One of the additions I like least in Spider-Man 2 is the web wings. The Spider-Man games, in general, have often strived to provide the best facsimile of the protagonist’s preferred mode of transportation, web swinging, so adding something like gliding to the mix is a bit of an affront to me. It’s a personal preference, but thankfully, I can mostly ignore the skill and just get around the old-fashioned way. I often forget it even exists.
However, while I was looking through Spider-Man 2’s various options to see if there is a way to turn off the visual wind-tunnel effects (there doesn’t seem to be), I did find something that might only appeal to strict swingers like myself. And that’s a Swing Steering Assist slider.
Roller coaster design
This probably won’t come as a shock to you, but Spider-Man 2 takes a few creative liberties with physics to provide an approximation of the way the webslinger moves in the air. I mean, the comics already have to do a lot of handwaving to try and explain how he even does it, but we’ve already bought into a radioactive spider biting a guy and making him strong, so having him swing through the streets of New York is comparatively easier to believe.
However, for the game, Insomniac went a bit further with things to ensure that you look cool while traveling. These assists consist of a lot of minor details that you might not even notice while playing. Like, for example, if your swing is too long, the web line will shorten so you don’t hit the ground. When you go around a corner, the line doesn’t wrap to cause an abrupt change of speed and angle. It’s a lot of behind-the-curtain magic, so you can just concentrate on where you’re going rather than have to worry about distracting details.
It’s not a bad thing. Beyond the fact that Insomniac is trying to reach an extremely broad audience and having a steep learning curve just to get around the city would be extremely alienating to a lot of people, game design is sometimes like building a roller coaster. The goal is to make it feel like you’re doing something awesome and skillful when you’re really not. It’s why QTE sequences became so popular for a while.
Spider-Man 2 subscribes to the roller coaster design philosophy so hard. Even the combat is designed to look very intricate and technical while being extremely simple. It works, and in Spider-Man 2 it works very well.
Can you swing from a thread?
However, if you’re someone like me and you really enjoy web-swinging, you might not want the handwaving that is there to make you look cool. You might want some additional technical chew to the experience; something more tangible that forces you to concentrate a bit more on what you’re doing. And, if that’s you, there’s a slider buried in the options that might be what you’re looking for.
The Swing Steering Assist slider has ten levels to it that you can use to tune your experience. Because the assist is already designed to be very subtle about the way it helps you, it can be difficult to tell where it steps in. If you crank it all the way down, however, you will definitely feel the difference. The most significant change is that you’ll actually be able to swing into the ground, and you’ll more regularly smack into obstacles until you adapt.
It’s important to note, however, that this doesn’t make web-swinging physically accurate. You still have a lot of control in the air and can easily alter your trajectory. The secondary abilities like weblines, slingshots, and point jumps are all still accessible and work the same. I also don’t think you can wrap around horizontal obstacles. For example, if you swing under an arch, you won’t suddenly be launched into the sky. There are limits, but we can keep dreaming.
I also want to stress that I’m not trying to posit this as the “correct” or even a “better” way to play the game. Within the context of Spider-Man 2, it’s probably the opposite. This is just a personal preference, and I figured that there are probably others out there like me who love Insomniac’s take on locomotion but just want it to be a bit more involved.
