Marvel's Spider-Man 2 - Brilliant But Lazy

Arkham Asylum actually released in 2009, am I stupid?

I think it’s also worth mentioning that the way they went about killing main villains offscreen is a pretty odd choice. I mean, they kill off rhino, shocker, vulture, and scorpion without batting an eye almost. It’s like Spider-Man says, “oh man Kraven killed this guy too!”, then he moves on. I just feel like it could’ve been executed better because these villains had so much substance in the first game and didn’t deserve off screen deaths that are pretty much glossed over.

Feels like they had a checklist of things they wanted to happen rather than building a naturalistic extension of the first game

One of my biggest gripes is that the iron arms are barely canon to the story. They were acknowledged and used once at the beginning of the game against Sandman, and that was it. They were featured prominently in promotional material so you’d think they had a large role in the story

As a Venom fan, I was dissapointed with this iteration of Venom. I admit I was pissed when I read it wasn’t Eddie Brock but I wanted to give Harry a chance. But I was dissapointed when I saw that Venom motivation was to “heal the world” and tried to take over the world with symbiotes. This isn’t an original story (even through the creative director said that was the objective with Venom) the symbiote invasion plot has done like 4 times. What made Venom stands out as a villain it’s that he didn’t want to gain power and take over the wolrd but just kill Spider-man because he accused him of being a destroyer of innocents who made him lost everything. With him having also a twisted sense of morality he was sort of dark mirror of Spider-Man. None of that was in the version of Venom in the game. Heck he didn’t even use webs. In this game Venom was more a generic alien monster (he has literally the same mindset as Movie Riot). Also I don’t like they made like the symbiote was like manipulating Harry and Harry was like a victim of the symbiote. It destroy the whole “We are Venom” and the symbiotic relationship between the host and the symbiote. Venom when introduced was Eddie Brock and the symbiote working together united by their common hatred for Spider-Man. And not to mention the creatice director said everything you love about the character will be there but apart from the design I didn’t see anything else I love about Venom

F in chat for my boy Scarlet Spider II not returning

A crackpot theory of mine is that the Venom fight was going to have at least one more phase where you fight Venom as Peter with Miles as backup. I noticed a weird shot in the cutscene following Miles's last phase where the camera moves into place behind Peter like you're about to play as him.

You actually just summed up my thoughts on the game with that one quote. The Game is fantastic but it could have been a lot more. It’s not completely lazy but they could have made this game perfect and not just fantastic.

Dude you nailed it. Game is awesome fun as hell but felt short and rushed as fuck. With now two spideys we should have at least double of story content than the first and yet the game was shorter

A random Venom boss fight while freeroaming is something I've never realized I wanted except now since you mentioned it. Would make a perfect Horror aspect of the game, I love it.

I agree that the story was way to rushed. In game I think Peter has the symbiote for like 2 maybe 3 days and we’re supposed to believe he had it so long he has remnants of venom in him. It’s weird to me.

Well when I first saw insomniac spider-man get killed off by Kraven like it was a piece of cake, my whole reaction was like Where’s that spider-sense when you need it?

Agreed. I liked the story more or less for the first third or so. I was shocked when it started sprinting to the end.

Yeah it really annoys me how Venom (The Symbiote) doesn't block Spider-Man's sense in this one. That and now where he is invincible to fire which we all know it isn't canon to the comics.

Ok wow now that you mentioned it, I noticed it too. The character build-up in the first game is just brilliant. Like slowly seeing Doc Ock getting there in both good and bad way is heart-breaking. Then the mission with Peter investigating Li's lair is creepy and scary as hell. Then of course Peter not constantly sorry and getting his ass rekt is also nice to see. Instead Pete in part 2 is like a princess, and constantly needs saving really kills the vibe of the character

The biggest problem is they tried to balance 2 spider men in the same amount of time as the first game the story should’ve been twice as long to account for the fact we have 2 character arcs or honestly just keeping them in their own separate games wouldve been better then us getting a half baked story everything starts off so strong but then you realize everything is going to be completely rushed you can tell they cut out a lot of things I honestly think they were forced to rush the game out before it was truly ready

Web of Shadows was amazing, especially since it was made in barely a year because Activision

i had been waiting for this game since the first one and it just left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. I had a fun time playing the game but the story fell short too many times for my liking.

It's interesting when Miles admits he can't forgive Martin Li because psych studies have shown that people really don't "forgive and forget" even if that's their intention. People get over betrayal mostly by just forgetting about it.

Yeah I can see where the criticisms are coming from. It's really hard to top what was done in the first game, and the clunky story with Venom can be mixed for some people. Honestly it reminds me of Rami's Spider-Man 3. There's some great moments spread throughout, but it's bogged down by too many ideas at once.