To say that the Spider-Man game franchise has outlasted most series might be an understatement: it began 41 years ago on the Atari 2600 and has seen 40 iterations. The games have seen numerous highs and lows, but perhaps the best was the last outing: 2020’s emotion-filled Spider-Man Miles Morales, from Insomniac Games. In Insomniac’s new Spider-Man 2 — which features both Peter Parker (the original Spider-Man, introduced in 1962) and Miles Morales (the bi-racial Spider-Man introduced in 2011) — the roller-coaster dramatic story and innovative action mesh, often artfully and sometimes perfectly. Yet it’s the eye-opening, breathless action and astutely-created gameplay that take center stage. Honestly, I’ve never played a more compelling superhero game.
Not even five minutes into this PlayStation 5 game I was thrown into a gasp-inducing battle with the Sandman. The scenario grabbed me so unrelentingly that I was left happily stunned. Moments before, I’d been wondering about the narrative’s depth. In the first scenes, Peter Parker steps into a classroom to teach a class, which includes Miles Morales. Both are needed elsewhere to deal with the gritty villain, but Parker leaves his class willy-nilly without informing his principal. That bit was hard to believe, but the ensuing New York City-based action made me forget the strained opening.
Many game tutorials take you out of the game with overly detailed instructions. Not Spider-Man 2. I wasn’t forced into an uncomfortable balance of learning controls and moving the action forward. Instead I felt occupied dealing with swirls of movement, because everything was so intense. Different kinds of Sandman clones attacked me, some that were my size and a huge, stories-tall Sandman who was wreaking terror on downtown Manhattan with desert-like dunes that seemingly covered everything. Those cityscapes were scary, briefly recalling the horror of maelstroms like 9/11 and Sandy.
Moving through buildings every which way and fighting with fists, webs, and gadgets has never really made me feel as one with an action offering, except perhaps for the Uncharted series, which is known for its innovative environmental choreography. But here I was hanging onto the giant head of Sandman, pummeling him with comparatively tiny but effective Spider-Man fists. Through cutscenes that lasted a few seconds or camera angles that lasted less I felt immersed in the world Insomniac Games had created. I was inside the suit, doing needed, albeit violent, work to save my city and its people.
That battle with Sandman was so affecting that I had to take a breather and look out my apartment window at the real East River, a mildly churning estuary lit in the darkness, to chill before continuing. The play had dizzied me. And that was only the first half hour.
In addition to webs, Spider-Man now has small wings to fly. So after perching atop the Empire State Building and drinking the greatest city’s architectural brilliance — and the curvature of the Earth — I could jump off, open those wings, and fly most of the way to Coney Island. Most of the way. Because the wings don’t let me fly forever, I fell into the East River. Somehow, instead of swimming, I was gliding on the top of the water, foot surfing. Spider-Man, with all his foibles, was kind of a Jesus lizard, skimming over the river.
The plot here involves Kraven, the kind of bulked-up, muscle-bound baddie every Marvel production has seen since the 1960s. He viciously pulls the tail off the Scorpion’s green, hardshell costume. That’s not new. What makes the plot compelling is how the writers weave the human worries and defeats into to the lives of both Spider-Men. In the middle of a fight, for instance, Spider-Man has a hallucinatory episode, and as he moves through the green dream haze he feels his confidence draining away and an undertow of depression. He muddles through. It’s not the constant battles that move the story forward. It’s the constant worry. This was the innovation Marvel introduced to comic books 60-odd years ago — centering stories around life obstacles that everyone, not just comic-book characters, has experienced — and it works just as well if not even better in a game.
More than Parker’s story, it was the Morales plot that hit closer to home for me, with Miles’ single mom making pastelón, the tasty Puerto Rican pasta dish, as she urges him to meet her boyfriend. Of course, duty calls and he slips out a window to deal with a mission. The lives of many unknown people he is obligated to care about, rather than the love within his own nuclear family, take precedence.
Then, there’s Coney Island, the place I wanted to visit most. Miles Morales moves through an odd attraction which sees him as a DJ with a VR helmet on. The virtual EDM show goes awry and the scene changes to focus on Peter, girlfriend MJ, and his rich kid pal Harry. Walking through the gleamingly clean amusement park, the three recall their younger years by taking rides on a roller coaster and indulging in sideshow games. Colorful sprays of fireworks explode. It doesn’t matter that this isn’t an utterly accurate depiction of Coney Island. Riding the coaster at night, looking down at the boardwalk and beach below, made me think of my own Mermaid Parade memories. Then enemies descended on the park and left it decimated. The next mission awaited.
Adding to the fisticuffs are a variety of social-justice oriented moments. At Harry’s multi-million dollar research lab, Harry tries to convince Peter to co-run the well-funded startup with him. Through the lab’s scientists I learned about saving bees and preserving the environment. To help the bees, I had to shoot down and eliminate about 20 beewolves, wasps which prey on bees.
So there’s a cornucopia here with multiple side missions that don’t necessarily move the story forward. Instead, they induce exploration of the nooks and crannies of Central Park, Chinatown, and the outer boroughs as you move toward a blockbuster, sci-fi ending. While playing Spider-Man Miles Morales first is suggested, you don’t need to in order to enjoy a game that’s the epitome of the words “wild ride.”
