Does Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 deserve GOTY? (Game of the Year)
Written by Salvador N. ‘27
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is a sequel to Marvel’s Spider-Man and does an incredible job at telling the story of Peter Parker and Miles Morales as they both have trouble with the antagonist of this story: Kraven the Hunter.
We begin the story 2 years after the events of the first game opening with Peter being a new teacher at Brooklyn Visions Academy, the same place where Miles Morales is a student. We see that Peter desperately needs this job due to house bills from his deceased aunt and losing his job in the first game. Disaster strikes and Sandman starts to attack the city. Peter has no choice and leaps into action with his companion: Miles.
This entire fight sequence shows most of the new mechanics with the game, such as web gliding, slingshotting across the map, fast travel to get around easier, and lastly new fighting mechanics. One new mechanic is the use of Spider-Arms which adds more damage and new tactics to help you in the upcoming fights.
As the fight ends, Sandman has been captured and he said ,“They will come for you,” revealing the main plot of the story.
Overall, this entire intro to the story was beautifully written. It continues the story well and isn’t out of place. It also brings a lot of new advances in the game: Performance (RT), 60 FPS, and 120 Refresh Rate. These all add dynamic lighting and shadows to make this game look crisp. Personally, throughout my 20 hours of gameplay, I did not see one frame drop or any glitches in the game’s software.
Continuing with this story, we encounter the symbiote, which connects to its host at the subular-level. It chooses to attach to Peter Parker, voiced by Yuri Lowenthal. According to Yuri, he claims it was difficult to play as this character. He was so used to playing “The Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” that he couldn’t imagine how to voice act as a selfish and arrogant Spider-Man would be: “With the symbiote and the effect it has on him, he puts himself first. It was difficult for me. I found myself exhausted at the end of a day recording — forcing Peter to be mean was difficult.” (Yuri Lowenthal ABC.NEWS, 2023)
Although he had this challenge with voicing such a different character, he brings amazing voice acting. Personally, I think Yuri has the perfect voice to play as Spider-Man.
Many people have enjoyed Spider-Man 2, including Daniel G., who is a freshman at SJND this year. I have asked him a series of questions relating to Spider-Man 2 to see his personal opinion about the game:
What is your overall impression of Spider-Man 2?
“I was waiting for it for 5 years, and it didn’t let me down. Especially with PS5 graphics compared to my PS$, it was a difference of night and day. To me, they did an amazing job advertising the game, and I was really excited to play it.” (Daniel G. ‘27)
How was your experience so far playing Spider-Man 2?
“I really enjoyed playing the game so far, and even though I haven’t finished yet, I’m ready to see the ending.” (Daniel G. ‘27)
How was your overall impression of the new designs in Spider-Man 2?
“I really like how they redid the designs for the new game. I do think they could’ve done better with MJ, Peter, and Miles’s designs. For everything else, I think they did a fantastic job.” (Daniel G. ‘27)
What do you think about the storyline of Spider-Man 2?
“I like how they implemented Kraven into the story, and I feel like he was a good addition to the storyline. I do think that the game killed him off a little too early, but I’m still happy that he was in the game. I also like how Venom was messing with Peter’s mind, and that it wasn’t instant, it was gradual, like a sickness.” (Daniel G. ‘27)
Insomniac (the developers of Spider-Man 2) does a good job at bringing comic accurate designs. Unlike the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) who try to make a real life adaptation of these characters, Insomniac brings the true adaptations, showing us what these characters would really be like in both comics and in real life.
They also have brought many characters that we have not yet seen, such as Kraven the Hunter, Venom, Mr. Negative, Shocker, Scream and Chameleon. They also brought back characters from the first game and also characters we have already seen in the MCU, such as Rhino, Electro, Doc Oct, Vulture, The Lizard, Sandman, Tombstone, Scorpion and Black Cat.
Overall, this story is wonderful. This game brings Spider-Man fans what they truly want. Spider-Man 2 also doesn’t have too many competitors and personally I think Spider-Man 2 deserves GOTY. Make sure to vote Spider-Man 2 for GOTY in December!
It also leaves the story off for a third game to be made, said to be released in 2026, with the only teaser saying “Be Superior,” which may hint to the Superior Spider-Man who in the comics is actually Doctor Octavius in Peter Parker’s mind. This could possibly work out as the end credit scene had Doctor Octavius wanting to kill Spider-Man. This is also the run off from the three other games: Spider-Man: “Be Greater,” Spider-Man Miles Morales: “Be Yourself,” and the most recent one, Spider-Man 2: “Be Greater. Together.”
