What’s better than one Spider-Man? Two of them.
Peter Parker and Miles Morales team up once again to protect New York City from a whole new line-up of villains in one of the most anticipated video game sequels to date.
Released publicly on Oct 20, 2023, Insomniac’s second iteration of the web-slinger became the fastest sold PlayStation game within the first 24 hours. Over 2.5 million units have been sold, now surpassing five million as of the morning of Nov 9. This game featured the talented voice actors Yuri Lowenthal and Nadji Jeter as they reprised their roles as the two lead Spider-Men, Peter Parker and Miles Morales.
Out of a ranking from one to ten within the school, the game scored a high 9.67. “Having the ability to team up with the other Spider-Man during some crime events was my favorite feature,” senior Carson Russ said. Thanks to the power of the PlayStation 5, the developers of the game were able to double the size of the original game’s map. They also were able to incorporate the ability to play as one of the two Spider-Men, while the other would be present in another section of the city and help you if you were to randomly run into them. Another ability they gained with the PlayStation 5’s power is almost instantaneous Fast Travel. This ability is where players could choose any section of the map and have their character appear there. With older games, this ability would be a tedious task as it would take a few minutes to travel, like with Fallout 4. Now it takes, at most, just a few seconds.
Though Fast Travel is a great new ability for players of the game, many have stated that they prefer not to use this as the new power-up given to players called the web wings. “Web wings would have to be my favorite feature,” junior Brayden Lehring said. The web wings have been a staple in the lore and character of Spider-Man. They were present in his first appearance back in Aug, 1962 in the comic book “Amazing Fantasy #15”. After this, many different iterations of Spider-Man would use the web wings in different ways or drop it entirely. For example, the “Spectacular Spider-Man” T.V. show that aired from Mar 8, 2008 till Nov 18, 2009 incorporated the web wings into the suit, but rather than using them for gliding, they used the wings as a nice cosmetic to add character to their iteration of Spider-Man. Another iteration that used these wings was the MCU Spider-Man played by Tom Holland who first showed his web wings in his first solo project, “Spider-Man Homecoming”. With this knowledge, the developers of Spider-Man 2 decided that they wanted to give the players a fun new way to travel quickly around the city by giving them the extension of the web wings. Like the Tom Holland suit, these web wings are hidden within the suit and aren’t visible like the original web wings until they are activated where they then would extend between the arms and the torso of the character. Since the speed of gliding depends on the angle of the person to the ground, the developers decided to incorporate a wind tunnel system where the player would navigate themselves into the visible wind tunnels and they would be projected to a higher speed, allowing them to travel the city in a faster and more fun way than the previous games.
With the story, there are many great things to praise. For starters, this game continued the tradition started by its first predecessor by incorporating their tagline deeply into the plot. The first game started this tradition with the tagline being “Be Greater” which they incorporated into the plot by having the story follow Peter Parker as he could feel himself slowly fail with every trouble that came his way but ended with him overcoming the challenges by becoming greater than he ever had before. In the Miles Morales solo game that followed, the tagline was “Be Greater, Be Yourself”. This was used to show as Miles spent the majority of the story trying to be like Peter and kept failing. Finally, he realized that he needed to be his own Spider-Man when dealing with problems and became greater because of it. To keep the tradition going, they made the tagline for this game “Be Greater Together” which is very important to this game’s plot. Not only does it involve the fact that now you get to play as both of the Spider-Men in this game, but it also involves the fact that throughout the game the two heroes have to deal with their own problems. They then come together in the end and are able to solve the problems with the shared help from one another.
Another praise for the story is simply the story itself. The pacing for the plot is really well done and thought-out. The completion time for the main story of this game averaged at 16 and a half hours long, while the average completion for the entire game reached over 24 hours. Within our school, the times ranged with some completing it in only 13 hours, while others took over 22 hours of gameplay to finish.
The character development that they give to their main characters is deeply thought out. The arc that follows Peter as he continues to struggle with finding a job while also now being the new homeowner of his deceased aunt’s house. This eventually leads to a new look on the hero as he gains the symbiote suit and his anger begins to let out and harm the people around him. By the end of the story we finally get to see Peter gain a peaceful end where he decides to go on a short break from being Spider-Man, which connects to the story arc that follows Miles as he struggles with the pressure of being both Miles and Spider-Man. He continued to push off his acceptance essay for college as he didn’t know who he truly was without including Spider-Man because the line between his regular life and his life as Spider-Man was beginning to disappear. He also struggles with the pain of his father’s killer, Mr. Negative, now being on the loose and all he wants to do is kill him to avenge his father. By the end of the game, Miles has come to terms with his anger and works with his father’s killer to save Peter and the city, and take on the mantle as the one and only Spider-Man protecting the city while Peter is taking his break.
With this great story coming to a close, many fans were wondering what was to come next of the iconic web-slingers, which the developers left many great surprises for them in the form of two end credit scenes. The first one shows a scene of Norman Osborn visiting Doctor Octavius who was still imprisoned. The dialogue that followed gave fans the excitement that both characters would be returning as villains in the next game with Doctor Octavious potentially regaining his robotic arms and Norman Osborn taking on the role as the iconic Spider-Man rival, Green Goblin. The second scene to follow showed Miles in his room with Hailey Cooper, his friend and love interest, as they share an intimate scene before Rio Morales, Miles’ mom, calls them to the door to meet her new boyfriend, Albert Moon. He then reveals to them his daughter, Cindy Moon, who is an iconic character in the Spider-Man comics as Silk, a web-slinging hero that was bit by the same spider as Peter and is also a love interest to him. With this surprise cameo at the end, it leaves fans to wonder if she’ll become Silk in the third game, and how she will or would’ve gained her powers.
With all of this great praise for this game the only thing left is for you to test the game out yourself. There are many great things to gain from this game, and the experience alone is enough to make you feel like you are Spider-Man, because with great power comes great
responsibility.
