When I played Spider-Man 2 the movie tie in game as a kid, I never got very far into it because I found it dull. I finished it in 2014 and I was still lukewarm on it. Finishing and playing many superhero and movie tie in games later, I appreciate Spidey 2 a lot more now. I also emulated this on PCSX2. I tried it on Dolphin and it crashed, was unstable or ran poorly on every renderer I used. With that out of the way, in many ways I can see why this game was considered a game changer for movie tie in games and superhero games at the time in spite of some major grievances it can have.
One thing this Spider-Man 2 game does well is surprisingly the story. It does a good job at keeping with the themes of the Spider-Man mythos of Peter struggling with his powers and him struggling to live the life that he wants in spite of having this amazing power. In the movie, this is shown with Peter failing to maintain his relationship with Mary Jane and him losing his spider powers which seems more of benefit than a hinderance. The game keeps the same idea of disillusion but instead of with a depowered Peter, it shows how much better off he would be if he hung around with Black Cat instead of being responsible with his powers.The game also has decent implementations of villains like Shocker and especially Mysterio who weren't even in the movie. With Beck having a bit of an origin story before becoming Mysterio.
There is also some charm in the writing too. Much has been said about Tobey Maguire's vocal performance but it fits with how Spidey is getting more disinterested in being a hero. It's interesting to see him act more like the Spidey that many of the versions of him tend to be with him making quips and wise cracks to show off that deep down he thinks he's really funny. The voice direction and the wise cracks sort of just gives him a weird sense of character all his own.
Some of the things the story of this game does better than the movie. Particularly with Otto Octavious. In the movie, he had no real reason to hate Peter and by extension Spider-Man but in the game, the former just blames Spider-Man for all his misfortunes in a guilt by assiociation way. The tentacles pretty much fuel that. His wife also get more mentions after her death than the movie does. It does make some traps like how Otto is able to afford mercs, hi tech weaponry and a helicoptor and both versions pretty much can't explain why he wants to create unlimited solar powered energy source so badly. I do commend this game for the earnestness it displays with it's writing even with it's pitfalls.
Gameplay is solid stuff. The swinging is where much of the praise comes from and it's great. It takes a bit of getting used to but eventually it's very enjoyable to swing through the city and timing boosting and web zips to dart quickly past buildings. You are also able to charge your jump too. The one big downside is that swing boost and web zip need to be bought in a shop. You also can't buy through the start menu like many games after this one, you need to find a store on the map and then buy. This can certainly feel dated and there is no custom waypoint markers.
With that said, I do like that there are a decent number of traversal missions in the main story. The ones with Mysterio are a highlight all though the section where you need to swing all the way up to the statue of liberty and that can be a massive difficulty spike for many on top of the swinging never getting that hard again. There is also a lot of timed missions and Black Cat chases so at the very least the game does lean into it's swinging mechanics to the point you will be somewhat decent at them.
Combat is a mixed bag, it's not "terrible" but it's not amazing but it does an okay job at breaking up the swinging. The combat encounters are over quick as well as the procedural and randomized crimes. The main issue with combat it feels easier to abuse the bullet time mechanic than use Spidey's base abilties. It's often just easier to hope you can build back up your bullet time guage and then beat everyone since basic punches will be blocked by enemies and to top it all off, they will dodge your web attacks too. It just makes the bullet time all that much of crutch to go back to especially since the rogdoll physics makes it feel like an eternity before Spidey can get back up on his feet.
You also don't get health refills upon completing story missions and there is no way to heal outside of them. You can hope you can do a random street crime and hope you have hp left to beat everyone and then get a refill.
Bosses especially Doc Ock aren't great since it feels like abusing the bullet time and hoping the contextual dodge button can read your presses fast enough or if the RNG for dodging the attacks are in your favor.
It's also hard to chain a web swing into a wall run that isn't a magnetic pull.
Overall, I can see why this was such a game changer for licensed and open world games.
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