Spider-Man 2 Left Me Absolutely SHOCKED... | Review

welcome back to Retro Rebound in today's video we are not retro at all baby we're talking about Spider-Man 2 where like many of you I also grinded away my entire weekend on this game I've completed the main story a ton of the side content and I'm well on my way to that tantalizing platinum trophy which is by the way Mighty easy to obtain if you're into that stuff and ladies and gentlemen we've given a lot of love to the web head here on this channel so it's only fitting that the Spider-Man 2 review is done here given our hype for the game we did our biggest video ever on retro rebound focusing on every Spider-Man game from 2000 and on that'll be linked down below if you want to check that out but ladies and Gentlemen let's not delay any further I have a lot to say about Spider-Man 2 if you're new here you're interested in the occasional day one review mixed in with nostalgic and retrospective content especially Spider-Man you're in the right place consider are subscribing let's begin with the story there's been a lot of back and forth online about this story from it lacking surprise to the length being a topic of great debate and yeah I would say the length is problematic not because of the runtime but how the runtime is actually used for such a short game which you can beat in definitely under 10 hours if you just Blitz through the main story yeah it definitely takes a bit of time to get going now when you talk about the opening to the game which is one of the most incredible openings I'm talking about afterwards once you get through that whole Sandman segment I think things taper off for a little bit and a reason for that is because the main story gets delayed to set up a plethora of open world activities something I think Insomniac recognized deeper in development was hurting the pace of the game because eventually you'll just unlock these open world activities they'll just happen the game doesn't show them to you they don't pull it right in front of you and display them to you it is something that's more organically brought into the open world rather than stopping the story which is something that I think does hurt it early on because Spider-Man 1 wasn't really that long of a video game either it was sitting around roughly the same run time if you did gun through it but I think the difference was how they used the main story they would give you the towers to set up the open world objectives and from there some would be injected in the main story but not almost every single one the biggest difference here with Spider-Man 2 is that it focuses on two Spider-Man which is honestly great on the gameplay front the game is at its best when the missions have you bouncing between these two it's something that dreams are made of as we play through every Spider-Man game here on this channel and you look at the humble beginnings of Spider-Man 64 Spider-Man on the PS1 you just look at that starting point and look at where we're at now where we have a full big budget AAA double Spider-Man game like it's that popular now it's that relevant now to invest that much in it is one of the coolest things I've personally seen so that works on a gameplay front especially when you see the combined finishers on a narrative front it definitely works too seeing Peter lean on Miles as he's kind of this Mentor figure to miles but that he now shares this burden with someone it's not just him holding the weight of the world on his shoulders alone I think this is a great relationship and that's where the strength of the two Spider-Man lies but they also have their own individual arcs of course Peter and his relationship with MJ and Harry and the impending doom that's lurking over everyone's head with Craven on the way who we'll talk about in a little bit meanwhile miles is struggling with the loss of his dad still and there's a lot of grief in his heart and I do feel like miles personal story arc gets pushed to decide for Peters which I understand given Peter is the main showcase here when it comes to the game and the story being based around him however mil story I thought had the chance for more emotional punch but it was feeling a little bit rushed and that's where I think the story does stumble a little bit is the balance of two Spider-Man stories I think this is where the runtime again is a little problematic I don't mind if it's a 9 to 10 hour story but if you're using a lot of that to set up side activities in the open world instead of building up miles building up his part of the story a little bit more I think that's where the runtime is frustrating people because again I don't think the length of the game is a problem I don't think length of a game should ever be that big of an issue unless you need serious bang for your buck which I totally understand and respect because for many people you buy one game a year you buy two games a year you got to make sure that counts right and that you don't fly through it in a weekend like I did but at the same time with Spider-Man 2 I think most of that runtime is used in a quality manner which I'll get into really with Craven who I think is an absolutely fantastic villain it's awesome to see such a concept nailed with him as the narrative is allowing him to unleash the entire Rogues gallery on New York City but the reason he's doing that is to hunt them down he's looking for an equal and the story behind Craven while it's explored more in little notes and Nuggets if you pay attention to those it's very compelling what he's trying to do and while I wouldn't say I like him as much as Mr negative who I think is just a brilliant villain he is I think a unique one and stands Out Among the pantheon of Spider-Man villains now compared to where he once was where when we covered the Ry Spider-Man games he was an exclusive mission on Xbox or in Shattered Dimensions he's this subplot opening villain like ah it's Craven the hunter whatever this game feels like it gets Craven and makes him really cool and really scary but I do wish he had a touch more screen time to explore his character even more so it feels like they had this I don't want to spoil it but this one piece of his character and why he was doing all this and they didn't evolve it beyond that meanwhile Venom the big villain the game was apparently built around um I just will say that that he doesn't get a ton of screen time either don't get me wrong he's terrifying and would steal the show but the impact he left me was more of a dang I wish there was more here which I guess isn't a bad thing right it means they did a good job with what was there but I feel like there was more opportunity to make him more of a menace over time and have that buildup but it does feel a bit cluttered towards the end where again I think this game's biggest problem is Pace where it knows how to ramp up from 0 to 100 in a Flash it's really the lack of surprise and I think that's partially INF fairness due to in my experience with the first Spider-Man game I was not super familiar with Mr negative his motivations his connections to ant May Norman Osborne Peter this sort of centerpiece of having that duality of human and villain much like Peter with human and hero worked really well for me and the way he impacted miles's life and you know you sort of sprung that Adventure forward I feel like this game is a little Just a Touch Too predictable but at the same time it is a Spider-Man 3 hence the suit Redemption Arc I mean when you really look at Yuri lenthal as Spider-Man that you could have not have picked a better actor I was already saying that in the first game I love Yuri Lal he's my favorite voice actor of all time but that performance he does in Spider-Man 2 from I mean I'm talking Sasuke uchia Vibes start to come out when my man goes into symbiote mode it is brilliant stuff and the performances across the board are fantastic no one is bad in this game which is great because everyone is believable but Yuri is oh my God this guy is insane as Spider-Man he sells the anger and it feels like in that sense we got Redemption for those years of Toby Maguire Spider-Man 3 memes which are hilarious but let's be honest that wasn't the intent of the movie this game sells to me the darkness that Peter held within him and the grief that took him over as time went on the story still does have MJ gameplay which I still found fun and yes I did use the word still I didn't have a problem with breaking things up a bit in Spider-Man 1 because I thought the game was paced better so I liked getting the occasional MJ stealth mission to the internet it seems like whatever I sign on it's like oh my God this is the worst thing to ever happen they still have the puzzles in this game I think that Insomniac lost a bit of their confidence on that because they made them skippable and at that point I just asked why have them in the first place if we're just going to be able to skip them which eventually I did I was like if you don't have faith in this why am I going to waste my time doing it which I know some people go oh my God what but that's to me just what the puzzles communicated to me why spend the time if they are completely skippable and I miss out on absolutely nothing just don't put them in the game at all do a cut scene now I mentioned earlier that a lot of the open world is introduced through the early parts of the main story those first four five hours are really missions of high quality peppered in with open world introductions the tradeoff there is you don't get the Ubisoft Towers when I went back for Spider-Man remastered on PS5 and played through that a bit for our big Spider-Man retrospective one thing I noticed was the tower setup it was fine at the time we were like right at the tail tail end of that being acceptable but given that the game did so much new and better at the time compared to other Spider-Man games it was something we were willing to overlook I'm glad they got rid of that entirely though going back to it I was like this is not engaging at all and so now in the open world with Spider-Man 2 you just find objectives which I think is much better you get around super quick with new traversal methods that we'll talk about so you find these objectives way faster I mean it works really well which I think was probably a scary change in today's day and age where open world AAA games like the Hold Your Hand which this game definitely does but I like this Chang to the open world for sure you know it might might be time to evolve what the Spider-Man formula is in a open world I don't mind checklist games certainly I'm going to complete this one 100% but it's more so because of my love of Spider-Man rather than the content within the game I look at the Batman Arkham games like many as a prime example of how to do open world activities in a superhero game right I don't mind the occasional checklist stuff but I like that Batman was able to incorporate Metroid Vania elements with gadgetry that Batman got that was used not only in combat but in Exploration I think with all the gadgets you get in Spider-Man that they could have done that I think the Riddler is an awesome addition to the Batman world because it gets you looking at the world in different angles and lining up different shots and Spider-Man with its photo ops feels like a missed opportunity for something along those lines I just feel this game played it a little too safe with the open world and I get it there's Mass Appeal for a Spider-Man game from people my age to older Spider-Man fans all the way to kids picking this game up but I do feel the open world formula for Spider-Man needs to evolve because it has been the same for a while let's keep it real and it feels very apparent in this one it doesn't make it bad it's just overly familiar and before I get into the stuff I love love love about the game cuz I know this has been pretty critical UPF front I do want to say I got to get some complaints off my chest first and foremost one of the big concerns with Spider-Man in 2018 was oh my God they're going to put qtes in the game and they didn't put really any QuickTime events at all what's weird is Spider-Man 2 has a ton of quick time events I don't know why we took a step backward on this because I feel again this is where some of the design elements lack conviction like if you want to go full movie mode which this game absolutely does and let the game play itself and throw cut scenes my way let them be cut scenes I don't know why there were so many qtees in this game I'm not one of those people who despises that like others it doesn't snap me out but a lot of times I was just chilling back in my chair like this and then all of a sudden a QT would hit and I'd sit back up and go wait wait I thought that was going to be a cut scene or something along those lines so it just feels like at times Insomniac didn't want you to cool it too much they wanted you to stay engaged and I don't know why they went back on it what was a great decision in the first game this game is also a little buggy I'm talking like Spider-Man one Bug carrying over into two where I'm flying around as a cube not crazy about that stuff I also can't show this but in the final cut scene in the game uh mil entire body disappeared and I just had a floating head that definitely snaap me out of what was otherwise a pretty great scene so yeah there are bugs and they'll hit at the most unexpected times for the most part my run was bug free but I got to the end of the game and the extra open World stuff and something fell apart it got pretty buggy to the point where normally I'm very gracious with bugs but even I had to be like all right I got to say something at this point I had a lot of trouble with the camera this time around specifically in boss fights I was getting what I call camera stuffed where I'd be fighting an enemy and pushing them back and we'd get end up next to a wall and things would just get a little too chaotic this game throws a lot of enemies your way and especially when you're getting bounced around or you're trying to dodge everything and Parry everything yeah you know you'll get stuffed against the wall and it'll get a little too chaotic so I had some more camera woses with this game than the first Spider-Man I think because they throw so much more your way and my last real complaint is that lots of stretches in this game particularly in the early to midsections play itself I'm talking like the camera is orienting itself then they're telling you press L2 and R2 and then you zip and then you crawl down a very narrow pathway and then it fixes the camera again these are the little things that just tug me out of modern video games even something as much as I adore like Spider-Man like that's tough to do where I'm sitting there going just let me play and I think that's the biggest stumble of Spider-Man 2 is Spider-Man 1 was passionately a video game it was through and through a video game and I feel like Spider-Man 2 looked a bit too hard at the movies and tried to bring a lot of those elements to life and they did them really well I mean especially again that opening sequence with Sandman is insanity but it also is very much just floating around and waiting to press the triangle button and so when you have that mental break you just see through the illusion a bit too much and this game I just think too often takes the controller out of your hands otherwise though this game is a technical Marvel pardon the pun there because Insomniac I know they made Ratchet and Clank Rift apart to showcase the SSD and the power of it in the PlayStation 5 but this game feels through and through like the showpiece for it I mean the way I'm zipping from one end of the city to the other with the web wings or the super slingshot or the way you transition from area to area making boss fight fight bombastic as you Rampage the city I mean it's crazy stuff that they're doing here actual Wizardry that this game looks that good and then of course as you already seen the fast traveling just being a quick zooming into the map and off you go it's it's incredible what they've pulled off here especially with it looking this good I mean this is the most incredible rendition of New York City I've seen from the nighttime Skyline to the graffiti coating the side of buildings and more cars and NPCs than ever it is an absolute visual Delight but also for my old school Spider-Man game fans here web of Shadow and Ultimate Spider-Man Vibes are trickled throughout this entire game's presentations to at one point a certain way they visualize the city being one of the coolest things I've seen happen in an open world game and especially a Spider-Man game so if you have played a lot of these old Spider-Man games like I have here you'll see plenty of nods to them throughout even down to the combat there's web slams you can do in the air like in friender fo there's wall bounces like in the Ultimate Spider-Man games that the animations are practically pulled out of it's incredible how many nods there are to Spider-Man games of your in Spiderman 2 and for that it feels like again that collection of look how far we have come and this combat when it is firing on all cylinders oh does it feel good because not only do Peter Parker and M Morales have completely different move sets when it comes to their special abilities but they just feel incredible from the aerial combat to the knockups to the enemy types it's a real diverse pallet there and it feels great when it's working the biggest thing I think the combat stubbles into is the chaotic nature can really overtake the good feelings of the combat from the first game where there were a lot of clean fights I'll say in the first game you kind of get through them no problem at all in Spider-Man 2 the biggest problem they run into is the heads up display for a counter a parry and jumping to avoid attacks are all very similar like I know for an unavoidable attack you got to dodge roll so they do a big blue aura before the red Aura but when you got a ton of enemies coming your way it's it's a little bit of information overload and I wouldn't even say it's a get good or a skill issue type thing here I think this game just needs needed different colors to communicate different things the Parry system I don't think was needed at all but I get why with a sequel naturally you have to get bigger you have to get better and so this felt like a product of well it's a sequel so we should just add this in and I think it would have been fine but they needed a better visual distinction of when it was time to Parry versus when it was time to dodge it worked both times but certain enemies to open them up like Craven Hunters with two blades you needed to Parry or big brutes you need to Parry to open them up so it's often times reading the enemy type more than the UI and I think you need to lean on the UI often because of how chaotic this game can just get so the combat when it's working I mean when you're web striking from a mile out and pulling yourself in it's still got that Arkham feel but in a Spider-Man game and it feels distinct it just again can get a little too overbearing from time to time meanwhile Stealth gameplay absolutely rules because of the web lines uh even when you look a little silly and you'll have like eight web cocoons strung up on a single line and the guard below is none the wiser but in all seriousness this lets Insomniac design levels how they want whereas one thing I noticed in the Arkham games that they had an issue with was oh let's put like gargoyles all around this room and every room has gargoyles or perches that make no sense and I get why you had to support the gameplay and it worked for what it was but it doesn't age as well whereas here in Spider-Man you actually get very naturally built levels and you sort of create your own stealth Pathways it's in those moments of true gameplay freedom and control that you recognize I think the problems I was talking about earlier of wow they really do pull you away from having control of your experience far too often but when you're able to put up those web lines and by the way as many as you want you can connect web lines together it is awesome stuff the web swinging in Spider-Man 2 feels incredible I mean as someone who's as I said earlier a web swing connoisseur uh wow from The Locomotion to the release point and how they feel to the animations when they're falling and Miles turning around and opening his arms while falling upside down the fearlessness the control perfect perfect web swinging the web Wings I'm not really sold on these I'm going to be honest because to me the distinct defining factor that makes a Spider-Man game fun to play is that point a to point B traversal that feels like Spider-Man and with how much speed you gain in this game and how you get around and the zip points and the way you can unlock upgrades like the loop to Loop which will launch you a mile further to holding Circle and web swinging around the corner of a building diving through apartment ladders I mean I just feel like this web swinging was perfected and they just need to fine-tune adding the web Wings to me adds a little too many visual hes in an otherwise beautiful city where you see random wind tunnels that turn into these like weird rings that you zip through almost like Superman 64 and you use these to gain speed and maintain speed I don't think the web wings are bad I just think eventually they overtake the web swinging which then I feel like I'm playing a totally different game I don't feel like I'm playing a Spider-Man game I don't know if I'm being picky here but I got to keep it real I just found myself avoiding it unless it was totally necessary which in some side activities and of course main story missions it is it definitely ramps up that intensity and that action but if I could web swing I absolutely was in the end Spider-Man 2 is a better game to play than the first one in my opinion but I feel the first reign supreme when it comes to storytelling the way it was told and kept it free of distractions to even just nailing those life moments of Peter just connected me better with it way more not to say that for example going to Coney Island with Harry and MJ was not a good time it was great and you see this kind of friendship rekindling after so much time apart given how the first game went but given its overly predictable outcome some of that tension and buildup IS lost on me that said I think it's really hard to do an original story featuring Venom but that doesn't make this one bad for example the way this game Taps into Spider-Man's grief as a superhero is super stuff like it makes you realize that despite all the saving he has done he still feels like he's let a ton of people down and it helps you better understand the pressure that a superhero would put upon themselves it's in that way that Spider-Man 2 Nails it so to me in the terms of Lasting Impression it's not as powerful as Spider-Man 1 but it's a brilliant game to play it's impressive technically even if there's a decent amount of bugs crammed in in here and no regrets flying through it and spending my entire weekend on this I do wish we got a little more Venom screen time but otherwise ladies and gentlemen Spider-Man 2 is an easy recommendation for me personally but again it didn't blow me away as much as the first one did maybe it's because I didn't know what to expect with this one I did but I just feel that some of the evolutions took a little too much time but I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Spider-Man 2 down below did you enjoy the game far more than I do you have the critiques I did I'm looking forward to seeing what you say other than that take great care of yourselves and I will see you in the next retro rebound peace out

Channel: Retro Rebound

Views: 75,413

Keywords: spiderman 2, spiderman 2 review, spiderman 2 impressions, spiderman 2 preview, spiderman 2 thoughts, spiderman, spiderman retro rebound, retro rebound

Id: k5Dq9WSNPmY

Length: 23min 9sec (1389 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 23 2023