More beautiful, cooler: we got our hands on the attractive Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (preview)
The video game dedicated to the Weaver refines the concept and reconnects with obsessions very close to Sam Raimi’s films.
After a first part in 2018 and a sort of spin-off two years later dedicated to Miles Morales, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will land on PlayStation 5 – only – on October 20. For a good two hours, in the London heat of September, we were able to play the game developed by Insomniac Games. A very positive first approach: without revolutionizing the fundamentals of the franchise, the game refines a concept that has already proven itself. Everything is more fluid, more beautiful, more rhythmic. More fun too. The fights gain in flexibility and coherence, and it will now be necessary to manage counterattacks with relatively precise timing, while ten bad guys will fall on them with shortened arms. The new gadgets available to the Spider-Men (“multiple arms” when Peter has the symbiote costume, Web Thread, Lightning Strike, Chain Lightning, etc.) add a lot to the variety of fights and the feeling of omnipotence of the Spider-Men. player. Furthermore, the new individual skill tree (as well as another shared between Peter and Miles) will of course allow you to develop your skills throughout the adventure.
Difficult to assess the variety of secondary missions (the big downside of the first two games) in our reduced test session, but the developers seem to have made sure to titillate completionists with new quests to accomplish. The map has also evolved, since Brooklyn and Queens are added to Manhattan to enlarge the playing field. Big news, the arrival of Delta-webs, wingsuits which make it possible to compensate for the slow swinging on the canvas, and move much faster around the city (especially when air tunnels, placed in several strategic locations on the map, further increase speed). A relief controller in hand.
Momentum sixties
On the storyline side, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 made the choice of apparent simplicity and a return to the hero’s sources. No question of chasing the multiverse, unlike the numerous adaptations of Spider-Man on the big screen in recent times. “ The basis is to forget everything that has been done on Spidey to try to find our own vision », Explains Jon Paquette, “narrative director” (to put it quickly: chief screenwriter) of the Insomniac Games studio. “ Even if I admit that we questioned the creators of the films Spider-Verse, we had lots of very geeky questions to ask them! But if we obviously have in common the objective of developing the best Spider-Man story possible, in the end, everyone does it in their own way. » It is opposed to him that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 regains momentum sixties, a narrative that tends towards purity, and therefore obsessions very close to Sam Raimi’s films (crunch of money, quest for identity, issues limited to New York, great power and great responsibilities). Affinities which are found even in the staging (iconic action sequences and absolute mastery of rhythm).
And if Peter Parker and Miles Morales operate here as a duo – it is possible at certain moments to switch from one protagonist to the other in a second – in an almost photorealistic New York, they oppose villains like Kraven the Hunter and the Lizard, with the symbiote and Venom in ambush. The type of characters old school on which the director ofevil Dead would not have spit. “ Funny hypothesis, I like the idea of us being his heirs! Except that it is not necessarily conscious », confides Paquette. “ In my opinion, this What makes a good Spidey story is that if Spider-Man wins, then Peter Parker must lose. And if Peter wins, it’s the other way around. Sam Raimi had perfectly integrated this incessant conflict: he is a hero who inevitably loses, whatever he does. And I think that’s where we come together. »
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will be released on October 20, only on PlayStation 5.
