Just played Spiderman 2 again...

There were many things I didn't like about Spider-man 2 and, believe it or not, one of the things was the webswinging.

Don't get me wrong, before this game there were virtually no webswinging mechanics in any Spider-man game. Which sounds completely ridiculous with hindsight. So Spider-man 2 introducing a functional webswinging mechanic into an open world environment was the definitive turn for all Spider-man games to follow.

Luckily, they did. With some more simple and some maybe too clunky, but they all had a good feel to them and got the job done with breathtaking stunts. But even after playing Ultimate Spider-man, which arguably has the most simplistic and uninteresting webswinging in the franchise, I still felt like it worked much better than it did in Spider-man 2.

I kept my copy of Spider-man 2 for a while. In fact, I probably still have it somewhere, probably at my brother's apartment. So I was able to physically compare it to every other open world Spider-man game that followed. When you play them back to back you really see that Spider-man 2 was more of an experiment whereas the other games had much more focus with their webswinging.

The webswinging in Spider-man 2 was just a tad too frustrating to deal with. Spider-man would seem to completely defy even the most basic physics while swinging. It really throws you off when you expect a strand of web to sway and move fluidly but instead acts as if it's a stiff pole with a hinge at the top. It was very impressive and innovative of its time, but it was a project in its infancy, and it is painfully apparent when comparing it to the games that preceded it.

I suppose I should break it down from what I remember of Spider-man 2's webswinging.

1. The web behaved like a pole, not a rope. This makes some problems when trying to assume how Spider-man is going to move.

2. Did we need all those upgrades for speed? There were like... 30 or so. I don't think I even got all of them. 3 big upgrades to speed would have been better than increments of 10 changing it slightly as you play.

3. There were unnecessary abilities that never had much of an applicable use. Using web with both hands is one example. It's great for combat but pointless when webswinging. You would think this option would allow for better turning. Nope. And before anyone says "git gud" I would like to clarify that I completed every race and finished the game twice. I have "gawt gud" at the game. While little features like this seem "neat," they ultimately don't add anything or change the way the game is played. Basically, I would rather have the devs focusing on other things, like combat.

4. The animations. I know this is just aesthetic, but if you all can complain about something as stupid as web not looking like it attaches to buildings when it doesn't change a damn thing then I get to complain about Spider-man 2's weird and many times humorous animations. Has anyone tried webswinging really close to the ground to try and pick themselves back up? Yeah, it doesn't work in Spider-man 2. It's also the only free roaming Spider-man game that it doesn't work on. Spider-man does this completely stupid and hilarious thing. He shoots his web, grabs a hold of it like he's gonna swing, and then just runs slowly on the ground for 1 1/2 city blocks. While entertaining, it still looks embarrassing by a developer's standpoint. luckily, every other Spider-man game out there after this one learned from this stupid animation and made it so that Spider-man would do a little hop when one presses the webswing button on solid ground.
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I declare this post a VICTORY ( ^-^ )v