Spider-Cop is Dead - Thank God

Mints Cafe Archive

Spider-Man 2 is a lot more of Spider-Man 2018. If you liked that, you will like this game. If you didn't, you probably won't like this game just as much.

But because of this, I don't really feel the need to extrapolate on how the game is mechanically, because what's there is nominal at best. The parry is a great edition that spices up the combat and makes it more of a Spectacle Fighter. The web-wings open up movement options without feeling like they take over swinging. It's fine! It's all good. Nothing to obsess over mechanically but it does exactly what a Spider-Man game should do. Also the Mary Jane stealth sections are much better this time around, allowing her to be a more active character with some cool tools that make it feel like you're playing a miniature version of The Last of Us - but like, without the weird Pro-Israeli sentiment lol.

Instead after having now Platinumed the game the thing that has stuck out to me the most is the course-correction Insomniac engaged in to make Peter Parker less of a damn cop than he was in 2018. In 2018 things might have been different for liberals, but as of 2023, there's been a much more mainstream understanding that the cops fucking suck. Insomniac got the memo and it really shows. The cops are more of a background character than I was even expecting - I don't think I need all 10 digits on my hands to count how many times they appear.

In Spider-Man 2, Peter Parker isn't a cop anymore - he's more like a Fire Fighter. Right after the game's bombastic first sequence, Spider-Man is doing what Spider-Man would in the comics - helping fix the city, saving civilians trapped in rubble, and delivering them to hospitals. Instead of using Cop Radio Towers or whatever to stop crimes, there's now an app that lets citizens request help from Peter and Miles. One character jokes about the death of Spider-Cop.

It's so on the nose it may as well be paying rent there, but the cheesiness is appreciated - at least by me. It's certainly better than the alternative. I love Spider-Man, and that love has only grown with Miles Morales' introduction, and the incredible Spider-Verse movies. But he was never a fucking cop to me. He's a down on his luck nerd that's trying to do the right thing, and cops never do the right thing. So I got to play SM2 without that gross feeling lingering in the back of my mind like I did with the first game.

This paradigm-shift extends to a game that gives Miles more of the spotlight as well. One of the best quest-chains in the game is a real life look at the Black history, culture, and music that's such a big part of what makes New York New York. It culminates in a beautiful museum tour that was so engrossing my own mom sat down to experience it with me. My mom doesn't give a fuck about videogames, so that might be worth the price of admission alone.

Then of course there's the usual love that I feel seeing someone that looks like me getting to be Spider-Man. I love Miles even more in this game than in his stand-alone title because he's the beating heart of the sequel. The game delves deeper into his coming-of-age story as a protector of the city - without him, the game would have trouble existing. This is great, because I was worried Miles would take a backseat in the Venom storyline. Far from it.

That's what's going to stick with me the most when it comes to Spider-Man 2. Spider-Cop is dead, and in his place are heroes I actually want to root for.