It seems like a lot has happened since I last wrote about a Spider-Man game and yet Miles Morales only came out on PC two years ago. I have since finished Spider-Man 2 on PS5 and so I come into this review with a good idea of what to expect. The PSN debate aside, a few months ago things were looking peachy for the PC version of this sequel. Nixxes have (had) an almost flawless record on PC ports, they really are the best in the business. However, getting nearer to release, things were suspiciously quiet. Right up until release we had seen virtually no advertising and even more worrying was that they never even bothered switching preorders on. Like many, I just kept reminding myself not to worry, this is Nixxes after all.

Swing Harder

Some had speculated that Insomniac Games had created the penultimate Spider-Man experience in the 2018 success. Every superhero has a thing. Hulk with his immense strength, Ironman his suit: for Spider-Man it is all about movement and agility. In Insomniac's first game, the way you swing is damn near perfect and combined with the tension from the adaptive triggers, it just brings a smile to your face. The overall mechanics haven't changed all that much in the sequel, the swing and point launch being your bread and butter. You can still run along the sides of buildings and then effortlessly leap back into a swing for that epic movie look. Two new moves are the loop-da-loop where you do a full circle and corner web that lets you turn ninety degrees without losing momentum. Both of these add some extra options and make covering larger distances a little more varied. 

The controversial change to traversal has been the addition of the web-wings. At any point you can now fip from swinging to gliding through the city like a spandex-wearing Rico Rodriguez. This is both incredibly fun and useful in so many situations. Just crossing from one distant skyscraper to another is now a doddle. I really like the way wind buffers against them as you glide, adding another layer of realism and challenge. Insomniac have also added thermal updrafts and air currents which when combined give you almost unlimited flight time. I get it, to pureists, this is an affront to the Spider-Man way of things and I'm not sure they can take it away in future games. I personally love it and I think the trick is to just not overuse them. 

Every Hero Requires a Villain 

One of the most impressive aspects of the first game was just how many villains they managed to squeeze in. Not only Doctor Octavius but also Rhino, Fisk, Mr Negative, Scorpion, Electro and Vulture. Even this wasn't an exhaustive list with rum lads like Tombstone and Shocker getting their foot in the door. So when I started to tuck into the main story of Spider-Man 2, it was clear the villain roster was a little leaner and added some fuel to the rumour this was a rushed sequel. With that said, these evildoers are packing some serious spunk. I don't think Venom alone could have carried the whole game and so I'm glad we also have Kraven the Hunter providing a strong opening act. Pretty soon hunters storm the city and provide a similar threat as the criminal gangs in the first game.

As the plot simmers away we see Kraven carving his way through the villains of New York, searching for the ultimate hunt. As Curt Connors makes his inevitable transformation back to the Lizard, this acts as a dramatic bookstop to the second half of the game. I won't go into details, but we then see Venom take his place as the game's main villain. As much on-screen presence Venom has, it doesn't hold a candle to the final form of Doc Oc. This symbiote alien has always been synonymous with overwhelming Peter, so making Venom playable was a given. At this point in the story the venom powers overlap with Spider-Mans in a very satisfying way. With Miles becoming significantly more powerful than Peter, this new dynamic balances things out a little. 

Daddy Issues

I really enjoyed the story in the 2018 Spider-Man because it had some brilliant emotional hooks. Peter had not one but two father figures utterly betray him and all they stood for. With Martin Lee it was deception, hiding his alter ego away and seeking revenge for the ruin of all else. Doctor Octavius was a more tragic case, where we see a good man corrupted by the cruelty of a powerful adversary. Norman Osborne, in my opinion, is the real villain who seems to be behind every shady lab in the city. In the end, even when Doc Oc is fully out of the villain closet: the pain of seeing his mentor fall makes for a powerful story arc. In comparison, Kraven looking for the perfect adversary is shallow in by comparison. 

There is another interesting side to the plot when Peter's childhood friend Harry turns up after a long illness. Seemingly fighting fit, Harry gives Peter an offer he can't refuse and an incentive to hand over the reins of Spider-Man to Miles. While getting caught up with Harry, Peter starts to let his relationship with Miles suffer. Of course, Harry's relationship with his father is complicated and there is always the feeling that Norman wishes Harry was more like Peter.

Double Trouble

So the biggest headline feature in Spider-Man 2 is the fact that both Peter and Miles are now playable. Many speculated this would be a co-op game but alas, only one at a time and I definitely think this was the way to go. There are certain plot junctions where you must play as one or the other but for the most part, you can flip between the two seamlessly. As the story unfolds both our plucky heroes are having issues with the double life they live. 

In terms of gameplay, you will occasionally see the other Spider-Man turn up to lend a hand in fights. This is a nice touch but can also be a pain when your helper dispatches the goons before you have met your bonus check. Peter and Miles also have their own story-based missions to get stuck into and these offer a nice distraction from the main mission. Many of the main missions will also have various friends joining the fray. The much-derided MJ missions in the first game still appear but Peter's significant other is now more capable. I will say, even with some training it does seem a bit far-fetched when MJ is taking down whole battalions of armed hunters with her stun gun. However, these sequences are much less frequent now. 

Is it PC?

This is (was) not a good PC port and landed with some significant issues. This was gutting for me as I really do see Nixxes as the best in the business of getting console games over to PC. Almost immediately it was obvious there was a problem with the game's rendering, with jaring frame drops that seemed especially obvious in the opening fight with Sandman. Even gamers with the powerful 4090 were seeing stuttering and frame rate issues. Soon after the crashing issue started to make its way onto Steam discussions and reddit. It was, unfortunately, only after the second hotfix that I started to see crashing on my own game. It is telling of how good Nixxes still are that I have had to rewrite this part of the review three times as circumstances have changed. We have just seen the second big update (patch 2) and this seems to have improved many of the issues. I have seen a small bump in frame rate stability and performance (just as I finished the campaign).

Everything else about this port is excellent, as we have come to expect from Nixxes. All keys can be rebound with no issues, the UI is responsive and all the display settings you would want are here. While the Dual Sense controllers are supported, I still love to play these Spider-Man games on mouse and keyboard. Having that extra precision and turning speed when going full pelt through the city streets gives mouse and keyboard the edge for control. But I will admit, those dual sense adaptive triggers and haptic feedback are so good in this title. 

As for the acting in Spider-Man 2, it is still on a high bar. Peter can come across as a little sedated in the first half and maybe this was to give his mean persona more contrast. Miles, played by Nadji Jeter, still gives a great performance and you really feel his loyalty coming through, even when he constantly gets shit on by Peter. The overall sounds in the city are all excellent as you would expect from a Sony game. When on the ground there is a whole mix of cars honking, pedestrians warbling and that distant hum you get when near human civilization. As you ascend the rush of the air becomes louder and the wind becomes louder as you reach the lofty heights of the tallest towers. 

I can't finish this review without mentioning the PSN situation. I love many of the games in the Sony stable, games like The Last of Us and God of War. I always wished that Sony would see the huge potential in bringing them to PC where they could look and play even better. Then it started to actually happen and all was well in the world. Until some dipshit in the Sony management team said ‘Hey, what if we scrape some PSN accounts out of this success?’ It was immediately obvious to everyone (excerpt Sony) that this was a terrible idea, not least because around a hundred and twenty countries can't access PSN. Anyway, thankfully we have now seen a reverse in direction and just before Spider-Man 2 launched the PSN requirement was removed. It may take a while for PC gamers to come around but let us hope this signals a new bright chapter for Sony games on PC. 

Conclusion

On paper, Spider-Man 2 is everything we could have wanted in a sequel. We get some more classic villains to battle and a decent yarn to push the whole thing forward. Both Miles and Peter are now playable and even have their own skill trees. The city itself looks significantly better as Insomniac are really starting to understand how to make a city pop. However, the bones of the first game seem grander and more epic in scale, which did surprise me. With the eye-watering development costs for the Spider-Man 2, it is worrying that Sony might be rethinking their approach to these massive projects. 

I think if your rig has the horsepower you should certainly give this game a spin, maybe just wait a few weeks to get a more stable experience. In terms of the moment-to-moment gameplay, this is the best Spider-Man experience there is and on PC it has never looked so good. I just hope Nixxes can figure out where they went wrong to make future Sony ports shine right out of the gate.