* denotes a replay
January (5 Games Beaten)
February (7 Games Beaten)
March (7 Games Beaten)
April (3 Games Beaten)
May (0 Games Beaten)
June (6 Games Beaten)
July (8 Games Beaten)
August (3 Games Beaten)
September (0 Games Beaten)
October (4 Games Beaten)
November (1 Games Beaten)
44. Spider-Man 2 - PlayStation 5 - November 18
My first introduction to Insomniac’s Spiderman games wasn’t until I got the version of Miles Morales on PS5 that included the PS5 remaster of the PS4 game. I’m not a fan of Marvel or superhero stuff in general, so it was always a “eh, I’ll play it eventually” on PS4. When I did finally play it, though, I was immediately sucked in and felt compelled to 100% both Spiderman and Miles Morales. When Spiderman 2 was announced, I knew it would be an immediate pre-order; with how good the two previous games were, I knew I’d have to play this one at or near launch.
One of the coolest parts about this sequel is that you’ve got two protagonists; you switch between playing as Peter Parker and Miles Morales over the course of the game’s main story. They each have their own unique powers and skill trees in addition to a shared skill tree. There are also side quests that are unique to each character, although most side objectives can be completed by either. As someone who’s never read a single Marvel comic, cares absolutely nothing for the MCU, and had no experience with Spiderman since the Toby McGuire movies until these games, I absolutely loved the story of the game. I don’t know how much was common to the source material and how much was creative liberty, but it was enthralling regardless.
The combat feels very familiar but with the changes you’d expect from a sequel; there’s not as much emphasis on stealth this time outside of a couple missions, and you get an opportunity to parry enemy attacks and throw them off balance in addition to simply dodging out of the way. There are also new abilities and gadgets to make beating up bad guys more entertaining. The boss battles, too, felt more dramatic and in a couple of instances more challenging than in the previous games. You still have the option of stealth in a lot of cases, and with some enemies - which appear in a greater variety here than in the first game - that’s the smarter way to approach some fights. There are also a few missions where you play as MJ with a stun gun instead of superpowers. A lot of folks online seem to despise the MJ missions, but I, personally, loved them. They broke up the flow of the missions in a way that added variety but didn’t break the feel of the game.
There are two visual modes to choose from here - Fidelity and Performance. Fidelity keeps the traditional 30 fps cap in favor of dynamic resolution that sticks pretty close to 2160p as well as impressive shadow effects and ray tracing. Performance - my preferred way to play - ups the cap to 60 fps with very few dips below that and even then, only a few frames. To maintain this, the resolution drops from 2160p to 1440p, but ray tracing is still present in Performance albeit reduced from Fidelity.
I consider Spiderman 2 to be a perfect sequel. The story is better than the first game and on par with Miles Morales in my opinion, and the improvements to the Performance visual mode are fantastic. Combat is improved and diversified, and having two and a half protagonists to play as (I’m counting MJ as a half) ensures that you never get stuck in a rut. A massive variety to suits keeps cosmetics interesting, and the array of side missions and mini-game sequences give players a lot to do aside from the main missions.
