Like its titular heroes swinging in to save the day, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 showed up at exactly the right time.
I’ve had a hard time finishing games this year. I started Marvel’s Midnight Suns back in February, but didn’t roll credits until last month. I started the Mass Effect trilogy in January, finished the first game, then got distracted in the middle of Mass Effect 2, and haven’t gone back since. Now I feel stranded, and unsure whether I should pick up where I left off, start 2 all over again with a recap of the first, or just drop the games all together and come back for a full trilogy playthrough in a few years. I similarly was having a great time with Dead Space, but stopped playing it about a third of the way through, and haven’t gone back.
I wanted to finish 52 games this year (and I’m still hoping I will) but I have so many that are stuck in limbo, half-finished. Even the games I’m committed to completing are trying my patience. I love Baldur’s Gate 3, and it will probably be my GOTY, but the second act really slowed my progress. It’s a fantastic game, but nothing goes fast in Faerun.
So, the arrival of Spider-Man 2 has been a godsend. Once you start, it’s a game that would be harder not to finish. Even with an obnoxious bug that crashes my game roughly once per hour, I’ve been making my way through it at a much speedier pace than any of the other games I’ve picked up this year.
That’s what Insomniac’s Spider-Man games do so well. They feel great to play, obviously, but Mario Wonder feels great to play, too, and I don’t feel the same compulsion to keep going. I can pick it up, play a level, then put it down. But Spider-Man 2 combines fantastic game feel with propulsive mechanical and narrative momentum. It always keeps you moving, zipping from main quest to side quest to Sandman crystal to Prowler stash to Mysterium gate to Spider-Bot, and three new objectives land in your lap before you can finish one.
The story is similarly well-paced, swapping you from Peter to Miles to MJ whenever it needs to. As a result, you’re never bored — the game is putting you in the prime position to participate as each new piece of the action unfolds.
It’s all held together with the glue of web-swinging, which makes the process of getting from Point A to Point B seamless and lightning fast. I started playing Star Wars Jedi: Survivor around the same time I picked up Spider-Man 2, and instantly felt the difference when I went from an action game designed to be ridiculously fast to one designed to be more deliberate. Both are good, but Spider-Man is the pace I need right now.
Baldur’s Gate 3 will probably be my GOTY, but Spider-Man 2 has been a welcome vacation from that great, slow-paced RPG. After spending 80 hours on two acts, it’s refreshing to know I’ll spend less than 30 seeing everything Spider-Man has to offer. And that I’ll move like a race car while doing it.