Video Game / Spider-Man 2

Coinciding with the release of the 2004 movie, the video game adaptation of Spider-Man 2 was developed by Treyarch Studios and published by Activision. Generally speaking, the game is a Wide-Open Sandbox and its storyline basically follows the movie's plot, but has several notable diversions along the way, even featuring an entirely original subplot where Spidey butts heads with the illusion-based supervillain Mysterio. Also features Bruce Campbell reprising his role as the Lemony Narrator from the first game.

The console version is considered one of the best superhero games of all time, being featured in the 2010 book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die, and a huge improvement over the So Okay, It's Average first game.

The PC and PlayStation Portable versions were Reformulated Games, featuring different gameplay and much different stories than their console counterparts, with the PSP version basically being a port of the first movie game, down to even featuring some of the same bosses. They're not as fondly remembered as them either.

If you're looking for the similarly named sequel to Neversoft's Spider-Man (2000), see Spider-Man 2 – Enter: Electro. See also the sequel to Spider-Man (PS4), Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

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Tropes seen in Spider-Man 2 include:

• Adaptation Expansion: While the game loosely follows the story of the movie, Spider-Man also encounters the Rhino, Mysterio, and Shocker.
  • The PSP port, essentially being an enhanced version of the first movie game, takes it further, with several bosses from that game reappearing.
• Adaptation Induced Plothole: Here, Peter Parker makes his pizza deliveries while still wearing his Spider-Man costume, yet nobody learns his identity, even though it would be a simple matter of calling the business to inform Mr. Aziz that Spider-Man delivered the pizza, allowing Mr. Aziz to deduce that Peter Parker is Spider-Man since he's the one he sent to deliver the pizzas to those addresses.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Doc Ock is much more serious and dour than his Faux Affably Evil movie counterpart. He also blames Spider-Man for Rosie's death, something he never did in the film.
• Adaptational Badass: Unlike his console counterpart, Mysterio can actually put up a good fight in the PC and PSP versions.
• Adapted Out: The GBA and N-Gage versions are the only versions of the game that don't even attempt to adapt the climactic train sequence from the movie.
• Alien Invasion: Mysterio's grand illusion. It also helps to justify the goldfish bowl.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Usually, averted. Most of the citizens in New York are pretty okay with Pete, some are even supportive. But one part of the storyline has a woman calling for help, only to run away when Pete responds.
• Anti-Climax: The last encounter with Mysterio. He makes some boasts, a health bar appears next to him, fills up three times... and you take him out with the first hit.
• The Artifact: The lizardmen in the arena mode are likely a remnant of the time Lizard was planned to appear in the game. They also reuse the voice clips of default thugs from the previous game, suggesting they were just thrown together from existing assets to act as an arena-exclusive enemy type.
  • Calypso's presence as a Bonus Boss also came about from the scrapped Lizard subplot, which was also set to feature Kraven, in a follow-up to his storyline in the Xbox version of the first game. This was scrapped, and later used in the sequel's Lizard missions, but Calypso was kept in for the battle arena due to Mysterio being a total chump in the game.
• Benevolent Boss: Mr. Aziz is this simply by virtue of the fact that he will keep you employed no matter how much you screw up.
• Berserk Button: Quentin Beck really hates being mocked.
• Bonus Boss: Calypso is only accessible via a post-game Boss Rush, where she replaces Mysterio on account of both him being a Zero-Effort Boss, and Calypso being a holdover from an aborted Lizard subplot (see The Artifact).
• Bonus Feature Failure: Upon completing the game, you can unlock a movie viewer that can let you watch FMVs at a specific location in New York. Said FMVs are just the company logos and the ending credits.
• Boobs of Steel: Black Cat is as busty as she's ever been, and more than capable of holding her own in a fight.
• Boss Rush: Upon beating the game, you can get this as an upgrade at the Spidey Store. Go back to the warehouse where you first fought Shocker, and you get to play rounds against bosses and their mooks. Mysterio is not included and instead replaced by Calypso, though bowlhead's mooks remain. Each round escalates the opponents, including four bosses at once.
• Bowdlerize: Road rage dialogue in the game is vastly G-rated compared to real life.
• Bratty Half-Pint: You'll probably come to see the kids that lose their balloons as this. Or at the very least, whiny.
  "I LOST MY BALLOO-HOO-HOON!"
• Buffy Speak: Spider-Man often engages in this.
• But Thou Must!: Spider-Man has the run of New York City (mostly), he can go anywhere on the island, climb any building... but he can only be a good guy.
• Call-Back: One of the hint markers has Bruce Campbell eating a sandwich, much like he did in the first game's tutorial section.
• Completion Mockery: The narrator says that, after you read all the helper tokens, they will say something different, and says you should try to find them all. This is literal. They all say "Something different.", verbatim.
• Continuity Nod: You can find The Vulture's feathers in the area where you fought him in the previous game.
  • Shocker had it out for Spider-Man after he foiled his robbery two years ago, and immediately started planning his revenge as soon as he escaped from prison. Similarly, the Vulture claims that Spidey got lucky in their first fight in the PSP port.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Spider-Man's last encounter with Mysterio involves him taking him out in one punch. Justified, because he's just a regular human.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Quentin Beck is apparently capable of building robotics, jetpacks and holographic technology far beyond anything available in the modern day. He just uses it for stroking his own ego.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: The dramatic scene from the movie where Spider-Man just barely stops a train before it crashes is casually solved by shooting two webs at it from behind and instantly stopping it. Something you can't actually do in gameplay. This is averted in the PSP port, where the cutscene plays out closer to the movie scene it depicts.
• Dating Catwoman: Averted. Spidey and Black Cat hang out several times, but they never actually date.
• Dead-End Room: At one point in the story, you need to head to a "Change" icon on the rooftop of a bank. The mission is about Peter visiting said bank with his aunt as Octavious robs it. However, if you go inside the bank during this chapter before activating the mission, some versions of the game will lock the entrance, trapping you inside.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • Everything in this game, and in a semi-Tear Jerker moment, you can see the 9/11 memorial at night. Also, one of the first missions in the game involves Peter being late for one of Dr. Connors' lessons. The game doesn't time you on this one like the others, however. If the player simply jumps from building to building without web swinging, the narrator calls them out on it. If the player continues, the narrator does it again.
  • It is possible to die in the tutorial levels (for example, jumping high enough that you slam into the ground), something Bruce Campbell comments on.
    Bruce Campbell: Well, I'm not sure how you managed to die, I mean, seriously, unless you're a professional game tester, there's no reason for you to be dying yet. ...oh, and if you are a professional game tester... good job, keep up the good work, of course...
  • Rhino has dialog if you choose to continue beating him after he's already been webbed up.
• Difficult, but Awesome: This is the most complex Spidey's web swinging has ever been, with multiple layers of it outside the fact that it latches onto buildings. That said, it's the most rewarding, and fun, it's ever been, and is a major reason why there's No Problem with Licensed Games concerning this one.
• Dramatic Unmask: In the final fight, Peter's mask gets knocked off by... one of Doc Ock's tentacles hitting him. Somehow.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Look closely during the opening cutscene in a new game, and you can spot Black Cat standing on top of the Chrysler building long before you actually meet her.
  • Pay attention to that prisoner who makes a run for it during the post-fight chaos in the very first Quentin Beck/Mysterio mission. It's actually Herman Schultz, aka the Shocker, and you end up fighting him not long after that that mission.
• Exact Words: Find a certain hint marker in the city and Bruce Campbell promises that by finding them all, the voice over you get for finding one will say something different. Indeed, finding them all will change every hint marker to now prompt Bruce to say "something different" if you touch them.
• Gameplay Ally Immortality: Black Cat can't die, so if she joins you in a fight, you can hang back and let her win it for you.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: The start of the Prison Riot stage in the GBA version has a very obvious graffiti on the wall that reads "Welcome to Hell." That version of the game is rated E, so how that went past the ESRB's censors is anyone's guess.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: You can find skyscraper tokens, hideout tokens, "secret" tokens, challenge tokens, buoy tokens, and 216 "helper" tokens.
• Hall of Mirrors: Part of Mysterio's base. Wobbly "clones" of Spidey will emerge from the mirrors and attack.
• Harmless Villain: Mysterio, when you happen to run into him while he's robbing someone. The cutscene before fighting him portrays him as incredibly powerful, showing a life bar that fills up three times. He goes down in one hit.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Black Cat's outfit is apparently leather. Peter notices.
  Peter: So, skin-tight leather. Doesn't that chafe?
  Black Cat: You'll never find out. That's for sure.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The surest and most efficient way to defeat the Mini-Mecha suits is to get them to line up one after the other, run away, and dodge while they bring each other down in their zeal. They. Will. Never. Learn.
• Jerkass: Ah, J. Jonah Jameson. You'll always find a way to claim Spidey and Mysterio are in cahoots after Peter stops Beck robbing a convenience store.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: One of the hint markers: "J. Jonah Jameson may seem like a greedy, self-centered jerk, but deep down, he's really a greedy, self-centered, self-righteous jerk".
• Meaningful Background Event: When Quentin Beck's little stunt event goes wrong, Shocker can be seen making a break for it behind the reporters.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender: Downplayed. Around 99% of the game's human enemies are male, but the enemy pool for low-level street criminals has two punkish-looking women that pop up fairly regularly. They don't receive any special treatment from the game or Spidey('s fists).
• Mini-Mecha: Some villains will attack in prototype Powered Armor towards the end of the game.
• Monster Clown: Mr. Hop-N-Hack, Mysterio's robotic, bouncing, wind-up punching bag clown armed with an ax.
• Monumental Battle: Spider-Man at one point has to destroy a UFO above the Statue of Liberty altering its appearance to that of Mysterio's.
• Monumental Damage: Mysterio's ersatz alien invasion features his equally-false defacement of the Statue of Liberty.
• Mooks: Doc Ock and Mysterio have their own special mooks. The Doc's come with grenade launchers that can send Spidey flying, and are tougher than the regular goons.
• Ms. Fanservice: Black Cat. One of the help tokens even provides her measurements.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Sometimes when you get the drop on some thugs, you may hear one of them shout, "Look out! Here comes the Spider-Man!"
  • Peter's Uncle Ben was killed by a carjacker, something he still feels guilty over. When pursuing a carjacker, Spidey may state "I hate carjackers."
  • When Quentin Beck challenges Spider-Man, he wears an outfit similar to the original Mysterio costume from the comics, sans cape and fishbowl helmet.
  • Mysterio's alien fakeout. The second Amazing issue featured a back-up story where Spidey fought the Tinkerer and Little Green Men. Years later, Roger Stern wrote a retcon revealing these "aliens" as men in disguise committing crimes for the Tinkerer and one of them was Quentin Beck.
  • Mysterio's funhouse creating distorted mirror duplicates of Spider-Man that attack him, which is something he also did in another video game, Sega's Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin. In fact, Spider Man Vs The Kingpin was an explicit inspiration for Mysterio's levels.
  • Before Peter faces Mysterio for the second time, he's assigned by Jameson to take pictures of an incoming Latverian diplomat.
  • In the PSP version, 3 out of the 5 bosses were part of the original Sinister Six. Kraven appeared as an Xbox-exclusive boss in the prior game, and later appeared in 3 alongside Sandman, leaving Electro as the only member not to appear in this continuity until the GBA version of the third game.
• Narcissist: Mysterio reshapes the Statue of liberty in his image.
• No Fourth Wall: The help tokens. The narrator even cheerfully admits that he's paid by the line.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Despite his Small Name, Big Ego, and "fight" in the main/console versions - Mysterio is still the one behind those huge Death Courses (the last even bordering on Eldritch Location), and did besiege all of New York City (fake-alien or not, those machines posed very-real threats). This is even more apparent in the PC and PSP versions, where Mysterio's skills are on par with his comic book counterpart.
• Off-Model: Painfully noticeable in the cutscenes for the PSP version, as most of the models barely resemble their film actor's counterparts, with Peter, Jonah Jameson, and Mary Jane arguably looking the worst off between all of them.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: Rather than adapt the film's "Spider-Man No More" storyline, it instead went in the opposite direction by having Black Cat trying to convince Spider-Man to quit being a civilian instead.
• Prank Call: One of the "ambush" citizens says, "Is your refrigerator running? 'Cause I sure am!" Unimpressed, Spidey replies, "No, but I have Prince Albert in a can..."^note "Prince Albert" is a brand of tinned chewing tobacco; the punchline is, "Well, you'd better let him out before he suffocates!"
• Precision F-Strike: The GBA version of all things gets this from the prison level! The "Welcome to Prison" was defaced with "HELL". How this got past censorship, the world may never know...
• Reformulated Game: While the console ports are more or less identical, the PC, PSP, DS, and GBA ports were changed up entirely in both gameplay and story:
  • The PC port, developed by Fizz Factor, has almost nothing in common with the film's story outside of Doc Ock's turn to villainy, and has a simplified gameplay system for combat and web swinging.
  • The PSP port, developed by Vicarious Visions, is more or less a port of the prior game, and thus a spiritual continuation of Treyarch's first two Spidey games for the PS1, and has similar gameplay mechanics. As a result, two bosses from that game (Vulture & Shocker) return, and their battles play out exactly like they did in the first game. The story was also tweaked to remove Black Cat, removed Spidey's identity crisis, made Mysterio a more competent opponent, and removed Bruce Campbell as the narrator.
  • The DS and GBA ports, made by Vicarious Visions and Digital Eclipse, respectively, are 2D brawlers mixed with platforming,though the DS port also has a fair share of 3D levels as well. The engine for the DS port would later be used in the Ultimate Spider-Man DS game.
• Restoration of Sanity: Octavius returns to himself after suffering a powerful electric shock.
• Shout-Out:
  • Jostling pedestrians sometimes elicits a cry of "I'm walkin' here!".
  • Thugs will sometimes say, "Time for a little of the old ultra-violence!".
  • In sinking boat missions, passengers sometimes moan, "This was only supposed to be a three-hour tour!".
  • Spider-Man sometimes addresses people with, "You rang?".
  • In armored-car-robbery missions, a tied-up guard says, "If I could just...reach...my utility belt..."
  • At the beginning of sinking boat missions, Peter might remark "This looks like a job for... some kind of swimming superhero!"
  • At one point, Mysterio says "You have no chance to survive! Make your time!"
  • The "Prince Albert in a can" wisecrack comes courtesy of It, more specifically the TV miniseries.
  • A fairly obscure one: When Spidey barges into gang hideouts, he sometimes says, "Hi. I'm going door to door selling Grit. It still sort of works as a Pre Ass Kicking One Liner, but knowing that it was a thing makes it even funnier.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Quentin Beck, a talented special effects guy, decides to call Spider-Man a fraud and challenges him to a "showdown". He spends pretty much all of it bragging about himself and how smart he is (a poster in the arena even advertises his memoirs, titled, "The Amazing Me"). Funnily enough, Spider-Man will note the supposed audience isn't even real. And then he humiliates Beck anyhow. This trope is further elaborated upon during a news conference hosted by Beck, who advertises his impressive professions on a billboard, but when the camera cuts to the actual stage, hardly anyone's present.
• Spiritual Successor: Like the first game, the PSP version of 2 is a descendant of Treyarch's 2001 Spider-Man games, using the same engine and web swinging system, but benefiting from extra polish, an improved combat system, and better controls.
• Super Drowning Skills: Spider-Man cannot swim. Fortunately, falling in water just sends him back close to where he jumped in, unlike previous Spider-Man games. It's played straighter in the final mission, where hitting water at any point is an instant death for Spidey.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: You can execute multiple summersaults as Spider-Man while delivering pizzas... which results in the pizza being ruined in the process. Falling into water also causes the pizza bag to get pulled off Spidey by the Hudson's current.
• 10-Minute Retirement: In an inversion of the film's plot, Peter decides to give up his civilian life and be Spider-Man 24/7 only to immediately change his mind.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Spidey's reaction to sinking ship missions. His feelings probably match those of the player.
• There Is No Kill like Overkill: Nothing says it more than pile driving some poor bastard off the Empire State Building.
• Timed Mission: Almost every mission involves some sort of time limit, though sometimes it's simply getting to a certain place.
• Ultimate Job Security: Unlike in the movie, here, you can screw up pizza deliveries as many times as you want and Mr. Aziz won't fire you.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • Sure, you can beat up thugs, but you can also throw them against a wall, into water or off a building. After you have beaten them and gotten the points, you can continue to beat on them just for the fun of it. This can also be done to Rhino and Mysterio, the former of which will beg you to stop.
  • You can also have Spidey himself climb to the top of the tallest skyscraper and throw himself off until he smacks against the pavement, since dying means very little.
    • Combining the previous two bullet points, you can grab a mook, haul him to the top of a skyscraper, and piledrive him all the way down to the street.
  • Most satisfying is probably to taunt those kids who've lost their balloons by dancing round them holding the balloon before swinging off around Manhattan.
  • Your webbing can accidentally pop the balloon if not used carefully. Plenty of players shoot them down on purpose.
• Villain Decay: Mysterio goes from attacking a journalist's convention as a distraction, to taking over the Statue of Liberty, to... getting his ass kicked in a cheap convenience store he was robbing.
• Well, This Is Not That Trope: One of Spidey's wisecracks when he uncovers a criminal gang using a nightclub as their hideout: "There are clubs in New York where the beautiful people hang out. This clearly is not one of them".
• What Happened to the Mouse?: One of the early missions involves recovering a briefcase from a group of thugs. When Spider-Man returns it to its owner he asks her what the thugs wanted it for, and the woman responds that she doesn't want to talk about it. This implies the briefcase's contents will be relevant later, but it's never mentioned again.
• Wide-Open Sandbox: One of the most awesome examples, and part of what makes this game so great. New York City is your playground.
• Willfully Weak: One of the hint markers explains Spider-Man is strong enough to lift things twice his size, and punches like a Mack truck. It's then explained he pulls his punches because otherwise, he'd shatter someone's skull.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Spidey ups his game here, breaking out power bombs, pile drivers, drop kicks, and suplexes.
• You All Look Familiar: Besides named characters, the whole of Manhattan only seems to have six civilian archetypes (three for each sex).
• You Fight Like a Cow: It is good to hear Tobey Maguire fully embody Spidey's wiseacre side.
• Zero-Effort Boss: Mysterio is this, despite what the cutscene prior would have you believe. His one "attack" is to stand in place and shout ineffectual threats at Spidey. And one punch, or even web shot, knocks him on his ass and defeats him.

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