While most fans are playing Insomniac’s Spider-Man games on PS5 and PC, I’ve been trying out the Spider-Man 2 movie game over the past few days. Twenty years after it was released, this is still a great superhero video game and one that’s still worth playing for fans of this iconic superhero.
The recent Spider-Man games from Insomniac have been quality, offering fans good visuals, great controls, and solid stories. However, they lean too much on that “cinema” quality Sony likes from its exclusives. Both games also have a case of Batman Arkham envy, even though they turned the battle system into something a bit more unique.
Still, I do think the next game should try and take a page out of this older movie game. Using the Arkham-like battle system is fun and all, but a focus on wall-crawling and web-swinging levels would help this game stand out more.
Fans of the Marvel character know that Activision’s Spider-Man 2 movie game gave fans their first open-world they could swing through as Spidey. Multiple games have since tried to perfect that formula, with the Insomniac titles finally managing that balance between web-swinging and fun combat.
Although the Insomniac-developed Spider-Man games are technically superior, they aren’t the most original in today’s AAA climate. Batman Arkham comparisons have already been made, but it also suffers from basic Ubisoft-style open-world gameplay and linear cinematic moments. Web-swinging in the open world is still fun, but players never really get levels that test their mettle, unless they’re time trials.
In the Spider-Man 2 game for PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube, there were entire levels that would test Spidey’s wall-crawling and web-swinging. The excellent Mysterio missions had players going through his obstacle course that required fast timing and good use of his wall-crawling. Later on, Mysterio makes Spider-Man go to the Statue of Liberty, giving him limited items to web-swing from, which was a nice challenge.
Despite some fun time-based challenges in the Marvel’s Spider-Man games, none of them find an innovative or challenging way to use these skills. As fun as the web-swinging is, this is mostly used to travel from one place to another, which is a bit disappointing. More unique levels that limit how the Spider-Men travel would have been nice, instead of all those linear wall-crawling segments.
Just to be clear, this doesn’t make any of the Insomniac Spider-Man games bad. Like I said earlier, these games are well-made and have a lot of love for the source material. You can tell that these devs read a lot of the comics and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for the third game.
Still, alongside that arena mode I previously wrote about, it would be nice if the next game tries to challenge the acrobatics and traversal skills of Spider-Man. If nothing else, it should stop some of those Batman Arkham comparisons critics like to bring up.