature of this game is the game feel and when done properly, Game feel isn't something you should be thinking about in moment to moment gameplay. Even when you know to mention it, there are only so many times you can say "everything feels natural and fluid." Before you become repetitive. On the flip side, this game's story is rough. It's trying to do way too much, doesn't have time for any of it to be done properly and thus everything feels rushed and so much is just poorly explained. So many of these ideas flat out don't work as implemented that you could easily write an essay looking at everything that went wrong, and people have. TL;DR, there's just so much to dissect with what went wrong with the Story that to cover everything will take a while, but explaining the good gameplay will probably just take a paragraph or two.
@@tailsspin621 I don’t believe what you say here. Because there have been so many good games that so many people consider “perfect” but very many TH-camrs will still always make like a 1 hour video where 80% of it is them complaining about what the game doesn’t do than what it does and it’s ridiculously frustrating. I don’t know if it’s intentional but the fact is the more negative you are, the more views you will get because the internet(especially the Western world) is obsessed with negativity. Because you can’t tell me the world building, the combat, swinging, boss fights, acting/performance, music, set pieces within the story will only take a few paragraphs to explain why they’re good and the story alone will take much more than all that just because it’s a 6/10 story. That’s simply not possible. And if the game is not a solid 8/10 even with the poor story, that would mean the only good god of war games were 2018 and ragnarok which is obviously not true. I don’t believe the only glaringly bad aspect of spiderman 2 outweighs all the good. Would you rather the game had the best story ever written with mid gameplay? I don’t think so because that’s a much worse scenario
For me, we should have one more phase where we play as Peter with Miles helping you in the final venom fight. It would be better and more memorable if you can switch between them during this phase using the touch pad. That would be fire. It actually emphasize be greater. TOGETHER!
Great video as always. Good to see someone finally striking that middle ground on the game. Nicer still to hear someone else still loves it despite its flaws. I even enjoy the story to a certain extent, even though the writing suffers, particularly in the latter half, I can still find it entertaining and enjoy it
Ngl, a lot of aspects of the games screams that insomniac needed more time. Dont get me wrong, i really liked what was there, but it could have been better. The story could have been given more time to breathe, the stealth could have been given more depth, the side quests could have been done a little better, etc. It is very clear that Insomniac wanted to go bigger and greater for this game and they almost got there in some parts. But again, just needed a little bit more time. Edit: Also congrats on your graduation 🎓
@@CyberPea08Yeah I was disappointed when I saw we didn't have a lot of the fun gadgets from the first game. They should keep the weapon wheel and allow us to pick which gadgets we want on our quick select.
nun but fax. its all there but somehow misses its mark on almost everything which is weird for insomniac. imagine if they had another year. ion think anyone would notice anyways cause its already about to be october 20th, a year since sm2 came out. another year would lowkey do a lot
@@ThatBoyAqua Can we correct this to the context of the game? Cause addiction has been its purpose in a lot of media. Like Spectacular Spider-Man does this as well. It even has Harry also using the Goblin Green drug around the same time to do so in a prior arc.
I cannot agree that the symbiote arc doesn't symbolize that, I agree THIS symbiote arc does not do that justice, but the original story is ABSOLUTELY about peter giving into its easiness no matter how much it effected those around him, and eventually finding he was strong enough to not only beat it but continue without it. That is addiction
There are a few things in this video I disagree with, for one calling the swinging in Insomniac's Spider-Man games "physics based", the swinging is animation based, it isn't utilizing a physics engine to create the web swinging, it looks amazing but it is a set of animations and requires no skill, this isn't exactly a problem either, I understand why Insomniac chose animation over physics, it looks far prettier and more people will pick it up instantly and have fun, but I would have greatly appreciated a hard mode that actually utilizes a physics engine like Spider-Man 2 did on PS2 and Gamecube. another part I disagree with, web wings while I think by themselves they are a cool thing to have, the addition of the wind tunnels makes them way to overpowered and does reduce the importance of web swinging. I agree at least partially with your points on the story issues, Venom and the symbiote itself was mishandled, the connection to Knull is in my opinion a major mistake, that is partially bias on my part since I hate the Knull stuff in the comics, but regardless of my bias it was much too early and certainly shouldn't have been in this game or even the next one, Venom's story takes a long time to tell when done properly, in the original story, the symbiote was more like a confused child, it wasn't trying to control peter, it was only trying to help him do whatever he needed, and after several months when Peter forcibly removed it because he realized the symbiote was alive, it tried to rejoin him, but he removed it again immediately, it felt angry because of the abandonment, which is why it wants revenge, thus Venom was created. I think a lot of the confusion causing Venom's story to be so short likely comes from the Ultimate series, possibly the 90s Animated series, and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3, a good bit of the addiction stuff also seems to come from Spider-Man 3. and one more issue I have with the story (there are so many other story issues but I don't want to write a book in a youtube comment), at the end of the story Peter dumps his responsibility onto Miles, this is totally out of character, I could see him taking a small break and letting Miles handle things, but ultimately even if there is someone else who also has power it does not reduce his own responsibility, otherwise he'd just let daredevil handle street crime, and let the fantastic four or the avengers deal with all the super villains, but he doesn't, because when he shirks his responsibility people die, his whole origin story is based on this, the death of Uncle Ben at the hands of someone Spider-Man could have stopped, gives Peter the most important realization of his life, and one most people really should pay more attention to, "With great power there must also come great responsibility".
Honestly this review really sucks. The dude tiptoes around anything controversial and does mental gymnastics to overthink bad decisions and try to spin them as good. The story is terrible and no excuses or saying criticisms are “splitting hairs” will change that
I think it is eluded to that Peter is just taking a break at the end of the game given the dialogue when you switch back to him. iirc he says “Break’s over” or something along those lines. However, Miles never really got the responsibility speech (or something similar in the case of Garfield’s Spidey)- not to mention how the game pushes way too much to make Miles more rooted and superior to Peter despite the story heavily circling around Parker. Especially stuff such as Peter getting nerfed and losing to Venom with ANTI-VENOM meanwhile Miles can manhandle him with his venom powers. Genuinely this narrative falls flat severely.
@@idfkimaclown Peter also never got the responsibility speech, in the original story it was a realization he had once he learned the identity of Uncle Ben's killer, not sure exactly when the change to it being a quote from uncle ben happened, one of the earliest examples I can find was the 90s animated series. As for the ending to the game, I don't agree at all, the way the scene played out was more final than just taking a break, the implication was that Miles would handle everything and maybe call Peter for advice from time to time, switching back to Peter was more likely just so you can still play as Peter in that game, and not an indication of future story direction in potential sequels. Peter was certainly being put into a back seat so Miles could take a bigger role in the story, I like Miles as a character, but the way this was done was just wrong, Peter doesn't have to be pushed out to give Miles room, both are great characters and there is plenty of room for both. I think it was done at least partially because of the popularity of Miles being boosted by the Spider-Verse movies, but the push to sideline Peter completely seems less due to Miles popularity and more due to some other factor, I don't know if it was an attempt to set up a future story, or if it was politically motivated, either way it was a poor decision.
@@Dangeresque486 Except it’s most likely implied that Peter in the insomniac verse did get the speech. Worst case scenario he has a solid equivalent with May’s “If you help someone, you help everyone”.
I absolutely love this game! Literally became one of my all time favorite gaming experiences. It might not be perfect and can be a bit messy at times but this game made me feel like a kid again.
That was the first game in 2018 for me. Been playing Spider-Man games since 2005 (starting from the neversoft 2000 game I’ve played every major Spider-Man game except friend or foe and the ps2 version of Spider-Man 2)
1:13:50 my eyes widened like crazy when I heard this. I rarely relate this much to a criticism but that is exactly how I feel. I love putting on one of the homemade suits and pretending I'm a Spider-Man just starting off in his career as a hero. Climb up the side of May's house like im sneaking off to fight crime, hop across queens rooftops until i make it to the subway train and ride it into the city, that type of stuff. Then all of the fun I'm having with that immersion is halted by a wave of symbiotes joining an otherwise standard mugging and my year 1 spider-man is suddenly whipping out tendrils he shouldn't have💀
I don't think it makes much sense to say that Peter is nerfed because of May when during the DLCs and Miles game (the training audios too) he is clearly ok and he is happy being Spider-Man. Right at the beginning of the second game he says he's going to miss the chases, so yeah... It's just an excuse
@@LeonardoSilva-xm8ft Like the last comment said- not written well enough. Also someone going through grief can still laugh and appear cheery. It’s just quiet and in the back of the mind sometimes where pain lies.
Furthermore, Peter Parker in this second Insominiac game is completely out of character, in addition to the nerf they did to him in this game, they castrated him in a humiliating way and he does things that the original Peter would never do, Insominiac did very well with the first game, plus the second game, in addition to not innovating in almost anything and looking like a DLC of the first game, they also made a mediocre story with a poor script where several characters are thrown into the plot and disrespected Peter Parker in several moments of the story, the second game It's not bad but it's very disappointing especially after so much hype and waiting time
It’s insane how this game has a bigger budget and 1 more year of development time than FF 7 Rebirth, and yet it doesn’t have anywhere as many improvements to its first game as Rebirth does. This game feels like the most safe sequel I’ve ever played in my life. It really doesn’t try anything super new or interesting other than the Venom Section where you control Venom itself and that’s only like 5% of the game at most
I’m so glad you mentioned the Rami Suit drama from the first game. It permanently effected my view on the suit as a whole and can’t even look at it without getting annoyed that something so trivial warranted death threats in some people’s minds…
Like you said at the end, there's gonna be two major camps: those who overly love the game ignoring flaws, and those who overly hate the game, ignoring everything that made me endlessly smile while playing. I am glad to see someone else who has a similar feeling overall that I do. It's a fantastic game, but it's missing a lot to push it that step further, to make it the definitive spidey game. I still love the game, but there's always gonna be an asterisks next to it.
I feel like this game's story doesn't really have any real big problems imo, but it has a lotta small issues that turn into one big problem. I also just watched Cosmonaut's review of the first game and what he said is EXACTLY how I feel about this game. "The good shit, is really REALLY good. Like, flawless. But the bad stuff, can be pretty distracting."
Yeah. The ending is rushed, but that alone wouldn’t hinder the game too much: the Witcher 3 also had a rushed 3rd act, and the Ragnarok part of God of War Ragnarok also happened pretty quick- but both of those games are brilliant and are known as some of the best of all time.
Yeah honestly I love these games a little more than the Arkhamverse and I am Batman fanboy but same whenever you have a polished dish it's easier to see the spots and once you do they standout.
@@talha7032 Oh yeah, my mistake. The first one did but Ragnarok was beaten by elden ring. It did win game of the year at other award shows, but in terms of the game awards (which is what people usually mean when they mention game of the year) but I was wrong.
@@BananaWasTakenThe symbiote arc was too short along with the symbiote invasion. Considering how the entire story revolves around Peter and Harry they were better off doing the game ultimate spider-man style where you alternate between Peter and Harry’s perspectives especially considering Miles has a decently minor role in the narrative- if you take him out majority of the story would play the same way. As a matter of fact we had more venom missions planned but they were scrapped for the MJ missions. This is on insomniac.
Honestly after watching this video, I felt so disappointed, not because I hate it, but because I agreed with so much of it. There were criticisms that you made that I didn't even think of, but I agreed with, and that made me realize how flawed this game truly is. I still love it and its my personal favorite Spider-Man game, but this video made me see it in a new light and as much as it hurts to say, this could have been and should have been far greater.
Honestly, as a fan, I had a blast. The only issues I had came down to "I wanted more of that", which is not a problem on itself. Not saying there are no flaws, but it feels like most people are a little overly critical imo
At this point in its life cycle, the first already had added a lot of new costumes and the whole story expansion which was great. With SM2 we got a few costumes and no expansion story or even a word about If that truly exists. It's weird, but even with 2 Spider-Men in it, and with a much bigger map, the second game feel's smaller.
They had 5 years to make this with half of the map done already. There’s no excuses for an entire second half of a game being cut like this. Spider-Man 2 went from my personal most hyped game of 2023 to one of the biggest disappointments I’ve ever experienced.
@@SuperNeos2yeah who’s fault is that not the delvopers they were pestered to deliver the best Spider-Man game ever and what we got was good maybe a bit bad but good and that’s because of ungrateful fans
@@GamerGuyOGAgain, they had 5 years to do this. If they weren’t gonna have enough time to do it, they shouldn’t have set up a bunch of plot points that would need their own story arc to conclude properly. Peter literally has the black suit for 2 hours in the entire story. For a game that hyped up the Symbiote as much as it did, that’s embarrassing. Sony kept giving them more time and money when they asked for it and they got tired of waiting and wanted a product to sell. Not defending Sony, but if I was funding a project for years and the company I was funding kept giving me a further release date, I’m gonna eventually have enough and want the product released. It’s Insomniac’s fault more than Sony’s. Don’t set up a 40 hour story and then cram it into 15 and the stuff they did keep was shit no one cared about and asked for.
@@kevinreyes1145Idc if you enjoyed the game. There’s a reason it’s as divisive as it is and it’s not because of ungrateful fans. Insomniac promised something amazing and groundbreaking and ended up turning in a generic safe by the books sequel. As someone who spent my hard earned money on the game, I’m allowed to voice if I like it or not. And this game has turned me off from buying their games Day 1.
36:13 The problem is that the plot point about Peter's grief over May's death wasn't revealed until near the end of the game in another inside-of-the-mind cutscene. Before this, there was no indication that Peter felt that way and it was revealed & resolved in the laziest way possible. Also, maybe Peter wouldn't have struggled as much if he hadn't chosen to be Spider-man at the worst moments in his life. I'm sure the world wouldn't end if he created stability for himself before going on daily patrols. We know this for sure because he and 2 other characters are super smart Mary Sues. He shouldn't have to choose between being a hero and working with the Foundation.
Do you really need to be told that the main chararacter of the story is going through a hard time when dealing with the death of his aunt who has been a mother to him for most of his life? If you didn’t pick up on that at any point before that scene with Miles I think that’s a you problem more than the story failing.
@BAD7667 No. But they should've at least given us clearer signs or reminders of the 1st game's events. Peter's actual behavior in the Symbiote didn't seem connected to Aunt May at all and it didn't resemble Peter's character without it. There was no direct anger towards Mr. Negative or Doc Ock because of their actions. All we saw was Peter behaving like an edgy child towards everyone and a mindless monster at worst.
Prefect example, most of us have all played the three games but i cannot recall Pete ever giving Miles the "great power, great responsibility" speech and yet he's the main Spidey? Kinda strange to say the least.
Yes he does, In the city that never sleeps Miles calls Pete about getting hurt or a basketball game (I can’t really remember) and Pete tells him that his powers are a responsibility.
@@MasonTheYoung Ah yes...OPTIONAL DLC, that in no way is reflected or referenced in the 2nd game is DEFINITELY how you introduce a character to an IMPORTANT plot point. That's practically off screen and its such a THROWAWAY line with NO real emotional behind it😭. Peter was practically SCOLDING Miles for being an idiot with his powers rather than INSPIRING him💀
@@MasonTheYoung you're right but maybe I should've been more specific he never let's miles know his apathy was what killed his uncle. I also agree that this stuff shouldn't have been relegated to optional DLC these morals are quintessential Spider-Man. It wouldn't be a batman game, movie, etc without the pearls in Crime Alley for example.
This game is amazing i love replaying it playing main missions and side missions during the story 8/10 on a bad day. Im also a livelong spiderman fan so i might be biased
After playing the first Spider-Man PS4 game for so long, coming to Spider-Man 2 with the new face model for Peter, MJ, Harry, and Jonah, they felt like different characters to me and made the game feel very jarring. Of course, I got used to the new models but it did make me feel like I was playing some Spider-Man game that wasn't connected to the first two, at least for the first couple of hours.
Yeah i was super disappointed when they changed peters face. His original model looked exactly like one of my cousins, so it always made me and my brother laugh. Now hes just generic white guy number 600000
This is what people felt with " the legend of Zelda tears of the kingdom" it took a while for people to actually find the flaws with the game and when they did those flaws outweighed the pros for some while the pros outweighed the cons for others making it one of the most divisive games just like "Spiderman 2" just a couple months after launch
The Zelda fanbase is at least getting Echoes of Wisdom very soon, only 1 year after Totk launched, so they already have another mainline game to look forward to in case they weren't satisfied with Totk. Spider-Man is not getting another game for at least another 3 years.
after my first 10 hours with tears of the kingdom i can't lie, I stopped playing and deleted it off my switch and just went back to breath of the wild, it felt like i was doing the same thing all over again. I'm glad people had fun with it though, hopefully i like the next one more.
@@knellknight3701 how does that make any sense, why would you go back to a game that actually IS the exact same, instead of a game that is still pretty different and has other stuff, and still NEW stuff to find and explore. i could understand only replaying botw instead of totk but what you said makes no sense
Im going through my new game plus playthrough for the platinum now and you brought up a great point that I didn’t really think about during my first playthrough. This is PETERS story so it makes sense that miles isn’t a huge focus for the majority of the game. My first time playing I felt like miles was wasted but it makes sense to me more now. This isn’t his story so of course he isn’t the main focus. Love the video btw, you’re easily my favorite big video game critique channel!
About the Hailey side mission. We did not give Mj A Pass. Brian chose to ignore people in favour of playing as her for some reason. I get he said it was about seeing the world from Other peoples views but. U don't gotta make us play as em for that. Also I think people disliked Haileys mission because it was boring and had nothing to do with SM. Not because of her skin colour. Idk why anyone would be upset by that.
7 out of 10, the Gameplay is Great, Each Spider-Men brings something Unique, the Villains look Good, and the Graphics look Amazing, I just think that if they delay the Game for Another Year and Fix the Story and the 3rd Half, it could have been Better but if Feels Underrated because something felt missing and now a Year Later and no DLC Expansion, I guess we’ll never Know.
For the MJ missions when the game first launch. Mine was glitched where she died from one arrow or one hit. It made the sections alot of fun because you really had to fight for your life. When I found out it was a glitch and it was patched out the MJ sections were a slog
MJ should totally be sidelined. She's not a hero. She's the hero's girlfriend. She can offer moral support or comfort him in his moments of weakness, but as far as helping him fight crime? No. This ain't Bring Your Wifey to Work Day.
yup, creative director or such are just narcissist in their minds its "empowering/strong woman" virtue signal so they keep doing it had a interview on that at ign i believe and its just them being egotistical about it
If Insomniac is smart they'll kill MJ off in the third game to make Green Goblin even more vile and twisted. Knowing them though, they're going to kill off Peter instead.
I'll be honest even though they had "fast travel" present I never used it in the game. Web swinging is just to fun in this game and it really made you feel like spider man
At 35:45 you may have just put together the BEST comprehensive counter point to "Peter being brought down to prop up Miles" HOLY SHIT. I have never ACTUALLY heard a true and honest counter point to it before just toxicity and vitriol for even bringing up the mere NOTION of it even being a slight possibility, which only pushed me to beleive it further as I never actually really recived a counter point just anger or insults. But the way you put it I totally get it you exemplafied things I beleive the game failed to adequately emphasize effectively in its narritve (which is a microcosm of the games overall writing issues with attempting to exercise its narritve, story and themes effeciently but I digress) and im glad i finally got to hear something so level headed and descriptive that allowed me to see and recontextualize those story beats and a lot of the "dumb" stuff I felt happened. Genuinely gave me a "URIKA!" moment. And gives me an added piece of appreciation to the narrative. Thank you for exemplyifing a point the game wasn't exactly cohesive in emphasizing and for being the only respectful and level headed guy out here to talk about it cause now I can at least appreciate and view that aspect of the story in the same way you do even if so many other elements fall flat 🤝🏿
Unfortunately, the frustration is not about what the game is in itself (after all, it's still a good game), but it is what could have been that disappoints the most... so much potential.
worst part about this game is noticing EVERYTHING could have been better and improved upon. they hit there checklist, but its all surface level. Its so bad but still good enough
I would’ve loved to see them incorporate Spider-Man being able to hide in the shadows to take out his enemies like they did in shattered dimension, or even in Spider-Man 3 when Peter was crawling on the ceiling when he decided to pursue sandman in the subway scene. It’s such a cool concept and It would make me so happy to have it be finally implemented into the game. It’ll be a game changer for people who enjoy playing stealth and would also encourage people to want to play stealthily. I felt this game revolving around the black suit would’ve been a perfect opportunity to implement it!
I hadn't thought about it, but what you mean about the fear that new york's people would feel when spidey has the symbiote would be amazing, emphasizing even more that part, just saying I really like this game, I considerate it my favorite game of all time, but also I'm agree all things you say, it's not hate to the game but even small details can change everything 😱 Update: I know Insomniac is working in Marvel's Wolverine, but wouldn't it be cool if Spider-Man 2 got maybe not weekly, but every 2 or monthly updates, what i mean about this is just small updates, that improves game game with all this features that you talked about 2nd Update: Broooo you should really be Insomniac's Creative Director 😁
the dialogue in these games is so soulless and corny , The npc's talk like everything is sunshine and rainbows 24/7 , they have 0 substance. Everything is painfully surface level. without the swinging and combat it would be insufferable
Imagine if in Batman Arkham city it took a break to have an oracle wheel around mission and multiple taser segments where you play as Viki Vale and save Batman.
My honest opinion on the game didn't change since release, I'm a huge Spider-Man fan like you, to the point were I can play whatever game Spider-Man is in and still find some enjoyment from the experience, but with that said. Spider-Man 2 in my opinion while being a very fun game and being worthwhile, still disappointed me for multiple reasons, the biggest let downs for me where the story and the black suit's gameplay. The story started off amazingly (no pun intended) but once Peter gets the suit for some reason the story stops being interesting. I didn't really feel Peter loosing himself to the suit and he didn't suffer any real consequence from wearing it, no one really reacts to Peter being a jerk aside a "Hey that's rude D:" nor do they really seem all that concerned for Peter outside a couple of comments, it felt rushed and we don't really get a chance to see Peter benefit from the suit all that much, since he doesn't keep it for long, the suit itself felt like an alien.jpg without a personality (which also applies to Venom) nor a real "motive" outside of "I want to take over the world" which is so overdone by now with the symbiote, to the point that it made me really lose interest in Venom as a villain. Venom himself is such a poorly done villain in the game, he has so little screen time and Harry becoming Venom is unconvincing at best, especially since "Venom" doesn't seem to be a combination of Harry and the suit but rather the symbiote itself taking over Harry. I was also deeply disappointed with the gameplay with the Black Suit, I waited so many years for a game like this to come out, I was hyped out of my mind for finally wear the black suit again and feel that surge of power, maybe it was my own fault for expecting something while not similar but at least close to Web of Shadows, where wearing the suit makes you feel powerful. However in this game the closest you can get to that feeling of power is the symbiotic surge that while being fun to use, is at the end of the day a gimmick that gets old fast because of the three repeated animations it has and lack of interesting features outside being a classic "Rage Mode." In Spider-Man 2 wearing the black suit gives you 4 unique abilities and that's it, you don't get unique animations during combat or travel outside specific abilities or finishers (which are few far between,) you don't get a buff in power, you don't really feel any different from the classic spider-man you always were, you can't feel Peter's aggression nor new found power, which the game likes to remind you in many encounters. I can't stress enough how much of a let down it was for me. Overhaul I think Spider-Man 2 is a good game, but that's it, it doesn't do anything too interesting outside refining the formula the last one had, the traversal is top-notch but anything else is more of the same, I can understand why people after the initial hype for the game felt the way they did, I felt like that from the start, it's not fair to call the game bad, because it's not, but it's not what I've hoped for either, and for me it was a big disappointment. Thank you for the read!
My same thoughts. Web of shadows's abilities were broader and yh i'm tired of the klyntar invasion. I just wanted classic venom like the older comics wanting to make peter's life a hell. Spectacular spider-man did a great job of telling a classic symbiote arc
Web of shadows was so good with the symbiote man. All these kids are missing out on phenomenal gameplay. They should have ended the game after venom eats kraven and then just go and play web of shadows
You’re so spot on about the morale . fan death threats , Bullying actors and leaks about employees on top of the recent layoffs really makes the insomniac Spider-Man fandom unbearable where Its a pain to interact with people outside of a few TH-camrs like you , Evan , caboose etc .
Personally, especially before Harry becomes Venom, Harry's and Peter's relationship is incredibly well written. I used to have a best friend of my own and he means the world to me. I wouldn't hesitate to call him a brother at a moment's notice even now and Harry's and Peter's bond really reminded me of the time we used to spend together. Overall I think they nailed it.
As a massive Venom fan, I really, REALLY do not like this version of the character, but it has some merit that went largely unsung (although that is largely Insomniac’s fault for prioritizing the aesthetics over the characters). I really appreciate how they, through Harry Osborn, acknowledged Eddie’s absence. They both suffered an abusive and neglectful childhood at the hands of their father. Both of their traumas inform their time as Venom to a great extent, to the point of it completely overtaking their good intentions. I just wish Insomniac cared to show us more of Harry *being* Venom. Showing us how he talks to the symbiote, how he processes the pain he causes people for the sake of the greater good. It’s not just potential, I can see the ideas in the game, but it’s so underutilized that it comes off as almost incoherent. And when it’s this muddled, it ends up being just another Web of Shadows or Spider-Man 2017 or Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon. That’s a bummer.
Good game for general audiences and even web heads no game breaking bugs or bad dialogue/acting and a coherent story. But as a sequel it’s safe and lacking and poor venom
@@frostycane5134 I agree with you 100% I was nowhere near dissatisfied with the game but I can't say it was as incredible as the first game was. It just set the bar so high yanno?
@Twist-kj2fb I swears no malice. If u thought the game was great fine Imo its a 6/10 at best. It's fantastically wonderful swinging around new york. Really they absolutely nailed the movement and honed the combat. Everything about GAMEPLAY is tight and on point (when playing as spidey) in the game. It's Everything else that drags the game down for me. It's weird side missions, clear biases towards miles, and clear distain for peters actions (ya know being a hero). The MJ missions we all know an loved were brought back and she turned into John wick witha taser gun. If the bad guys can b put down by her then y is spider man needed? Peter parker got 1 game. 1 standalone game Miles morales a who cares character is gonna have more?? Cmon man.....let's b honest here......somethings not right The 1st game felt tight on all fronts Aunt may dying really hit cuz I actually cared about the characters. There's not a single stand out moment in SM2 And while it's on sony for even partnering with sweet baby, the story like every sweet baby game they work on, took a fckn nosedive in quality It's been since the game launched since I've played but didn't peter quit being spider man to stop trees from being cut down? Lol hahaha c that's stupid and makes no sense. It's just to prop up and that's y the game suffers greatly Edit here.....the beginning sequence with sandman was fun so that is a standout moment tbf
Insomniac spent 300 million on this game and sold less than the last one so much so they had to pack it in with the ps5 slim to meet disneys sell quota if any game is used as a sample of next gen bloat is this one. This game with a bigger map still felt smaller than the first and it seems the writers disliked their fanbase talking smack any chance they could get maybe 3 will be better since it’s green goblin as the villain but who knows with a lower budget they might even do worse.
When I started the game, I was excited, but put off by the “GOTY!” hype (I had just finished Jedi Survivor and it’s still my favorite game ever). Despite that, I tried to like this game; the first game is my favorite Spider-Man story ever, and at the time I still liked Miles Morales (I’ll explain why I don’t anymore if anyone needs to know). Unfortunately, my issues with the game came almost immediately. From the beginning of the Sandman fight, Spidey sense was nerfed so badly, it almost never actually worked. I was screaming “DODGE!” so much I felt like I was Piccolo from TFS. I will admit, the spider-arms were a fun addition to the game, but I had some lore questions. Specifically, what the HELL is in that Spider-suit? It’s got 4 arms that are synched to Peter’s mind, all the gadgets, an interface that recreates events in AR ripped straight from the Arkham games, AND a 3D printer that can make a fully functioning drone in 10 seconds! It just shatters my suspension of disbelief. Also, if he got those arms he and Doc Ock were struggling on fully functioning, with no downsides, why doesn't he go public with those? He believed strongly in the good they could do; it was a core part of his character in the first game. However, aside from overarching issues that I won't get into here (this is long enough as is), I got through the story with only minor complaints until... The Black Cat mission. I have no idea why this part isn't criticized more. Miles arrives at Black Cat's apartment, only to find it in ruins. He suddenly becomes Batman and pulls detective mode out of thin air to track her, before concluding that she's going to steal a wand that can open portals. Black Cat breaks into the Sanctum Sanctorum with little issue, and steals a magic teleporting wand. Miles sees her coming out and stopping to talk to him, AND get distracted by the wand not working, but instead of going invisible to disarm her stealthily, grabbing the wand with webs, jumping at her, or just trying to talk to her, like he's there to do, he just stands there, frozen, until she gets the portals working and-WAIT, before any of that, MAGIC IS A PART OF THIS STORY? I get that there were references to Doctor Strange and the Avengers in the other 2 games, but there is a huge difference between knowing they exist in this universe and interacting with them as a part of the story. There's an element of a story I don't know what to call, something between tone & theme, that determines what feels like it does and doesn't belong in a story. This mission absolutely shatters that with a chase segment where Black Cat uses magic portals to escape Spider-Man, even briefly stopping in Antarctica. It would be like if Shazam showed up in Arkham Asylum; it's not a plot hole, he does exist in this universe (maybe), but it is incredibly out of place. So already I'm baffled by the creative decisions here, but then it gets worse: Black Cat teleports a train into a building, causing it to crash and explode violently, and Miles just says "That could have hurt someone!" No Miles, it DEFINITELY hurt someone. It KILLED people, assuming the moving train had people on it. And for what? It didn't help Black Cat at all. Along with that, Hunters show up during the chase, shooting explosives into the city, probably killing even more people. The chase finally ends with Black Cat crashing a hunter chopper, probably killing EVEN MORE people, including innocent bystanders that were stupid enough to try and get a look at Spider-Man in action. When they finally talk, Black Cat explains that she got her girlfriend in trouble, so she needs to go to Paris to save her, but she can't figure out how to "go further than 2 feet with this thing" (she just went to Antarctica and back with no trouble. This is a blatant plot hole). When Miles distrusts her because of MJ, she brings up how he needs to think for himself and be his own person. She even has lines in combat like "You really are Spider-Man!". This is so transparently manipulative, playing on Miles' feelings of being in Peter's shadow, and the girlfriend story is so full of character inconsistencies for Felicia, I thought it was obvious what they were setting up: Miles falls for Black Cat's manipulations due to his inexperience with her, she blindsides him and takes the wand, leaving him with a deeper sense of inadequacy that only fuels his desire to ignore his personal life and only be Spider-Man. HOWEVER, the story does not do that, and instead Miles helps her, they open a portal to Paris, and she lets him keep the wand. Why does she do that when that would be pretty useful, both for saving her girlfriend and stealing more art? I can't even say "plot reasons", because the second that mission is over, Miles tries to use the wand to find Li, but the wand teleports out of his hand, replaced by a note from Wong saying that he and Doctor Strange owe him one. They could teleport the wand back anytime, but only chose now to do it? A few more seconds and this story would be completely different. Also, why doesn't Miles just go back and cash in that favor now? I'm sure Doctor Strange would be happy to help him find and stop Mr. Negative. Hell, his powers resemble magic in these games, so there's even a bit of overlap here. This entire mission was riddled with incredibly bizarre writing choices that utterly broke my immersion, but ultimately had no consequence for the rest of the story. MJ isn't even upset with Miles for ignoring her advice, nor does she say anything during Black Cat's spiel. The only reason it exists is to give Miles SOMETHING to do in this game, because they really had nothing for him. Oh boy, that was long. Sorry about that, I just really hated that mission, and I haven't seen anyone else talk about it like this. There is not a single part of that mission that didn't make me want to quit this game. I had to pause several times in utter disbelief for a few minutes, just processing what I was seeing. It is unequivocally the worst bit of writing in this game. If you made it to the end, congratulations! If you actually want to hear MORE of my criticisms, I'll reply to you with similarly-sized paragraphs on anything you want to hear about, or even the entire game if you want. I love analyzing stories, even ones I dislike, and Spider-Man 2 has given me a lot to talk about.
@@legoverse1412 I did but I realized that I was honestly fed up before we even got to that section. I've said this before for jedi survivor despite the broken launch its the better sequel. Spiderman 2 made me feel post purchase dissonance. I could've gotten RE4 remake and Deadspace remake with 200 bucks to spare. Even when I was picking up my pre-order copy that was a nagging thought in my head.
Your suspension of disbelief being broken in the game with goo aliens that take over bodies and and a radioactive spider that bites a kid gives him spider powers and the SAME SPIDER than bites another and gives him spider powers + dlc powers? Everything else is personal so It’s fine but the breaking of immersion with things like magic is crazy you yourself say previous games mention dr strange and avengers.its not like dormammu shows up. Yea it’s a plot device but so what.i just don’t see how you can be down with sandman and venom creating tons of symbiote mass to take over the city but not the mguffin.again not talking about the mission itself or anything else I get why the story of the mission is bad n why you had a problem with tbh just don’t see how you felt like things were out of place
@@Eezylon What broke my immersion was the inconsistency of the Spider-Suits. They didn’t always break Euclidean geometry. Also, you take issue with magic breaking my immersion in this story. It’s not like I think magic and Spider-Man should never cross over, I’m just saying it’s weird for it to suddenly come into play in the third game, and never show up again. “It’s not like Dormammu showed up” implies that would have taken you out of the game if that happened, but why? How is that more magical than a wand creating portals? And how much magic is required to break your immersion? I’m not saying the existence of magic is a plot hole here, I’m just saying it feels like it doesn’t match with the aesthetic (for lack of a better word) of the Insomniac games
I still can't believe we already had the most controllable and free-flowing web-swinging and combat system 15 years ago with Web of Shadows and it hasn't come back since. Also, I feel like the biggest reason we got Anti-Venom Spider-Man was because Insomniac wanted Peter to get rid of the symbiote somehow, but didn't want players to lose the gameplay abilities that the symbiote provided - so they opted for a middle ground. It can argued about whether or not this was the right call though.
I'm in the camp that says this is not a good follow-up game. This video did not change my mind. But credit where it is due. This is a really well-made, well argued video. Great work on the video. Be proud of the fruit of your labor.
Imagine the whole game was the symbiote arc and they end the story on a cliff hanger with Venom being born. After that they release a DLC or solo Venom game
if I could re make this game from the ground up the way I would do the story is that with the beginning the villains are getting stronger than when Peter faced them due to Miles's having more abilities causing them to become more desperate. And a great way to show this is having peter not have traversal abilities,spider arms yet and parry. Which makes him question if he is good enough when the villains are adapting. When it comes to Kraven get rid of the army , just make it him and his toxic family with the only one getting an army is Sasha. With each member having a boss fight that matches how they act. Sasha Kravinoff (ex-wife) she is ruthless, jealous (of calypso due to Kraven leaving her and his family maybe?) she does not understand the meaning of the hunt.(so maybe a stealth boss) she also kidnaps MJ. Vladimir Kravinoff (son) he acts like a beast like in the grim hunt comic he is a lion man, so have him start as human( Then later on he kidnaps Curt Conners and Curt's family so that he can become the beast that he so desires to be an Apex predator.) Make him think that the only way to be the ultimate hunter is to become a beast. Alexei Kravinoff (son) He takes after his mother and father he loves the hunt so have him hunt you through out the city( like the prowler knock out thing in Miles's game but expanded) but he uses tactics like kidnaping as a lure and just as ruthless as his mother. He might have kidnaped Miles's mom? Anastasia Kravinoff (daughter) She takes the most after Kraven she LOVES the hunt. (Make her pre-Kraven have her use most but not all of kravens tools she does not uses guns, but loves to get up close with her knives and blades. Give her the potion that Kraven uses in the base game so that she is one of the fastest and most dangerous bosses in the game). She believes that her father is the final test. Kraven you can keep mostly the same. Calypso ( The one who keeps him juiced up for his final hunt as a reference to the 90 animated series ( where the doctor is pretty much Calypso) she loves Kraven and is pregnant but she understands how Kraven feels about his Final hunt and helps him anyway she can.) Harry have him suck at being a hero so much that he almost gets Peter killed and is the reason he gets the black suit due to harry feeling guilt over almost having his best friend killed (not sure how to do the venom plot with out harry going off the deep end.) Peter (black suit) he is more agressive and can now use traversal abilties, tendrils, and parry. Peter is angry but that rage is going everywhere because somebody Kidnaped MJ and he doesn't know which member of the Kravinoff family has her so he focuses only on hunting Kraven (due to losing Aunt May he feels scared to lose somebody else he cares about due to some villian.) Venom have Harry's anger, humor, and violent tendencies at full display once he get the symbiote back he goes hunting and killing not only kraven's family but other villains as well in brutal ways. Peter and Miles see this and try to stop him Peter decides to make the spider arms as a way to help him keep up with miles because if he can't keep up power wise thin he will use his mind and with the final battle being like in the trailer where they rush in to fight venom in the street. I know I missed a lot and your probably tried of reading but maybe if you have ideas that will fill in the gaps then let me hear them.
Physics-based doesn't mean "inspired by real world physics" it means there's a phyiscs engine crunching the numbers behind the scenes - you swing like a pendulum because you're on a string with an anchor point, not because it's a rote animation that plays when you hit the swing button. And as such, physics can be tweaked, especially between games.
Id some what agree but the game does have the issue of having the player float above a limited ground level even before the webs have attached to a building. Obviously there us a setting that i believe gets rid of that but it's default is definitely set up not to entirely follow a calculation that follows physics. Inspired is a good word but it could definitely be done better even with the setting option its definitely a hard creative choice. But nice comment dude.
This review was phenomenal and I respect & appreciate (for personal reasons) how you discussed this being bad addiction rep. Was information I was familiar with but so important that you covered it on the whole for others. Fantastic & even important work ❤
Honestly everything you have said I agree with 😭😭 this game was supposed to be THE spider-man game that showcased spidey's arguably most iconic and character defining story. I truly hope insomniac sees all the criticism that came from this game and uses that to make a perfect 3rd game. Love the content bro, keep it up
![30 ชั่วโมงคนเดียว บนรถไฟชั้น 3 โซเวียต [Around The World Ep. 2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MlE9boAVqDA/mqdefault.jpg)
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I’m good bro
Get the bag, bro
12:30 flags are a big issue when removing them is somehow "wrong think" to mod sites and forum, its clear the agenda on that, same to obvious token character side missions that are clear why they're there, them being short misses the point on the why especially when the mission location is also filled in virtue signaling at that location
apparent through the game how agenda affects it and "its at its best" when its spidey in the suit i.e. away from agenda - the issue is apparent and pointing it out isn't some bad think or evil remark
Raid shadow legends? More like Bore Ragnarok!
Hard to take anything you say in this video seriously knowing you sold out to Raid Shadow Legends hope the money was worth your integrity.
A true disappointment in this game is that we didn't get spiderman Chasing shocker to the ends of the Earth.
Shooockeeerrrr
Not only that, but they killed him off offscreen! So we won’t even get him chasing shocker to end off the series!
I was unironically expecting an Easter egg or something
I genuinely believed we were gonna get at least a hint of that reference
How long are y’all gonna keep this bit going!?
The second half of the game feels rushed. Like they wanted to do all these cool plot points but just shoved them all together really quickly.
Yeah, I thought the final should've been Venom Peter and Miles finally beat Kraven and Spider-Man 3 could've had Venom as the main villain which then ends the trilogy, because of course Venom is one of the best Spider-Man villains
Well there was some development drama behind the scenes. Basically the game became too expensive / bloated especially with the expensive Disney licensing cost so they basically butchered the 2nd half so that we can get a Venom spin-off game now before Spider-Man 3 comes out plus they originally planned a multi-player / co-op mode of some sorts too that got cut look up the Insomniac leaks
I haven't played SM2 (or even Miles Morales), but that seems like a clear case of 'Arkham City syndrome'. Though I'd assume the main story is more than 4 - 5 hours.
@@ElderLaFollettewhat arkham city syndrome? City improved on asylum in every way.. Like if you prefer one over the other I'm not gonna argue but if someone say one is worse then the other then I need to disagree
I would've much preferred if the Venom shit was more grounded. Like Idk bout y'all, but the Knull, symbiotes, alien shit is extremely uninteresting to me. I much prefer a more levelled story with better stakes. I thought it was cool they paid homage to Web of Shadows with the infected city and all that jazz, but it just doesn't fit for Insomniac imo. They're better at crafting their own story with their own characters and plotline instead of taking from shit like Web of Shadows and King in Black. I would've much preferred Venom was this hulking and looming threat over Spider-Man and not the typical cliche of taking over the world. It js didn't work for me that much I'm not gonna lie.
50:00
I think the main reason they put anti-venom in there is because they didn’t want to take away all the player’s venom abilities that they spent a ton of time with/a lot of skill points upgrading, so they needed a way for Peter to still use his venom powers even after giving up the symbiote.
For sure. I’m just curious to see what they do in the thurd with said abilities. Maybe a scene in the beginning where he discovered how to completely remove it with his work.
basically is the only way to make spiderman symbiote plus anti (quite literal) venom of Harry
@@Morfe02 OR just do something that's actually fresh like making Peter VENOM. That way you have your cake AND can eat it too. Miles is now the "main" spiderman cause Peter is no longer Spiderman and is VENOM. Would've been such a CRAZY way to end this game...nut nope we get bootleg Knull Venom for some odd reason
@@no.1spidey-fan182for real
@@no.1spidey-fan182 or even better put Eddie Brock as Antivenom ! The Story of a Guy having cáncer yet doing good stuff with a Monster is quite the opposite of Harry doing Evil with a same desease
I dont mind Venom Spiderman in fact would fix the ending with Peter getting retired by Miles hahaha or even fix the fact Harry is in coma having Antivenom powers
One of the best things about the Arkham games is that it lets you fight other villians as part of side quests, in this game you just get at cameo from Chamleon and 'Carange'. Like yeah you fight the Lizard, Mr Negative and Sandman in the game but Spiderman has such a varied rogues gallery actually let us fight them in the side missions
Eh I want to point out that Arkham City’s Hush side quest just has you find out it’s him before he escapes
Old spider man games always did a good job of this stuff too. Shit last one we got to battle tombstone at least. But I mean they did use up the sinister 6 in the first game
@@heetman4785 but you also fight the mad hatter, Bane, Deadshot, Zasaz, the Hush mission is quite good in city, and the Freeze side mission is great at least these all have story lines
I agree but I do also think the side mission were needed to set up future either dlc or side missions for the next game as we seen 5 villains die in this game ( personally I thought they killed to many) so we need some build up to the next game that isn’t just green goblin, look at hush in the Arkham games although it wasn’t the side mission we liked it to be in the end we were excited for it in Arkham Knight because it had good potential and a few ways it could go.
@@heetman4785There’s like 8 others ones bruh, all much more interesting
4:56 what you’re missing is that they took away the cops that fought and chased the criminals, so now it feels even more dead
Cops do their own crimes now. You can sometimes see multiple cops with guns outside a building.
Ya, the absurd missing of all police is ridiculous. It was a political choice and it was really jarring.
Definitely missed their presence, dosent help that we don't have a Yuri stand in.
wait. why did they remove the police?
arent they important to show in the game? webbing criminals wont do anything if nobody comes to pick them up
@@JNJNRobin1337 no i think they mean that when the car chases start there isn't police chasing as soon as they start. maybe for some realism
Personally its not just "Too many things crammed together", because you could say the same about the first game, but too many BIG THINGS stuck together.
Kraven's last hunt, Peter's first exposure to the suit, Venom's first appearance, Agent Venom, and the freaking SYMBIOTE INVASION.
Big stories that need their own time to be properly explored, all of them rushing to a conclusion.
This game should have been just Peter, the black suit and Venom about half way, maybe say that the vemon Symbiote itself is looking to spread and thats the first hint of the invasion or something more in the next game.
Or a DLC
@@Sniper_T_2x Exactly. Start out with the whole black suit thing for the whole game, maybe some Venom stuff or evil Pete shenaningans.
Then maybe a full Venom DLC, maybe Carnage, then MAYBE a Symbiote invasion, a small one.
THen a 3rd game that goes full planetary invasion.
@@thekrauserlols4611
wow. So you want people to pay for a 70 dollar game. Then be forced to buy more dlc.
Maybe Activision should hire you.
@@RageaholicCensorsPeople First off 70 Dollars for a game is still ridiculous and i hate it.
Second, if the game is good and the DLC expands on that story dont you want to reward Devs for making worthwhile content?
The symbiote invasion absolutely should’ve been in the next game imo. It being a less than half an hour part of the game just killed it for me, i couldn’t take it seriously. Personally i like the formula where in the second part of a series ends with the villains getting a huge W. I would’ve ended it with Venom running off with the meteorite and Cletus running off with the Carnage symbiote. Then the third part could’ve been a full blown symbiote invasion. All of Peter’s villains boosted by symbiote powers at first, then when they get defeated Venom and Carnage shows up and the invasion begins. Idk, Carnage running around as a lone symbiote would feel weird, but if they do a second invasion, it will just feel cheap.
I've always theorized that the suit actually was manipulating Harry subtly from the beginning. He talks about hearing his mother's voice while he was in the pod, then later we hear the symbiote talking to him while also using his mother's voice. I think Harry's vision for the Emily-May foundation was subconsciously shaped by the symbiote as a way of ultimately propagating itself around the world quietly. Imagine them shipping pieces of it to other sick people once they realize it can self-replicate and they still think it heals people without consequence. But the Symbiote changes plans when it sees how naturally powerful Spiderman is, and decides to use Peter as a means of increasing its own power and achieve its goal more aggressively.
I've theorized this too. Here's something I noticed in EMF; in the energy department there are plans to overhaul the NYC Water System starting at the Central Park Reservoir. That happens to be exactly where Venom installs the meteor to spread the Symbiotes through the city, which I just can't see being a coincidence.
That should've been SHOWN more. The fans shouldnt have to theorize, especislly when they practically spoil at the beginnung that Harry is Venom
@@no.1spidey-fan182 I want a directors cut of this game so bad
This is a great theory
I knew this the moment I played it. The problem is they played the whole “we” thing with Venom a bit too hard. The suit basically is the ultimate gaslighter, pretending to be Harry, while also subtly hinting it wasn’t, like when he tells Norman “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Which feels more like the suit laughing in Norman’s face for forcing their bond rather than Harry.
The problem is a lot of people didn’t pick up on this because they are either not paying attention to the dialogue or because Insomniac doesn’t really show it outside of said voice lines.
35:57 Yeah but, here’s the thing: in Spider-Man 2 (the movie), Peter Parker’s struggles just feel way more intense compared to Insomniac’s version of the character.
For starters, Peter is still in school, and he’s failing to keep up with his grades because he’s constantly juggling being Spider-Man with his academic life. Early on in the movie, he loses his job delivering pizzas because he can't manage both responsibilities. Then, when Peter tries to attend Mary Jane’s play, he gets delayed after being run over by some goons, forcing him to stop them as Spider-Man. By the time he finally makes it to the theater, the doorman won’t let him in because he’s late. Mary Jane feels like Peter isn’t prioritizing her and that he's putting his responsibilities as Spider-Man above their relationship. His best friend Harry, who is already upset over his father’s death, finds out that Peter is connected to Spider-Man and cuts him off completely. On top of that, Peter barely has any money. Mr. Ditkovich, his landlord, even takes his last 20 dollars. The piling financial and emotional stress paints a picture of a Peter who’s really struggling to hold his life together at every level.
In comparison, Insomniac’s Peter doesn’t seem to have as much weight on his shoulders. Sure, he faces problems like the mortgage on Aunt May’s house, but the game doesn’t dig too deeply into how this affects him day to day. He also loses his job as a teacher, but that moment plays out more as an inconvenience than the crushing defeat seen in Raimi’s film. We don’t even see him truly mourning Aunt May’s death until much later in the story, in the third act. His financial struggles are brushed aside pretty quickly, and when he joins the Emily May Foundation, Peter’s exited to be finally have a decently paying job but we never see him getting paid, which may seem irrelevant, but it felt like a missed opportunity to show how much he needed that income.
I’m not saying Insomniac’s Peter has it easy-he’s definitely dealing with serious issues-but compared to Raimi’s Peter, the emotional weight just doesn’t hit as hard. Raimi’s version really shows the constant pressure on Peter, whereas Insomniac’s Peter seems more capable of brushing his struggles off and moving forward. And that’s why I don’t buy the whole “Peter is so distracted by his personal problems that he ends up being a worse Spider-Man” argument in Insomniac’s story-it just doesn’t feel as justified.
He didnt propose to MJ in 2
@@MrJoker725 yeah sorry I mixed them up, but he was struggling to get to her play and she got mad
You hit the NAIL on the head. People say Peter was stressed...but all I see is status quo Peter from the first game😭
Firstly, I want to say you did a great job comparing and contrasting the two Peters and why one works better than the other.
Secondly, I really wish they had given these games some kind of subtitle or adjective in the title, because boy is it confusing which piece of Spider-Man media people are talking about.
…you’re also comparing a Spiderman who straight up lost his powers from stress to a Spiderman that people were pissy about cause he didn’t do a backflip, snap the bad guy’s neck, and save the day
I don’t view Peter’s nerf as Insomniac pushing Miles as superior, I view it as a lazy way to make villains seem more dangerous. “Kraven was able to stab and nearly kill Spider-Man without trying? He’s going to be nearly impossible to take down!” Or it’s a lazy way to move the plot along, like Peter being able to react faster than MJ.
And I disagree that Peter’s life is at its most chaotic here; his new job with Harry gives him everything he wanted: lots of money, lots of science, and lots of good for the world. And Aunt May haunting him isn’t properly developed in the game’s story, so if that’s what Insomniac was going for, I’d say they failed.
I think you could argue both.
It might be sweet baby inc’s fault, at least partially.
Peter wasn’t nerfed. Whoever still believes that is stupid. The knife that he was stabbed with was poisonous (you can see red gas) and Peter doesn’t know if he’s breathing. He even can’t see.
And MJ didn’t react faster. Y’all are blind. Peter actually did but you could see he looked at MJ. MJ just jumped in front of him
Peter's new job literally blew up in front of him.
@@SuperSteph5 he knows how rich Norman is, and that he’s more than willing to fix it. As long as it’s backed by the Osborns, the Emily-May Foundation can blow up another 100 times before it damages their work
They DEFINITELY need more missions based entirely around stealth, they literally have a Spider-Man that turns invisible
I’m still incredibly salty how the offed so many iconic villains in this game unnecessarily. The world for me just started feeling less like a comic superhero world. They could’ve used them for so many different things in the future
I disagree.
Firstly, a lot of those iconic villains have been in so many past Spider-Man games. For example, Counting just main series Spider-Man console games Shocker was in at least 6 (SM1, SM2 2004, US, TASM2, SM2018). It's a similar case for most of the Sinister 6. We need some new stuff.
And it's not like Spider-Man has a shortage of villains. His rogue's gallery is massive. Killing off older villains means now we are guaranteed to see actually new villains in the next games. Like, we haven't seen any of the following villains properly in Insomniac's games: Beetle, Spot, Swarm, Hydro Man, Jackal, Chameleon, Carnage, Toxin, Molten Man, Tarantula, Kaine, Hobgoblin etc.
Secondly, even if those villains weren't killed, what role are they going to serve in the next game? Characters like Shocker and Rhino have been jobbers and stepping stone for major villains in all their appearances. Be it Dr. Ock, Negative, Goblin, Venom etc. If Shocker survived and showed up in the 3rd game, he'd just be another regular villain Spidey beats before the real major villain shows up.
Thirdly, killing villains actually makes Kraven appear like a threat and that the story has actual consequences. Like, there is a chance things actually change rather than revert to the status quo.
Fourthly, it's a comic book universe. They're going to reboot it eventually like they do with every comic book universe. All the villains are going to come back anyway. So might as well allow this one to be unique and risky for as long as it can.
@@FraserSouris Consequences should NOT happen OFF screen and EACH of those characters had set up in the first game. Rhino wanted out of his suit, Shocker was FORCED into being a villain again, Electro wanted to become fully electricity, Vulture had CANCER FFS theres such a COMPELLING relationship to have there with him and Kraven since they are BOTH dying men. The only throwaway character is Gargan cause he just wanted a clean slate for whatever reason but even he couldve been utilized and tied into the symbiote storyline. I literally broke down how they could have impacted the story on my community posts when this game dropped. The writers just used CHEAP shcok value and didnt even have the BALLS to SHOW the deaths onscreen. These characters died and we FORGET that even happens by the time the game ends...wtf was THAT!?
Theres soooo mich that couldve been done. Sure Spiderman has a lot of villains but theres a DIFFERENCE in QUALITY. Theres a REASON not ALL of them are popular. From a story or marketing standpoint they domt have as much to offer
And Toxin is NOT a villain😐
@@no.1spidey-fan182
*>"Consequences should NOT happen OFF screen"" EACH of those characters had set up in the first game. Rhino wanted out of his suit, Shocker was FORCED into being a villain again, Electro wanted to become fully electricity,"
Yes I feel like spider man 2 put spider man in the wrong direction
I'd have been fine with it, had we seen it. Yes, show don't tell is important, but when offing major villains, you need to show that, especially if they're being hunted by freaking Kraven. It would've been sick to see.
The animated mikes suit is actually tied to the ultimate Spider-Man cartoon series
I have not watched that, since my teens.
Ah, that explains it thanks for pointing it out
animated mike😯😦😦😦😲😲😮😲😦😦
Who’s Mike?
It's the Miles suit from ultimate spiderman that used to air on Disney xd
It feels like the comics. Started solid with a great foundation, then the later stuff came out and muddied the water and damaged the overall average.
Wh that's your nostalgia bias. Thankfully spiderman 2 sold 11 million and has high reviews. Your opinion is a minority. Maybe go stick to fortnite since you dislike games like this that have amazing gameplay and no microtransactions
@@RageaholicCensorsPeopleI can’t tell if this is rage bait or not but OP is right. Spider-Man 2 started strong but began to lose itself during the end of the 2nd act and the 3rd act.
@@zenkai9655even in free roam it just feels dead. The first was way better
Something something sweet baby involvement
For me the biggest problem was how underwhelming and nerfed Peter felt as Spiderman without the symbiote, storywise!
We didn't even had a fair fight with Kraven, He just stabbed him and that's that!
So much for spider-sense 😑
The turn of boss fights into cutscenes (as well as the change of the Venom fight from a city wide battle to a arena fight) really pissed me off
you might as well cry about how every spiderman movie ever has Peter taking damage. Spider sense isn't 100% perfect. I guess you don't like spiderman 2 where a random scientist with octopus arms gives Peter a beating
@@RageaholicCensorsPeople I don't mind him taking damage. Especially against someone he never fought against!
But this is supposed to be the OG Spider-Man, older and more skilled and in tune with his own powers.
The fact that we didn't even had a first fight with Kraven, It's what's truly disappointing.
@@RageaholicCensorsPeople plus, the fight with Otto was fine both in the movie and in the first ps4 game.
I found it incredibly strange how there wasn’t a single Just The Facts where Jameson talked about Black-Suit Spider-Man’s behavior. He mentions that Spidey got a new suit, but he doesn’t comment on his behavior. Danika does, but it would have been so cool to see Jameson all proud and mighty believing he was truly right about Spider-Man.
And the stuff Danika says is just generic shit too.
I swear, all she said would always voil down to "I don't like the look of this" every single time.
@@AtomicTitan1954 How the heck do you have Spider-Man becoming evil, a JJJ podcast that regularly plays after missions, and NOT have the biggest Spider-Man hater fulfill his anger fetish?
Rushed . Rushed . Rushed. A gaming ecosystem where overinflated budgets means that you prioritise spectacles that appeal to majority. It’s a miracle that this game still turned out great.
Suppprt indie devs
@@bruhmoment1761 This is my opinion. Any good game can always be greater if you give it time. Even the best games we know of would be even more incredible if they just put in one more year.
my only real problem with this game is how cringe the dialogue is almost constantly
Oh be a good proton
I mean Spider-Man is supposed to be cringy
@@funnybambino22 Not really?
@@The_Local_Echo literally he makes cringy jokes at bad times that’s like his whole thing
@funnybambino22 There's a difference between purposefully making quippy jokes and the fact that the original comment was talking about how ALL of the dialogue was cringe feeling.
I just don’t connect with the characterisation.
Peter is kinda bland and Miles is just a blander Peter. Miles is also so unconnected from the rest of the plot.
Also doesn’t help that I found only a single joke from Peter to be funny. The vast majority of his big jokes are “intentionally bad” which gets old and aren’t even good irony.
Just out of curiosity, which joke did you find funny?
Finally, someone said it. Insomniac's characterizations are just so watered down and safe.
Also, Peter's quips are supposed to be digs towards his enemy's to throw them off their game, not intentionally corny dad jokes.
@@animationcity8178best guess: “I’m fresh out of honey!”
@@animationcity8178 The "we're out of honey" joke at the guy dressed like a bear. It's not trying to be ironic or intentionally bad, it's just Peter making fun of an enemy to his face.
@@legoverse1412 Bingo
5:54 I personally would’ve liked more crime events on the water, bridges, and air. Even if criminals are basically just doing the same thing, the context of the crime would make it feel unique.
Air crimes? That kind of talk is how we end up chasing lost balloons!
@@Macapta so you don’t want to fight in aircraft’s? Or blimps?
@@Chilick oh no I want that, I just wanted to reference the balloon missions from Spider-Man 2.
@@Macapta hot take but the balloon missions wasn’t that bad
@@Chilick
well go maje your own super hero gane if you want that. Even though no game ever will or has been able to do that. 😅
I love how the whole marketing campaign was the black suit. And then you get it for 2 hours.
Accurately it's more like 7 hours.
@@frogglen6350Omg so much better!
Bigger disappointment is that there is no dlc planned
Fr
This is the only game where I've ever wanted a "Director's Cut"/"Extended Cut" because of how much I love the game already, despite all of its flaws. A lot was clearly left out from the main story, and the second and third acts feel rushed due to that. I will gladly pay for a new game disc that has like 3 extra hours of stuff in the story mode and more main story missions that properly flesh things out.
I was so hyped for this game and as the story went on I just felt less and less interested which for me is surprising as a Spider-Man fanboy in all forms of media so unfortunately I'd rather play the first game. I really wanted to love this game and I'm still looking forward to the future of this franchise and other insomniac games I just wish I enjoyed this game more.
I'm also mad that they kinda wasted the Lizard
@@michaelchapman454youre exactly right. the previous two games had an amazing story but this one is somehow the worst one of the 3. They didnt do anything with kraven
the new car takedown mechanic, the fact that you can't turn off/on other people helping you with crimes, turn off specific types of crimes (i.e. turning off all symbiote crimes), cant make it rain at night, can't re enter locations after the game like peters house and miles apartment ,and cant have all the suits from previous games really take this game down. it's still INCREDIBLE, but it could've been better
Pretty much all things that the Batman Arkham games had years ago. There’s really no excuse for these lazy insomniac devs
@@SlowNSteady123I seriously don’t think it’s laziness, they just had different priorities and didn’t have enough budget to do all of those things
@thetempleton6622 I don't think it's about budget they definitely had the budget. Not the time, immorrtty sure the insomniac director said they had alot more planned on podcast. But they had to scrap all that. This game should've release either end of this year or next year
Eyyy you could say that for every game though not a single game doesn't have whole ideas cut out the game cause of time and moneu@@qadi796
@@qadi796If I remember it was stated Sony rushed them to drop the game leading to the story and extra content suffering greatly
You mentioned that the story of the game created issues that led to people making their own conclusions and you sort of do that yourself in the story section. Even if the intent was for Peter to be suffering from Aunt Mays death, we’re not shown enough material both before the game comes out (like Spider-Man TCTNS DLC or Miles Morales) or the early parts of Spider-Man 2 that tell us that Aunt Mays death is having a major mental toll on Peter. We only realize that it’s about that when Miles goes inside Peter’s mind and directly see’s the trauma which I feel is a little too little too late by that point. What’s worse is that Spider-Man 2 never ADDRESSES that Peter is off his game as none of the characters comment on Peter’s weaker performance, not even Miles who directly works with Peter. For example: it would’ve been perfect if Miles commented on Peter unnecessarily putting himself in compromising positions by jumping to attack Sandman MULTIPLE TIMES which only resulted in Peter being swatted away.
Even if the intention was for Peter to be off his game, Insomniac did a terrible job communicating that to the audience or even clueing them in that that’s what happening and instead just assumes that they’d get it all the while having Miles being practically perfect in this game as he hardly ever needs Peter’s help and instead is the one helping Peter
Also, your thing about Peter “conquering his inadequacy” doesn’t really hold when you consider that Peter does basically nothing during the segment and that it’s really all Miles and Martin doing the “healing” and overcoming the inadequacy with Miles even finishing off the segment rather than really Peter himself. In fact there isn’t even much difference between Peter before that scene and after. His character doesn’t feel like it’s conquered his issues or inadequacies or like he had some significant change after that moment. What’s worse is that pretty much the same thing with Aunt May occurs again and rather than Peter saving Harry himself, it’s Miles that saves Harry for some reason which does nothing to argue against the “Peter nerfed, Miles being shoved in everyone’s face” claims with Insomniac themselves declaring not long after the game was released that Miles was now the main focus and not Peter.
Also, note Insomniac originally intentioned for the symbiote to NOT being your typical “take over the world villain” and instead be all about vengeance against Peter and well… we saw how that turned out
Edit: a lot of your defenses for the story is focused on the IDEAS rather than EXECUTION. You’re giving Insomniac WAY TOO MUCH leeway you’re focusing on ideas and not executions, not to mention assumptions that you make yourself that you build off of rather than what the game itself presents.
One of my issues with the story and Kraven’s characterization is that I don’t buy Kraven not taking Spider-Man seriously until the symbiote at all. Like, he wants to hunt all these villains, but he doesn’t want to hunt the guy who beat them all and put them all in jail? Hell, Peter took on multiple villains at the same time on at least 2 separate occasions and beat them all.
I just wanted to say, i laughed so hard when that dev talked about how bad was the reception to Mary Jane's missions on the first game.
He said it was a personal goal to get it right on the sequel, yeah it is better but far from good (just take it out already)
It’s like they think everyone just hated playing as a girl when everyone hated the miles sections in the first game just as much
Honestly if they weren’t obsessed with making MJ Great Value Amy Adam’s Lois Lane I would’ve loved to play her through a yakuza 5 style side story about her modeling gigs
I guess I’m probably in the minority here, but I actually thought those missions were great because it took away from the acrobatic and superhuman gameplay and made you more vulnerable because you’re not a superhero who can swing from webs and stick to buildings anymore. You’re an average person, who can easily die I will admit on different play through. They can get kind of boring, but I never thought they were bad.
Literally! I've bought a game featuring TWO Spider-men, why would the Devs think I'd want to be taken away from that to play as a regular person?
I liked them way more in the first game. They were immersive, good for pacing and provided a unique perspective. In the sequel it's just a boring simple stealth game with a comically op Mary Jane. Yes there's more depth but it's still not enough to be fun, and now it's not immersive either.
@@LEANxGOBLIN I agree dude, they should swallow their pride and listen to their fans. Also, can we get an accurate depiction of MJ outside of the comics for once😭
37:26 I can’t help but not blame people for claiming that Peter was nerfed to make Miles seem more appealing. While I don’t buy into it myself and see the “nerfs” more to do with narrative tension and stakes, the game in no way communicates to the player that Peter is “struggling” either as Spider-Man or with the death of May until the end of the game when Miles enters Peter’s mind and sees that he’s still grieving her. Peter himself nor Miles comment on how he’s “off his game” or how he’s struggling since the events of the first game and how that’s at all contributing to his performance as Spider-Man.
yeah its definitely a screw job when Pete can't win any fight on his own without a boost or miles, him putting himself down and miles up shows how bad insomniac wants to just get rid of peter for their better "more diverse" spider-man and it shows in the final fight pete clowned on but Miles with no symbiote does better than him is lunatic writing
A couple other little things that get to me is how Peter struggling is showcased versus Miles.
When Peter gets beat down he gets beat down BAD whereas with Miles it's way less severe or was done offscreen. The only time I remember Miles getting any real on screen beatdown was from the Tinkerer.
Hell even the Peter fight felt like it was there for Miles to look even better since Peter should have been mopping the floor with him. The excuse given is that he's holding back but the game does a terrible job of conveying this. Nowhere do we really see Peter pulling his punches or stopping himself from killing anyone and Miles is just straight styling on him.
@@SCF721 So wait, you think the ONLY excuse for Miles "beating" Peter is that Peter was holding back? Did you just forget about the bell? Did you just happen to also forget that Peter was agreeing with Miles MID FIGHT about how bad the Symbiote was for him? Why do you ignore these things? You also say that Miles was "straight styling" on Peter but Miles also literally got slammed into the ground TWICE and pushed off of Peter WHILE Peter was conflicted 💀I genuinely can't understand any of these points.
@@SCF721Miles didn't even defeat him, he took of the suit where is he defeated?
@@KingdomKeyJT My point is the fight should have been portrayed as more one sided. Peter should have been mopping the floor with Miles but it honestly looked like Miles could have beaten him regardless. You mentioned Peter slamming Miles on the ground but Miles did same thing but with way more impact.
Peter simply grabbed him and pinned him to the ground whereas Miles gets go do a flashy dodge, pins him down to then toss him in the air and slam him again with his electricity.
The bell is there but in gameplay you can beat Peter without using it and in the cutscenes he only uses it at the end to get the suit off Peter. Man should have been getting overwhelmed and using the bell as a means to keep up.
With how apologetic Peter was after taking the suit off, I feel like almost killing Miles would have at least helped to sell it more.
Honestly what happened with Spider-Man 2 reminds me of what happened with The Legend of Zelda Tears of The Kingdom. Both were highly anticipated sequels to some of the most critically acclaimed games in the past decade. When they were finally released they received wide praise, but as the months passed and the hype died down, people started to realise just how flawed they were in both gameplay and story, and they eventually became one of the most divisive games in their respective fanbases. Some fans still loving the games despite their flaws, while other grew to despite the games for said flaws
Sums it up perfectly. I just hate people that dismiss criticisms because they had fun. Like yeah, it’s hard to make this game bad, but I believe they actively added nothing and in some parts made it worse than the original
tbh in spiderman 2's case its kinda worse, at least totk is still remembered as a good game by the gaming community, while spiderman was considered good and then terrible and then good again and then terrible again and it was constantly switching all the time, it's like people can't make up their minds
@@kostasspirou1010Spider-Man 2 had some of the biggest switch-ups in video game history
its weird how its divisive tho bc its been clear as day to me that once the honeymoon phase is over, people will realize it just aint that good. its mad underwhelming considering how phenomenal the first two games were. People arent just blind to presentation n spectacle anymore. we want a good story (and engaging gameplay) first and foremost
and as im playing totk rn, I think the gameplay and combat shoulda been a massive step up. im liking it so far but just doing X and basic ass combos that ive been doing since BOTW are annoying af. thats my only gripe so far
With totk it's a bit different as every zelda game has gone through the cycle of hate, but I will say totk has it to a higher degree than some others.
The biggest crime of this game is they wasted Tony Todd's amazing voice acting
In simple terms. It was good but it was missing so much. Felt like venom wasn’t developed as a character, felt like bad Peter was bad for like 20 mins and then forgiven right away, Harry’s relationship with the symbiote was never shown. So much was missing.
This is probably on of the best Spider-Man 2 critique video I've seen so precious and accurate and you make it clear that even though you have your biases you don't let those biases bleed into the video and I love that about your style keep up the good work 👍🏾
I like that you’re one of the most fair TH-camrs that make videos like this. Honestly one thing I truly hate is how many TH-camrs critique a good game and spend 95% of the time talking about it’s flaws. They say it’s a good game and yet their video makes it look like they only tolerate it. You on the other hand talk about enough of the good and bad and that’s why I like your videos. Personally I rarely look at flaws if the game is overall good and to me this is a very good game, that had some shortcomings in its story. I hope you continue to make videos like this that people enjoy and I hope that if it’s a good game, then you continue to fairly talk about what it does well and what it doesn’t
To be fair, the best feature of this game is the game feel and when done properly, Game feel isn't something you should be thinking about in moment to moment gameplay. Even when you know to mention it, there are only so many times you can say "everything feels natural and fluid." Before you become repetitive.
On the flip side, this game's story is rough. It's trying to do way too much, doesn't have time for any of it to be done properly and thus everything feels rushed and so much is just poorly explained. So many of these ideas flat out don't work as implemented that you could easily write an essay looking at everything that went wrong, and people have.
TL;DR, there's just so much to dissect with what went wrong with the Story that to cover everything will take a while, but explaining the good gameplay will probably just take a paragraph or two.
@@tailsspin621 I don’t believe what you say here. Because there have been so many good games that so many people consider “perfect” but very many TH-camrs will still always make like a 1 hour video where 80% of it is them complaining about what the game doesn’t do than what it does and it’s ridiculously frustrating.
I don’t know if it’s intentional but the fact is the more negative you are, the more views you will get because the internet(especially the Western world) is obsessed with negativity. Because you can’t tell me the world building, the combat, swinging, boss fights, acting/performance, music, set pieces within the story will only take a few paragraphs to explain why they’re good and the story alone will take much more than all that just because it’s a 6/10 story. That’s simply not possible. And if the game is not a solid 8/10 even with the poor story, that would mean the only good god of war games were 2018 and ragnarok which is obviously not true. I don’t believe the only glaringly bad aspect of spiderman 2 outweighs all the good. Would you rather the game had the best story ever written with mid gameplay? I don’t think so because that’s a much worse scenario
For me, we should have one more phase where we play as Peter with Miles helping you in the final venom fight. It would be better and more memorable if you can switch between them during this phase using the touch pad. That would be fire. It actually emphasize be greater. TOGETHER!
Great video as always. Good to see someone finally striking that middle ground on the game. Nicer still to hear someone else still loves it despite its flaws. I even enjoy the story to a certain extent, even though the writing suffers, particularly in the latter half, I can still find it entertaining and enjoy it
Ngl, a lot of aspects of the games screams that insomniac needed more time. Dont get me wrong, i really liked what was there, but it could have been better. The story could have been given more time to breathe, the stealth could have been given more depth, the side quests could have been done a little better, etc. It is very clear that Insomniac wanted to go bigger and greater for this game and they almost got there in some parts. But again, just needed a little bit more time.
Edit: Also congrats on your graduation 🎓
The story Is great, but the problem lot of things are there but they are foreshadowed. Yes still i do love this story
@@AbduHulay yeah. Let's hope SM 3 has as good a story as the first 2 games and it doesn't feel rushed
We needed a longer third act and better gadgets. I kinda wish they brought back the old ones and you could swap out them out
@@CyberPea08Yeah I was disappointed when I saw we didn't have a lot of the fun gadgets from the first game. They should keep the weapon wheel and allow us to pick which gadgets we want on our quick select.
nun but fax. its all there but somehow misses its mark on almost everything which is weird for insomniac. imagine if they had another year. ion think anyone would notice anyways cause its already about to be october 20th, a year since sm2 came out. another year would lowkey do a lot
Shutting down the claim that the symbiote arc is a good mental health/addiction metaphor🔥🔥🔥
Me when I get the white anti-booze that allows me to drink and drive with no consequences
The consequence now is that I have way more fun driving
Do we mean in the context of the game or in general?
@@ThatBoyAqua Can we correct this to the context of the game? Cause addiction has been its purpose in a lot of media. Like Spectacular Spider-Man does this as well. It even has Harry also using the Goblin Green drug around the same time to do so in a prior arc.
I cannot agree that the symbiote arc doesn't symbolize that, I agree THIS symbiote arc does not do that justice, but the original story is ABSOLUTELY about peter giving into its easiness no matter how much it effected those around him, and eventually finding he was strong enough to not only beat it but continue without it.
That is addiction
There are a few things in this video I disagree with, for one calling the swinging in Insomniac's Spider-Man games "physics based", the swinging is animation based, it isn't utilizing a physics engine to create the web swinging, it looks amazing but it is a set of animations and requires no skill, this isn't exactly a problem either, I understand why Insomniac chose animation over physics, it looks far prettier and more people will pick it up instantly and have fun, but I would have greatly appreciated a hard mode that actually utilizes a physics engine like Spider-Man 2 did on PS2 and Gamecube.
another part I disagree with, web wings while I think by themselves they are a cool thing to have, the addition of the wind tunnels makes them way to overpowered and does reduce the importance of web swinging.
I agree at least partially with your points on the story issues, Venom and the symbiote itself was mishandled, the connection to Knull is in my opinion a major mistake, that is partially bias on my part since I hate the Knull stuff in the comics, but regardless of my bias it was much too early and certainly shouldn't have been in this game or even the next one, Venom's story takes a long time to tell when done properly, in the original story, the symbiote was more like a confused child, it wasn't trying to control peter, it was only trying to help him do whatever he needed, and after several months when Peter forcibly removed it because he realized the symbiote was alive, it tried to rejoin him, but he removed it again immediately, it felt angry because of the abandonment, which is why it wants revenge, thus Venom was created.
I think a lot of the confusion causing Venom's story to be so short likely comes from the Ultimate series, possibly the 90s Animated series, and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3,
a good bit of the addiction stuff also seems to come from Spider-Man 3.
and one more issue I have with the story (there are so many other story issues but I don't want to write a book in a youtube comment), at the end of the story Peter dumps his responsibility onto Miles, this is totally out of character, I could see him taking a small break and letting Miles handle things, but ultimately even if there is someone else who also has power it does not reduce his own responsibility, otherwise he'd just let daredevil handle street crime, and let the fantastic four or the avengers deal with all the super villains, but he doesn't, because when he shirks his responsibility people die, his whole origin story is based on this, the death of Uncle Ben at the hands of someone Spider-Man could have stopped, gives Peter the most important realization of his life, and one most people really should pay more attention to, "With great power there must also come great responsibility".
Honestly this review really sucks. The dude tiptoes around anything controversial and does mental gymnastics to overthink bad decisions and try to spin them as good. The story is terrible and no excuses or saying criticisms are “splitting hairs” will change that
I think it is eluded to that Peter is just taking a break at the end of the game given the dialogue when you switch back to him. iirc he says “Break’s over” or something along those lines. However, Miles never really got the responsibility speech (or something similar in the case of Garfield’s Spidey)- not to mention how the game pushes way too much to make Miles more rooted and superior to Peter despite the story heavily circling around Parker. Especially stuff such as Peter getting nerfed and losing to Venom with ANTI-VENOM meanwhile Miles can manhandle him with his venom powers. Genuinely this narrative falls flat severely.
@@idfkimaclown Peter also never got the responsibility speech, in the original story it was a realization he had once he learned the identity of Uncle Ben's killer, not sure exactly when the change to it being a quote from uncle ben happened, one of the earliest examples I can find was the 90s animated series.
As for the ending to the game, I don't agree at all, the way the scene played out was more final than just taking a break, the implication was that Miles would handle everything and maybe call Peter for advice from time to time, switching back to Peter was more likely just so you can still play as Peter in that game, and not an indication of future story direction in potential sequels.
Peter was certainly being put into a back seat so Miles could take a bigger role in the story, I like Miles as a character, but the way this was done was just wrong, Peter doesn't have to be pushed out to give Miles room, both are great characters and there is plenty of room for both.
I think it was done at least partially because of the popularity of Miles being boosted by the Spider-Verse movies, but the push to sideline Peter completely seems less due to Miles popularity and more due to some other factor, I don't know if it was an attempt to set up a future story, or if it was politically motivated, either way it was a poor decision.
@@Dangeresque486 Except it’s most likely implied that Peter in the insomniac verse did get the speech. Worst case scenario he has a solid equivalent with May’s “If you help someone, you help everyone”.
that's cause the "controversial" things are a bunch of Twitter children not worthy of anyone's attention@@SlowNSteady123
"I don't often revel in it, but it felt good to be right on this one"😭😭 Absolute king.
I absolutely love this game! Literally became one of my all time favorite gaming experiences. It might not be perfect and can be a bit messy at times but this game made me feel like a kid again.
That was the first game in 2018 for me. Been playing Spider-Man games since 2005 (starting from the neversoft 2000 game I’ve played every major Spider-Man game except friend or foe and the ps2 version of Spider-Man 2)
@@bruhmoment1761 You should play spider man 2 PS2 it's one of the best spidey games
1:13:50 my eyes widened like crazy when I heard this. I rarely relate this much to a criticism but that is exactly how I feel. I love putting on one of the homemade suits and pretending I'm a Spider-Man just starting off in his career as a hero. Climb up the side of May's house like im sneaking off to fight crime, hop across queens rooftops until i make it to the subway train and ride it into the city, that type of stuff. Then all of the fun I'm having with that immersion is halted by a wave of symbiotes joining an otherwise standard mugging and my year 1 spider-man is suddenly whipping out tendrils he shouldn't have💀
I don't think it makes much sense to say that Peter is nerfed because of May when during the DLCs and Miles game (the training audios too) he is clearly ok and he is happy being Spider-Man.
Right at the beginning of the second game he says he's going to miss the chases, so yeah... It's just an excuse
Eh I think it's valid with elements of the story but just not written well enough.
@@LeonardoSilva-xm8ft Like the last comment said- not written well enough. Also someone going through grief can still laugh and appear cheery. It’s just quiet and in the back of the mind sometimes where pain lies.
Furthermore, Peter Parker in this second Insominiac game is completely out of character, in addition to the nerf they did to him in this game, they castrated him in a humiliating way and he does things that the original Peter would never do, Insominiac did very well with the first game, plus the second game, in addition to not innovating in almost anything and looking like a DLC of the first game, they also made a mediocre story with a poor script where several characters are thrown into the plot and disrespected Peter Parker in several moments of the story, the second game It's not bad but it's very disappointing especially after so much hype and waiting time
It’s insane how this game has a bigger budget and 1 more year of development time than FF 7 Rebirth, and yet it doesn’t have anywhere as many improvements to its first game as Rebirth does. This game feels like the most safe sequel I’ve ever played in my life. It really doesn’t try anything super new or interesting other than the Venom Section where you control Venom itself and that’s only like 5% of the game at most
The Anti Venom suit is clearly a metaphor for cocaine
Bruh 😂.
The suit looks like cum. Dorrito god put that image in my head.
I’m so glad you mentioned the Rami Suit drama from the first game. It permanently effected my view on the suit as a whole and can’t even look at it without getting annoyed that something so trivial warranted death threats in some people’s minds…
Like you said at the end, there's gonna be two major camps: those who overly love the game ignoring flaws, and those who overly hate the game, ignoring everything that made me endlessly smile while playing. I am glad to see someone else who has a similar feeling overall that I do. It's a fantastic game, but it's missing a lot to push it that step further, to make it the definitive spidey game. I still love the game, but there's always gonna be an asterisks next to it.
9:21 Miles' Animated Suit is based on his design from the Disney XD Ultimate Spider-Man Cartoon
What about the deluxe suits
I feel like this game's story doesn't really have any real big problems imo, but it has a lotta small issues that turn into one big problem. I also just watched Cosmonaut's review of the first game and what he said is EXACTLY how I feel about this game. "The good shit, is really REALLY good. Like, flawless. But the bad stuff, can be pretty distracting."
Yeah. The ending is rushed, but that alone wouldn’t hinder the game too much: the Witcher 3 also had a rushed 3rd act, and the Ragnarok part of God of War Ragnarok also happened pretty quick- but both of those games are brilliant and are known as some of the best of all time.
Yeah honestly I love these games a little more than the Arkhamverse and I am Batman fanboy but same whenever you have a polished dish it's easier to see the spots and once you do they standout.
@@BananaWasTakenI don’t think GOTWR won game of the year did it?
@@talha7032 Oh yeah, my mistake. The first one did but Ragnarok was beaten by elden ring.
It did win game of the year at other award shows, but in terms of the game awards (which is what people usually mean when they mention game of the year) but I was wrong.
@@BananaWasTakenThe symbiote arc was too short along with the symbiote invasion. Considering how the entire story revolves around Peter and Harry they were better off doing the game ultimate spider-man style where you alternate between Peter and Harry’s perspectives especially considering Miles has a decently minor role in the narrative- if you take him out majority of the story would play the same way. As a matter of fact we had more venom missions planned but they were scrapped for the MJ missions. This is on insomniac.
Honestly after watching this video, I felt so disappointed, not because I hate it, but because I agreed with so much of it. There were criticisms that you made that I didn't even think of, but I agreed with, and that made me realize how flawed this game truly is. I still love it and its my personal favorite Spider-Man game, but this video made me see it in a new light and as much as it hurts to say, this could have been and should have been far greater.
Honestly, as a fan, I had a blast. The only issues I had came down to "I wanted more of that", which is not a problem on itself. Not saying there are no flaws, but it feels like most people are a little overly critical imo
At this point in its life cycle, the first already had added a lot of new costumes and the whole story expansion which was great. With SM2 we got a few costumes and no expansion story or even a word about If that truly exists. It's weird, but even with 2 Spider-Men in it, and with a much bigger map, the second game feel's smaller.
Sony was bitching the game became too big and too expensive. So, Insomniac was forced to cut a lot out in the second half of the game.
They had 5 years to make this with half of the map done already. There’s no excuses for an entire second half of a game being cut like this.
Spider-Man 2 went from my personal most hyped game of 2023 to one of the biggest disappointments I’ve ever experienced.
@@SuperNeos2 Sony literally forced them to cut content...has nothing to do with the devs
@@SuperNeos2yeah who’s fault is that not the delvopers they were pestered to deliver the best Spider-Man game ever and what we got was good maybe a bit bad but good and that’s because of ungrateful fans
@@GamerGuyOGAgain, they had 5 years to do this. If they weren’t gonna have enough time to do it, they shouldn’t have set up a bunch of plot points that would need their own story arc to conclude properly.
Peter literally has the black suit for 2 hours in the entire story. For a game that hyped up the Symbiote as much as it did, that’s embarrassing.
Sony kept giving them more time and money when they asked for it and they got tired of waiting and wanted a product to sell. Not defending Sony, but if I was funding a project for years and the company I was funding kept giving me a further release date, I’m gonna eventually have enough and want the product released.
It’s Insomniac’s fault more than Sony’s. Don’t set up a 40 hour story and then cram it into 15 and the stuff they did keep was shit no one cared about and asked for.
@@kevinreyes1145Idc if you enjoyed the game. There’s a reason it’s as divisive as it is and it’s not because of ungrateful fans. Insomniac promised something amazing and groundbreaking and ended up turning in a generic safe by the books sequel.
As someone who spent my hard earned money on the game, I’m allowed to voice if I like it or not. And this game has turned me off from buying their games Day 1.
36:13 The problem is that the plot point about Peter's grief over May's death wasn't revealed until near the end of the game in another inside-of-the-mind cutscene. Before this, there was no indication that Peter felt that way and it was revealed & resolved in the laziest way possible.
Also, maybe Peter wouldn't have struggled as much if he hadn't chosen to be Spider-man at the worst moments in his life. I'm sure the world wouldn't end if he created stability for himself before going on daily patrols. We know this for sure because he and 2 other characters are super smart Mary Sues. He shouldn't have to choose between being a hero and working with the Foundation.
Do you really need to be told that the main chararacter of the story is going through a hard time when dealing with the death of his aunt who has been a mother to him for most of his life?
If you didn’t pick up on that at any point before that scene with Miles I think that’s a you problem more than the story failing.
@BAD7667 No. But they should've at least given us clearer signs or reminders of the 1st game's events. Peter's actual behavior in the Symbiote didn't seem connected to Aunt May at all and it didn't resemble Peter's character without it. There was no direct anger towards Mr. Negative or Doc Ock because of their actions. All we saw was Peter behaving like an edgy child towards everyone and a mindless monster at worst.
Prefect example, most of us have all played the three games but i cannot recall Pete ever giving Miles the "great power, great responsibility" speech and yet he's the main Spidey? Kinda strange to say the least.
Yes he does, In the city that never sleeps Miles calls Pete about getting hurt or a basketball game (I can’t really remember) and Pete tells him that his powers are a responsibility.
@@MasonTheYoung Ah yes...OPTIONAL DLC, that in no way is reflected or referenced in the 2nd game is DEFINITELY how you introduce a character to an IMPORTANT plot point.
That's practically off screen and its such a THROWAWAY line with NO real emotional behind it😭. Peter was practically SCOLDING Miles for being an idiot with his powers rather than INSPIRING him💀
@@no.1spidey-fan182 “optional DLC, that in no way is reflected or referenced”
I guess the flame and Black Cat missions don’t exist
@@MasonTheYoung you're right but maybe I should've been more specific he never let's miles know his apathy was what killed his uncle. I also agree that this stuff shouldn't have been relegated to optional DLC these morals are quintessential Spider-Man.
It wouldn't be a batman game, movie, etc without the pearls in Crime Alley for example.
@@Jasonseay52 I get what you mean, but the DLC really shouldn’t be called optional when it’s needed to understand certain parts of the game
This game is amazing i love replaying it playing main missions and side missions during the story 8/10 on a bad day. Im also a livelong spiderman fan so i might be biased
1st game was a love letter. This one feels like a corporate mess
After playing the first Spider-Man PS4 game for so long, coming to Spider-Man 2 with the new face model for Peter, MJ, Harry, and Jonah, they felt like different characters to me and made the game feel very jarring. Of course, I got used to the new models but it did make me feel like I was playing some Spider-Man game that wasn't connected to the first two, at least for the first couple of hours.
desensitized to the new faces
yeah they are all just terrible and boring and "safe" cause Insomniac makes such sterilized characters
It’s like you watch a great movie over and over and the actors for the characters get re-cast, it’s jarring and takes you out of it.
Yeah i was super disappointed when they changed peters face. His original model looked exactly like one of my cousins, so it always made me and my brother laugh. Now hes just generic white guy number 600000
This is what people felt with " the legend of Zelda tears of the kingdom" it took a while for people to actually find the flaws with the game and when they did those flaws outweighed the pros for some while the pros outweighed the cons for others making it one of the most divisive games just like "Spiderman 2" just a couple months after launch
exactly ! and the way they came out around the same time It was such an obvious sign of how toxic gaming conversation has gotten
The Zelda fanbase is at least getting Echoes of Wisdom very soon, only 1 year after Totk launched, so they already have another mainline game to look forward to in case they weren't satisfied with Totk. Spider-Man is not getting another game for at least another 3 years.
after my first 10 hours with tears of the kingdom i can't lie, I stopped playing and deleted it off my switch and just went back to breath of the wild, it felt like i was doing the same thing all over again. I'm glad people had fun with it though, hopefully i like the next one more.
@@knellknight3701 how does that make any sense, why would you go back to a game that actually IS the exact same, instead of a game that is still pretty different and has other stuff, and still NEW stuff to find and explore.
i could understand only replaying botw instead of totk but what you said makes no sense
@@jeffboy4231 the gameplay loop is very repetitive, although the new stuff is nice.
Perfect thing to watch tonight. Appreciate the peak content u always put out Aqua!!!!
Thanks Skelly!
Im going through my new game plus playthrough for the platinum now and you brought up a great point that I didn’t really think about during my first playthrough. This is PETERS story so it makes sense that miles isn’t a huge focus for the majority of the game. My first time playing I felt like miles was wasted but it makes sense to me more now. This isn’t his story so of course he isn’t the main focus.
Love the video btw, you’re easily my favorite big video game critique channel!
Yt not notifying me about this video is a crime. Banger asf always dude. Glad that you immediately touched on the game's perception change.
So this game was another case of Spider-Man 3
basically
Spidey3 is a masterpiece compared to this pure garbage
0:36 HOW MANY MONTHS!?
6 MONTHS?!?!?!?
HALF A YEAR?
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
About the Hailey side mission. We did not give Mj A Pass. Brian chose to ignore people in favour of playing as her for some reason. I get he said it was about seeing the world from Other peoples views but. U don't gotta make us play as em for that. Also I think people disliked Haileys mission because it was boring and had nothing to do with SM. Not because of her skin colour. Idk why anyone would be upset by that.
Yea when I said “we” I was meaning myself lol my b
@@ThatBoyAquano way you responded! Thats Awesome and No worries Brother. I was just meaning that It was silly of Brian to state that haha
7 out of 10, the Gameplay is Great, Each Spider-Men brings something Unique, the Villains look Good, and the Graphics look Amazing, I just think that if they delay the Game for Another Year and Fix the Story and the 3rd Half, it could have been Better but if Feels Underrated because something felt missing and now a Year Later and no DLC Expansion, I guess we’ll never Know.
Spider man 2 felt like when you defeat Martin li without the twist of of fighting all the villains. Venom was a good twist but nothing jaw breaking
For the MJ missions when the game first launch. Mine was glitched where she died from one arrow or one hit. It made the sections alot of fun because you really had to fight for your life. When I found out it was a glitch and it was patched out the MJ sections were a slog
I find it moronic that Kraven does not find Spider Man worthy until he gets the symbiote but kills off all of Spider Man's low tier villains.
That’s because Peter doesn’t kill. He knew if he pushed the symbiote far enough, Peter might kill him.
MJ should totally be sidelined. She's not a hero. She's the hero's girlfriend. She can offer moral support or comfort him in his moments of weakness, but as far as helping him fight crime? No. This ain't Bring Your Wifey to Work Day.
yup, creative director or such are just narcissist in their minds its "empowering/strong woman" virtue signal so they keep doing it
had a interview on that at ign i believe and its just them being egotistical about it
Lol...I mean true.
If Insomniac is smart they'll kill MJ off in the third game to make Green Goblin even more vile and twisted. Knowing them though, they're going to kill off Peter instead.
I know you guys don’t see it but what you’re saying is legit pure misogyny lol
@@bruhmoment1761 misogny means pure hatred or contempt for women, which i see no evidence for here. quit being a simp
I'll be honest even though they had "fast travel" present I never used it in the game. Web swinging is just to fun in this game and it really made you feel like spider man
At 35:45 you may have just put together the BEST comprehensive counter point to "Peter being brought down to prop up Miles" HOLY SHIT. I have never ACTUALLY heard a true and honest counter point to it before just toxicity and vitriol for even bringing up the mere NOTION of it even being a slight possibility, which only pushed me to beleive it further as I never actually really recived a counter point just anger or insults. But the way you put it I totally get it you exemplafied things I beleive the game failed to adequately emphasize effectively in its narritve (which is a microcosm of the games overall writing issues with attempting to exercise its narritve, story and themes effeciently but I digress) and im glad i finally got to hear something so level headed and descriptive that allowed me to see and recontextualize those story beats and a lot of the "dumb" stuff I felt happened. Genuinely gave me a "URIKA!" moment. And gives me an added piece of appreciation to the narrative. Thank you for exemplyifing a point the game wasn't exactly cohesive in emphasizing and for being the only respectful and level headed guy out here to talk about it cause now I can at least appreciate and view that aspect of the story in the same way you do even if so many other elements fall flat 🤝🏿
Unfortunately, the frustration is not about what the game is in itself (after all, it's still a good game), but it is what could have been that disappoints the most... so much potential.
worst part about this game is noticing EVERYTHING could have been better and improved upon. they hit there checklist, but its all surface level. Its so bad but still good enough
I would’ve loved to see them incorporate Spider-Man being able to hide in the shadows to take out his enemies like they did in shattered dimension, or even in Spider-Man 3 when Peter was crawling on the ceiling when he decided to pursue sandman in the subway scene. It’s such a cool concept and It would make me so happy to have it be finally implemented into the game. It’ll be a game changer for people who enjoy playing stealth and would also encourage people to want to play stealthily. I felt this game revolving around the black suit would’ve been a perfect opportunity to implement it!
I hadn't thought about it, but what you mean about the fear that new york's people would feel when spidey has the symbiote would be amazing, emphasizing even more that part, just saying I really like this game, I considerate it my favorite game of all time, but also I'm agree all things you say, it's not hate to the game but even small details can change everything 😱
Update: I know Insomniac is working in Marvel's Wolverine, but wouldn't it be cool if Spider-Man 2 got maybe not weekly, but every 2 or monthly updates, what i mean about this is just small updates, that improves game game with all this features that you talked about
2nd Update: Broooo you should really be Insomniac's Creative Director 😁
the dialogue in these games is so soulless and corny , The npc's talk like everything is sunshine and rainbows 24/7 , they have 0 substance. Everything is painfully surface level. without the swinging and combat it would be insufferable
"How great it is and how great it could have been" is the perfect way to express this game's potential
I think the main reason for AntiVenom was they didn't want players to lose a whole skill tree once they lost the symbiote
Congrats on your graduation !
I really enjoyed the video .
P.S. Totally agree on Advanced 1.0 being the superior suit.
Imagine if in Batman Arkham city it took a break to have an oracle wheel around mission and multiple taser segments where you play as Viki Vale and save Batman.
1:22:15 ahh that was a cool ending 💯😎
My honest opinion on the game didn't change since release, I'm a huge Spider-Man fan like you, to the point were I can play whatever game Spider-Man is in and still find some enjoyment from the experience, but with that said. Spider-Man 2 in my opinion while being a very fun game and being worthwhile, still disappointed me for multiple reasons, the biggest let downs for me where the story and the black suit's gameplay.
The story started off amazingly (no pun intended) but once Peter gets the suit for some reason the story stops being interesting. I didn't really feel Peter loosing himself to the suit and he didn't suffer any real consequence from wearing it, no one really reacts to Peter being a jerk aside a "Hey that's rude D:" nor do they really seem all that concerned for Peter outside a couple of comments, it felt rushed and we don't really get a chance to see Peter benefit from the suit all that much, since he doesn't keep it for long, the suit itself felt like an alien.jpg without a personality (which also applies to Venom) nor a real "motive" outside of "I want to take over the world" which is so overdone by now with the symbiote, to the point that it made me really lose interest in Venom as a villain. Venom himself is such a poorly done villain in the game, he has so little screen time and Harry becoming Venom is unconvincing at best, especially since "Venom" doesn't seem to be a combination of Harry and the suit but rather the symbiote itself taking over Harry.
I was also deeply disappointed with the gameplay with the Black Suit, I waited so many years for a game like this to come out, I was hyped out of my mind for finally wear the black suit again and feel that surge of power, maybe it was my own fault for expecting something while not similar but at least close to Web of Shadows, where wearing the suit makes you feel powerful. However in this game the closest you can get to that feeling of power is the symbiotic surge that while being fun to use, is at the end of the day a gimmick that gets old fast because of the three repeated animations it has and lack of interesting features outside being a classic "Rage Mode." In Spider-Man 2 wearing the black suit gives you 4 unique abilities and that's it, you don't get unique animations during combat or travel outside specific abilities or finishers (which are few far between,) you don't get a buff in power, you don't really feel any different from the classic spider-man you always were, you can't feel Peter's aggression nor new found power, which the game likes to remind you in many encounters. I can't stress enough how much of a let down it was for me.
Overhaul I think Spider-Man 2 is a good game, but that's it, it doesn't do anything too interesting outside refining the formula the last one had, the traversal is top-notch but anything else is more of the same, I can understand why people after the initial hype for the game felt the way they did, I felt like that from the start, it's not fair to call the game bad, because it's not, but it's not what I've hoped for either, and for me it was a big disappointment. Thank you for the read!
My same thoughts. Web of shadows's abilities were broader and yh i'm tired of the klyntar invasion. I just wanted classic venom like the older comics wanting to make peter's life a hell. Spectacular spider-man did a great job of telling a classic symbiote arc
Web of shadows was so good with the symbiote man. All these kids are missing out on phenomenal gameplay. They should have ended the game after venom eats kraven and then just go and play web of shadows
You’re so spot on about the morale . fan death threats , Bullying actors and leaks about employees on top of the recent layoffs really makes the insomniac Spider-Man fandom unbearable where Its a pain to interact with people outside of a few TH-camrs like you , Evan , caboose etc .
17:20 JUST CAUSE 3 MENTIONED🔥🔥🔥🔥 WHAT THE FUCK IS A BAD GAME 🦅🦅🦅💯💯💯🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥
I think the main problem is that having 2 main characters makes the story loose focus
Personally, especially before Harry becomes Venom, Harry's and Peter's relationship is incredibly well written. I used to have a best friend of my own and he means the world to me. I wouldn't hesitate to call him a brother at a moment's notice even now and Harry's and Peter's bond really reminded me of the time we used to spend together. Overall I think they nailed it.
As a massive Venom fan, I really, REALLY do not like this version of the character, but it has some merit that went largely unsung (although that is largely Insomniac’s fault for prioritizing the aesthetics over the characters). I really appreciate how they, through Harry Osborn, acknowledged Eddie’s absence. They both suffered an abusive and neglectful childhood at the hands of their father. Both of their traumas inform their time as Venom to a great extent, to the point of it completely overtaking their good intentions. I just wish Insomniac cared to show us more of Harry *being* Venom. Showing us how he talks to the symbiote, how he processes the pain he causes people for the sake of the greater good. It’s not just potential, I can see the ideas in the game, but it’s so underutilized that it comes off as almost incoherent. And when it’s this muddled, it ends up being just another Web of Shadows or Spider-Man 2017 or Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon. That’s a bummer.
exactly! venom feels more like a plot device to restore the symbiote race when normally he'd be trying to stop stuff like that from happing!
Great voice actor though.
I actually like him because he acts differently from Eddie but he's underused and not really consistent which is one of my many issues for this game.
@@Macapta Oh yeah for sure. Tony Todd was an awesome pick.
@@worm9591too bad they scrapped like over half his lines
I’ve watched a lot of you’re videos and a lot of videos on this game and this is by far the best analysis of this I’ve ever seen
This is the best breakdown I have seen for this game, class video Aqua
I agree with the sentiment of the title. Its great, but should have been greater.
Good game for general audiences and even web heads no game breaking bugs or bad dialogue/acting and a coherent story. But as a sequel it’s safe and lacking and poor venom
@@frostycane5134 I agree with you 100% I was nowhere near dissatisfied with the game but I can't say it was as incredible as the first game was. It just set the bar so high yanno?
@Twist-kj2fb I swears no malice. If u thought the game was great fine
Imo its a 6/10 at best. It's fantastically wonderful swinging around new york. Really they absolutely nailed the movement and honed the combat. Everything about GAMEPLAY is tight and on point (when playing as spidey) in the game. It's Everything else that drags the game down for me. It's weird side missions, clear biases towards miles, and clear distain for peters actions (ya know being a hero). The MJ missions we all know an loved were brought back and she turned into John wick witha taser gun. If the bad guys can b put down by her then y is spider man needed?
Peter parker got 1 game. 1 standalone game
Miles morales a who cares character is gonna have more?? Cmon man.....let's b honest here......somethings not right
The 1st game felt tight on all fronts
Aunt may dying really hit cuz I actually cared about the characters. There's not a single stand out moment in SM2
And while it's on sony for even partnering with sweet baby, the story like every sweet baby game they work on, took a fckn nosedive in quality
It's been since the game launched since I've played but didn't peter quit being spider man to stop trees from being cut down? Lol hahaha c that's stupid and makes no sense. It's just to prop up and that's y the game suffers greatly
Edit here.....the beginning sequence with sandman was fun so that is a standout moment tbf
Insomniac spent 300 million on this game and sold less than the last one so much so they had to pack it in with the ps5 slim to meet disneys sell quota if any game is used as a sample of next gen bloat is this one. This game with a bigger map still felt smaller than the first and it seems the writers disliked their fanbase talking smack any chance they could get maybe 3 will be better since it’s green goblin as the villain but who knows with a lower budget they might even do worse.
When I started the game, I was excited, but put off by the “GOTY!” hype (I had just finished Jedi Survivor and it’s still my favorite game ever). Despite that, I tried to like this game; the first game is my favorite Spider-Man story ever, and at the time I still liked Miles Morales (I’ll explain why I don’t anymore if anyone needs to know).
Unfortunately, my issues with the game came almost immediately. From the beginning of the Sandman fight, Spidey sense was nerfed so badly, it almost never actually worked. I was screaming “DODGE!” so much I felt like I was Piccolo from TFS. I will admit, the spider-arms were a fun addition to the game, but I had some lore questions. Specifically, what the HELL is in that Spider-suit? It’s got 4 arms that are synched to Peter’s mind, all the gadgets, an interface that recreates events in AR ripped straight from the Arkham games, AND a 3D printer that can make a fully functioning drone in 10 seconds! It just shatters my suspension of disbelief. Also, if he got those arms he and Doc Ock were struggling on fully functioning, with no downsides, why doesn't he go public with those? He believed strongly in the good they could do; it was a core part of his character in the first game. However, aside from overarching issues that I won't get into here (this is long enough as is), I got through the story with only minor complaints until... The Black Cat mission.
I have no idea why this part isn't criticized more. Miles arrives at Black Cat's apartment, only to find it in ruins. He suddenly becomes Batman and pulls detective mode out of thin air to track her, before concluding that she's going to steal a wand that can open portals. Black Cat breaks into the Sanctum Sanctorum with little issue, and steals a magic teleporting wand. Miles sees her coming out and stopping to talk to him, AND get distracted by the wand not working, but instead of going invisible to disarm her stealthily, grabbing the wand with webs, jumping at her, or just trying to talk to her, like he's there to do, he just stands there, frozen, until she gets the portals working and-WAIT, before any of that, MAGIC IS A PART OF THIS STORY? I get that there were references to Doctor Strange and the Avengers in the other 2 games, but there is a huge difference between knowing they exist in this universe and interacting with them as a part of the story. There's an element of a story I don't know what to call, something between tone & theme, that determines what feels like it does and doesn't belong in a story. This mission absolutely shatters that with a chase segment where Black Cat uses magic portals to escape Spider-Man, even briefly stopping in Antarctica. It would be like if Shazam showed up in Arkham Asylum; it's not a plot hole, he does exist in this universe (maybe), but it is incredibly out of place. So already I'm baffled by the creative decisions here, but then it gets worse: Black Cat teleports a train into a building, causing it to crash and explode violently, and Miles just says "That could have hurt someone!" No Miles, it DEFINITELY hurt someone. It KILLED people, assuming the moving train had people on it. And for what? It didn't help Black Cat at all. Along with that, Hunters show up during the chase, shooting explosives into the city, probably killing even more people. The chase finally ends with Black Cat crashing a hunter chopper, probably killing EVEN MORE people, including innocent bystanders that were stupid enough to try and get a look at Spider-Man in action. When they finally talk, Black Cat explains that she got her girlfriend in trouble, so she needs to go to Paris to save her, but she can't figure out how to "go further than 2 feet with this thing" (she just went to Antarctica and back with no trouble. This is a blatant plot hole). When Miles distrusts her because of MJ, she brings up how he needs to think for himself and be his own person. She even has lines in combat like "You really are Spider-Man!". This is so transparently manipulative, playing on Miles' feelings of being in Peter's shadow, and the girlfriend story is so full of character inconsistencies for Felicia, I thought it was obvious what they were setting up: Miles falls for Black Cat's manipulations due to his inexperience with her, she blindsides him and takes the wand, leaving him with a deeper sense of inadequacy that only fuels his desire to ignore his personal life and only be Spider-Man. HOWEVER, the story does not do that, and instead Miles helps her, they open a portal to Paris, and she lets him keep the wand. Why does she do that when that would be pretty useful, both for saving her girlfriend and stealing more art? I can't even say "plot reasons", because the second that mission is over, Miles tries to use the wand to find Li, but the wand teleports out of his hand, replaced by a note from Wong saying that he and Doctor Strange owe him one. They could teleport the wand back anytime, but only chose now to do it? A few more seconds and this story would be completely different. Also, why doesn't Miles just go back and cash in that favor now? I'm sure Doctor Strange would be happy to help him find and stop Mr. Negative. Hell, his powers resemble magic in these games, so there's even a bit of overlap here. This entire mission was riddled with incredibly bizarre writing choices that utterly broke my immersion, but ultimately had no consequence for the rest of the story. MJ isn't even upset with Miles for ignoring her advice, nor does she say anything during Black Cat's spiel. The only reason it exists is to give Miles SOMETHING to do in this game, because they really had nothing for him.
Oh boy, that was long. Sorry about that, I just really hated that mission, and I haven't seen anyone else talk about it like this. There is not a single part of that mission that didn't make me want to quit this game. I had to pause several times in utter disbelief for a few minutes, just processing what I was seeing. It is unequivocally the worst bit of writing in this game. If you made it to the end, congratulations! If you actually want to hear MORE of my criticisms, I'll reply to you with similarly-sized paragraphs on anything you want to hear about, or even the entire game if you want. I love analyzing stories, even ones I dislike, and Spider-Man 2 has given me a lot to talk about.
There are plenty of other f*ck ups. So this one just slipped through the cracks.
@@baki484 yeah, but still. This is what completely broke my investment in this game, and I’m shocked that no one else had the same experience
@@legoverse1412 I did but I realized that I was honestly fed up before we even got to that section.
I've said this before for jedi survivor despite the broken launch its the better sequel.
Spiderman 2 made me feel post purchase dissonance. I could've gotten RE4 remake and Deadspace remake with 200 bucks to spare. Even when I was picking up my pre-order copy that was a nagging thought in my head.
Your suspension of disbelief being broken in the game with goo aliens that take over bodies and and a radioactive spider that bites a kid gives him spider powers and the SAME SPIDER than bites another and gives him spider powers + dlc powers? Everything else is personal so It’s fine but the breaking of immersion with things like magic is crazy you yourself say previous games mention dr strange and avengers.its not like dormammu shows up. Yea it’s a plot device but so what.i just don’t see how you can be down with sandman and venom creating tons of symbiote mass to take over the city but not the mguffin.again not talking about the mission itself or anything else I get why the story of the mission is bad n why you had a problem with tbh just don’t see how you felt like things were out of place
@@Eezylon What broke my immersion was the inconsistency of the Spider-Suits. They didn’t always break Euclidean geometry.
Also, you take issue with magic breaking my immersion in this story. It’s not like I think magic and Spider-Man should never cross over, I’m just saying it’s weird for it to suddenly come into play in the third game, and never show up again. “It’s not like Dormammu showed up” implies that would have taken you out of the game if that happened, but why? How is that more magical than a wand creating portals? And how much magic is required to break your immersion? I’m not saying the existence of magic is a plot hole here, I’m just saying it feels like it doesn’t match with the aesthetic (for lack of a better word) of the Insomniac games
I still can't believe we already had the most controllable and free-flowing web-swinging and combat system 15 years ago with Web of Shadows and it hasn't come back since.
Also, I feel like the biggest reason we got Anti-Venom Spider-Man was because Insomniac wanted Peter to get rid of the symbiote somehow, but didn't want players to lose the gameplay abilities that the symbiote provided - so they opted for a middle ground. It can argued about whether or not this was the right call though.
I'm in the camp that says this is not a good follow-up game. This video did not change my mind. But credit where it is due. This is a really well-made, well argued video. Great work on the video. Be proud of the fruit of your labor.
Imagine the whole game was the symbiote arc and they end the story on a cliff hanger with Venom being born. After that they release a DLC or solo Venom game
if I could re make this game from the ground up the way I would do the story is that with the beginning the villains are getting stronger than when Peter faced them due to Miles's having more abilities causing them to become more desperate. And a great way to show this is having peter not have traversal abilities,spider arms yet and parry. Which makes him question if he is good enough when the villains are adapting. When it comes to Kraven get rid of the army , just make it him and his toxic family with the only one getting an army is Sasha. With each member having a boss fight that matches how they act. Sasha Kravinoff (ex-wife) she is ruthless, jealous (of calypso due to Kraven leaving her and his family maybe?) she does not understand the meaning of the hunt.(so maybe a stealth boss) she also kidnaps MJ. Vladimir Kravinoff (son) he acts like a beast like in the grim hunt comic he is a lion man, so have him start as human( Then later on he kidnaps Curt Conners and Curt's family so that he can become the beast that he so desires to be an Apex predator.) Make him think that the only way to be the ultimate hunter is to become a beast. Alexei Kravinoff (son) He takes after his mother and father he loves the hunt so have him hunt you through out the city( like the prowler knock out thing in Miles's game but expanded) but he uses tactics like kidnaping as a lure and just as ruthless as his mother. He might have kidnaped Miles's mom? Anastasia Kravinoff (daughter) She takes the most after Kraven she LOVES the hunt. (Make her pre-Kraven have her use most but not all of kravens tools she does not uses guns, but loves to get up close with her knives and blades. Give her the potion that Kraven uses in the base game so that she is one of the fastest and most dangerous bosses in the game). She believes that her father is the final test. Kraven you can keep mostly the same. Calypso ( The one who keeps him juiced up for his final hunt as a reference to the 90 animated series ( where the doctor is pretty much Calypso) she loves Kraven and is pregnant but she understands how Kraven feels about his Final hunt and helps him anyway she can.) Harry have him suck at being a hero so much that he almost gets Peter killed and is the reason he gets the black suit due to harry feeling guilt over almost having his best friend killed (not sure how to do the venom plot with out harry going off the deep end.) Peter (black suit) he is more agressive and can now use traversal abilties, tendrils, and parry. Peter is angry but that rage is going everywhere because somebody Kidnaped MJ and he doesn't know which member of the Kravinoff family has her so he focuses only on hunting Kraven (due to losing Aunt May he feels scared to lose somebody else he cares about due to some villian.) Venom have Harry's anger, humor, and violent tendencies at full display once he get the symbiote back he goes hunting and killing not only kraven's family but other villains as well in brutal ways. Peter and Miles see this and try to stop him Peter decides to make the spider arms as a way to help him keep up with miles because if he can't keep up power wise thin he will use his mind and with the final battle being like in the trailer where they rush in to fight venom in the street. I know I missed a lot and your probably tried of reading but maybe if you have ideas that will fill in the gaps then let me hear them.
Physics-based doesn't mean "inspired by real world physics" it means there's a phyiscs engine crunching the numbers behind the scenes - you swing like a pendulum because you're on a string with an anchor point, not because it's a rote animation that plays when you hit the swing button.
And as such, physics can be tweaked, especially between games.
Id some what agree but the game does have the issue of having the player float above a limited ground level even before the webs have attached to a building. Obviously there us a setting that i believe gets rid of that but it's default is definitely set up not to entirely follow a calculation that follows physics. Inspired is a good word but it could definitely be done better even with the setting option its definitely a hard creative choice. But nice comment dude.
This review was phenomenal and I respect & appreciate (for personal reasons) how you discussed this being bad addiction rep. Was information I was familiar with but so important that you covered it on the whole for others. Fantastic & even important work ❤
Honestly everything you have said I agree with 😭😭 this game was supposed to be THE spider-man game that showcased spidey's arguably most iconic and character defining story. I truly hope insomniac sees all the criticism that came from this game and uses that to make a perfect 3rd game. Love the content bro, keep it up
The animated suit for Miles is from the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon. It's not an Insomniac original.