Marvel's Spider Man 2's VILLAIN PROBLEM

after 5 years of waiting with baited breath to see if that post credits teaser was a copout or full commitment something even Insomniac themselves weren't entirely sure at the time we finally have Spider-Man 2 not to be confused with Spider-Man 2 or Spider-Man 2 entering Electro we finally made it to the first Spider-Man game where you can play as both Spidey in a GTA 5es switching mechanic the first Spidey game since 200 five where you can play as Venom and visit Queens New York and the first Spidey game to get the color of the costume right but in spite of all the hype kickass awesome stuff in this game it's all anchored together on a story that rubber bands between some of the best Spidey writing out there two recycled plot points from other adaptations that weren't executed well then and still haven't been now I do love this game it's easily one of the best superhero games that we've been graced with but I can't help but feel that it's also constructed around a narrative that's running low on originality and is rushing through itself too fast to enjoy in many places Spider-Man 2 suffers heavily from insomniac's villain problem thank you Elijah let's get gameplay out of the way first I have to give props for the new additions to traversal like the swing assist feature and the web Wings first thing I did was turn the swing assist down is zero and never look back it finally has that feeling of momentum following through from a big swing it's not as automated and it takes real skill how easily you showed up fortnite of all things good work it's actually easy to screw it up and face plant plus they added optional fall damage so you have incentive to get better so you don't take damage from slamming into a tree at 90 M hour does Spider-Man need fall damage despite his superhuman durability and endurance 60 years of oh no I'm out of web fluid close call says yes because this game takes full advantage of the ps5s hardware there's no loading time or Draw distance the entire game map is all loaded in at once no matter where you are on it so you can do this ridiculously instantaneous fast travel or swing as fast as you want because there's no worry about outpacing the cold out areas of the map remember the limitation of the hardware and web of Shadows where you could swing so fast that New York wasn't ready to load by the end of your Ark that doesn't happen here and not to mention this is the biggest map in a Spider-Man game ever you can go to Queens for the first time since Ultimate Spider-Man with brookin down there too that's why you can get thrown 40 blocks across the island in the middle of a fight scene and then pull yourself straight back to combat without a single popping texture pulling out the web wings and clearing such huge distances even over the water is just Insomniac showing off how much they nailed it and they've earned that five FSH F there's a mechanic to catapult yourself long distances like that thing he does in the movies all the time you can also hit a ride on wind tunnels to get extra momentum that leads into more powerful swings I enjoy the new mechanic to take sharp turns around corners without stopping or slowing down and the Boost in air Dash help you to maintain speed when the new cornering mechanic is whiplash quick you can just fly through the city now it's so awesome they also brought back miles's air trick mechanic from his solo game and it helps you replenish your ability to do the boosts and dashes so they incentivize the player to do stylish and showy moves to gain more speed it looks cool it feels cool and it just gives you that sense that you're fully Unleashed to move like a superhero this has to be the best Spidey swinging so far but it's a zero out of 10 because I can't do that dumb thing where I shoot two web lines out at once and then dangle and midair for no reason this is such a major upgrade and the first game on PS5 that I've played where I felt like they managed to utilize more powerful technology and justify the exorbitant price I paid for that stupid looking thing I also love the Random Encounters that they sort of brought back from Ultimate Spider-Man where instead of low-level super villains spawning in the city you can just randomly bump into other heroes from The Wraith to Agent Venom I guess to even the other Spider-Man really hope for the third game you can bump into villains again like the shocker oh a he's lucky that Craven got to him first that's all I'll say miles now shoots blue lightning from his hands like a lot of blue Lightning he doesn't want to be famous and I'll make him Infamous combat feels so fluid because the animations have been tweaked to flow into each other perfectly you get such a cool feeling from chaining moves together in such a way that they look like scripted animations and not offthe cuff random gameplay play inputs it's a sight to behold and really increases the fun of mashing endless criminals I like using that new bounce mechanic to just bully individual enemies I wish his face made that kickball sound though I do miss the massive amount of gadgets available in the first game feels like that element was scaled back to focus on big power moves like the Symbiote attacks or lightning blasts from either Spidey symbiote combat rocks no no it's this is cool in fact the gadgets are one of a couple things that seems reduced compared to the first two games there are a lot of little features that weren't completely necessary but were at least nice to have that are now totally absent no character bios no model viewer no social media feed no menu to repeat podcast audio logs simplified car chases feels slightly stripped down by comparison same goes for some of the optional gameplay content and the costumes for the former there's a lot less Variety in the optional missions and now the vast majority of them are combat challenges to fight waves of enemies there's a lot less emphasis on stealth encounters or skill-based races or silly puzzles and [ __ ] we all like to clown on screw ball and Taskmaster for being lame but they added something important to the first game that feels missed here there's this strange sinking feeling that I have I think this game needed a few more months of development because I can see the seams where stuff was reduced to just get it out on time and the final product feels a bit lesser for it I mean even having to wait a few months for an update to add basic features once again is frust rating I also get the sense that maybe some story stuff got cut because I remember hearing Dana the Spidey podcaster give this big rousing speech about the New Yorkers baning together to saave off the Symbiote invasion in case the Spider-Man couldn't handle it we can't leave the protection of New York just to the Spider-Man anymore let's be heroes then we don't actually see much or anything of how the invasion is actually affecting New York because the third act happen so fast then she gives herself and everyone else a huge pat on the back for handling all that we survived the impossible strove back a freaking Alien Invasion and we did it together as Heroes the Spider-Man led the way and every day New Yorkers Rose to the challenge like what that would feel more appropriate after playing Web of Shadows seeing all these survivors battling hordes of Symbiotes and evacuating buildings and getting into Shield Helicarrier Chopper things but there was none of that here even the Symbiote me orite as a plot device felt like an afterthought that was brushed over and I was just left to assume it worked the same way as the 2017 cartoon since this game never sat down and properly explained it there's got to be a mission or a cut scene missing to fill that out it feels incomplete and speaking of incomplete costumes as soon as they announced both Peter and Miles were going to be in the game at the same time I knew not every suit was going to make it I was just confused by the ones that did make it in from the first game versus the ones that didn't I really wish they would have kept Peter's spiderverse suit so I could have had the boys matching in cutcenes I was really obsessed with making sure they had coordinated costumes for a team I also lament the loss of my old trusty Spidey armor and bagman was literally created because of the black costume Saga so that felt like a no-brainer the backer building is right there come on Miles suitless remained pretty untouched thankfully I appreciate the costume pallet swaps if only so we could get the webman and biblically accurate 2099 but I feel like the fourth slot is always wasted on some ugly ass mustard yellow Avengers game looking thing props for being free though that other game would have looked you dead in the eye and asked for $20 for this piece of garbage and then gotten confused why they didn't make a profit more like suicide squad kill your sales I just have to say I want to openly denounce all these original costumes from guest designers and the ones in the pre-order bonus because most of them are pretty ugly Power Rangers one is okay I feel like there's a difference in design ideology between comic artists who know how to make something sleek and simple that can be reasonably drawn multiple times in sequential art form and game and movie concept artists who only know how to add as much detail to something as possible because detail equals realistic and then all these just end up being so busy and ugly and taking up space in the suit roster I really wish these didn't feel like they were taking priority over the comic suits but they do I'd much prefer those resources being aimed at digging deeper and getting obscure cool comic costumes over all this this it's time for a miles moral is original you know one of one it's also pretty insulting to take a suit that's a brand tie in and try to make it mandatory for story purposes in the last few missions of the game I don't care about whether or not the Adidas suit looks good I just don't want a product placement to supersede Spider-Man's actual costume it's grows to four force it in into important cutcenes and disguise it as character development it' be fine if you threw it in there as an unlockable to just let people decide how they felt about it on their own but don't call that a Miles Morales original made my guy look like a doofus in front of the whole city I took it off the first chance I got every time until it stops giving you the option sorry Betsy we have a firm rule against Spidey endorsements you're a fraud Spiderman getting a little tired of mandatory anti-villain suits the anti-g Goblin suit in the third game should just be a suit and tie because he's not going Goblin mode he's going to [ __ ] work however the original costumes that are a fusion of a Spidey suit and one of his villains or Allies like wraith Mysterio Wolverine Black Panther and Nick Fury are pretty cool and I'd happily take more of those in the next game over whatever the hell this is hey it's omniac if you're listening the next thing to add to suit rosters is proper credit credits and sources like the Guardians game and you know put Kates and Stegman in the credits too you only used all of their symbiote iconography and lore katees was just in a damn car accident cut him a check he could use some help I think of all the major AAA developers out there Insomniac has to be one of the best at listening to constructive criticism and if it's something with genuine Merit they'll try to implement it the improvements to the traversal show that they were aware of what people wanted more of from a spidey swinging system and they worked on it but also improvements like the lowest Lane stealth missions what was initially derided as drag on the first game was something they sought to improve on she's an important character and cutting her gameplay out would be the simplest but least satisfying solution so they went back to the drawing board and decided to make it more of an action third person shooter type deal so playing as low as Lane is just as fun and engaging as a spidey Mission she takes very limited damage so it still has that feeling of being weak compared to being a superhero but I think it works to add some challenge too you can play these sections stealthily or just go loud if you're quick enough to not take damage plus all three of these tend to be some of the most dramatically intense moments in the story thumbs up for that one I just wish that this character in any way at all actually resembled Mary Jane Watson in looks or personality you took a groundbreaking feminist character the pants in the 60s wearing untamable free-spirited sex positive player who dated the entire coffee bean game while building up her acting career in schlocky movies and bad soap operas and you made her one personality trait that she's a hot shot reporter that always gets the scoop I don't even look at this character model and think Mary Jane I think Avengers game Black Widow dressed as Amy Adams same voice I'm not asking for the bangs I know it's obvious to do the bang just go ahead and do some of the feathered 90s hair give this woman a cleft chin I dare you and if we're talking about improvements for Spider-Man 3 all I've got left left is I'd like to see that web climbing mechanic make a return and you really could try your hand at the web strike from Web of Shadows since that was insanely fun and intricate and adding that on top of everything else you've got like the craziest Spidey combat ever again you can kind of do it in this game but it's just like it's not the same look at that it's not the same even if there was a lot of fat trim to make the release date Spider-Man 2 has a really insane attention to detail that I got to admire I love all these little things like both Spider-Man have different logos next to their subtitles to identify which one is talking the city gets torn up and fights and then just stays that way and is progressively cleaned up for several days in Universe the character models are so realistic the environments have so many little Easter eggs and nice touches and this game is graphically stunning I also think they managed to add a few things that were planned for the original game but got cut before release like certain lighting conditions fight animations and mechanics while the the bulk of the side missions tend to feel the same gameplay wise they do have a nice reward with the way they're written to make it feel like an achievement I think while it's a shame that I can see where a lot of stuff got removed to keep this thing on a timely schedule the final result from a gameplay perspective is still a Triumph of Spidey games they just get better every time they touch the gameplay and I love all of the new things that have been added but video games are also a storytelling device and in that regard well the stuff in the open world is fantastic I've been hearing a lot of people talk about Jonah and Dany lately so I might as well throw my two cents in there since I'll never get the chance again I really wish Jonah had more time in these games to be an actual character and appear in the plot use some stuff from the zadarski Run maybe where he becomes Peter's friend and Ally these games push 30 hours you've got time to throw it in there but alas his podcast is pretty much one note jokes popping up in the open rolled to [ __ ] about Peter and miles and accused them of the opposite of what they were actually doing meanwhile Danica knows way too much for someone who isn't present for any of these events like she's omniscient somehow because we live in the internet age and Spider-Man trying on his friend's black suit literally how do you know that y'all saw the same footage of Spider-Man I did yeah the way that new black suit moves how vicious it is call me worry word if you want but something ain't right footage from where who who saw that without seeing Peter and Harry unmasked I know everyone's got a cell phone camera these days but this is stupid nonsense I mean I know there's a lot of excitement about sm's black is the New Black look and I mean it is fire and all but isn't it just a tad Moody for our friendly neighborhood so and so OG Spider-Man looks to be finally back to his senses free of that black suit it's weird how she keeps popping up to just explain the plot to you these podcasts went from nice World building in the first two games to some of the worst written dialogue in this one by a long shot where the story is just being explained in Cliff Notes as if like you're playing it but not paying attention this is how Ken watch movies with Barbies Danica I swear to God Mary Jane's podcast is going to be even worse somehow in the third game this MJ has the screen presence and Charisma of the associate manager at Hobby Lobby Insomniac Spidey writing is a mixed bag that ranges from to some of the best Spidey storytelling of the last decade and this one's no exception I think the narratives of the side missions fall into the ladder category and ended up being Far and Away my favorite part of the game Insomniac does street level or small scale stuff with such amazing finesse and I love how they handle that side of Spider-Man Mythos across all three games if it's not part of the main story line in this one chances are I love it the side missions range from epic story lines that feel right out of the comics character building info dumps at the end of challenges to fles out more of the Spidey Rogues gallery or simple save the cat type stuff that broadens your connections with the people of New York there's a really awesome Mission chain following up on Yuri Watanabe becoming a lethal vigilante and butting heads with Peter about how to handle a guy like Cletus Cassidy who started his own doomsday Cult of murderous arsonists as a front to steal a certain red baby symbiote for himself they don't reveal that he's us until like the final part of the mission but he's wearing a Carnage print shirt and it's like he's a ginger guy who the [ __ ] else was he going to be I noticed a piece of dialogue in my playthrough that I think shouldn't have been there where they still call him Cletus even though that like spoils the surprise all right Cletus what do you got I think this is a sound file from like an earlier draft of the script that accidentally got left in cuz this game's kind of Halo too the more Manson ask take on Cletus is frankly awesome in the comics he's always recruiting like-minded Maniacs to his nihilistic Anarchy philosophy so this approach is perfect to give him something to do Beyond just being a standard serial killer his personality shines through I like this design and he's thoroughly established as a threat even without superpowers this crazy bastard sets Spider-Man on fire jeez they may have whiffed it big time on the other guy but if they follow through with this one they'd have pulled off a perfect Carnage I take that as a nice consolation considering everything else see I like insomniacs take on Carnage because he actually talks and acts like the character Carnage but beyond that even the more grounded and downto earth side quests are a joy too like a flashback to seeing how this version of Peter became more of a trash talker in battle when he was young I like the idea of Jonah being the one who puts that idea in his head because he's also such a loudmouth against opposition miles also has these really really sweet missions with helping students at his school saving stolen pieces from a music museum or getting to spend time with more of his characters from his solo game Haley Cooper is such an endearing love interest because she's a normal down-to-earth person that doesn't have superpowers or alternate universe imaginary adopted children I hope she becomes a Mainstay for Miles lore because I like her more than vulture's grandaughter Hydra Kate Bishop that was weird stay away from Caucasian girls with shap heads wearing white hoods miles they don't want what's best for you buddy Jefferson Davis was a hero what the [ __ ] thank God they decided to use Cindy Moon instead of spidergwen I'm so sick of spidergwen yeah no one else uses silk sure that's cool I I respect that just retool her horribly embarrassing and convoluted backstory and you're good to go wouldn't be the first character they've had to do that for find grandpa is one of the two most emotional side missions you encounter in this game Spidey finds a woman in the park asking him to help find her grandfather who got lost out there with dementia there's no combat very minor puzzles you find him and sit down with him and just have a chat with someone struggling near the end of their life with sickness and wanting to be with his wife again the way he give Spidey some extra perspective from the other side of a very long journey is very engrossing reminds him of what's most important to hold on to in he's youth talking to him was very personally relatable for me because it reminded me of both of my grandfathers my grandpa Vince also had Alzheimer's and it was really hard seeing him losing his memory near the end before he passed away but also the character Earl looks just like my grandpa Wesley who moved to the other side of the country in the last few years we were close when I was young and I don't see him as often as I'd like to now so this made me just miss both of my grandpas so much and just made me an emotional wreck and I can't even speak about Howard just play that for yourself if you haven't already missions like these are great for keeping sight of why being a superhero matters they responded to criticisms that Spidey in the first game felt like a cop and now he's more of a fireman or a first responder someone who's actually a badass and puts their life on the line and deserves respect I like that you can even carry injured civilians again but now that I'm not 6 years old anymore I just can't help but think about how you're ruining this guy's financial future Spidey stop your bankrupt ing these people take them to the hospital instead and by these people I mean this same wrinkly faed guy wearing Tims and headphones every single time do you have any idea the financial toll that 26 ambulance rides have on a person the side stuff that isn't based around fighting enemy hordes is minimal but still decently fun like collecting these spiderbots doing Daily Bugle photo ops or miles looking through prowler's old hideouts for upgrades the Charlie bot mission is an unfortunate casualty of the messy production of a cross the spiderverse so it culminates in a pants [ __ ] exciting Cameo from a character that was cut from the final movie that we don't recognize at all at least we know this guy is definitely the one from the video game and not an adjacent Universe 12 in to the left boss fights have improved significantly by just adding a health bar and really going for it with the spectacle in these action sequences that Uncharted style chaotic destruction with the protagonist being flung around like a ragd doll is pretty fitting for Spidey fights on this scale I said in the first game that I wanted more epic Chase sequences and this one really delivered with a lizard fight this game also has one of the best traditional black hatat chases so far by throwing in some Marvel Universe weird [ __ ] we've come to expect Felicia is thinking with portals now I'm very happy to see a life Foundation symbiote appearance in 2023 when was the last time scream was in anything the 2017 cartoon the theme part Dark Ride the boss fights also have a lot of dialogue and discussion from the characters to really add some depth to the fight outside of it just being a button mashy slugfest it reminds me of reading a comic where two characters are saying paragraphs a dialogue mid jump and superpowered battle you can't keep a job you can't pay the mortgage I have a job with Harry we'll be okay and for how long there's only one job you care about Spiderman it's a nice touch that just gives us one more layer of intrigue into the fight oh I wish this game had the stones to have Peter and MJ really discuss these personal issues without a space alien superhero battle being the Catalyst it's okay to just do some human character drama without explosions too that's something the Guardians of the Galaxy game was really Adept at just having slow moments for the game to breathe and the characters to talk even the first game felt like it made more time to have them talk about the relationship repetitive of the convers ations may have been there's so much going on and so many character beats are really great but they happen so quickly to get to the next thing the pacing in this game feels off because stuff like this is present in the First Act and then the second and third are too busy jumping between plot points and major character beats and it just gets rushed in quick cutcenes having two Spider-Man in this game is a really cool idea that sets this apart from all other open world Spidey games it almost feels like two games in one that weave in and out of each other's stories the only problem is that miles to half the game is a way shorter than Peters and B way better written than Peters Marvel Spider-Man 2 picks up right where the last two stories left off with Peter and Miles working together as Spidey and trying to deal with the difficult work life balance of being a superhero you're fired it's nice that Miles initial missions follow up on the development from his solo game that his friends and Community are aware he's Spider-Man it's an Open Secret and he's still struggling to live by both lives anyway even if he's doing a secret identity very differently from Peter he's trying to interview for college scholarships while stealthily taking down a group of armed kidnappers I really like how both Spider-Man hit a rough patch where Miles will drop everything with his personal life to help Peter in an emergency but Peter won't give him the same courtesy Peter's a bit selfish in this game and prioritizes his friendship and career Ambitions with Harry over his responsibility to Miles as his mentor it's a great setup but I wish they did more with it and had a real confrontation about it instead it gets lost in the shuffle of all that space alien [ __ ] the city is occupied by craving the Hunter's gang of mercenaries and thugs that are helping him look for a worthy opponent to kill him in battle they do a great job of building him up as a genuine threat and as controversial as it may be I don't mind him killing some of the smaller Spidey villains like gargan and Perpetual laughing stock Electro because there's not much else you can do with them in this series I mean it's not like they're going to be main bad guys but him potentially killing all of these other guys is way overboard I do hope the rest of these villains who weren't directly confirmed to be dead are still around because it'd be a shame to have all of these characters wiped out off screen just to service another character jeez this possibly non-cannon room looks like my office overall though this game's take on Craven the hunter was pretty great I'm glad this came out just in time to save Craven's reputation from being utterly obliterated in the public eye like a certain vampire I remember you Morgan Michaels I know you're still out there Spidey struggle with wanting revenge on Mr negative is an interesting new touch native to this game's universe and I do like the entire Arc of him having to make amends with him for the greater good to save the other Spidey it's kind of shocking how much better this version of Martin Lee is than the one in the comics and hey since all the puzzle pieces were literally right there might as well take the opportunity to do some some anti-venom stuff Mr negative sacrifices his powers to save Spider-Man and give Peter the tools he needs to defeat Venom then pieces off into the sunset a very nice closer for his Arc across both of these games it's a fun idea and it was a clever way to keep the Symbiote game mechanics involved without conflicting with the story look at his disgusting goon suit there's a really great through line with all the side villains about Rehabilitation and putting spidey's optimism to the test he always argues that he can't kill his enemies because they have a chance of changing for the better they may not always be superpowered jerk asses that's the major conflict between him and The Wraith since she's more of a Punisher type he's completely right about Carnage though get that guy in the ground for the safety of the human race but with guys like Mysterio lizard Sandman Tombstone and Prowler it's cool to see all of them trying to build real lives after they've been super villains and seeing both Spidey act supportive of their growth it's just a shame that this game is so heavy on super villains becoming good guys but they drop the ball on the original Spidey villain turned good guy molten man obviously where is he at he's permanently gold and shiny he looks like a walking Oscar Oscar o o corpu the other biggest development at the start of this game is the return of the prodal goblin when Harry Osborne is back in town after being absent for the previous games his introduction is some of the best stuff in the first half of the main story and I really enjoy how much of this is done through actual gameplay instead of cutcenes seeing Insomniac Peter in the year one Arrow was really cool and it solidified my opinion that I no longer care about the face model change I've officially gotten used to it I don't care anymore it's fine and after this part of the game I never really thought about the old model again all he needs is a better haircut he kind of looks like Toby with the ultimate cut in these flashbacks I like to think that my criticism of the previous game's character development with Finn Was Heard because the flashback mission to childhood best Pals hanging out and doing casual low stakes mini Adventures is here at the beginning of the game instead of near the end miles and Finn's history was insisted upon far too late in the game after it already fallen apart but Peter and Harry's relationship is shown in great detail right up front this flashback to high school Peter is a great way to endear us to Harry and get a sense of his character in a fun section that's still engaging with Spidey gameplay nothing helps a player build connection with a character in a game like going through some [ __ ] together and having them help you solve a problem it's why the last of us is still even after everything more effective as a game than a TV show we spent a lot of time together moving boards and ladders around and just getting to know each other this is brilliant I'd play a whole game that's like this Mission Spider-Man man's Slice of Life it feels like a Side Story you'd find in a back issue of one of the side series like web of Spider-Man or Untold Tales hey Ben 10 hey Ben 10 in the present Harry is healthy and thriving with the Curative powers of the Venom symbiote up his ass after his non-specific D toan disease from the first game while this version of Harry doesn't bear much resemblance to the insecure daddy issues train wreck college roommate from the comics or the Contemporary charismatic and womanizing version we've seen in recent years he's still a likable character he's just a lovable sweet guy you'd love to be friends with him he is so nice he's really big into science and philanthropy so he and Pete actually have stuff in common Beyond being uh oh God would roller coasters have any effect on Spider-Man this is a guy who was basically skydiving for 5 hours a day every day of his life I kind of feel like it would lose its luster for him when he's is always going way faster and way higher to just like get to work and stuff I get why Peter loves Harry so much and this is a really strongly written friendship they're not worried about making them both overly masculine dude Bros with a case of the not gaze it's a very deep and intimate bond between two male friends and it's presented so honestly with so much vulnerability these guys are as close as brothers and it shows and I Vibe with it so much I love you I love their relationship in this in fact they're such good friends that I have a hard time buying the entire central conflict that they'd ever be against each other at all I I think these two can talk through anything and for the first half of the game they do there's such open lines of communication and such deep trust Harry accidentally learns Peter a Spider-Man once the Symbiote makes itself known and there's no predictable forced argument for drama they talk it out and understand each other and they're closer for it then Harry tries to help out and there's even more communication and healthy boundaries set about his level of involvement in superhero Affairs Harry's brief stint ripping off Flash Thompson is a clever Fusion of the episode and Ultimate Spider-Man where he took the role of black suit Spider-Man before losing control of the alien and some of the early web of Spider-Man issues where he tried to be a heroic Green Goblin before going completely mad I know that that had to be some inspiration because that was also the same Arc where Tombstone got his Luke Cage knockoff powers and Harry and Peter are chasing after him in the game too it's the only time I've seen that part of Harry's Goblin lore ever get an adaptation so I was actually interested in those scenes but it was really really shortlived for the sake of getting the black suit onto Peter like right away all the stuff with black suit Spider-Man albeit really fast is really great you know it's pulled right from the several adaptations that are not like the comic but whatever they streamlined it at least he has a shape-shifting black sweater and they remembered to have the Symbiote fighting crime while he was asleep H you you ever notied how the black suit saga's just been kind of like the same since 1994 but Harry gets left out of most of the second act and his entire downfall is relegated to two cutcenes in between everything else it just goes by so fast and doesn't feel developed like conflict with Peter happening at the same time I never got a perfect understanding of why he was angry with Peter in such a way that he'd become venom the reason shifted in each scene because the situation just kept evolving so fast first it's like hey don't Bogard it dude I'm fully aware that you're being mind controlled but you're acting kind of like a dick and then it's like no you can't destroy it I need it to not die and those are perfectly reasonable in the context of the moment but those happen over the course of seconds there's also a really rushed moment to try and throw in the classic Harry is jealous of Norman's affection for Peter thing from the Ry movies but this is the only scene where they attempt that and it's just not developed enough to see it as a good character motivation either it's like all the elements are floating there but none of them are focused on enough individually to form the full picture the end result makes it feel like Harry doesn't have a solid genuine concrete reason to be a bad guy just a handful of scenes of being like a little bit annoyed at Peter in the moment nothing and a friendship over I guess these scenes have to go by so fast because even a moment of communication or rational thinking would smooth it all over but we need to get to Venom so it's all a bit contrived all of this hinges on basically a misunderstanding between two characters who aren't in their right mind because one's on mood altering space alien drugs and the other is so sick he can barely stand up neither of them are thinking thinking straight the entire conflict feels mishandled when it all comes down to a boneheaded accident because Harry just panicked oops up until now they've been on the same page about literally Everything feels so out of left field there's no buildup no Decay they're the best buddies ever then they disagree for 0.5 seconds and without really talking about it the whole city explodes into black tendrils and Nostalgia baiting gen Z best friends best friends best friends this same scene happened in the all comics in the spectacular show it's clearly what they're trying to reference with Peter about to destroy the suit as Eddie attempts to stop him for a personal stake in its survival but the actual disagreement between Peter and his childhood friend was better fleshed out so in both cases Eddie's very deliberate choice to become venom feels way more earned he did this not for a desperate bid for survival but because he's feeling betrayed and angry and we know very unequivocally why his entire friendship with Peter has collapsed at that moment both because he doesn't know about the mind-altering effects of the suit clouding Peter's morals and because Peter genuinely has betrayed their friendship in a major way that wasn't affected by the suit at all before that we spend more time getting to this boiling point between them so it feels more interesting to see that choice made by a character that's taken a drastic turn after so many things have happened rather than a quick Act of knee-jerk clumsiness by someone whose judgment is impaired oopsie if you want to be a really nitpicky [ __ ] you could point out that it's really convenient that the whole third act happens because Spider-Man of all characters was unable to dodge something incredibly easy to dodge What the fu is this containment unit made out of porcelain I'm not going to hang on that but it could have been executed differently to quell that stupid logic obsessed Cinema sin's idiot part of my brain it needed to happen either way because without it there's there's no story so what can you do you know what would have been cool if Peter's incessant need to keep people from dying forced him to intentionally allow Harry to take the suit back to save his life even knowing full well what the side effects were because they had run out of options kind of like in the Paul Jenkins run when Eddie Brock died of cancer and Peter intentionally pushed his body back into the Symbiote to revive him even though he knew that it just make them Venom again and rebond them then Peter could spend the third Act of the game feeling guilty about that instead of just being rude in a situation where he couldn't control the words coming out of his mouth I was such a jerk to Harry when I had that suit I need to find him apologize you know like oh man I've created a monster and all the deaths he caused are on me instead of just I was a jerk but yeah I guess after that slapstick oopsy Harry decides to make that same choice to take the suit even though it doesn't have the the same impact at all and well and now he's venin you excited look there he venin got he's Venom just like Bruce Banner's dad is absorbing man it sucks so the way it works in this game is that with both Peter and Harry the Symbiote tries to give them a twisted version of their desires I need this suit it makes be a better Spider-Man all I wanted was to save everyone MJ hey Peter wants to be a better Spider-Man so he doesn't have a repeat of May's death and Harry wants to use his Newfound health and power to make the world a better place to honor his late Mom the Symbiote uses this shared feeling of the loss of a mother figure and drive to do good in both of them as a way to control them to turn them into villainous versions of themselves so once again a dear friend of Spider-Man has been corrupted to the dark side this all works on a thematic level for What Little it does dive into how the Symbiote thinks but it doesn't stop this from feeling really similar even Peter himself seems acutely aware that this plot is getting scarily familiar and has a lot of worries that he'll lose Harry the same way he lost May and by extension Otto I think it's smart that they acknowledge the repetition in the narrative itself but it does feel like a form of lampshading because they're still doing pretty much the same type of villain for the third time in these games and all this builds to a new take on Venom that's a new make in the same vein as Roland emer's Godzilla yeah I guess it's a giant reptilian creature that attacks the city you got the very basic traits right but like every imaginable other detail that made him special or cool is wrong it's a new take though it's a new take where the cool parts are gone that's the new take that's what's new about it is we took the cool stuff out this is what you get when you treat Venom like a plot device and not really an actual character it is not Eddie Brock okay it is not it is not Edie BR um our goal was to tell an original story something you haven't seen in the comics of the movies yet obviously wow we expecting me to start whining about Eddie Brock by now oh but Eddie Brock Eddie Brock we had 5 years to wrap our heads around the fact that they weren't going to use him and plenty of other characters can be Venom too if it's handled well doesn't make the execution of the story they did tell any better I could probably go through this whole review without even talking about him honestly him not being here the least of this story's problems all right just because you've been good this year and you're on my nice list I'll serenade you with that irritating Spiel let's talk about 19 Ines of missed opportunities okay I'm not one of those YouTubers this isn't one of those bad faith Fanboy things where the complaint is just that a minority has an important role in the story they replace not one but two of my favorite straight white guys with another straight white guy okay well the jury's out on Eddie being straight he gives gives fruity Vibes sometimes a lot of times which just makes me miss him all the more I was so on the money about this in 2020 I may as well just play the same clip again since my opinion hasn't changed I'm noticing a concerning pattern with insomniacs villains they seem to be doing that thing from bis's Ultimate Spider-Man in the Ry movies where every major antagonist has a personal connection in history with Spidey before becoming the main bad guy now you don't have to write them an origin story and have Spidey build a relation ship with them after they meet for the first time he's just coincidentally known them for years obviously the majority of the Sinister 6 are exceptions to this but with Martin Lee Doc O and now the tinkerer it looks like all the main villains will follow this formula and honestly I feel like that's going to get old really fast I get it it's a cheap and easy way to tug at the old heartstrings when the main opposing force is an old friend that lost their way but it's going to get repetitive if they do that a third time in a row I have this sinking feeling that once again for Marvel Mar Spider-Man 2 Peter's old bestie Harry Osborne will be Venom and we'll get the whole but the main bad gu is my bro I'm so conflicted scenario which we just saw twice try something else please not every villain needs a deep personal connection to the hero they can just be a bad guy who mirrors our hero by having an opposing ideology and an interesting backstory or motivation Thanos wasn't Tony Stark's roommate from college who became jealous of his success Wilson Fisk isn't Matt murd childhood best friend that went down a dark path keep in mind a bit of this is also coming from the fact that I'm a huge Eddie Brock fan and I don't want them to forget about him because I want to see how they'd handle that character but at this point I'm just waiting for the moment in a future game where Peter is a boss fight for Miles either because he's wearing the black suit or because he's got o brain oh no my former mentor and best bud oh no meanwhile gy becomes the new hobgoblin and Frames Ned Leeds as revenge for confusing casual fans wow I nailed that one so far in advance I mean it's you know just because it's really predictable and obvious even from years ago but yeah I'm sick of the formula it's not just a problem with these games it's basically every Spider-Man adaptation ever at this point you guys hate variety that much Sandman can't just be a criminal with a Secret Heart of Gold he has to be the one who shot Uncle Ben Dr Connors is friends with Peter's parents and needs their notes to finish his lizard juice it all dates back to Doc O being Peter's science camp Idol it's ironic that this problem only started to get out of control with Eddie Brock and has gotten so bad over the years that it's now erased him from his own origin story this is one of the few things I think MCU Spider-Man is actually good at none of these villains knew Peter Parker before the movie started they're not longtime family friends former business partners or an old Mentor in his schooling days or a childhood friend and no way home he met Green Goblin earlier that same day and that guy changed his life forever and brought the devil out in him a compelling hero and villain Dynamic does not need to hinge entirely on shared history sometimes we can do something different it won't kill you to break the mold and stop adhering to this same friend turn foe pipeline it starts to get ridiculous when every normal person Spider-Man interacts with in his day-to-day life is liable to get superpowers and try to kill him later on at this point I feel like the third game will be about Peter's nextdoor neighbor Roger transforming into a mechanical acid spitting wasp and burning his house down please try something new get creative I'm on my knees begging to not do the same story a goddamn fourth time in a row I mean how could you at this point surely they can't dear God the reason I wanted Eddie Brock so badly is because he's the exact opposite of this Trope look Parker and I have a complicated history but it's water under the bridge oh well I guess we're still building that bridge but we have bigger fish to fry from the gear Bridge well you know in the the good comics where he's not a [ __ ] creep he's a down on his luck guy who created a lot of his own problems in life by not taking responsibility for his actions he's trying to recover from an abusive childhood and a lot of his selfish actions caused his marriage to fail then he has this pretty one-sided rivalry with Spider-Man that turns so ugly it eats him up inside until he becomes the worst version of himself okay well maybe not the worst version of himself he gets all the power he could ask for and the Symbiote feeds on his denial and negativity to turn him into a weapon of its own Revenge you're free you can stop this stop hating it only loves me for the hate he's the ultimate hater because he's being manipulated to the point of being completely delusional but he rests control back from the Symbiote and regains his composure and his humanity and then he gets to know Peter like really know him not just the Twisted facts the Symbiote fed him to keep him riled up they become begrudging allies then eventually they form a real connection he realizes he was being manipulated to farm hate into this jilted alien exir girlfriend and he decides to take charge and use its powers to be better he forces both of them to evolve into something greater and it was a long uphill battle but by God he made it because Peter never gave up on him and wanted him to redeem himself always wished I'd had a strong friend who could save me from the monsters in my life so I became a monster to save those too small to fight for themselves yeah they might be afraid of me but I'll keep them safe he's a villain who hates Spider-Man so deeply at first but one day after a lot of pain becomes Peter's friend that's compelling to me I find that interesting he's Vegeta and Kevin 11 before those guys were even a thing and a lot of shades of that were used with Harry here but just uh don't tell me it's the same it's not the same but the years have corroded the public perception of Eddie Brock's importance so that now the character isn't considered necessary first Eddie gave up being Venom in the comics for like 14 years and his storyline started to fade from memory then the Ultimate Comics used him in an at the time interesting new format that was then copied endlessly for every other antagonist and he was forgotten by the book itself he disappeared and the synthetic symbiote kept showing up without him now we have people who grew up with ma gargan as a flat boring Monster version of Ven that had nothing interesting to do ever then Flash Thompson is the admittedly super cool anti-hero equivalent to Spider-Man and then what do we do with Eddie okay we'll just make him anti-venom uh I don't know that's not panning out the way we wanted it to okay now he's toxin uh now he's agent toxin I don't know whatever it Eddie just didn't matter during those years and Circa 2015 when Insomniac got the rights to Spider-Man games and began plotting their Trilogy I can forgive that they didn't think he mattered at the time either they looked at what was recent and rolled with that he hadn't had his big return the legendary Donnie Kate's run in his Blockbuster movie series yet he hadn't shown us why he's the comeback King yet this was worsened by the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series cutting him out entirely in the 2017 cartoon using him as a minor Cliff note and keeping the Symbiote front and center without him for most of it then the movie tried to simplify things by just saying Venom is the alien instead of the host and the Symbiote together I am Venom and you are mine and that [ __ ] everything up I noticed that you sometimes refer to yourself as we why is that Venom isn't a singular personality It's a combination of myself and the Symbiote that's why we say we been an unfortunate compounding effect of adaptations asserting that Venom is solely the black sludge and the person inside can just whoever sidebar the Symbiote that makes the new red Goblin is called Rascal so a precedent has been set that the goo name can be different from the superhero character name a lot of people in the Phantom refer to Cletus Cassidy Symbiote as red because he called it that one time so I'm going to put forth an idea someone may have suggested this before in the last 30 years but I'm taking credit for it I I don't I don't know who the hell you are this guy right here this entity this thing we've seen it a bunch of times its Canon name should just be suit instead of Venom or unpronouncable vibrational frequency Eddie the suit you got to take it off I saw the suit you heard me yes the suit you've got to crawl in this when you get the suit back so many characters already call it the suit in universe and it can help distinguish Venom from just being the goo by itself take it or leave it but that's what I'm speaking into existence until it sticks so anyway people don't think Eddie is important anymore even though he's like the entire thing Eddie's the reason they call themselves Venom we are poisoned to Peter Parker and Spiderman we're Venom now we're poison to you Spider-Man that's why we call ourselves then people who don't read the comics don't know about his Redemption Arc all they've gotten from the majority of the adaptations is that he's just a one note angry villain when that's ironically the least interesting thing the character has ever been he's evolved past that and becomes something so much cooler that can stand perfectly fine on his own without surfacing Spider-Man he's like 250 issues into his solo book and Spider-Man barely shows up in that but he's only really gotten one adaptation that ran the full gamut of his transformation from a jerk to a vicious Tormentor to a remorseful hero the rest either stay focused on his anger and don't explore him any further or just jump straight to him being an anti-hero without giving him much depth the Venom movies captured the zany personality and off-the-wall tone of classic Venom Comics well but Eddie himself is the weakest part of those because they don't dig too deep into that Darkness or psychology of him it's not like we're drowning in comic accurate adaptations of this character so it's fair to say I'm disappointed that yet another one dropped the ball by not even attempting the hard parts once again works for me Shake on it oh wait a sec put her there partner I'm there partner I really wanted to see how Insomniac would write that character but that wasn't the story they were interested in telling and I don't even think it was the one that they were planning to in the first place they took the easiest way out stuck with their formula did something predictable and that's a bummer we love venom for a reason yeah all those things you love about the character going to be there it's reductive and silly to get mad at anyone for being dissatisfied with how Venom is handled here I know he's a big cool scary monster that has tendrils and eats people's heads whatever yeah like he's fun to play as and he looks like Venom but all the aspects of the character that I like aren't here he has no personality he doesn't act like Venom he says like one line of dialogue in the whole game that sounds like something Venom would say thanks for coming peep if you can't imagine your Venom chanting surf the web or delivering this speech eyes lungs and pancreas so many snacks so little time then you just didn't do Venom if you watch my videos you know I appreciate comic accuracy when it's done well but that's not the be all and all sometimes I even Advocate that changing the source material's weaker aspects can benefit an adaptation greatly you can change events add characters cut characters rearrange plot points or combine multiple story lines together plot isn't the only thing that matters it's just a structure of events that can be rebuilt you don't need to introduce the suit during Secret Wars or have the Fantastic 4 analyze the suit or have Peter get nabbed by a passing member of a gang called the vuan or any of that crap change that as much as necessary streamline it please go ahead doing the black costume Saga with the other Spider-Man Pres in itself is a really awesome change and I love that aspect of this game story a lot that was cool stuff some changes are great dis SKU the limit as long as the heart of the character is the same I just want their personalities intact is that too much to ask otherwise it's not even the same character just an empty costume without Brock this take on the Symbiote is just a generic evil monster of the week bent on world domination been there done that it might as well be a scroll or Fin Fang fom or The Brood then Venom's not about being a conquering big bad restoring the Symbiote race he's not Zed while I like the character way more as an ally to Peter Parker even his super villain game was more complex than just doing another Alien Invasion plot he's a stalker that feeds on Peter's paranoia he attacks him in broad daylight out of costume to keep him on his toes Spider Sense is useless he shape shifts and blends into the crowd or turns entirely invisible he grins a gnarly toothy smile outside the window he's always watching you're never safe Venom even shows up to Peter's front door and makes small talk with Aunt May just to make him anxious about a fight breaking out or his secret identity being revealed I guess Harry tried to do that but he didn't have the same smug bastard energy and he was just more there to oo a liquid sample of his offspring on MJ's chest don't look at me like that that's literally what happened Eddie as Venom knows Peter just a little too well and plays on his biggest fears and the worst part is that he does all this thinking he's justified in taking on a bad guy you know nothing about us but we know everything about you you'll see us everywhere even in your nightmares and we want to dismantle you peace by peace we know who you are and everyone you care about imagine them working all that into gameplay making the city feel unsafe for the player because any NPC on the street could turn into spider Nemesis and knock you on your webbed ass without Spider Sense indicators to help you [ __ ] him and miles can both turn invisible you could do something with that no one ever remembers that Venom can straight up turn invisible too but now he's just a xenomorph Queen birthing hundreds of drones so you can in turn punch hordes of sludge monsters and go wow it's like 2008 all over again when two games like this came out in one year hey look we're fighting in literally the exact location from that other game yeah I know I'm the Target demographic for that Nostalgia [ __ ] I don't care his Twisted sense of humor his moral code his hatred and Redemption are all the parts that make venom noteworthy among Spider-Man Rogues and allies now he's been Whitted down to a one-dimensional costume that can be thrown on anybody to take over the world the magic is gone it's just a Mas that's laid on the head of any random character that Peter Parker considers an acquaintance unfortunately this is the least interesting thing you could do with Venom but it's becoming the default this isn't a new take on Venom it's just a mashup of stuff from the previous two cartoons and web of Shadows which also had an underwhelming Venom until like the last 5 minutes of the game why is Harry doing this creating all these things I don't think Harry's the one doing it at least not the Harry I know then who is the Symbiote yeah Harry is infected with the Symbiote but the Symbiote ends up being like the totally dominant half that's on Earth to Herald the Symbiote Invasion while the host is helplessly playing along as like a meat puppet I'm not hating on it because it's an accurate to the source material it's really accurate to these animated shows that I'm not a huge fan of but if you give me the v252 we can create something wonderful together it's just not as fresh and new as we were sold on and the execution Lacks impact all Harry contributes is a pair of legs so the Symbio could stand upright and a pair of hands to punch with could have been m gargan in there since he's just as Bland as Venom what do you want revenge for why do you call yourself Venom doesn't matter here's that character design you like because he looks cool he's just a big action figure now the personal connection with the villain thing is watered down by the fact that Harry's not even in control don't let him get in your head that's not Harry talking Harry man that's the CIO talking not you Venom is pulling words from Harry Osborne's mind and talking on behalf of him with all this Heal the World and Harry's jealous of Miles stuff to give the illusion of any character motivation but that final boss makes it clear that Harry isn't actively trying to hurt people he he what's happening just hang on buddy please no leave him Al plus we played as Peter with the suit we know how it works he's also got the Candyman voice in his head telling him to kill everything kill Cen K he's just a victim along for the ride like the Myriad of hosts in the 2017 cartoon wrong this is the real me and the scene with him acting evil earlier was the same angsty brain addled mind control that Peter was under and MJ was immediately after I am in complete control what's happening to me this game's very explicit that the things you do Under the Symbiotes influence are out of your control does all this evil stuff for you and makes it seem like your idea even if you'd never actually do any of those things so at his core Harry doesn't want any of this just like MJ didn't actually want to shatter Peter's tailbone it's out of his control and that makes for a weak villain he's an inactive antagonist being steered around by a boring generic monster with no personality that says boring generic monster dialogue like join us join us so I just have like nothing to latch on to this is a lame villain Otto and Finn both at least were completely of sound mind and aware of their actions when they broke Spider-Man's heart and it was developed across a much longer span of time in Otto's case so none of this really hits as hard as the previous two games they did the same thing three times in a row and this is the weakest laziest version of it not that anyone cares but the suit being behind the invasion is completely out of character for it too it tries to stop things like this from happening they did King in black but made Venom the bad guy instead of null as much as I love Donnie Kate's Venom run null isn't exactly a deep character it's like they read arguably the greatest Venom story of all time and decided to ignore the actual story and characters and just use the Aesthetics alone because it was recognizable I'm not impressed by the spirals and dragon wings if it has no real substance and is just purely visual fan service this is the most surface level and uninteresting Venom adaptation thus far oh but I want Venom to be dark and mean and threatening to the whole world he should be a menacing villain that's serious and brings the Symbiote invasion you want the movie version of Riot you're thinking of Riot these games need to stop having Venom act like Carlton Drake's Riot how easily you were outdone by midnight sons of all things you're welcome cute I mean all right I like Harry Osborne as a character I just vastly prefer the version of him that's a recovering addict having to live up to his father's massive expectations or battle his demons knowing that he's the son of a crazy super villain Harry is the best Green Goblin in the comics even outshining Norman that's gotten exactly one decent adaptation the movies botched it twice but for some reason the Dane danan version was their go-to in these games for like his backstory and Fall From Grace you're a fraud Spiderman now him and Eddie are both lesser for taking this route just missed opportunities on top of missed opportunities there's nothing this story did with Harry's Venom that couldn't have also been accomplished with him Juiced up with the healing properties and mental toll from Goblin formula and infecting other New Yorkers with that like goblin war uh but the Symbiote is cooler looking and more popular and people remember from those other games Hey look it's like Web of Shadows but happening way too fast I'm not opposed to other people than Eddie Brock being Venom in cases like Flash Thompson it can be amazing but in my opinion this game didn't execute it well enough to justify doing it at all and he only appears in the last hour of the game to barely get any development or screen time do I think this game would have been improved by making it Eddie instead actually no fck no I think that would have been completely antithetical to what they were trying to achieve with this story as much as I love that character and find him important they couldn't have made him work for the story they wanted to tell here which is again why I wish they hadn't sacrificed Venom as a way to build up a story that could have been achieved perfectly fine with something else something more fitting and dramatically interesting for Harry you didn't have to drag Venom down for this it was totally unnecessary you could spend an eternity picking a part little Fanboy inaccuracies like vulnerability to Fire or the location of the bells ringing or whatever but what matters is the characters and they forsook that to tell a story that wasn't completely satisfying even on its own terms the entire inclusion of Venom is rushed underdeveloped derivative and the biggest sin is just not giving Tony Todd better material to play with he's got like the most perfect Venom voice possible but it's wasted on such serious and cliched L lines let the man sing Strangers in the Night or talk about heating brains if they do end up making a Venom spin-off game they have to bring him back and write him some fun stuff to say full stop I can't let such amazing casting go to waste you really got that man in the booth to use 8 minutes of dialogue in a 25-hour game weird I just finished a film about an undead soccer team and it was called shinpads oh wait that was Final Destination five that skank wasn't worth the $4 I'll spin on an ice cream con as for the rest of this cast they acted the [ __ ] out of this okay it best script for the main story I've never seen a game where the vocal performances did such an amazing job of elevating material that at times can be pretty mediocre everyone was in top for Yuri my boy I think you've secured your place as my new favorite Spidey voice actor cuz you're really went for it in every scene won best performance in my heart even if the Oscars don't recognize video games come on back pal let's do more benen Shenanigans even though I just spent like 30 minutes crapping on Spiderman 2o it's okay oh he's cool about it we're already starting to get hints that this game had a troubled development behind the scenes and tons of Concepts got cut levels got removed or whole lengthy segments of story were truncated and it's unfortunate that it show is in the final product if I had to guess it could be that Sony forced Insomniac to tie it off and put it out so they'd have a major release this year part of me wishes that this game got delayed for another year or more so they had more time to implement all their ideas without having to Crunch CU crunch just makes everything suck for everyone Web of Shadows had a lot of cut ideas too but that game still felt like a more Complete product and like they got their bang for their buck with the Symbiote Invasion concept by pacing it out more slowly and making it feel like it was a problem for the whole Marvel universe that one felt like watching a zombie apocalypse but with Spider-Man as the main character this game's third Act is so quick and underdeveloped that feels visibly incomplete take your time I can be patient I'm aware that I'll be in my 30s when you release the third one I'm fine with it just slow down let it cook because I'm decent at predicting things here's all the side villains I think will be in the third game come back in 5 years and let me know if I was right with Peter taking a semi hatus from Superhero work as he often does in the comics I think it'd be nice to take a break before Spider-Man 3 and do uh Spider-Man Miles Morales 2 because he was a bit of an afterthought in this story compared to Peter while it is like the best part of the main story his Arc with Mr negative wraps up a good long while before the game ends and he doesn't have much else to do outside of chasing that one threat or just reacting to whatever Peter's half of the story has caused it feels weed a bit too much towards classic Spidey and I don't want him to get sidelined and put in that terrible costume for long maybe we can have him take the lead on the DLC in battle Carnage or something remember that book in absolute Carnage that they forgot to finish so there's a giant unresolved Cliffhanger in that series Good Times yeah you can put that costume in as a DLC Spider-Man 2 is a very mixed bag with some parts that were really engrossing and groundbreaking scenes mechanics and set pieces that have to be some of the best of the last decade of gaming but it's also tied together with a story that feels tired and fails to meet the mark and it's clear that this game was meant to be much bigger and more polished and I feel like Insomniac really is just adapting mostly other adaptations and can't find a way to put their own original spin on anything without it coming across really syy you got one idea and it's not even like your idea but you keep doing it it's a game that goes from Spider-Man 3 to web of Shadows to Ultimate Spider-Man in its plot but it doesn't have very much about it that I can go wow that reminds me of Marvel Spider-Man 2 it's not doing a fresh and modern take on comic stories it's just compiling bits and pieces of the cartoons games and movies that already did that to begin with so you get this unfortunate effect of it all feeling like secondhand ideas I've seen all of these Concepts reused recycled reimagined and repackaged so many times like a game of telephone that ironically just doing something from the original books would now actually be more unique and refreshing can you imagine a single Spider-Man adaptation where he dates Betty Brandt first or where he's the one who corrupts the initially peaceful and benevolent symbiote with his shitty attitude instead of the other way around how about someone really taking a genuine shot at Harry's drug problem instead of making silly metaphorical Illusions to it with fictional Super V meds as a standin what if we saw Peter's bully turned friend Flash Thompson used for more than just jokes and have to actually grapple with the realities of a life-altering disability and still become an amazing superhero despite said disability can J Jonah Jameson be an actual character again instead of just grouchy comic relief so many great things about these books really only exist in adaptations now as cameos Easter eggs and running gags I want you to remember this forever forever if a movie director or TV writer or game developer says they're taking inspiration from classic Spidey stories they always exclusively mean the 9s cartoon if they say they're pulling something straight from the comics they mean Bendis ultimate or slot ASM and not a damn thing else the entire entertainment industry adapting Spider-Man stories into other mediums would rather die then use any full storylines by JM D matus Jerry Conway Tom DeFalco Peter David J Michael trzinski David molini Chip zadarski Mark Wade or even Stanley himself the best you'll get is tangential maybe even unintentional nods or inspiration for a scene or two that was gleaned off of skim read of a Wikipedia article and then that scene would be in a completely different context we could be getting so Much Death depth and so much unused material from spidey's golden years I mean those books are in the dumpster right now but if there's not like 40 years of good stuff to use too but instead we're still getting hung up on these and it's pretty much the only thing we ever see anymore in Peter Parker stories if they aren't Multiverse related they've done the friend turned enemy parlor trick to get you emotionally invested so many times that it no longer works I can see the strings I'm not impressed anymore Spider-Man 2 also has a bad habit of wasting characters to build up other ones like killing tons of super criminals to make Craven look more threatening or botching four of spidey's Best Supporting characters to create an underwhelming sloppy hodg podge of them that sadly has none of the interesting parts of any one of them Insomniac Venom is their weakest main villain so far and I feel let down that Harry and the Symbiote didn't live up to their full potential as characters H Norman's reason for hating Spider-Man is pretty forced and dumb But Otto is written so well in this series that hopefully his involvement can salvage it next time I have hopes though that Norman Osborne and Otto Octavius teaming up for the third game will finally lead to something different we can't retread that same old [ __ ] again with that setup and I have a feeling they were saving their best for last so while it feels like a great evolution in gameplay from its predecessors it feels like a step down in quality of Storytelling and like a throwaway middle chapter before getting to the big finale this is the Halloween kills of Spider-Man games and that's that's rough I always get mad at YouTube for not putting my videos in the subscription box because people will comment finally Xavier uploads again after all these years not knowing three other videos came out within the last month already so maybe that stupid Bell icon thing will help you remember I exist if you want other ways to support the channel you can always go hit up that patreon for early videos and exclusive stuff because it's just a dollar I'm not kidding it's only $1 Isn't that cool if everyone who watched this video donated $1 a month I'd be able to afford a house for myself so that would be that would be really cool you can also check out our merch on tuu or just buy some of my random stuff on eBay I have a pretty substantial collection of old toys that are still in the box in perfect condition so go take a look in case you find something you like and lastly since this is a YouTube video and you probably play fortnite drop my Creator code Xavier GM next time you buy a silly dance or a cool character skin really helps me out see you next [Music] time [Music]

Channel: GodzillaMendoza

Views: 372,087

Keywords: Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man, Games, Videogames, Review, Retrospective, Villain Problem, Venom, Harry Osborn, Doc Ock, GodzillaMendoza, Insomniac Spider-Man, Spider-Man Ps4, Spider-Man PS5, PS5, Playstation 5, Spider-Man 2018, Peter Parker, Miles Morales, Martin Li, Mr Negative, Mary Jane, Scream, Xavier, Video Essay

Id: EJWqiPKa8XU

Length: 74min 1sec (4441 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 01 2024