Topic: Spider Man

Only 6 months late to the party, but I’m having a good time with Spider-Man 2. I’m clocked at 7 hrs of playtime and the difficulty has climbed quite a bit. I don’t remember either of the first two games being quite this challenging. I may need to drop the difficulty.

Some of it has to do with the emphasis on abilities and the fact most enemy groups now have at least some that have undodgable attacks with the new parry mechanic, and that many will block most standard punch and kick attacks.

I don’t mind the special ability cycling combat, but I actually just finished FF16 and this combat system is like a more dynamic version of that one. But my internal clock is still set on the FF16 combat and so I keep trying to trigger an ability and the cooldown isn’t over yet. The abilities and gadgets refresh much slower and are a little weaker than I would expect. Same for the focus bar. So it’s made for many frustrating deaths.

Leveling up does happen quickly however so I’m hoping I can use my skill points and all the bazillion kinds of leveling currency (I don’t even know how I’m earning “hero points”, or whatever their called 😅) to somehow make this easier. The game keeps prompting me to buy more suits, but I’m like “Quit tempting me — I need to stockpile resources to spend on making myself stronger and less fragile! I don’t care what I look like right now! 😂)

I think I’m around level 12 now, so I’ve just barely scratched the surface of all the skill trees and upgrades available.

Story-wise, I really like it so far. Both Peter and Miles have some meaningful arcs going on and I’m interested to know more. I actually really like Harry in the game. I never clicked with him in the movies, but his friendship with Peter is very well executed here so far. The whole Emily May Foundation and all the pseudoscience babble is a bit much as far as suspension of disbelief goes, but hey this is a story about superhero powers, so being able to splice plant genes with a simple hexagon puzzle or kill off bee predators with a bee drone and not expect to drastically alter the balance of the ecosystem… well it’s all just something I have to chuckle and go along with. It makes for unintentionally funny moments like when Peter is at the koi fish pond and the researcher starts a sentence and Peter finishes it for her with something about layered cellular molecular structures or something and she’s like “yes, exactly!”. 😂 Peter is basically a world renowned robotics, genetics, physics, botany, aerospace and electrical engineering, biochemistry, and apparently aquatic biology expert 😂 and the only job he could get was teaching high school.

But my enjoyment of the game is quite high, despite some of my early criticisms. Insomniac really are experts at keeping gameplay fluid and fun and they’ve effectively pulled me back into the world where each play session just flies by and before I know it it’s time for bed.

Still enjoying SM2, although I went ahead and adjusted some difficulty sliders to make the combat less frustrating. I like the way they made customizable sliders, so I didn’t have to drop the base difficulty (yet 😅) but rather just adjusted a couple modifiers like dodge/parry timing window and enemy damage and now the game is much more forgiving, despite my still being on the default “Amazing” difficulty level. I reserve the right to drop it at any time though. 😅

There’s some inconsistency of difficulty in the different encounters though, which I don’t remember being a problem in the first game. Especially some of the Flame encounters are quite tough.

The best storyline continues to be Harry’s as far as I’m concerned. I’m still early days so time will tell but I’m enjoying swinging and punching.

I hit a very emotional point in the game that I wasn’t expecting. Just out of the blue on a certain side quest, it really moved me. For those that played the game, I’m referring to Howard’s side quest.

Otherwise, I am really noticing so much the nice polish on this entry, with just the way the city is so smooth and expansive and the way the travel is even more impressive with the wing suit. I also am really enjoying the different kinds of activities that are included and the way that it keeps things fresh. Like the trip to Coney Island for example and the various side quests.

I’m coming close to the end of Spider-Man 2. I can tell because I only have about 5 trophies left and I feel like the story’s climax is around the corner.

I’ve 100%’ed all the districts, done all the collectibles (except the experiment one), and maxed out my level to 60.

If I were to do it all over again I would not have wasted effort chasing down every single crime that popped up. I hit level max way too soon. But it was good for me to maintain my survivability because the game is pretty tough and even with everything maxed and 40 hrs to ‘git gud’ with the mechanics, I’m still dying from time to time. Those symbiote nests are crazy.

I’ve had a lot of fun though. Insomniac should be recognized for their real skill at balancing the gameplay and keeping things fresh, playable, and enjoyable. The symbiote powers are so good and a blast to use. I knew next to nothing about the Venom character before this game and it seems to be such a stunning version of it in the game.

Anyways , just giving the game its flowers. In my opinion it’s much better than the first two games, both of which I liked a lot. I’m not done with the game yet, but if it holds, then I would consider it a solid 9/10 and the first two games were around an 8. Miles Morales was better so maybe an 8.5.