Spider-Man 2 PC Review - The Sony PC Port Rollercoaster Continues
Sony’s forays into the world of PC gaming have been an up-and-down affair. From absolute bangers like God of War Ragnarok to one of the worst ports ever in the form of The Last of Us, it has been a wild ride when it comes to their first-party titles and their PC versions. So whenever a new Sony title hits the PC I have a morbid curiosity to dive in and see just how it turns out. Spider-Man 2 was no exception and I had high hopes after both the original game and the Myles Morales spin-off had great PC versions. Sadly, Spider-Man 2 hasn’t followed suit and while there are certainly worse ports, there is no denying that this one could be better.
First things first though, Spider-Man 2, the game, is great. I thoroughly enjoyed the game on my PS5 and I am enjoying it all over again on the PC. Sure, it hasn’t come a super long way since the first game but it has taken that solid base and polished it until it shines. The mix between playing as Peter and Myles adds a great deal of variety and the simple joy of swinging through New York cannot be understated. You can feel the budget of the AAA beast at every turn. There is a level of competency on show that very few games can even hope to compete with and as a result, this is a game that I am more than happy to play through once again. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is the perfect example of comfort food gaming. It is something that almost everyone can get behind and while it doesn’t push any gameplay elements forward in drastic ways, it perfects what came before it, making it something that the widest possible audience can enjoy.
It is just such a shame then that the port is pretty rough. It’s not The Last of Us rough, but still hardly something that Insomniac would be happy with. A host of graphical issues have been raising their head since launch and I have experienced quite a few crashes. These crashes have dried up since the release of two critical patches, but sadly the graphical issues remain. There is nothing game-killing here, but when you consider just how polished the PS5 release was, it is immensely frustrating to have NPCs and enemies stuck in buildings, floating bodies and glitching attacks ruining the flow of things. I expect the issues will be fixed eventually but really it is not good enough for Sony to keep doing this.
There are some performance-related stutters as well, even on high-end machines so it makes things an even patchier proposition on lower-end laptops and handhelds. After much stuffing around, I found a stable framerate on my ROG Ally X, but it is clear the game could use some more optimisation. This whole release feels like it has been rushed out a couple of weeks early and would have benefited from a delay. What is also somewhat surprising is that the port was handled by Nixxes, who have had a good history of bringing games to PC. This also adds to the feeling that an executive wanted this out the door and not delayed like it clearly should have been.
What makes this even more of a shame is the foundation of a good PC port is here. When it is singing, it sings beautifully, making good use of the extra power to bring in some beautiful RTX effects and higher resolutions. Ultrawide support is available and the game looks wonderful in this ratio, using the extra screen space to up the immersion. I also feel that with some patching, it will work well on a range of systems. There are a lot of options for tweaking and adjusting graphic settings so there should be a large range of systems able to play the game once all the technical kinks have been ironed out.
Spider-Man 2 is a fantastic game, sadly, the PC version at this point in time, is not the best way to play. That is not to say it won’t eventually be, there have already been two patches and I suspect after a couple more this will be the ultimate way to play one of the best blockbusters in recent memory. So if you missed Spider-Man 2 on PS5, the PC version will be a great way to experience it, just not yet. I just wish Sony would learn from their mistakes and stop these sorts of releases from happening, but sadly their PC port rollercoaster just keeps on rolling.
Spider-Man 2 was reviewed on PC with code kindly supplied by the publisher.
