Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Review: 4 Ups & 2 Downs

Ups...

4. An Expertly-Crafted Story That Challenges What It Means To Be Spider-Man

Spider-Man 2
Sony Interactive Entertainment

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 starts with Peter and Miles both fully-fledged Spider-Men but still - in typical Spidey fashion -struggling to make their double lives work. Miles is having a hard time writing his university application because he's so invested in being Spider-Man - both as a noble cause but also as a distraction - while Peter is failing to move on from Aunt May's death and find a job his web-slinging won't bounce him straight out of.

Challenging questions are further posed by the emergence of the vicious Kraven the Hunter, who comes to New York in search of the ultimate prey, as well as the return of childhood friend Harry Osborn. Oh, and there's the symbiote too, which exacerbates all the above and leads to some of the most emotionally raw moments we've had from the series yet. While I obviously won't be getting into the how and why that happens in this review for the sake of keeping everything spoiler-free, what I will say is that the story of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 really delves deep into that old credo of great responsibility accompanying great power, and what happens when that responsibility ultimately overwhelms.

This narrative crux sustains the game from start to end, interrogating Uncle Ben's famous words and - in a way that draws a throughline between the game and the recent Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - challenges what it means to be Spider-Man. How many times have we watched Peter or Miles suffer personal cost by being a superhero? It's an accepted, tragic element of the entire Spidey identity, but what Marvel's Spider-Man 2 does so well is that it upsets that status quo. Is Peter and Miles' commitment to being the best Spider-Man ever an achievable, healthy goal? Or does having such a goal hurt both their personal orbit and the New Yorkers they're trying to protect?

Balance, in all its myriad forms, is very much the main theme here - a theme Insomniac deftly weaves into a story that also broaches trauma, loss, and what "moving on" actually looks like. It's deeply - sometimes exhaustingly - affecting, particularly for a 20-something reviewer whose life has strangely aligned with Insomniac's Peter since 2018, but there's plenty of excitement, fun, and humour to keep things from getting too morose as well. There are some truly magnificent swings Insomniac takes with the story as it reimagines the Black Costume Saga and some that I don't think anyone is ready for, but again, no spoilers.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.